Reasoning/Spirited: A Grand Narrative Approach to Greek History #2

Although I criticized The Origins of Greek Thought on both specific points and general approach in my last blog post, Vernant incorporates a number of persuasive and thought-provoking claims in his narrative tale of the origins of Greek Rationality. One of the descriptions that caught my attention is his description of the bureaucratic royalty of the Mycenean palace culture:

"social life appears to have been centered on the palace, whose function was at once religious, political, military, administrative, and economic. In this palace-centered economic system, as it has been called, the king brought together and fused in his own person all aspects of power and sovereignty. Through the agency of the scribes, who formed a professional class established by tradition, and a complex hierarchy of palace dignitaries and royal inspectors, the king controlled and closely regulated all sectors of economic life and spheres of social activity" (Vernant 24).

This passage struck my attention because it reminded me of a passage in Herodotus on which I spent a lot of time and concentration. In Book I when Herodotus describes the founding of the Persian empire by Deiokes, he describes a similar bureaucratic palace structure, except of course that Deiokes becomes so paranoid that he no longer leaves the palace. Furthermore, the palace structure itself sounds somewhat like the image that Vernant describes for the Mycenean palace:

"the Mycenean manor, centered on the megaron [a great central hall] and the throne room, is a walled fortress, a chieftain's den, dominating and keeping watch over the plain at is feet. Constructed to withstand siege, this citadel sheltered the quarters of the king's intimate associates, the military leaders and the palace dignitaries, alongside the princely dwelling and its outbuildings" (Vernant 28)

Unlike the Persian palace that Herodotus describes [1], the Mycenean palaces were not built in concentric circles. Here is an example of the palace floorplan at Pylos [2]:

However, the fortified structure around the king and the treasury and the specialized circle of scribes to maintain a stranglehold on the life of the subject who build their homes around the palace directly follows the description that Herodotus provides. My guess would be that Herodotus saw (or heard about) the ruins of the old Persian palaces, heard the name Deiokes from local history and legend, and attributed aspects of the Greek past to the Persian past of a similar time period.

For anyone who reads Ancient Greek: 1.97-1.100 in Herodotus was one of my favorite passages (when I find my notes, I will do a translation of this section) in any Greek text I have read. The nested structure of the sentence that describes the concentric circles is so incredibly cool. I highly recommend it.

Endnotes

1. I believe that Herodotus does describe an actual Persian type of architecture, although I do not believe that there were ever seven concentric walls surrounding this type of palace. I would cite the source for this belief, but unfortunately I cannot find the paper that I wrote on Deiokes' palace (which is also the reason that I have not taken the time to do my own translation of the passage from the original Greek). I do believe, however, that this was the book that provided me with the information about the archaeological evidence for Persian architecture: Culican, William. The Medes and the Persians. New York: Praeger, 1965. 
2. This image comes from the Brown website. More awesome images of this type can be found at the Bryn Mawr website.

Reasoning: A Grand Narrative Approach to Greek History #1

I just finished re-reading Jean-Pierre Vernant's The Origins of Greek Thought, which entertained me during my recent jury duty.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed it, the book did not have quite the same impact as the first time I read it. I believe that this is because my most recent book before this was Early Greece, which is a much more current and detailed account of Greek History than The Origins of Greek Thought. Unfortunately, not only am I out of the loop on the current understandings of archaeology and I have no idea how to tell what is out of date and what is not. Is there some kind of community somewhere?

Apparently I have some modernist tendencies that college (and two wonderful literary theory classes) did not strangle out of me, because I still like the grand narrative approach to history. However, I think that Vernant's narrative leaves out a lot of details (from what I've gleaned from Murray) about the development of Greek politics.

One of the problems that I notice with Vernant's narrative is that he constructs a development from Mycenean kingship (which Vernant refers to as devine-kingship) to isonomia (an alternate term for democracy that is less aggressive than and predates democracy). His narrative seems to go straight from Mycenean kingship to aristocracy of the basileus (in the Homeric use of the term as a lord, opposed to wanax, the high king) class. However, Vernant seems to place too little emphasis on the age of tyrants in the city states. For example, Peisistratos's reforms in Athens (such as, among many others, the changes to the Panathenia and the invention of the Greater Dionysia (Murray 270-272)) which created some of the civic institutions that would later become a forum for dialogue and democracy. Also, some of Sparta's power, as well as the hoplite-class-lead constitutions coming about through Sparta's removal of tyrants from power (Murray 263). To be fair, Vernant does provide a chapter on the sages (Chapter Five, The Crisis of the City: The Earliest Sages) some of whom were tyrants, but it places its emphasis too early and does not account adequately for the later tyrants, like the Peisistratidai.

