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Notes on video lecture:
Herodotus and The Histories
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
naked, Anaximander, reliable, summons, himself, empire, your, looking, Gyges, personal, water, Ionian, country, criticize, quantity, tail, poet, Persia, buried, quality, Apollo, Candaules, Odyssey, air, hide, Bodrum, foreigners, interviews, substance, Miletus, cult, skeptical, rapport, Pythagoras, World, wealthy, power, travel, happiness, Biton, pattern, rash, Croesus, kill, Ionia, pyre, examination, penalty, Celtic, Solon, Persia, history, practical, happy
Herodotus (484-425 BC)
[hair-ODD-ih-tus]
invented the genre of               
born in Halicarnassus (today:             , Turkey)
we don't know much about his                  life
he comes up in his texts now and then but doesn't tell much about               
tells legends but none very                 
lived among the survivors and witnesses of the war against             
traveled quite widely
has a first-hand acquaintance with Greece,           , and even Egypt
intellectual influences that affected him
             philosophy
identified with a city on the central coast of Ionia:               
not to be confused with the Ionian Sea
Thales
one of the seven sages
natural philosopher
speculation of the basic substance of the cosmos:       
                       (610–546 BC)
student of Thales
his sudent was                     
basic element was the "immeasurable" the Apeiron [AP-er-on]
Anaximenes
student of Anaximander
basic element was           
an attempt to find out what is the basic                   
what is missing is the gods
rationalists
overtly                   
Xenophanes of Colophon
[zen-OFF-en-eez]
philosopher, theologian,         , and social and religious critic
lived a life of             , left Ionia
skeptic
Gods of Thracians are red haired and blue eyed while the gods of the Ethiopians are snub-nosed and black
if cows could depict their gods, they would have horns, hooves, and a         
Hecataeus (550–476 BC)
[hek-ah-TEE-us]
the first known Greek historian
one of the first classical writers to mention the              people
wrote: A Trip Around the           
actually a trip around the Mediterranean
examined customs of different peoples he encountered
Herodotus mentioned him but only to                    him
Herodotus was influenced by his prose writing
Homer
grand sweep of his narratives in the Iliad and the               
provides a model for story telling but Herodotus does something different with it
but none of these philosophers had much of a                    impact on the day to day practices of religion or believes in myth
The Histories
his great work
first sentences
Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry (histories), which mean "               into things"
not having a muse inspire you
conducting your own                       
questioning sources
so that human achievements may not become forgotten in time
histories not only of the Greeks, but                      as well
very open minded to other cultures
sources
traveled widely
first-hand                     
looking at things
Hecataeus
Homer
underlying tensions of East and West
says, "I know who first injured the Greeks"
King                (595–547 BC)
paradigm of what happens when people get           
Herodotus jumps back five generations to tell another story
King                   
had a beautiful wife
had a trusted courtier Gyges [GIGH-geez]
says that Gyges has to see his wife           
Gyges says it is against all customs
tells Gyges to          and watch her undress
Gyges succumbs to this persuasion
while Gyges is watching her, she sees him
she goes to bed, he slips out
next days she                him
you can          Candaules, marry me, and become king
or you can die
Gyges chooses the former
Herodotus says vengeance would come in the fifth generation after           
if there is an injury, there will be some kind of               , even if it takes five generations to work out
the fifth generation was King Croesus
King Croesus [KREE-sus]
spectacularly               
asks            who the happiest man in the world is
three have been happier than Croesus
Tellus the Athenian
had sons
his sons had sons who he lived to see
died fighting for his               
was given the honor of being              on the battlefield with a monument
Kleobis [KLEE-ah-bis] and            [BIGH-tawn]
painting by Nicolas-Pierre Loir (1624-1679)
brothers who died peacefully in their sleep when their mother prayed for their perfect                    after they had demonstrated filial piety by drawing her to a festival in an oxcart themselves
a hero          was established in their honor
a pair of statues was set up for them at Delphi
human life changes from second to second
"count no man happy until he's dead"
this interview with Solon is in the nature of the question "Which man is           ?"
Solon is a Greek, a lawgiver, emphasizes               
Croesus is Asian, a monarch, attention is fixed on                 
Croesus' son dies
Croesus decides to attack             
Croesus was fond of the God at Delphi
sent lavish gifts to this god of the Greeks
asks what will happen if I attack Persia
Oracle: you will destroy a great             
neglects to ask whose empire
attacks, driven back, captured in palace by Persian king Cyrus [SIGH-rus] (600-530 BC)
put on a funeral         
Cyrus repents to this Barbarism but flames are already too great
Croesus prays to             , god at Delphi
Apollo sends a rain shower down which quenches the flames
Croesus is rescued
Croesus and Cyrus establish a kind of               
Croesus becomes, as Solon had been, a wise adviser
Croesus asks Cyrus was are his men doing
sacking your city
no, they're sacking          city
Cyrus admires his wisdom
Herodotus sees Croesus as historical                that repeats itself: a ruler who
has enough
wants more
commits a          act
suffers consequences
Herodotus is intensely interested in the customs of other people

