Ancient Greece: City and Society

Has Greek history had any impact on the modern world? Are the literature, art and architecture of the ancient Greeks still relevant centuries later? In this lecture Sarah Midford examines the enduring appeal of classical Greece and the ways in which its culture has both moulded Western society and also been manipulated by it. Copyright 2014 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Dr. Heather Sebo begins by discussing the proposal in the parabasis of Aristophanes Frogs that clemency be extended to citizens exiled for their involvement in the oligarchic coup of 411 BCE. An instance of Aristophanes’ immersion in the issues and debates of his times is the way he alludes to the debasing of the coinage (discussed in a previous lecture), using it as a metaphor for the idea that good citizens are in exile while slaves become citizens. Also revealing of contemporary attitudes is the shift in Dionysos’ initial intention to bring Euripides back from Hades because he finds his poetry thrilling and stimulating to his ultimate decision for Aeschylus as the poet most likely to encourage patriotism and unquestioning self-sacrifice in the current military emergency. Copyright 2014 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

For the ancients, the consequences of defeat in war were that every man, women and child became the property of the victors, to be disposed of in whatever way they saw fit. In this lecture Dr Heather Sebo shows that the anxieties and implications of this terrible possibility were expressed on the Athenian stage, particularly in the Trojan War plays of Euripides. Copyright 2014 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Having looked at some practical issues regarding ancient Greek slavery, in this second lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd examines some of the attitudes of the ancient Greeks towards their slaves – including terminology, approaches to treating slaves, “rights” of slaves, debates about the justification and morality of slavery, and the notion of the “natural slave”. Copyright 2014 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

In the first of two lectures on Ancient Greek slavery, Dr Gillian Shepherd looks at two important slave systems – chattel slavery in Athens and the helots of Sparta – and how they might have come into being. Concentrating on Athenian slavery, the lecture goes on to examine some essential features of ancient Greek slavery, including sources and numbers of slaves, the work undertaken my slaves and their role in the ancient economy. Copyright 2014 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

In the first of two lectures on Ancient Greek slavery, Dr Gillian Shepherd looks at two important slave systems – chattel slavery in Athens and the helots of Sparta – and how they might have come into being. Concentrating on Athenian slavery, the lecture goes on to examine some essential features of ancient Greek slavery, including sources and numbers of slaves, the work undertaken my slaves and their role in the ancient economy. Copyright 2014 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Athens was a wealthy and prosperous place in the classical period. In this lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd takes a closer look at the Athenian economy by examining the nature of coinage in ancient Greece and one major source of Athenian wealth – the silver mines of Laurion, which provided the famous “Owl” coins of Athens. Copyright 2014 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Dr Heather Sebo contrasts the traditions of women’s lament with the public orations associated with the communal burial of the war dead. It contrasts the traditional focus on personal grief and the irreplaceable uniqueness of the deceased individual with the political view of the dead as interchangeable and replaceable, as hero citizens who have done their duty in dying for the city but who will be replaced by others who will do the same. Sophocles’ Antigone (442 BCE) is very relevant to this issue in that it explores the psychological cost of suppressing the emotional expression of mourning and anticipates and the “replaceability argument”, especially as it will later be expressed in Perikles’ funeral oration (Thucydides 2.44.3). Copyright 2014 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

One of the best sources of evidence for understanding an ancient society is burials. Ancient cemeteries can provide evidence for population, diet, social divisions, religious beliefs and cultural practices, and changes in funerary method can signal changes in social and cultural attitudes and priorities. However, the evidence needs to be treated carefully, since cemeteries do not necessarily provide direct reflections of ancient populations and can represent idealised social identities. In this lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd looks at patterns, shifts and changes in classical Athenian burial customs and explores their possible explanations. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Greek art is full of images of “others”, both historical (such as the Persians and Scythians) and mythological (such as centaurs and Amazons). In this lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd examines how non-Greek groups were represented visually, how they appear in relation to Greeks, and the role of such imagery in defining Greek culture and making reference, albeit obliquely, to recent historical events. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

