HUM-8 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Eumaeus, Eurycleia, Odysseus
Document Summary
Slaves in myth from homer to spartacus. Iliad shows worry about enslavement ex) hector"s speech to andromache. Life without slavery was unachievable in ancient greece. School exercises show that a large part of language learning used moving slaves around. Slavery did a lot for the population and it was normal. Aristotle defined a slave as an animate piece of property. Slaves in myth paintings: ajax pulling cassandra away from temple statue and rapes her, slave and his master. Tragedy: we see cassandra being a slave to agamemnon. His wife then kills agamemnon and cassandra. In comedy, slaves were a frequent presence. Characterized as ugly and as a slave. In medieval period, aesop is described as being black. Aesop became black slave whose voice represents entire underclass mocking social superior. Fables are stories often about animals with explicit morals at end.