Furthermore, Vernant blurs the distinction between the concept of equality in the citizens as homoioi (equals) in the hoplite state and the citizen equals in isonomia that appears so radically important in Murray's assessment of the development of Athens into a democracy (Murray 265-284). Murray explains that after Kleomenes dethroned the Peisistratidai, Kleisthenes' reforms were so radically different from the eunomia (good order) that the Spartans intended to impose, Kleomenes and a small band of Spartans attacked Athens for a second time, and were repulsed by the Athenians (Murray 265).

It feels a little strange, to me, criticizing Vernant's book. Ever since, my freshman year in college when I read Feminine Figures of Death (which is available on jstor for anyone whose school/library/etc has access), I have adored Vernant and his writing. However, The Origins of Greek Thought was written in 1962, so I do have almost 50 years of scholarship and archaeology on him.

Reasoning: Greek History Review #3

I have never been a history person. My dad is a big medieval history buff and my mother loves the history of fashion and costume. It just did not appeal to me in terms of names and dates and events. I always liked mythologies and genealogies-- important people and trends that demonstrate the development of ideas and progress over time. When studying for the AP exam I knew general trends and time periods that allowed me to interpret any piece of information on the exam. That was the way in which I managed through every history class. Dates were expendable pieces of information that I crammed at the last moment.

Going to college, when I finally settled in as a Classics major, there seemed to be two camps: the history people and the literature people. I easily slid into the literature camp, without a second thought. My complete aporia at the set-up of my Greek history class simply made the division appear more clearly to me. Although the class focused on concepts rather than dates, the immense amount of fragmentary reading of the primary sources never properly stuck together in a coherent mass in my mind. It could have simply been that it was only one of a list of things to do each night, but it might have simply been that I needed a little more of a guiding hand. My closest classics friend, for whom I do not yet have a elegy-related pseudonym (now Propertius), similarly disliked history and the history class, so I felt justified in my difficulties.

I now realize that although my dear friend protested against history, he always knew the approximate dates of the fragments of poetry he so diligently studied, knew anecdotes from every era, and could provide the historical context for any piece of literature which we discussed. This understanding of history was equal to that of most of the historians that I know-- his information just stems from different reading and research. Upon coming to this revelation, I realized that I at least needed to acquire the historical understanding of this anecdotal kind in order to position myself as a proper classicist.

Over the past few days I have continued my quest to read through Murray's Early Greece. Yesterday, I proctored an exam which provided me with about 3 hours of straight reading time so I dragged myself within 100 pages of the end. Once again, the influence of the Phoenicians captivated my interest.

Even learning from my previous reading, recounted in my previous blogpost, that the Phoenicians of the Greeks were one and the same with the Cannanites of the bible, I still could not get through my thick skull that the writing of the Phoenicians must have used the Hebrew alphabet (or as it actually turns out a more archaic precursor to that alphabet) from which the Greeks derived their own alphabet (Murray 94).

I found this chart to be particularly cool [1]:

The chart is a little bit misleading. Both the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets do not have vowel sounds. These are called abjed alphabets [2]. Murray explains that "the forms of most of the Greek vowels are derived from Phoenician consonantal or semi-consonantal letters for which Greek had no use" (Murray 94) the development of an alphabet with vowels actually represented in the script itself was "revolutionary in its consequences" (Murray 94) [3]. Writing became widespread in Greece between 750-650 BCE (Murray 96) and "the earliest poets whose work was recorded in writing may well have been Hesiod and Archilochos if not Homer" (Murray 96). Another fascinating piece of information that I gleaned from Murray is that even if Homer used the aid of writing to compose his work, it was "the ancient claim that it was Peisistratos who established a fixed test of the poet; for competitions in recitation require rules about what should be recited" (Murray 271).

I finished Murray's Early Greece yesterday. It was the most interesting historical piece I have read since first semester last year when I wrote the historical chapter of my thesis. I just began reading both  The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100-480 B.C. and Origins of Greek Thought in the last 24 hours. Both captivate my interest for different reasons. Vernant's book is an earlier version of the development of the polis and the Greek rational thought from the Minoans and the invading Indo-Europeans who began the Mycenean palace culture. Hurwit's book details the cultural development from the dark age up until the end of the first Persian War, specifically focusing on the art. Since my thesis utilized data concerning the changing of grave monuments and pottery in Ancient Greece, this book appeals to me as well. The only reason I started Vernant's book is because it is easier to fit in my purse (and I went with my mother to the doctor's office).

Endnotes

1. Image is from About.com
2. Phoenician Alphabet at Wikipedia
3. Today I started reading Origins of Greek Thought, which explains that Linear B, which was the script used in the Mycenean palace culture, was a syllabic rather than and abjed or a vocalic alphabet (I am not sure if vocalic alphabet is the right name) (Vernant 23). Linear B was developed from Linear A, which was the Minoan script, and Linear B was used by a specialized class of Cretan scribes (Vernant 24).

