HUMA 205 Chapter 1: Chapter 1 Note part 8
626. The important point is that the later Greeks had a mythological picture of Knossos as a prosperous
and thriving community ruled by a powerful and ruthless king from his palace.
627. The gods appear in the Iliad and frequently play a part in the action, but at no time can divine
intervention save Achilles from paying the price for his unreasonable anger.
628. For the Greeks, Persian aggression was the one threat suffi - ciently strong to drive them to unite,
but for many of the peoples who formed part of the Persian Empire, their conquerors’ rule was
benign—not least for the Jews.
629. The Dawn of Greek Culture.
630. The other is Plato, who, together with his pupil Aristotle, stands at the forefront of the whole
intellectual tradition of Western civilization.
631. The art of the second half of the fi fth century bce, however, is more concerned with human
achievement than with divine will.
632. Roman copy after a bronze original of 429 BCE.
633. Roman copy of bronze original of c.
634. Roman copy after bronze original.
635. Its unities of time, place, and action, the inexorable drive of the story with its inevitable yet
profoundly tragic conclusion, the beauty of its poetry—all have made Oedipus the King a true classic,
in all senses.
636. Furthermore, the design had to incorporate the marks in the ground made by Poseidon’s trident
during the competition with Athena, as shown on the west pediment of the Parthenon, and the site of
the grave of another early and probably legendary Athenian king, Cecrops.
637. The site, which towers above the rest of the city, had served as a center for Athenian life from
Mycenaean times, when a fortress was built on it.
638. The tragedies of the three great masters—Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides— not only
illustrate the development of contemporary thought but also contain some of the most memorable
scenes in the history of the theater.
639. Pergamum was founded in the early third century bce and reached the high point of its greatness
in the reign of Eumenes II (197–159 bce).
640. Agamemnon eventually (Book IX) admits that he behaved too highhandedly (although no formal
apology) and off ers Achilles, through intermediaries, generous gifts to return to the fi ghting and save
the Greek cause.
641. Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome, Italy//© Scala/Art Resource, NY Imperial Rome (31 BCE–476
CE) .
642. ARISTOPHANES AND GREEK COMEDY Euripides was not the only Athenian to realize the
futility of war.
643. Lysippus’s very individual characteristics—a new, more attenuated system of proportion, greater
concern for realism, and the large scale of many of his works—had a profound eff ect later on
Hellenistic art [Fig.
644. The word philosophy literally means “love of wisdom,” but in the Western tradition it usually
refers to inquiries into the nature and ultimate signifi cance of the human experience.
645. It is perhaps relevant to remember that when, almost two thousand years later, around 1600 ce, a
small group of Florentine intellectuals decided to revive the art of Classical drama, they succeeded
instead in inventing opera.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
646. The splendor of its conception and execution has survived the vicissitudes of time; the great
temple to Athena, the Par- .
647. Furthermore, the disadvantages of democratic government had become all too clear during the
last years of the fi fth century bce.
648. Like the Minoans, the Mycenaeans were familiar from Greek myths long before their material
remains were excavated.
649. Life must have been extremely comfortable at Pompeii, even though it was by no means the most
prosperous of the towns buried by Vesuvius.
650. However, their abrupt and violent end around 1100 bce was followed by a century of disturbance
and confusion that cut off the Bronze Age from the new world of the Iron Age.
651. The small Cupid at his feet connects the emperor to the legendary founder of Rome, Aeneas, who,
like Cupid, was a child of the goddess Venus.
652. Their kingdom was invaded and destroyed, and in a brief period of Neo-Sumerian revival the
principal religious monument at Ur, the Ziggurat, was built.
653. The consequences of this accomplishment were explored to the full in the Classical period.
654. The symbol of the goddess Venus, it connects Augustus and his family with Aeneas (whose
mother was Venus) and thereby with the origins of Rome.
655. First widespread use of Ionic order ARCHITECTURE Early music primarily vocal with
instrumental accompaniment; use of flute and simple lyre popular 7th cent.
656. Even direct contacts with the Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks—during the period between the
Assyrian occupation of 671–633 bce and Alexander’s conquest of Egypt in 331 bce—produced little eff
ect on late Egyptian art.
657. The science of law is one of the few original creations of Roman literature.
658. Thus confi dence in the power of both human reason and human selfknowledge was as important
as belief in the gods.
659. Our knowledge of Greek dance is limited to visual evidence.
660. More often, as in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King or Antigone, the chorus represents the point of
view of the spectator, rather than that of the characters participating directly in the events on stage; in
these plays the chorus reduces to more human terms the intense emotions of the principals and
comments on them.
661. 51 Visit the Culture & Values Companion website at Values7E and the Humanities Resource
Center for an array of primary source readings, key terms with pronunciations, fl ash cards, quizzes,
and study materials designed especially to help you do well in this course.
662. 81 Visit the Culture & Values Companion website at Values7E and the Humanities Resource
Center for an array of primary source readings, key terms with pronunciations, fl ash cards, quizzes,
and study materials designed especially to help you do well in this course.
663. Was it possible that the mythical palace of King Minos at Knossos also really existed? In 1894 the
English archaeologist Arthur Evans first went to Crete to see if he could discover something of its
history in the Bronze Age.
664. They had already begun to spread at the end of the fi fth century bce and came to dominate the
culture of the fourth century bce.
665. On March 23, 1900, serious work began at Knossos, and within days it became apparent that the
finds represented a civilization even older than that of the Mycenaeans.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
The important point is that the later greeks had a mythological picture of knossos as a prosperous and thriving community ruled by a powerful and ruthless king from his palace. The gods appear in the iliad and frequently play a part in the action, but at no time can divine intervention save achilles from paying the price for his unreasonable anger. The other is plato, who, together with his pupil aristotle, stands at the forefront of the whole intellectual tradition of western civilization. The art of the second half of the fi fth century bce, however, is more concerned with human achievement than with divine will. Roman copy after a bronze original of 429 bce. Its unities of time, place, and action, the inexorable drive of the story with its inevitable yet profoundly tragic conclusion, the beauty of its poetry all have made oedipus the king a true classic, in all senses.