One of the preoccupations of the ancient Greeks, especially in the fifth century BC, was the idea of the barbarian “other” – people who were barbaros (ie did not speak Greek) and had customs and cultures which contrasted with the practices of the Greeks. The fifth century BC historian Herodotus was particularly interested in such “ethnography” and provides detailed accounts of other groups like the Egyptians, Scythians, the Amazons and the Persians. In this lecture Dr Rhiannon Evans looks at Herodotus’ ideas of other peoples and how in fact they might shed more light on the Greeks than the “others”. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

In this lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd takes a closer look at the ancient Greek symposion – the ritualised, male and often elite drinking party which could also be the context for sexual encounters beyond the institution of marriage – such as with hetairai (courtesans) or pederasty, the socially condoned erotic relationship between a man and an adolescent boy. Archaeological evidence – especially in the form of recognisable dining facilities and symposion-related imagery on vases – combined with a range of ancient texts provides intriguing insight into this ancient cultural practice. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Greek ideas of male sexuality differed from modern Western ones; rather than defining their sexual orientation one way or another, Greek men could indulge in both hetero- and homosexual relationships, although the latter seems to have been socially condoned only in the context of the relationship between an adolescent and an older man. In this lecture Dr Rhiannon Evans explores one of the great philosophical discussions of (male) love and sexuality – Plato’s Symposium, which describes a conversation between some of the leading thinkers of late fifth century Athens. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Nearly all the textual sources for ancient Greece were written by elite men – and very often Athenian men. One important exception to this is the lyric poetry of Sappho, a woman from the island of Lesbos who was born in the later 7th century BC. In this lecture Dr Rhiannon Evans analyses the poetry of Sappho, in which love for individuals of both sexes is prominent, and sets in the context of differing attitudes to sexuality in the ancient world. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Athenian tragedies of the 5th century BC provide an extra dimension to our impressions of women and attitudes to women in ancient Greece. Here, women can be strong, powerful and commit (under provocation!) heinous crimes; the men, in comparison, often seem vain, weak and too ready to break important social codes. In this lecture Dr Heather Sebo looks at three tragic plays which revolve around women – Aeschylos’ Agamemnon, Sophocles’ Antigone and Euripides’ Medea – and examines their exploration of women and their place in society. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

While texts which deal with the lives of women in ancient Greece are relatively few and limited, images of women abound, especially on Athenian red-figured pottery of the 5th century BC. Like the texts, however, these images need to be considered carefully: do they conform to the impressions gained from the textual evidence? Expand upon them? Or even confound them? In this lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd takes a closer look at images of ancient Greek women. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

One of the most intriguing problems in investigating ancient Greece is reconstructing the lives of women. In the first of several lectures on women in this lecture series, Dr Heather Sebo explores some of the ideology, legislation and cultural practices surrounding and integral to the lives of women in ancient Greece. As usual, most of the evidence comes from Athens – with the added problem here that it was largely generated by men and the agency of women is hard to detect. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Herakles and Theseus were two of the great Athenian heroes – renowned for their feats of strength and bravery in myth as they rid the world of monsters and other threats. Yet these myths were far from set in stone, and could be manipulated to reflect the priorities of the contemporary world in 6th century and also democratic Athens. In this lecture Dr Heather Sebo examines the role of Herakles and Theseus in Athenian thought and culture. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

In addition to the Panathenaia, Athens had another great festival: the Dionysia. This was a festival celebrated in spring in honour of the god Dionysos, with a dramatic competition as its centrepiece – going to the theatre was part of a religious festival. In this lecture Dr Heather Sebo looks at the structure of the festival, the nature of dramatic performances in Athens, and the links between the dramatic festival and Athenian society, democracy and politics. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

The ancient Greek year was underpinned by a series of festivals. These religious events were fundamental to the structure of Greek society: state festivals punctuated the year and citizens were required to participate; other cults were devoted to more private types of religion. In this lecture Dr Heather Sebo looks at one of the great Athenian state festivals, the Panathenaia in honour of the city goddess Athena, and compares it with the mystery cult of Demeter, based at Eleusis. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.