Terms Lectures 1-7: Semester 2

Front 1

Locris:

Back 1

City on the Greek mainland, north-west of Athens.

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Ajax the Locrian:

Back 2

Greek soldier (aka ‘the lesser Ajax’) who raped Cassandra at a shrine of Athena. Punished for this, and for boasting that he got away with it, by the gods.

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Astyanax:

Back 3

Infant son of Hector and Andromache. Murdered during the fall of Troy.

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Cassandra:

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Trojan priestess of Apollo. Raped by Locrian Ajax at shrine of Athena. Prisoner of war/slave taken by Agamemnon, who brought her back to Mycenae. Murdered by Clytemnestra. Possessed gift of prophecy, but no one ever believed her prophetic sayings.

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Chalcas:

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Greek seer, who made the prophecy that Troy would not fall without Neoptolemus and the bow of Heracles (possessed by Philoctetes)

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Laocoön:

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Trojan priest, who warned against bringing the Trojan Horse into the city. Threw his spear at it, and sea serpents came out of the ocean, proceeding to kill him and his sons. Trojans took it as punishment for harming the horse, but it was (we are told) punishment for having marital intercourse within Poseidon’s holy precinct.

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Neoptolemus:

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Son of Achilles. Killed Priam, Polyxena, and Astyanax, and took Andromache as a prisoner of war/slave. Punished by the gods for his crimes with death, at Delphi.

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Odysseus:

Back 8

You know who this is.

Front 9

Philoctetes:

Back 9

Greek soldier who was abandoned on the island Tenedos. Injured leg from the bite of snake. According to prophecy, needed for the fall of Troy, along with the bow of Heracles.

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Polyxena:

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Trojan princess, a daughter of Priam. Slaughtered as a sacrifice over the tomb of Achilles.

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Telamonian Ajax:

Back 11

Greek hero, the Greater Ajax. Major player in the Iliad, and competed with Odysseus for Achilles’ armor. Committed suicide after a) not getting the armour and b) accidentally murdering sheep instead of his comrades.

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Telemachus:

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Odysseus’ son. Leaves Ithaca to go searching for his missing father.

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Nostos:

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Greek for ‘journey home’ or ‘poem about a journey home’; a particular kind of ancient epic that details a hero’s return home, including wondrous or impressive adventures, and (often) his re-integration into his community.

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Palladium:

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statue of Athena, which, as the story goes, had to be stolen from Troy before the city would fall. Odysseus, in some versions with Diomedes’ help, pilfered it from the city.

Front 15

Scheria:

Back 15

The land of the Phaeacian people, whom Odysseus first encounters in Book 6.

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Calypso:

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A nymph, on whose island Odysseus remains for 7 years until Hermes bids her to release him.

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Demodocus:

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Blind poet/bard who sings songs for the Phaeacians.

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Penelope:

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‘Queen’ of Ithaca, mother of Telemachus, wife of Odysseus.

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Phaeacians:

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People who are halfway between the supernatural world in the Odyssey and the human world. Host and help Odysseus, and send him back to Ithaca.

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andra:

Back 20

Greek word for ‘man’; the first word in the Odyssey, which immediately reveals the topic.

Front 21

Dactylic hexameter:

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Style of epic poetry, in which a line is formed from 6 basic units of syllables: long- short-short (in general. In practice, many syllabic variations exist).

Front 22

metis:

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Greek word for ‘cunning intelligence’. Odysseus is a famous possessor of metis, which contributes to his wily tricks and carefully-plotted stratagems.

Front 23

polytropon:

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a Greek word meaning ‘much-turning’; in the first line of the Odyssey, it refers both to Odysseus’ intelligence and to his adventures.

