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What’s a hero? A hero is someone who lived as mortals, but when they die they are left with strong, vivid spirits occasionally a god, like heracles, orpheus, aeneas, and Romulus (Aeneas and Romulus were mortal men who become gods after they died). Heros are figures that have the same divine and aristocratic origin that allows them to live in between the space of mortals and gods, we also think of heroes as performing extraordinary accomplishments specially military accomplishments and also identify with a particular city/state. They have a intermediate status association with glory, they also have things like Hero cults that are were people from the specific city/state that the hero is from come to give sacrifices because they thought to confer benefits (often associated with a local city-founders/lawgivers)
Hercules Hercules is an example of a hero who is the son of Zeus and Alcmene. Hercules was born after Zeus disguises himself as amphitryon to rape alcmene and hera swears lasting emnity towards Herakles and attempts to kill him as a baby. Megara is Heracles first wife and Heracles is driven mad by Hera and ends up killing her and his children under divine madness. Herakles has a second wife who he saves from the Centaur Nessus who was attempting to rape her. Heracles was a pa-hellenic hero who is associated with 12 labors that were performed at the service of king Eurrystheus. Heracles ascends to Olympus at his death and marries Hebe the goddess of youth. Heracles laborers were agricultural tasks, irrigation, hunting, wrestling, athletic contests, etc.
Homer Born in 850BCE Coast of Asian Minor or modern Turkey. Homer was suspected to be a blind person but attributed to works such as Iliad, Odyssey, Homeric Hymns Mock Epics. With this said the Homeric question was brought up and was pretty much asiking if the writings of the iliad/odyssey were written by the same person? Some people hypothesize that yes and other people say no because of the many contradictions found in the epics. Paris suggested that Homer was representative of an oral tradition that culminated in the words of the Odyssey and the Iliad. Aspects of the Homeric language style= the formula, the epic simile, and the grandiose action: heroes and gods.
The Quarrel between Achilles & Agamemnon Apollo sends a plague to punish Agamemnon for failing to ransom Khryseis. Achilles consults kalkhas (a priest) and demands the return of Agamemnon and Agamemnon demands a prize in return Brisie. Achilles withdraws from the army and seeks help from Thetis his goddess mother. In this case, it is also mentioned that in the argument between Achilles and Agamemnon, Achilles get heated up in the moment and is about to kill Agamemnon but Athena comes in and stops Achilles by grabbing him by his head. Achilles refuses to fight for the greeks and asks thetis to request aid from Zeus against the Greeks. Achilles also talks about how he and other people deserve to keep his property but Agamenomn being the stubborn king says that no it’s not fair and that he is the king so he should be able to stay with as many properties as he wants.
Honor & Status in the Iliad Time= “Honor” the social with that accrue to and individual / Klerus= “reputation, glory” The whole Iliad is not only because the beautiful girl was stolen from each other but also the honor and status each member in the story had and how they felt that their status was being threatened by each other. So in order to save their status and look better in front of everyone they all did what they had to do which is to fight each other and see who is the best in order to recover their own honor and status back. liad Book 6 The iliad book 6 talks about the battlefield after the gods leave and instead causes the Achaean forces to take an upper advantage to the Trojans. The Trojans end up retreating and realizing that their downfall is near but still decide to fight in the war against them. Book 6 focuses more on human relationships rather than the gods’ relationships besides that it also introduces Diomedes where he proceeds to fight against Glauko but soon they realize their grandfathers were friends and instead trade a token for respect of one another. the embassy to Achilles Book 9 and pretty much consists of the following people: Odysseus, Ajax & Phoenix. After Agamemnon realizes that stealing Achilles’ prize was a bad idea he sends him many gifts including letting him marry his daughter and the return of his prize but Achilles refuses.
Patroklos close companion to Achilles but was killed by Hektor after killing Sarpedon this triggered an inevitable “chain of death” after he set the stage for Achilles’ vengeance. Patroklos was known for being a great warrior, and stood by Achilles’ cause, he wore Achilles’ armor to support the Greek cause. Patroklos was consumed by the idea that he was too powerful and used to ignore the gods’ advice because he also felt powerful and unstoppable.
Vergil’s Aeneid The Aeneid is well known for being a mix of the Iliad and the Odyssey but Roman version. Vergil has a relationship with Maecenas who patronizes him and is a close ally to Augustus. After Vergils ends up bed bound due to a heat stroke and later dies he tells his friends to burn the Aeneid because he feels that is not good enough but instead his friends know that it was too good to let go and instead go ahead and keep his writings. Books 1-6 tell the story in a similar sense as the odyssey it could also be called the Aeneas’ Odyssey. It starts with Aeneas shipwrecked on a foreign shore and talks about his travels and even visits the Underworld during that time.
Aeneas Is known for being the main hero in the story of the Aeneid and descendant of Aphrodite.He was known for being a Trojan who escaped battle of Troy and his descendants are the ones who found the city of Rome. Throughout the poems one can see the different transitions from a Greek hero to a Roman one he has to deal with and fight back Juno’s (Hera’s) anger, because of protection of the city of Carthage, that will one day be overthrown by Rome. Aeneas manages to escape Troy by carrying his father on his back and his son by hand. Piety is the quality of being religious or reverent and Aeneas shows this by being the one who carries his dad and son out of the city and sets to take his household god and reestablish it at some place new. Piety was a very important Roman concept and this ideology expected citizens to display the correct disposition to a hierarchy of different obligations such as: owing reverence in every instance to the gods, demonstrate one’s unfailing devotion to Rome, and finally, demonstrate their obedience and respect towards their own families, specially their father.
