Hanson could have been writing about himself. Following his doctorate from Stanford, Hanson returned to his family farm, and for the next six years, he spectacularly failed at farming. To subsist Hanson bolstered his meager income by tutoring Latin, a paltry use of a Stanford Ph.D. if ever there was one. Hanson’s fortunes turned and outlook brightened when he joined the newly created Cal State Fresno classics department in 1985. Working at Cal State Fresno afforded Hanson the ability to research and publish scholarly articles leading to several books. The profits that Hanson would receive from his books and speaking tours allowed Hanson to continue running his family farm; despite incurring a $1,400 per month loss on the enterprise. Notwithstanding Hanson’s difficulties with the realities of farming, his idealized view of Greek farmers turned soldiers would …show more content…
remain central to his thesis.
It is worth nothing that Hanson’s early scholarly products did not contain what would become his trademark voice fetishizing the Greek farmer. Writing in 1992, Hanson authored “Thucydides and the Desertion of Attic Slaves during the Decelean War” published in Classical Antiquity by the University of California Press. The article centers on the meaning of the term “more than two myriads of slaves” and the surprisingly lively debate centered over the exact amount meant by Thucydides. Hanson’s addition to the debate is to address what he calls the “often-posed question” of just how Thucydides arrived at the two-myriad figure which has been translated to be 20,000. Hanson’s scholarly chops are on full display in this early work of his. While
engaging and readable to non-classicists the subject material does not appeal to the wider audience outside the scholarly sphere. When Hanson debates the finer points of ancient Greek I believe he realizes that he is talking to an ever-shrinking audience. Hanson and fellow classicist John Heath of Santa Clara University, wrote a stinging indictment of the entire classicist profession in their 1998 book Who Killed Homer. In their book, Hanson and Heath trace the decline of classics and the study of ancient Greek and Latin in colleges. Ultimately Hanson and Heath point the finger at themselves, or rather, at their fellow classicists for the death, as they describe it, of their profession. Hanson and Heath fault their colleagues for wanting to stay relevant in a culturally relative world by stating that the ancient Greeks and Romans were not multicultural, a fact that Hanson and Heath willingly cede. Still other classicists propagated what Hanson and Heath call, “the lie” that the ancient Greeks and Romans were in fact multicultural. Quoting Hanson and Heath regarding the motives of other classicists:
Throughout Aristophanes’ “Clouds” there is a constant battle between old and new. It makes itself apparent in the Just and Unjust speech as well as between father and son. Ultimately, Pheidippides, whom would be considered ‘new’, triumphs over the old Strepsiades, his father. This is analogous to the Just and Unjust speech. In this debate, Just speech represents the old traditions and mores of Greece while the contrasting Unjust speech is considered to be newfangled and cynical towards the old. While the defeat of Just speech by Unjust speech does not render Pheidippides the ability to overcome Strepsiades, it is a parallel that may be compared with many other instances in Mythology and real life.
Lattimore, Richmond. “Phaedra and Hippolytus.” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 1.3 (Autumn, 1962): 5-18. JSTOR. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Prometheus Bound is quite different from other tragedies in that it is peopled entirely by gods. The play focuses on the story of Prometheus, and we have versions of this myth in Hesiod's famous works. There is reason to think that the author of Prometheus Bound was not only acquainted with Hesiod's version but actually drew on Hesiod directly in this play. This essay therefore aims to establish in what ways the author of Prometheus Bound seems to have drawn from Hesiod's version of myth, in what ways he has diverged from it, and what reasons he might have had for making these changes and innovations. This might therefore highlight any particular emphasis or purpose of Prometheus Bound and what its author might have been trying to get across. Though there is not space in this essay to discuss the problems of attributing this play, it must be recognised that this ambiguity of authorship and dating makes it even more difficult than usual to look at views and purposes behind the play.
This paper will discuss the well published work of, Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken, 1975. Print. Sarah B. Pomerory uses this book to educate others about the role women have played throughout ancient history. Pomerory uses a timeline to go through each role, starting with mythological women, who were called Goddesses. She then talks about some common roles, the whores, wives, and slaves during this time. Pomerory enlightens the audience on the topic of women, who were seen as nothing at the time. Men were seen as the only crucial part in history; however, Pomerory’s focus on women portrays the era in a new light.