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Dorian Invasion:

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theory first proposed by Karl Ottfried Müller; attributes the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces to an invading horde of barbarians from the north; based largely on mythological (the ‘Return of the Heracleidae’) and linguistic (Doric dialect) evidence; proponents attribute the appearance of ‘novel’ features in the archaeological record (e.g. ‘Naue II’ swords; ‘Barbarian’ Ware pottery; iron technology; cremation) to these Dorians, but these connections are dubious at best

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earthquake storm:

Back 25

theory proposed by Amos Nur and Eric Cline; attributes the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces to a series of related earthquakes that struck across the Eastern Mediterranean and precipitated the collapse of the Hittite Empire and the Egyptian New Kingdom as well; does not explain why the Mycenaeans didn’t rebuild Sea Peoples: loose

Front 26

Sea Peoples:

Back 26

loose conderacy of seafaring raiders who attacked the Nile Delta during the reigns of Merneptah and Ramses III and whose actions are recorded in Egyptian imperial art; some (e.g. John Chadwick) believe they were the cause of the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces, and similar destructions throughout the Near East; others belief refugees from the Mycenaean world membered amongst them

Front 27

systems collapse:

Back 27

theory proposed by numerous scholars (e.g. Colin Renfrew, Joseph Tainter) that attributes the collapse of the Mycenaean world to inherent critical flaws in its palatial system (e.g. over centralisation, over specialisation, top-heavy political structure); these flaws were exposed by a series of factors (e.g. overpopulation, crop failure, peasant uprisings, internecine warfare, shifts in international trade routes) that combined to cause the entire social, political, economic, religious system to collapse

Front 28

Medea:

Back 28

In Greek myth, an archetypal ‘bad woman’ and sorceress; an Eastern woman who married into a Greek family, but killed her children.

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Polyphemus:

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The name of the Cyclops, whom Odysseus pokes with a sharp stick in the Odyssey.

Front 30

dike:

Back 30

Greek term for ‘justice’, which can incorporate ‘divine justice’. In the Odyssey, divine justice is presented as punishment from the gods for human mistakes or wrongs, not divine malignancy.

Front 31

Oikos:

Back 31

Greek term for the ‘house’ and ‘household’, which includes not only the family members (and household slaves), but also the physical building of the home, its property, and its goods.

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xenia:

Back 32

Greek term for ‘guest-friendship’, denoting a cultural practice in the Archaic period, especially among elites, whereby any stranger at the door was also a guest, who would be wined and dined and offered shelter. The system is one based on reciprocal hospitality, since the guest must be gracious, and must also later offer hospitality to his own former host when that host is, in turn, visiting.

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Nausicaa:

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Phaeacian ‘princess’; daughter of Arete and Alcinoos. Discovers Odysseus on the shore in Scheria, after he is shipwrecked. Vaguely interested in marrying him, but Odysseus does not linger.

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epinetron:

Back 34

Greek term for a knee-covering used particularly in textile production.

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kyrios:

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Greek term for the ‘master of the house’ and head of the oikos. A legal guardian over children and women under his care. Particularly common term in the late Archaic period onward, though prior to this the term basileus for the head of the household was more appropriate.

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Antony Andrewes:

Back 36

1910-1990; British scholar who specialised in the field of Greek history; in his Greek Society (1967), he argued that the social and political practices described in Homer are so internally consistent that they must reflect an actual historical (i.e. non-fictional) system that existed in the 12th or 11th centuries B.C.

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Moses I. Finley:

Back 37

1912-1986; American scholar who specialised in ancient economics; in his The World of Odysseus (1954), he argued that the social and political practices described in Homer are so internally consistent that they must reflect an actual historical (i.e. non-fictional) system that existed in the 10th or 9th centuries B.C.

