Origins of Ancient Greece

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  • Carlin
    Senior Member
    • Dec 2011
    • 3332

    You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.

    1) Communities and Networks in the Ancient Greek World edited by Claire Taylor, Kostas Vlassopoulos

    "A large majority of these slaves seem to have been imported from non-Greek societies, from a wide variety of different places, with many coming from Thrace and the coast of Asia Minor. As a result of this use of imported slaves, if you count people, consider their place of birth and their native languages, Athens was a radically multicultural society."

    URL:
    This volume examines the diversity of networks and communities in the classical and early Hellenistic Greek world, with particular emphasis on those which took shape within and around Athens. In doing so it highlights not only the processes that created, modified, and dissolved these communities, but shines a light on the interactions through which individuals with different statuses, identities, levels of wealth, and connectivity participated in ancient society. By drawing on two distinct conceptual approaches, that of network studies and that of community formation, Communities and Networks in the Ancient Greek World showcases a variety of approaches which fall under the umbrella of 'network thinking' in order to move the study of ancient Greek history beyond structuralist polarities and functionalist explanations. The aim is to reconceptualize the polis not simply as a citizen club, but as one inter-linked community amongst many. This allows subaltern groups to be seen not just as passive objects of exclusion and exploitation but active historical agents, emphasizes the processes of interaction as well as the institutions created through them, and reveals the interpenetration between public institutions and private networks which integrated different communities within the borders of a polis and connected them with the wider world.


    2) Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity By Sarah Pomeroy

    "However, since the chief requirement of the citizenship law had been Athenian parentage on both sides, and citizenship had not been predicated on actual marriage, the relaxation of this law may imply that foreign women were now permitted to be mothers of Athenian citizens. ... Some Athenian men may well have preferred foreign women to Athenians."

    URL:
    "The first general treatment of women in the ancient world to reflect the critical insights of modern feminism. Though much debated, its position as the basic textbook on women's history in Greece and Rome has hardly been challenged."--Mary Beard, Times Literary Supplement. Illustrations.


    3) Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture By Jonathan M. Hall, Professor of Ancient Greek History

    "Apart from the metics, however, Athens had a large slave population - estimates vary between 20,000 and 150,000 - and since the overwhelming majority of slaves were non-Greek it is easy to understand why a derogatory attitude towards 'barbarians' could have taken root in Athens."

    URL:
    In today's cosmopolitan world, ethnic and national identity has assumed an ever-increasing importance. But how is this identity formed, and how does it change over time? With Hellenicity, Jonathan M. Hall explores these questions in the context of ancient Greece, drawing on an exceptionally wide range of evidence to determine when, how, why, and to what extent the Greeks conceived themselves as a single people. Hall argues that a subjective sense of Hellenic identity emerged in Greece much later than is normally assumed. For instance, he shows that the four main ethnic subcategories of the ancient Greeks—Akhaians, Ionians, Aiolians, and Dorians—were not primordial survivals from a premigratory period, but emerged in precise historical circumstances during the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. Furthermore, Hall demonstrates that the terms of defining Hellenic identity shifted from ethnic to broader cultural criteria during the course of the fifth century B.C., chiefly due to the influence of Athens, whose citizens formulated a new Athenoconcentric conception of "Greekness."


    ================================================== ==================================================

    Quotes from A History of Boeotia, By Robert J. Buck

    Summary:

    - Invasions & expulsions by fierce attackers, variously named Phlegyians, Pelasgi, or Thracians. Phlegyians were held to be of Thracian stock, while Thracians a Pelasgian people.
    - Presence in Classical Greece of Thracian cults, divinities, or Thracian traces in various cults, in Boeotia and Arcadia.
    - Thracian place-names, notably in Malis, Attica, Euboea and Arcadia --> simple explanation: presence of Thracians in these regions.
    - Memory survived of fights with invading Thracians, fights in Phocis, Boeotia, western Attica and Megara at times close to the Trojan War.
    - Thracians were believed to have maintained their grip for a time in Phocis and western Boeotia.