The studied passage indicates a clear division of classes: the free men, those excluded from political rights, the serfs and the slaves. The question of ‘serfdom’ in ancient Greece remains a disputable concept among scholars, and there is no wide consensus that serfs and slaves were clear-cut categories in Gortyn – but it quite probable that the terms were used to distinguish the ‘home-grown’ servile population from the foreign chattel-slaves. Not surprisingly, the text confirms that slaves had fewer rights than free men, but also indicates that lower-status people were granted protection under the law against the most severe abuses – in sharp contrast with slavery practices in Athens for instance. These legal provisions might be explained by the fact that the servile population was rather ‘home-grown’ than from foreign origin – and it can be argued that the development of chattel-slavery involved a progressive diminution of the rights of those who became slaves. In any case, this is a strong indication that slavery practices differ from one city-state to another, meaning that conclusions derived from the Gortyn code should not be too quickly
For the Greeks, Homer's Odyssey was much more than just an entertaining tale of gods, monsters, and men, it served as cultural paradigm from which every important role and relationship could be defined. This book, much more so than its counter part The Iliad, gives an eclectic view of the Achean's peacetime civilization. Through Odyssey, we gain an understanding of what is proper or improper in relationships between father and son, god and mortal, servant and master, guest and host, and--importantly--man and woman. Women play a vital role in the movement of this narrative. Unlike in The Iliad, where they are chiefly prizes to be won, bereft of identity, the women of Odyssey are unique in their personality, intentions, and relationship towards men. Yet, despite the fact that no two women in this epic are alike, each--through her vices or virtues-- helps to delineate the role of the ideal woman. Below, we will show the importance of Circe, Calypso, Nausicaa, Clytaemestra, and Penelope in terms of the movement of the narrative and in defining social roles for the Ancient Greeks.
Hunt, Lynn and Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein and Bonnie G. Smith. “ The Greek golden age,” in the making of the west volume 1 to 1750 2012, edited by Denise B. Wydra, 75-108. Boston: Beford/St. Martin’s, 2012.
There has long been a fashion among critics and historians, including Sir James Frazier and Graham Hancock, to insist upon taking the account of Odysseus' voyage to Hades in Book XI of the Odyssey at near face-value as a description of people and places familiar to a Greek audience of Homer's day. Both linguistics and comparative history have been employed to discover exactly how accurately this originally oral epic conveys this gritty realism. Something, however, is not right with this purely empiric approach. What is missing is an examination through the lens of ancient religious practices. Surely a literary work so teeming with deities-wise Athena, spiteful Poseidon, impish Hermes, omnipotent Zeus-deserves such study.
Burckhardt, Jacob, The Greeks and Greek Civilization, St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10010, 1998.
The book written by Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, contains two controversial debates between distinguished speakers of Athens. The two corresponding sides produce convincing arguments which can be taken as if produced as an honest opinion or out of self-interest. The two debates must be analyzed separately in order to conclude which one and which side was speaking out of honest opinion or self-interest, as well as which speakers are similar to each other in their approach to the situation.
Nardo, Don. The Ancient Greeks at Home and at Work. 1st ed. San Diego, CA: Lucent, 2004. Print.
The Melian Dialogue is a debate between Melian and Athenian representatives concerning the sovereignty of Melos. The debate did not really occur-the arguments given by each side were of Thucydides own creation. Thus it is reasonable to assume that we can tease out Thucydides' own beliefs. In this paper, I will first extract Thucydides views from the Melian Dialogue and then analyze whether or not these views are well founded.
Grene, D., and Lattimore, R., eds. ?Antigone? and ?Prometheus Bound.? Greek Tragedies: Volume 1. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1991. 178-232, 65-106.
Grene, David., and Richmond Alexander Lattimore. Greek Tragedies. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
---- On a personal note, I would like to personally thank you for “turning me on” to classic Greek literature. Especially all the encouragement you have given me in making this paper my own, and becoming literally addicted, passionate even, about the Phaedrus. I get the feeling though, that I can read and re-read this for 10 years and still not fully “get” everything that I could or should. But I guess that is the purpose of a text of this magnitude. I really hope enjoyed reading my thoughts on this, because I can honestly say I have had a great time writing it.