Epic similes are known for comparing 2 things with this said an epic and homeric similes, it’s no longer just comparing one thing with another, there’s more to it and whatever is just in the front is not enough and one has to dive in more in order to understand better. Sometimes within an Epic Simile the two things that have been compared can juxtapose each other and aren’t always straightforward. Aeneid is just one of the comparisons to the iliad.
Dido, a widow who promised her dead husband that she would not remarry. She is also the Queen of Carthage, and the founder of Carthage. Venus intervenes and decides to send Cupid to Dido and make her fall in love with Aeneas. Cupid makes Dido fall in love with Aeneas by pretending to be Aeneas’ son, Ascanius. Later Venus joins forces with Juno to bring Aeneas and Dido together (marriage?) , and do so by causing a thunderstorm during a hunt. Anna is the sister of Dido and also is the one who persuades Dido to begin an affair with Aeneas to protect the city but Dido feels uncomfortable and starts to overthink later on Jupiter sends Mercury to Aeneas to urge him to abandon Dido but after finding out that Aeneas is going to live Dido, she sends Anna to try and stop Aeneas’ departure. Dido dies and then she swears to curse Aeneas’ heritage line and so she kills herself and Juno tries to make her suffer less after her passing.
Aeneid Book 4 “The Tragedy of Dido” and it can be divided into three tragic acts: The beginning of the affair with Aeneas (error) then the quarrel between Dido and Aeneas where she recognizes new information and knows that could backfire to her (recognition) and finally the dramatic climax of the affair ending where Dido kills herself and damns Aeneas (catharsis). On another note the fact Aeneid, Book 6 talks about Aeneas’ trip through the Underworld where he meets Sibyl and gets instructed to give funeral rites to an unburied companion and obtain a golden bough which he obtains not so easily and proceeds to travel to the underworld. The first person he sees is Dido who doesn’t talk to him at all and instead gives him the cold shoulder back in the underworld she has reunited with her dead husband. Then Aeneas finds his Father who gives him a tour of the underworld.
Classical Athens: Classical Athens (508-322 BCE) was a birth of innovation of democracy as the athenians had defeated the persians and so athens was able to change naval success into imperial success. There were tragedies and Athens was one of the places that thought that it was special as they thought they were the most civilized and educated state out there. When one looks at different tragedies they feel the need to have a different view when it comes to civilizing and educating different people.
Greek tragedy there is a chorus 12 to 15 men of the same status and there were 3 actors who played all the roles and wore masks (Masks with wide mouths to enhance acoustics) Soph Ajax chorus were a group of sailors under Ajax’s command messenger speeches usually the greek tragedy involves some sort of death and character with “tragic flaw”. Greek tragedy can also have two sides which could be either death and comedy but usually tragedy plays were performed under specific conditions with some generic expectations the characters in the tragedy play are usually not everyday people and instead depict Gods/Goddesses, kings, heroes, etc. They also use different language and in this case is elevated poetic language (not everyday language that everybody spoke)
Sophocles’ Ajax Ajax and Odysseus are competing for the arms of Achilles and then Odysseus ends up winning the arms and Ajax feels jealousy as he felt that the arms belonged only to him since he was the second best fighter in the greek war after Achilles. The way Odysseus won was with democratic votes and Ajax decided that he wanted to kill the leaders of the greek army. After Athena finds out of this plan she makes him go insane so that he is only able to kill animals. The first scene opens up and it shows the outside of ajax’s hut where he is just straight up murdering animals. Athena comes down and shows up to ajax and explains to him what is happening she leads Ajax outside of his hut to tell him that he had killed the leaders and filled with shame Ajax ends up commiting suicide. Odysseus the winner ends up visiting him in the underworld but is rejected by Ajax.
the dispute over Ajax’s body The dispute over Ajax body shows the character Menelaus believing that Ajax shouldn’t be buried and instead the body of Ajax should have the arms of Achilles as he was the second best warrior besides Achilles. Agamemnon on the other hand, believes Teucer should obey the majority as Teucer himself believes that the democratic state is based on free participation and diversity of different people, skills, and background. He also believes that once a verdict is reached to the head and later ignored then everything is meaningless and the idea of “what’s the point of democracy?” comes into play.
Dionysus Dionysus a god who is most often known as the god of sex and parties, but actually this god also represents the unconscious mind of humans that is constantly known for having irrational and emotional thoughts. He is also the god of wine, fertility, and theater and also associated with animals, plants, sexuality, and mystical transcendence.Dionysus followers are usually among the noisy crowd and include satyrs and maenads and are often depicted drunk. The Dionysian approach on things is the idea that one should approach different matters with emotions and wild ideas while the Apollonian approach is the opposite where it is based on reason and philosophy.
Euripides Bacchae known for being one of the youngest of the great Athenian tragedy writers. Bacche made a classical play that tells us the story of Dionysus’ invasion of the Greek city of Thebes. It starts where the main character Dionysus’ main rival is the king of Thebes and Pentheus another character who sees Dionysus as an outsider that only brings bad things to Thebes and also is the priest of a cult. Dionysus on the other hand is able to trick Pentheus into dressing as a woman to be able to seduce him to spy on his mom and her sisters. His mother and aunts with a clouded mindset go ahead and kill Pentheus. After the deed is done Dionysus comes out and reveals who he really is and punishes them.
Pentheus is known for being the king of Thebes and also the grandson of Cadmus. Pentheus is known for being a man of law and order, military, patriarch, and Pentheus is also known for being the opposite of Dionysus as he is more strict and Dionysus is more laid back when it comes to different situations. Emotions vs non emotions.
meta-theater in the Bacchae describes the different aspects of a play where their main goal is to gather the attention of different people to its nature of dramas or to the different circumstances of the plays performance. Includes cross dressing of men as women were not able to partake in different play because of society’s standards and also props tended to be heavy for women. Dionysus in this case is also known for being the character who drives the plot of the play and the development of the story.