CAS AR 330: GREEK ARCHAEOLOGY QUEST ION SET 1 DUE APRIL 5 TH Gods & Men, Cities & Sanctuaries: the Archaic & Classical Periods (6th-4th centuries BCE)

In the Archaic and Classical periods, Greek craftsmen created some of the most outstanding artistic and architectural creations ever produced. The number, variety, and quality are dazzling, and a challenge to understand in full. Fortunately, material remains are not the only survivors of this period. There are also contemporary texts, including especially poems known as lyrics. Greek lyric poets wrote of their wishes, feelings, and ideas, and in many ways their poems complement the work of painters and sculptors. Considering the poems together with the archaeological remains allows us to better understand the culture of these periods. Select six archaeological remains discussed in class and/or in your reading: three from the Archaic period and three from the Classical period. At least one must be a painted pot, at least one must be a free-standing sculpture, and at least two must be architectural sculpture (meaning an individual group or composition, such as one pediment, a complete frieze, or a single metope cycle). Note that this leaves two more of your own choosing. For each object or remain, write an essay of no more than 450 words in which you: Ø briefly describe the remain or object – the type, location, scene, size, and context (if known) (2 points); Ø discuss the object in light of one (or more) of the poems on the accompanying sheet. Use the excerpts from Callinus, Mimnermus,

Sappho, and Xenophanes for Archaic-period remains; use the excerpts from Pindar, Aeschylus, and Sophocles for Classical-period remains.* How does the object illustrate, amplify, argue, or undermine the idea of the poem (3 points)?

* Nota bene: You may use each excerpt only once, meaning that you must ultimately use six excerpts.

While this essay will be in your own words, you must also incorporate and properly cite two assigned readings per essay. A proper citation includes author, title, place and date of publication, and page number(s), or URL and date of access. Note that the short length

will require careful thought and multiple rewrites in order to make your points with force, focus, and clarity.

Get published! I will select excellent essays to post on https://archaeologystudentsspeak.wordpress.com/

Poetry Excrpts – Archaic Period

CALLINUS OF EPHESOS (7TH CENTURY BCE): A man, as he dies, should make one last throw with his spear. It is a high thing, a bright honor, for a man to do battle … and death is a thing that will come when the spinning Destinies make it come … When it is ordained that a man shall die, there is no escaping death, not even for one descended from deathless gods. Often a man who has fled from the fight … goes his way, and death befalls him in his own house, And such a man is not loved nor missed for long by his people; the great and small alike mourn when a hero dies. For all the populace is grieved for the high-hearted warrior after his death; while he lives, he is treated as almost divine.

MIMNERMUS OF COLOPHON (LATE 7TH/EARLY 6TH CENTURIES BCE): What then is life if love the golden is gone? What is pleasure? Better to die when the thought of these is lost from my heart: the flattery of surrender, the secret embrace in the darkness. These alone are such charming flowers of youth as befall women and men. But once old age with its sorrows advances upon us, it makes a man feeble and ugly alike, heart worn thin with the hovering expectation of evil, lost all joy that comes out of the sight of the sun. Hateful to boys a man goes then, unfavored of women. Such is the thing of sorrow the gods have made of old age.

SAPPHO OF MYTILENE (EARLY 6TH CENTURY BCE): Fragment 1: Some say a cavalry corps, some infantry, some, again, will maintain that the swift oars of our fleet are the finest sight on dark earth; but I say that whatever one loves, is. _____________ Fragment 2: But I claim there will be some who remember us when we are gone.

XENOPHANES OF COLOPHON (LATER 6TH CENTURY BCE): Now supposing a man were to win the prize for the foot race at Olympia, there where the precinct of Zeus stands besides the river, at Pisa, or if he wins the pankration, or the wrestling … Why, such a man will obtain honor, in the citizens’ sight, and be given a front seat and be on display at all civic occasions, and he would be given his meals all at the public expense, and be given a gift from the city to take and store for safekeeping. But custom is careless in all these matters, and there is no justice in putting strength on a level above wisdom which is sound. For if among the people there is one who is a good boxer, or one who excels in wrestling … or else for speed of feet … The city will not, on account of this man, have better government.

Poetry Excrpts – Classical Period

PINDAR OF THEBES (EARLY 5TH CENTURY BCE): Pythian 8.95-98 We are things of a day. What are we? What are we not? The dream of a shadow is man, no more. But when brightness comes, and the gods give it, there is a shining light on man, and his life is sweet.

Isthmian 5.12-16: Two blessings only can nurse the dearest gift of life ... If a man knows success and hears his glory proclaimed abroad. Seek not to become Zeus. The best is yours if the hand of fate grants to you these things: for mortals, mortal gifts are fitting.

AESCHYLUS OF ATTICA (MID 5TH CENTURY BCE): Agamemnon 174-183:  Zeus,  whose  will  has  marked  for  man the one way where wisdom lies, ordered one eternal plan: Man must suffer to be wise. Head-winds heavy with past ill stray his course and cloud his heart. Sorrow takes the blind soul’s part: Man grows wise against his will.

SOPHOCLES OF ATTICA (MID 5TH CENTURY BCE): Antigone 377-416: Numberless wonders, terrible wonders walk the world but none the match for man … Speech and thought, quick as the wind, and the mood and mind for law … all these he has taught himself … Man the master, ingenious past all measure, past all means, the skills within his grasp, he forges on – now to destruction, now to greatness.