    URL:
    Robert Buck's history examines the archaeological record, takes a fresh look at what the ancients said about the Boeotians and at the references of classicists of more recent times, retells the legends, and reconstructs the history of the region from the heroic Bronze Age to the Pelopponesian War.
    Last edited by Carlin; 05-06-2018, 08:00 PM.

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    • Carlin
      Senior Member
      • Dec 2011
      • 3332

      "The Greeks of classical times were of mixed descent, spoke different dialects of a hybrid language, combined Olympian with chthonic cults and rituals ... and their traditions intermixed indigenous stocks, which were not Greek, with immigrant culture-heroes, pervasive Hellenes, migratory Dorians and Aeolians transposed and superposed on other kinds of Greeks." (1930: 531) -- John Myres, quoted in "Hellenicity".

      "The Historian's History of the World", by Ulrich von Willamowitz-Moellendorff:

      "[t]he umpires at the Olympian games are the first to apply the name of Hellenes to the nation - more exactly speaking, to the class. For here it has come to pass that, though politically divided into numberless cantons, though involved in perpetual feuds and irreconcilable local animosities, the members of this class recognise one another, intermarry, call a truce for the festivals, and find a common interest in maintaining their class supremacy against the encroachments of the lower orders [sic]." (1989: 67). See also Schaefer 1963: 283.

      The suggestion is arresting: the Olympic Games were originally restricted to a transregional community of aristocrats.

      Jonathan Hall's quote, page 227 of his book "Hellenicity" - Epilogue:

      The geography and history of the Greek peninsula long conspired to militate against the emergence of an overarching, transregional Hellenic consciousness. There is not the slightest evidence that Greeks of the Late Bronze Age recognized themselves as a singular ethnic entity nor - despite claims to the contrary - is there any compelling support for the notion that confrontation with indigenous 'others' on the periphery of the Greek world triggered a sense of Hellenic 'sameness' in the 8th century BC.

      The testimony suggests instead that Hellenic identity arose in the elite environment of the Olympic Games during the course of the 6th century and that it served both to cement alliances between ruling families of various regions and to promote the hegemonic claims of the Thessalians over their neighbours in central Greece.

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      • tchaiku
        Member
        • Nov 2016
        • 786

        Myceanean palaces:

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        • tchaiku
          Member
          • Nov 2016
          • 786

          Originally posted by Soldier of Macedon View Post
          If the Dorians brought the Hellenic language into the Peloponnese and Attica, a language that differed from the Pelasgian, that means the Mycenaeans could not be of the same linguistic origin as the Hellenes.
          Well Herodotus might not be correct regarding those events.

          Comment

          • Liberator of Makedonija
            Senior Member
            • Apr 2014
            • 1595

            Originally posted by tchaiku View Post
            Myceanean palaces:

            Am I the only one that thinks these resemble Egyptian architecture at first glance?
            I know of two tragic histories in the world- that of Ireland, and that of Macedonia. Both of them have been deprived and tormented.

            Comment

            • tchaiku
              Member
              • Nov 2016
              • 786

              Well ancient cultures had similarities between them. But when I think of Egypt I only see pyramids.

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              • Carlin
                Senior Member
                • Dec 2011
                • 3332

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u970yPtjLNA







                Last edited by Carlin; 05-19-2018, 12:28 PM.

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                • tchaiku
                  Member
                  • Nov 2016
                  • 786

                  Mycenaeans and Achaeans, comparison:

                  (1) Iron is practically unknown to tile Mycenaeans; the Achaeans are familiar with it.

                  (2) The dead in Homer are cremated; in Tiryns and Mycenae they are buried, implying a different conception of the afterlife.

                  (3) The Achaean gods are the Olympians, of whom no trace has been found in the culture of Mycenae.

                  (4) The Achaeans used long swords, round shields, and safety-pin brooches; no objects of such form appear in the varied Mycenaean remains.

                  (5) There are considerable dissimilarities in coiffure and dress.

                  Last edited by tchaiku; 06-02-2018, 03:57 PM.

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                  • tchaiku
                    Member
                    • Nov 2016
                    • 786

                    No shade, but that ape from The Lion King reminds me of Homer.

                    Last edited by tchaiku; 06-07-2018, 03:07 PM.

