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35 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Classical:
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A term which is derived from classis and which means the elite. When we refer to them as “Classical” we're stating that they represent the very highest levels of achievements in many fields, such as philosophy and art. However the term also refers to the chief characteristics and principles of ancient Greek civilization.
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• Humanistic culture:
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• Humanistic culture: It is not an overstatement to credit the Greeks with the creation of history’s first truly humanistic society. One which placed a supreme value upon the individual and his effort and achievements.
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• Hellas:
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The term Greek, or the place Greece was not in the vocabulary of those gifted people. They refer to any place where Hellenes and their culture prevailed, rather than simply the Peninsula in the Mediterranean. Ancient Greek name for Greece.
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• Heinrich Schliermann:
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German businessman and archaeologist, and an advocate of the historical reality of places mentioned in the works of Homer. Schliemann was an important archaeological excavator of Troy, along with the Mycenaean sites Mycenae and Tiryns. The heroes and events of which Homer sang are 200-400 years before his time, and could not be sustained by archeological evidence until Schliemann
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• Epic Traditions:
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The creation of epic literature follows a pattern it begins with oral tradition which was not intended to be written down, and which is handed on from one generation to another. In the course of time details are lost, time is distorted, and some events are exaggerated.
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• Knossos, Phaestos, Mallia:
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The middle Minoan Period is the great age of this civilization and was characterized by the construction (and frequent reconstruction after earthquakes) of astonishingly beautiful places at these sites.
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• Place of Minos:
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at Knossos was clearly most magnificent and dominant legend It was said they “ruled the sea from that site. For Minoan prosperity was based upon the combination of an ideal location for trade and seafaring, fertile island, and nearly perfect climate.
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• Frescoes:
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any of several related mural painting types, done on plaster on walls or ceilings whose bright, colors certainly demonstrate the influence of Egypt. The style and themes however, much more naturalistic and lively than typical Egyptian art.
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• Marine Ware:
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Thin-shelled pottery, because of its design drawn from the sea, such as the apparently popular octopus.
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Mother Goddess
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Considered the most important worship. She was a mistress of animals, like Artemis or Aphrodite. Her portraits are identical to those of the noble ladies of Crete except for certain cult objects such as a sacred bird preached upon her head and snakes entwined around her arms.
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• Sacred Horns:
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Minoans also worshipped sacred bull in some fashion. Sacred Horns were found by Evans and restored. They played a strange and wonderful game of bull-leaping in which men and women seem to have vaulted over backs of charging bulls as entertainment and religious ritual.
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• Phaestos disk:
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Early scripts discovered at Phaestos in the form of Solitary round object upon which picture-symbols were stamped in spiral. Its oldest example of printing in the West. The pictures are of easily indentified objects but are not therefore easily made out.
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• Linear B:
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dates to the period from circa 1450 B.C to 1200 B.C. In the 1950’s two young English scholars, Michael Ventris and John Chadwich proved that the language of Linear B was an archaic form of Greek. Since that time several thousand Linear B tablets have also turned up on the mainland confirming the translation. It proves the presence of Greeks but doesn’t explain how they got to the crete.
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• Helladic:
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Earliest period of Greek history. Roughly corresponding with Early, Middle, and Late Minoan. From Circa 2500 B.C to 1150 B.C. Before any Greek speakers arrived in the peninsula Greece the region was populated by a peasant-type of culture which has left only a few traces in the form of some place-names and architectural remains.
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• Indo-European:
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Somewhere between 1900 and 1800 B.C a wave of destruction swept many parts of the Mediterranean and Near East which was apparently connected to the aggressive migrations by them.
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• Minyan Style:
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The only firm clue to the origin of the Greeks is supplied by their pottery which is closely resembles the pottery of Asia Minor (the Hittite).
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• Mycenaean:
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The came under the influence of Minoans, probably via commerce. Gradually they revealed culture which was in many ways a remarkable imitation of that of the Minoans.
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• Cyclopean Walls:
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Classical Greeks viewing the colossal remains of the walls of Mycenae were convinced that the legendary giant Cyclops had raised them, and as a result, they were known as cyclopean Walls. The stones employed.
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• Shaft Graves:
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enclosed in a circle of huge stones which contained obviously royal burials complete with extensive treasures.
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• Treasury of Artreus:
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the largest vaulted chamber ever to be discovered for such an early period measuring forty feet in height.
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• Wanax:
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Each center was ruled by a powerful king who controlled an army of paid professionals. Also a significant business class, such as is represented by the impressive house of wine merchants.
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• Dorians:
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Was one of the four major tribes into which the Ancient Greeks of the Classical period divided themselves. The Dorians are almost always simply referenced as just "the Dorians", as they are in the earliest literary mention of them in Odyssey, where they already can be found inhabiting the island of Crete.
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• Geometrics Style:
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is a phase of Greek art, characterized largely by geometric motifs in vase painting that flourished towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages, circa 900 BCE to 700 BCE. Its centre was in Athens, and it was diffused amongst the trading cities of the Aegean
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• Polis/ Poleis:
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-- is a city, a city-state and also citizenship and body of citizens. When used to describe Classical Athens and its contemporaries, polis is often translated as "city-state."
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• Amphyctiony:
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Greeks were settled throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea region in hundreds of township with no recognized political system. All that held them together was language, literature, and religion. They formed Amphyctiony, a religious alliance and brotherhood
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• Orientalizing Period:
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the last 2 centuries of the dark age the greeks came under strong influence of the East. An influence which is reflected in art such as sculptures and pottery, iron for tools and weapons and silver coinage.
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• Silver coinage:
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Silver coins are possibly the oldest mass form of coinage in recorded history. Silver has been used as a coinage metal since the times of the Greeks. Their silver drachmas were popular trade coins.
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• Laconia:
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Sparta’s history began with Dorian migrants to southern Greece circa 1000 BCE. The area they settled Laconia, in Peloponessos. It was fertile and watered by the Eurotas River. There seemed to have been as many as 4 towns that fused into one probably because of military potential.
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• Spartiates:
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known to the spartans as "peers", "men of equal status", “citizens”. From a young age, male Spartiates were trained for battle and put through grueling challenges intended to craft them into fearless warriors. To ensure their military readiness, Spartiate youths enrolled in military training from the age of seven onwards to thirty; the age of full citizenship.
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• Helots:
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Included some people from Laconia, and virtually all of Messenia. Enslaved populations tied to the land and owned by the Spartan state. They worked and lived on ancestral lands but posses few personal rights and were required to turn over to Sparta as much as one-half of their productions.
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• Dual Monarchy:
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Two royal families, Agidae and Europontidae, shared kingship, thus acting as check upon each other, preserving the institution in a weakened for. The honor of military and religious leadership went to the royal families.
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• Gerousia (Council of Elders):
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Shared power with the Two royal families holding the Dual Monarchy. They were a council of distinguished citizens over the age of sixty. The council numbered 28 and held office for life.
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• Apella:
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All males over the age of thirty were organized into a popular assembly which was actually a muster of the army since every male citizen was a soldier. The vocalized agreement or disagreement by shouting approval or disapproval. They had no right to make a proposal, they could just vote.
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• Oligarchy:
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A form of government in which power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, military might, or religious hegemony. Government of this type which are curious mixtures of forms are the result of an underlying conservatism which resists radical change.
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• Homoioi:
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Spartiates called themselves Homoioi, equal men or peers who share a sense of commin cause versus helots and perioikoi.
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