Map of the Mediterranean

1. Map of the Mediterranean

2. Map of the Italian Penminsula (left) and Map of Greece and Asia Minor (right)

3. Geometric Period, ca. 950-700 B.C.E. • Social and political context • Time of expansion, so-called colonies. • Land-based wealth • Monarch advised by few aristocrats • War conducted in hand-to-hand combat • Art and literature • Decorated pottery for elite use and for grave markers • Bronze figurines, shields and tripods • Iliad, attributed to blind poet Homer, composed as oral work around 750 B.C.: Assault by Greek leaders on Troy to recapture Helen, wife of Menelaus. War lasts nine years. Expresses values of Geometric period society • Odyssey, account of the return from Troy of the hero Odysseus composed toward the end of the 8th century or perhaps in the early decades of the seventh century

4. Athenian Late Geometric funerary amphora from Dipylon Cemetery, Athens, ca. 760-750 B.C.E., H. 155 cm. National Museum, Athens. , Detail of prothesis from Dipylon vase Athenian Late Geometric Dipylon funerary amphora from Dipylon cemetery, ca. 760-755 B.C., H. 155 cm., Athens, National Museum Corinthian Stallion probably from Peloponnese, ca. 730 B.C.E. bronze. H. 16 cm. Staatliches Museen Krater by so-called Hirschfeld Painter, ca. 750 .C., H. 108.5 cm., Mteropolitan Museum, N.Y.

5. Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another. And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the son of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. Now Chryses had come to the ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a great ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo wreathed with a suppliant's wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs. "Sons of Atreus," he cried, "and all other Achaeans, may the gods who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach your homes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for her, in reverence to Apollo, son of Jove." On this the rest of the Achaeans with one voice were for respecting the priest and taking the ransom that he offered; but not so Agamemnon, who spoke fiercely to him and sent him roughly away. "Old man," said he, "let me not find you tarrying about our ships, nor yet coming hereafter. Your sceptre of the god and your wreath shall profit you nothing. I will not free her. She shall grow old in my house at Argos far from her own home, busying herself with her loom and visiting my couch; so go, and do not provoke me or it shall be the worse for you." The old man feared him and obeyed. Not a word he spoke, but went by the shore of the sounding sea and prayed apart to King Apollo whom lovely Leto had borne. "Hear me," he cried, "O god of the silver bow, that protectest Chryse and holy Cilla and rulest Tenedos with thy might, hear me oh thou of Sminthe. If I have ever decked your temple with garlands, or burned your thigh-bones in fat of bulls or goats, grant my prayer, and let your arrows avenge these my tears upon the Danaans." Thus did he pray, and Apollo heard his prayer. He came down furious from the summits of Olympus, with his bow and his quiver upon his shoulder, and the arrows rattled on his back with the rage that trembled within him. He sat himself down away from the ships with a face as dark as night, and his silver bow rang death as he shot his arrow in the midst of them. First he smote their mules and their hounds, but presently he aimed his shafts at the people themselves, and all day long the pyres of the dead were burning. Homer, Iliad, Book I, opening lines

6. Homer, Odyssey, Book I, opening lines • TELL ME, O MUSE, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them. So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to his wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got him into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by, there came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to Ithaca; even then, however, when he was among his own people, his troubles were not yet over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to pity him except Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing and would not let him get home. Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the world's end, and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East. He had gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was enjoying himself at his festival; but the other gods met in the house of Olympian Jove, and the sire of gods and men spoke first. At that moment he was thinking of Aegisthus, who had been killed by Agamemnon's son Orestes; so he said to the other gods: "See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing but their own folly. Look at Aegisthus; he must needs make love to Agamemnon's wife unrighteously and then kill Agamemnon, though he knew it would be the death of him; for I sent Mercury to warn him not to do either of these things, inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to take his revenge when he grew up and wanted to return home. Mercury told him this in all good will but he would not listen, and now he has paid for everything in full." Then Minerva said, "Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, it served Aegisthus right, and so it would any one else who does as he did; but Aegisthus is neither here nor there; it is for Ulysses that my heart bleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that lonely sea-girt island, far away, poor man, from all his friends. It is an island covered with forest, in the very middle of the sea, and a goddess lives there, daughter of the magician Atlas, who looks after the bottom of the ocean, and carries the great columns that keep heaven and earth asunder. This daughter of Atlas has got hold of poor unhappy Ulysses, and keeps trying by every kind of blandishment to make him forget his home, so that he is tired of life, and thinks of nothing but how he may once more see the smoke of his own chimneys. You, sir, take no heed of this, and yet when Ulysses was before Troy did he not propitiate you with many a burnt sacrifice? Why then should you keep on being so angry with him?" And Jove said, "My child, what are you talking about? How can I forget Ulysses than whom there is no more capable man on earth, nor more liberal in his offerings to the immortal gods that live in heaven? Bear in mind, however, that Neptune is still furious with Ulysses for having blinded an eye of Polyphemus king of the Cyclopes. Polyphemus is son to Neptune by the nymph Thoosa, daughter to the sea-king Phorcys; therefore though he will not kill Ulysses outright, he torments him by preventing him from getting home. Still, let us lay our heads together and see how we can help him to return; Neptune will then be pacified, for if we are all of a mind he can hardly stand out against us." And Minerva said, "Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, if, then, the gods now mean that Ulysses should get home, we should first send Mercury to the Ogygian island to tell Calypso that we have made up our minds and that he is to return. In the meantime I will go to Ithaca, to put heart into Ulysses' son Telemachus; I will embolden him to call the Achaeans in assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother Penelope, who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen; I will also conduct him to Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear anything about the return of his dear father- for this will make people speak well of him."

7. Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another. And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the son of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. TELL ME, O MUSE, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them. So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to his wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got him into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by, there came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to Ithaca Comparison of the opening lines of the Iliad and the Odyssey

8. Archaic Greece (700-490 B.C.): Part I, so-called “Orientalizing Phase (700-600 B.C.) • Social and Political Context • Intensified contact with the Orient • Introduction of the hoplite phalanx • Development of Ionian natural philosophy • Importance of the individual • Art and Literature • Introduction of fantastic and monstrous beasts • Decorative and sensuous elements: patterning and surface effects • Individual feelings, accomplishments and ideas • Architecture and sculpture to mediate relationships with the gods Ivory youth from Samos, c. 600 B.C.E.

9. Funerary Amphora by the Polyphemos painter, ca. 650 B.C., H. 142 cm.; Eleusis Museum

10. Archaic Greece, Phase II (600-490 B.C.) • Social and Political Context • Democratization of the city-states • Consolidation of authority in particular city states most prominently Athens and Sparta • Idea of civic life • Art and Literature • Temples become more standardized and more monumental • Evolution of limited naturalism in sculpture • Expansion of themes in representations human activity • Emergence of art as means of enforcing social values: men and gods, men and men • Drama develops by the end of the 6th century B.C. as part of the annual Dyonisiac festival in Athens with single actor reciting the lines

11. Seventh Century Temple of Apollo at Thermon in Aetolia, ca. 630 B.C.

12. Temple of Hera at Paestum, ca. 560 B.C. and Temple of Apollo at Corinth, ca. 540 B.C.

13. Statues as mediators between men and gods Maiden from Auxerre, ca. 650 B.C. Kore dedicated to Apollo by Nikandre at the Sanctuary on Delos, ca. 650-626 B.C. Kore from Chios, ca. 510 B.C. So-called Peplos Kore, Ca. 530 B.C.

14. New York Kouros, ca. 600 B.C.; Kouros from Tenea, ca. 570 B.C.; Kouros from Anavysos, ca. 530 B.C.; Kritios Boy, ca. 480 B.C.

15. SAPPHO (born ca. 630 B.C. on island of Lesbos in Ionia) Come back to me, Gongyla, here tonight, You, my rose, with your Lydian lyre. There hovers forever around you delight: A beauty desired. Even your garment plunders my eyes. I am enchanted: I who once Complained to the Cyprus-born goddess, Whom I now beseech Never to let this lose me grace But rather bring you back to me: Amongst all mortal women the one I most wish to see. ARCHILOCHUS (680-640 B.C. on island of Paros in the Cyclades) Well, what if some barbaric Thracian glories in the perfect shield I left under a bush? I was sorry to leave it--but I saved my skin. Does it matter? O hell, I'll buy a better one. Greek Lyric Poetry

16. Exekias, Achilles and Ajax Playing a Board Game, c. 540-530 B.C. (LEFT) and Exekias, Suicide of Ajax, c. 540-530 B.C. (RIGHT)

17. Statue Base, Athletes Playing Ball, . 500 B.C.

18. Euphronios, scene from gymnasium, end of the 6th century and “Euthymides painted me as never Euphronios could do,” c. 510 BC