People:

######################### (624-546 BC)
[]
Regarded by Aristotle as the the first philosopher in the Greek tradition, first to define general principles and set forth hypotheses for which he is often referred to as the Father of Science, along with Democritus
  • attempted to explain natural phenomena without reference to mythology
  • almost all of the other Pre-Socratic philosophers follow him in attempting to provide an explanation of ultimate substance, change, and the existence of the world without reference to mythology
  • in mathematics, Thales used geometry to solve problems such as calculating the height of pyramids and the distance of ships from the shore
  • credited with the first use of deductive reasoning applied to geometry, by deriving four corollaries to Thales' Theorem (any angle inscribed in a semicircle is a right angle)
  • referred to as the first mathematician to whom a mathematical discovery has been attributed
  • pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from the city of Miletus on today's western coast of Turkey, he is was also known as one of the Seven Sages of Ancient Greece
######################### (1787-1849)
English painter, best known for his paintings of nudes
  • copied a great deal from the old masters in the National Gallery
  • 1816, traveled to Paris and Florence
  • 1822, made a longer trip to Italy
  • from his studies of the Venetian masters he acquired the excellence in color for which his works are chiefly known
  • 1824, returned to England where his "Pandora Crowned by the Seasons" was much praised
  • 1828 made a member of the Royal Academy
  • possessed a great charm of color, especially in the glowing but thoroughly realistic, flesh tints
  • he remains a neglected and underrated artist, one of the few nineteenth-century painters to paint classical subjects successfully

Spelling Corrections:

vengencevengeance
advisoradviser

Flashcards:

who were the 7 Sages of of Greece?
1. Cleobulus of Lindos ("Moderation is the best thing"), 2. Solon of Athens ("Keep everything with moderation"), 3. Chilon of Sparta ("You should not desire the impossible"), 4. Bias of Priene ("Most men are bad"), 5. Thales of Miletus ("Know Thyself"), 6. Pittacus of Mytilene ("You should know which opportunities to choose"), 7. Periander of Corinth ("Be farsighted with everything")
what did Anaximander consider the basic element?
Apeiron [AP-er-on], the "immeasurable"

Ideas and Concepts:

Seven quick wisdom tips from the Seven Sages of Ancient Greece via this morning's Ancient Greece class: "1. Cleobulus of Lindos ("Moderation is the best thing"), 2. Solon of Athens ("Keep everything with moderation"), 3. Chilon of Sparta ("You should not desire the impossible"), 4. Bias of Priene ("Most men are bad"), 5. Thales of Miletus ("Know Thyself"), 6. Pittacus of Mytilene ("You should know which opportunities to choose"), 7. Periander of Corinth ("Be farsighted with everything")"
From perhaps the earliest religious relativist, Xenophanes (500 BC), via this morning's Ancient Greece class: "Mortals think that the gods are born and have the mortals' own clothes and voice and form. But if cattle and horses and lions had hands or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do, horses like horses and cattle like cattle also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies of such a sort as the form they themselves have."
Greek geographical clarification of the day via this morning's Ancient Greece class: "Ionia was the name collectively given to a set of Greek cities of the coast of Asia Minor and nearby islands that were settled initially by Ionians, originally migrants who came from the Greek mainland across the Aegean Sea on the other side of the Greek mainland. In fact, while today, the sea below the Adriatic Sea is called the Ionian Sea and contains the Ionian Islands off the West Coast of Greece, the historical terms "Ionia," the "Ionian Cities," and "Ionian Philosophy" always refer to the west coast of modern day Turkey, a collectoin of cities which were spread over the provinces of Caria and Lydia and included, from south to north, the Carian cities of Miletus (the leading city of Ionia), Myous and Priene, the Lydian cities of Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedus, Teos, Clazomenæ and Phocæa, plus Samos and Chios on the islands of the same names, and Erythræus on the mainland facing Chios. In the 6th and 5th centuries BC, Ionia was the birthplace of philosophy, giving the world many of the most famous so-called Presocratic philosophers:Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, collectively called the Milesians (from Miletus), Heraclitus (from Ephesus), Pythagoras (from Samos), Xenophanes (from Colophon), Anaxagoras (from Clazomenæ)."
Hesiod's Creation Myth: Theogony
The Spartan Way of Life
600 BC Tyrants and Sages: Cypselus and Periander
800-700 BC: Athens Before Solon
Solon Against Political, Economic, and Moral Decline
Peisistratos: Tyranny and Civic Identity
The End of Athenian Tyranny and the Democratic Revolution
508 BC: The Democratic Reforms of Cleisthenes
Herodotus and The Histories
The First Persian War and the Battle of Marathon
Themistocles, Silver, and Greek Naval Policy
Xerxes and the Second Invasion of Greece
The Delian League
From Delian League to Athenian Empire
Pericles: Aristocrat, Orator and Democratic Citizen
Sophocles' Antigone: Tragedy and Athenian Civic Life