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This subject deals with the cultural history of the ancient Greek world through both textual sources and the material evidence of art and archaeology. The period covered runs from the Iron Age world of Archaic Greece through to the late Classical period (roughly from the 8th century to the 4th century BCE). We will concentrate mainly on Athens and mainland Greece, but we will also focus on the Greek expansion into other parts of the Mediterranean world (Sicily and South Italy) in the process ...
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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 Trob…
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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 le…
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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…
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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 “natur…
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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 numb…
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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 numb…
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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 Univer…
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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 do…
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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 ca…
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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…
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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 …
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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 adoles…
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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 lect…
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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 s…
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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 loo…
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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 ev…
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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…
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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…
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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 dramati…
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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 stat…
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An essential feature of Athenian democracy was its system of litigation; here not only private cases were tried, but points of civic legislation put to the test. In this lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd looks at Athenian law courts and the legal system as well as archaeological evidence for selecting the huge juries and conducting trials, together with …
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In this lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd picks up from where the last left off: with the fall of the Peisistratid tyranny and the rise of democracy in Athens. With the reforms of Kleisthenes, the Athenian political landscape was radically altered and old channels of power broken. The Agora and other areas of Athens such as the Pnyx provide important evi…
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Over the course of the 7th and 6th centuries BC, major changes occurred in Athens which laid the foundations for the prosperous and powerful state of classical Athens. In this lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd traces some of these important developments. A critical area of the city – the agora, the public square which was the administrative and commercia…
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The period between the fall of the Mycenaean civilisation and the 8th century BC is conventionally known as the “Dark Ages” of ancient Greece because of a relative dearth of evidence: Greece appears to be a more isolated and impoverished place, and some technological skills and also literacy appear to have been lost. In the 8th century, however, we…
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In this second lecture on sources for ancient Greece, Dr Gillian Shepherd looks at some of the practicalities surrounding the study of material culture (such as the dating of objects) and also at issues of survival, excavation and the methodological issues to bear in mind when assessing the significance of archaeological evidence. She goes on to de…
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Two main categories of evidence are essential to the study of ancient Greece: texts and archaeological material. In this lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd examines the first category, taking a look at two major historical writers of the 5th century BC, Herodotus and Thucydides, and flags up some of the methodological issues associated with the use of tex…
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In this lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd describes the basic background of ancient Greece – geography, resources, main political structures, chronology and modern terminology – setting the scene for this series of lectures on city and society in the ancient Greek world. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.…
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