Reasoning: Greek History Review #2

, I finished the next the chapters of Early Greece, which consider the aristocracy and the community in the Dark Age and "Euboan Society and Trade." These chapters are not on the afore-mentioned Greek History Syllabus. However, I decided that I would finish the book as well as reading through the entirety of A Brief History of Ancient Greece alongside the secondary sources from the syllabus. The idea is to provide a broad base for further study. This I am sure would offend the sensibilities of my Greek History professor, given that A Brief History of Ancient Greece is written in part by one of her greatest rivals. Amusingly, I have to thank this same professor's rant against this rival which demonstrated the proper way to criticize a historical argument and served as a model for me to scrutinize the arguments of others (specifically some of the arguments in "Male Lament in Greek Tragedy") and my own arguments in my thesis.


Although most of what I'm reading is not new to me, there are a couple of things that came as a surprise to me. The first was that there was a period of pottery between the Geometric Period and the Black figure period. This was the Proto-Corninthian period of pottery, which flourished during the Orientalizing period 725-600 BCE [1]. Most of the pottery was miniature [1].

This owl is only 5cm long. It is my favorite Proto-Corinthian piece of which I have found a picture [2]. These pieces tend to employ the black, white, and terra cotta color scheme. The pieces have the influence of the eastern trading partners (Murray 32-33).

The pieces seem to me, from my mostly untrained eye, to be a mix of geometric period influences (although this vase shows the orientalist influence of the flowing curves in the painting and the pictures of animals (Murray 84-85), the animals are arranged in seemingly geometric patterns)

and the Athenian black figure that replaced it (this reminds me of the composition of the Athenian black figure, but the colors are quite obviously from the proto-Corinthian period).

Another, although slightly less vital, piece of information that I missed in my classical education was the origins of the Phoenicians. Murray says:

"the earliest Greek contacts were with the Canaanites of the Levantine coast, a people known to the Greeks as the Phoenicians, probably because of their monopoly of the only colour-fast dye in antiquity, the purple (phoinix) extract from the murex shellfish" (70).

I had no idea how the Phoenicians were named by the Greeks, and I thought that was pretty cool. I also thought they were island people, and had no ideas that they controlled the forests of Lebanon which provided timber to Egypt (Murray 70).

Endnotes:

As a Note: Project Gutenberg is now posting texts in their original language. They may have done this before, and I just did not notice. It's a fabulous resource. Although I would traditionally turn to the Perseus Project for Greek texts. However, I might put these on my kindle in order to translate without the crutch of a built in dictionary.

1. This comes from Encyclopaedia Britannica.
2. All of the pictures come from Wikimedia.

Reasoning: Greek History Review #1

History is the groundwork for classics. Understanding a work in its context is vitally important for understanding the work itself, because all of that work is situated within a culture that may only be gleaned from such study of the archaeological and textual evidence that remains.

I took a really fabulous Greek History class back in my sophomore year. Unfortunately, I did not give the class my full attention. That year was trouble in general and I was not on my game. As a consequence, writing both my qualifying paper and my thesis, had to do a lot of extra research to raise my knowledge on the eras and authors I was studying to a decent level.

For about two years I have been entertaining the idea of reviewing my Greek History intensively. A conversation with Cerinthus provided the impetus to make me start immediately. Before he goes to Italy, the school running his semester abroad provides an optional trip through Greece and Italy, based on a series of sites and texts. Each student does a presentation on one of the sites and texts, and Cerinthus picked to do Rome, which was paired with the latter half of the Aeneid. He and I were discussing the relationship between the Aeneid and Augustus. I realized that from my Roman History class and my reading of Virgil in second year Latin I could provide him with ample information about the period, I could not put a solid date on anything I was talking about. This in turn reminded me that my Greek historical knowledge was in even shabbier condition than that. So I decided to attempt to fill in the gaps in my history background, starting with the Greeks and moving to the Romans.


I took the syllabus from the Greek History class that I took. Although the pride of my wonderful professors teaching was the primary sources, but I'm going to start by reading through the secondary sources in order. I am sure that she would be unhappy with me for this. However, I have to finish up the last of the Plato dialogues I have not yet read (although I read 18 of the dialogues last summer).

This morning, I started reading Oswyn Murray's Early Greece, it being the first on the list. My professor assigned the first two chapters, "Myth, History, and Archaeology" and "Sources" in order to provide a basis for further study. Wish me luck.

Appetitive/Reasoning: Book Curses

Appetitive and Reasoning? What would Plato say? O Zeu!