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Hilda L. Lorimer:

Back 38

1873-1954; British scholar who specialised in the field of Homeric archaeology; in her Homer and the Monuments (1950), she argued that there was no such thing as ‘Homeric’ society, but rather that the material culture presented in Homer’s poems was an amalgam of material drawn from different periods

Front 39

Anthony M. Snodgrass:

Back 39

b. 1934; British archaeologist who specialises in the archaeology of the Iron Age; in his The Dark Age of Greece (1971), he argued that there was no such thing as ‘Homeric’ society, but rather that the Homeric social and political system (e.g. marriages) was an artificial amalgam of widely separated historical periods

Front 40

basileus:

Back 40

Greek term that has changed meaning since the Late Bronze Age; in the Mycenaean era, basileus appears to have been an official title in the palatial administration; in the Iron Age, basileus describes the heads of noble, aristocratic households (e.g. Odysseus, Agamemnon, Priam); and in the Classical Period and later, it simply means ‘king’

Front 41

bride price:

Back 41

anthropological term for a social institution in which a bride’s suitor gives gifts to her family for the priviledge of marrying her, as for example Eumaeus describes to Odysseus (Odyssey XV.366-367)

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dower:

Back 42

anthropological term for a social institution in which a bride’s suitor gives gifts directly to the bride to entice her to marriage, as is perhaps described by Athena to Telemachus (Odyssey XV.17-20)

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dowry:

Back 43

anthropological term for a social institution in which the family of the bride gives gifts to her suitor to entice him to marry her, as for example Athena describes to Telemachus (Odyssey I.277); cp. the modern practice of the bride’s family paying for the wedding

Front 44

oikos:

Back 44

Greek term loosely translated as ‘house’ or ‘household’; the basic social unit of Greek society, incorporating both the social (the head of the household, his immediate [and sometimes extended] family, the servants and slaves in his employ) and physical (the house [doma], with its public rooms [megara], private rooms [thalamoi], and hearth [eschata]; the courtyard [aule]; and the surrounding lands) aspects of ‘house’

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polis:

Back 45

Greek term loosely translated as ‘city-state’; describes the dominant socio-political system in Greece in the Archaic and Classical Periods; can be used in a geo-political (i.e. the urban centre and its surrounding lands), political (i.e. the principal community of the state), and ideological (i.e. the state and its citizens) sense

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Eratosthenes:

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ca. 276-195 B.C.; Greek geographer, mathematician, astronomer and poet from Cyrene in Africa who believed that Odysseus’ voyage was purely fantastical in nature

Front 47

Ernle Bradford:

Back 47

1922-1986; British historian who spent 30 years sailing his yacht around the Mediterranean Sea; in his book, Ulysses Found (1963), he argued that Odysseus’ voyage was a literary reflection of contemporary Greek explorations around the Mediterranean during the age of colonisation (e.g. the Lotus Eaters lived in Libya, Cyclops lived on Mount Etna, Circe lived on the Italian coast, Scylla and Charybdis represented the treacherous waters of the Straits of Messina, and Calypso lived on Malta)

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George Fowler:

Back 48

retired engineer from Nova Scotia who presented a paper in 1997 in which he argued that Odysseus and his men sailed into the Atlantic, were carried westward to North America, and followed the Gulf Stream up to the Bay of Fundy, where his adventures in Books IX to XII took place (e.g. Charybdis is a series of whirlpools off Cape Split, Calpyso lived on Grand Manan Island, and the Cattle of the Sun were moose)

Front 49

Gilbert Pillot:

Back 49

French pilot and sailor who, in his The Secret Code of the Odyssey, argued that Odysseus’ voyages were centered in the North Atlantic (e.g. the Laestrygonians lived in Scotland, Circe lived in the Hebrides, Charybdis is the Corryvreckan Whirlpool, and Calypso lived on Iceland)

Front 50

Iman Wilkens:

Back 50

Dutch economist who published Where Troy Once Stood (1990), in which he argued that the ‘real’ Troy was located in the Gog Magog Hills, north of London, England, and that Odysseus’ voyages took him to the coast of West Africa (where the Lotus Eaters and Cyclops lived) and the Caribbean Sea (where the Laestrygonians and Circe lived)

Front 51

Tim Severin:

Back 51

b. 1940; British historian, author and explorer who tried to reconstruct the routes taken by different legendary travellers; in his The Ulysses Voyage (1987), he argues that Odysseus’ voyage is confined to the waters around the Aegean (e.g. the Lotus Eaters lived in Libya, the Cyclops lived on Crete, Aeolus lived on Antikythera, and Circe lived on Paxos