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                    • tchaiku
                      Member
                      • Nov 2016
                      • 786

                      The Hellenes did not believe that Cyclopean walls of Mycenae were build by men.
                      Last edited by tchaiku; 07-01-2018, 01:21 PM.

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                      • tchaiku
                        Member
                        • Nov 2016
                        • 786


                        .........
                        Last edited by tchaiku; 08-30-2018, 04:57 PM.

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                        • Liberator of Makedonija
                          Senior Member
                          • Apr 2014
                          • 1595

                          Wikipedia divides the ancient Hellenes into 4 divided ethnic categories:

                          Dorians, Aeolians, Achaeans and Ionians.

                          Yeah wikipedia pretty poor reliability for this time period, can anyone else expand on this?
                          I know of two tragic histories in the world- that of Ireland, and that of Macedonia. Both of them have been deprived and tormented.

                          Comment

                          • Carlin
                            Senior Member
                            • Dec 2011
                            • 3332

                            Originally posted by Liberator of Makedonija View Post
                            Wikipedia divides the ancient Hellenes into 4 divided ethnic categories:

                            Dorians, Aeolians, Achaeans and Ionians.

                            Yeah wikipedia pretty poor reliability for this time period, can anyone else expand on this?
                            J. Hall can:
                            In today's cosmopolitan world, ethnic and national identity has assumed an ever-increasing importance. But how is this identity formed, and how does it change over time? With Hellenicity, Jonathan M. Hall explores these questions in the context of ancient Greece, drawing on an exceptionally wide range of evidence to determine when, how, why, and to what extent the Greeks conceived themselves as a single people. Hall argues that a subjective sense of Hellenic identity emerged in Greece much later than is normally assumed. For instance, he shows that the four main ethnic subcategories of the ancient Greeks—Akhaians, Ionians, Aiolians, and Dorians—were not primordial survivals from a premigratory period, but emerged in precise historical circumstances during the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. Furthermore, Hall demonstrates that the terms of defining Hellenic identity shifted from ethnic to broader cultural criteria during the course of the fifth century B.C., chiefly due to the influence of Athens, whose citizens formulated a new Athenoconcentric conception of "Greekness."

                            Comment

                            • Liberator of Makedonija
                              Senior Member
                              • Apr 2014
                              • 1595

                              Originally posted by Carlin15 View Post
                              Unavailable to read.
                              I know of two tragic histories in the world- that of Ireland, and that of Macedonia. Both of them have been deprived and tormented.

                              Comment

                              • Carlin
                                Senior Member
                                • Dec 2011
                                • 3332

                                Originally posted by Liberator of Makedonija View Post
                                Unavailable to read.
                                Try a different browser.

                                Here are the first three pages of Chapter 3 (pages 56 - 58).







                                Below is from The Sons of Jacob and the Sons of Herakles: The History of the Tribal System ... By Andrew Tobolowsky
                                In this study, Andrew Tobolowsky offers a new approach to biblical descriptions of the tribes of Israel as the "sons of Jacob". He reveals how shifting assumptions about early Israelite history and the absence of references to Jacob in most accounts of the tribes make it unlikely that this understanding was part of early tribal discourse. Instead, drawing on extensive similarities between the role Jacob's children plays in the biblical narrative and the role that shared descent from figures such as Hellen and Herakles play in the construction of ancient Greek histories, Andrew Tobolowsky concludes that the "tribal-genealogical" concept was first developed in the late Persian period as a tool for the production of a newly integrated, newly coherent account of a shared ethnic past: the first continuous biblical vision of Israelite history from Adam to the fall of Jerusalem and beyond.



                                Now, check this out. Herodotus himself stated that in his time the Ionians were an ethnically heterogeneous population.

                                H. lists Abantes from Euboea (Aristotle states that the Abantes were Thracians from Abae in Phokis), Minyans from Orchomenus, Cadmeians, Dryopians, Phocians, Molossians, Arcadian Pelasgians, Dorians of Epidaurus.

                                Even "the best born of the Ionians", the Athenians, married girls from Caria. "Yet since they set more store by the name than the rest of the Ionians, let it be granted that those of pure birth are Ionians."



                                Last edited by Carlin; 10-06-2018, 09:32 PM.

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