Despite any qualms Plato might have had, I thought I should share this. A friend on twitter lead me to this wonderful piece about Medieval book curses. I'm thinking of having some bookplates made with some curses in Latin and Greek. I found this one especially hostile and amusing:

"Should anyone by craft of any device whatever abstract this book from this place may his soul suffer, in retribution for what he has done, and may his name be erased from the book of the living and not recorded among the Blessed."

--attributed to a 16th-century French missal belonging to a man named Robert

To read more, visit this blog on Medieval Copy Protection.

Spirited: Translating Sulpicia I

This is the first of the Spirited section. "Spirited" in English is a kind of misleading translation: the word Plato uses is much more like "honor-loving." This part of the soul makes the soldier, but not the strictly-following-orders modern soldier, rather a soldier whose motivation comes from his love of state, but also his desire to win honor for himself in battle. This is the same motivation that drives an athlete.

In this case, the "Spirited" section will be "honor-loving" only in the way that it is all about my thoughts on the classical world. I will post my own translations (starting, I think, with the six poems in Sulpicia's cycle) and my own commentaries hoping that people will discover them, read them, and, if they so desire, comment, respond, or post their own ideas.

I translated the first of Sulpicia I's cycle of six poems. It is my favorite and in my opinion the most interesting. I have played around with some of the typical interpretation, but I think that I am sticking fairly close to the Latin. However, if I did torture some part of the translation I am happy to be corrected or to debate the point.

In this poem, Sulpicia introduces Cerinthus, both as her lover and as the theme which will unite her poetry, although she does not name him.

Sulpicia Elegedia I (1)
[Tibulli Lib. III XIII=IV. VII]

Tandam venit amor, qualem texisse pudori,
quam nudasse alicui sit mihi fama magis.
exorata meis illum Cytherea Camenis
attulit in nostrum deposuitque sinum.
exoluit promissa Venus: mea gaudia narret,
dicetur si quis non habuisse sua.
non ego signatis quicquam mandare tabellis
me legat ut (2) nemo quam meus ante, velim,
sed pecasse iuuat, uultus componere famae
taedet: cum digno digna fuisse ferar.

At last love has come, [love] of the sort which
rumor that it might have been covered up by someone
would have been more shameful to me than if it were exposed.
Having been persuaded by my Muses (3),
the Cytherian (4) brought him and deposited [him] in my lap.
He released Venus from her promise: she may recount my joy
if anyone might be said to to have had her [joy].
I would not wish to commit anything in a sealed tablet
in order that no one might read me before my [love],
but it delights me to offend (5); it is tiresome to compose my visage for the sake of rumor
I should be deemed worthy to have been with a worthy man (6).

Dinner with my family went a little longer than I expected tonight, so I do not have the time to do the extensive commentary that I originally intended. Maybe that will be my next. Hopefully the endnotes will help explain. I wanted to do a translation that was literal, but still poetic (which is why I added words in brackets). Enjoy!

Endnotes:

1. From Minor Authors of the Corpus Tibullianum. e.d. John Yardly. Bryn Mawr, PA: Bryn Mawr Commentaries, 1992. I also made reference to Anne Mahoney's notes on the Perseus entry of Sulpicia as well as to the electronic Allen and Greenough. As a random sidenote, I tried to use my copy of Allen and Greenough, but although I have the wonderful 1903 edition that I bought for $5 at a booksale, it is so imbued with dust that I had an allergy attack trying to use it and switched to the electronic version.
2. I used Yardly version of the text, which for reference is different than the text on the Persus entry of Sulpicia, in that the line 8 reads: "ne legat id nemo quam meum ante, velim." For the textual scholars out there, I am not well schooled in picking one text over another, so I just picked the one I liked better.
3. From Anne Mahoney's notes (and my Latin Love Elegy Class), I gather that these are Italian goddesses or demi-goddesses that were, like the muses, associated with music, and were later blended into the Greek tradition of the Muses.
4. From Anne Mahoney's notes, Venus was referred to as Cytherea because she was born on the island of Cythera in some mythic traditions. In others, she was born out of the foam of the castrated parts of Ouranous falling into the sea.
5. This word means "offend" (as in to offend a person) but also means to "sin." I thought "sin" sounded too religious, when it was really more of the idea of a severe social transgression. The term may be interpreted both as a sexual innuendo and as the return to the idea of the liberation of an incendiary rumor.
6. This last line is kind of a pun. It is difficult to render in English and I may not have translated it properly. "Dignus" which I translated as worthy to try and make the pun work is the term that would be used in Rome to describe a proper Roman gentleman, but also would only be applied to a Roman nobleman. The following ideas appear in this line: A) Sulpicia is a noblewoman, B) Cerinthus is a nobleman, C) Sulpicia is a worthy woman because she made a worthy choice of lovers, however social convention does not see her this way, and prevents her from being a "proper lady" because she kissed and told.