101-120 of 270 Results  for:

  • Greek Material Culture x
Clear all

Article

gift, Greece  

G. Herman

In the Homeric poems, gift-giving perhaps receives more attention than any other peaceful heroic activity. It has three outstanding features. First, gifts have an extremely wide range of functions. The word ‘gift’ (dōron) was, as Finley (see bibliog. below) puts it, ‘a cover-all for a great variety of actions and transactions which later became differentiated and acquired their own appellations…payments for services rendered, desired or anticipated; what we would call fees, rewards, prizes and sometimes bribes’ (and, we should perhaps add, taxes, loans, and diplomatic relationships). Secondly, gifts are often extremely valuable; those referred to include cattle, armour, women, and even entire cities. Thirdly, gifts are frequently given within contexts such as *marriage, *funerals, friendship, and ritualized friendship (see friendship, greece and friendship, ritualized), either to initiate or to perpetuate amiable relationships. The claim sometimes made in modern research (by Hooker, for example) that these features of gift-giving existed in poetical fantasy rather than in social reality is contradicted by the recurrence of these features in later non-poetical descriptions of gift-giving.

Article

glass, Greek  

Katherine A. Larson

Glassmaking has traditionally not been considered a major accomplishment of Greek craft, but new research and archaeological discoveries have established Greek contributions to the history of glass. While there is no single ancient Greek term for glass, the term ὕαλος (hyalos) refers to a transparent, hard, luminous material, such as glass or rock crystal. In the 6th century bce, core-formed glass perfume and cosmetic containers began to appear throughout the Mediterranean, particularly in funerary contexts and dedicatory assemblages. Later, colourless glass, cast in moulds and sagged over forms and often decorated with gilding or cutting, appears as a major technical innovation in the late 5th to early 4th century bce. Although no workshops have been found, Rhodes and Macedonia were likely important producers of these products.The Hellenistic period saw a gradual diversification of forms, expansion of colours, and experimentation with new techniques. Always important luxury trade goods, glass drinking vessels and small objects such as beads and gaming pieces become more accessible to a wider segment of the population by the beginning of the 1st century bce, an important prelude to the spread of glassblowing under the Roman empire.

Article

Glycon (2), Athenian sculptor, early 3rd cent. CE  

Andrew F. Stewart

Glycon (2) Athenian sculptor (early 3rd cent. ce), known from his signature on the Farnese Hercules in Naples, found in the baths of Caracalla. The statue is a version of a late 4th-cent. type often attributed to *Lysippus (2).

Article

Gnathia  

H. Kathryn Lomas

Gnathia (mod. Fasano), a Messapian port, 58 km. (36 mi.) south of *Barium, which dominated land and sea communications, handling trade with Greece. It prospered in the Hellenistic period, a phase characterized by proliferation of rich burials and Greek-influenced monumental architecture, and flourished until late antiquity. See pottery, greek (end) for ‘Gnathian Ware’.

Article

Gortyn, Gortyn law code  

Victor Ehrenberg, Lucia F. Nixon, and Simon Price

Gortyn was a city in central *Crete. From the 7th cent. bce are known a temple to *Athena on the acropolis, and one to *Apollo Pythios on the plain; an agora lies at the foot of the acropolis. By the 3rd cent. bce Gortyn was one of the most important cities on the island. It had conquered Phaestus, gaining an extensive territory and a good harbour at Matala in addition to the one at Lebena, and had entered into long-term hostilities with *Cnossus. After Cnossus had been captured by Q. *Caecilius Metellus (Creticus), Gortyn, which had sided with the Romans, was made the capital of the new province of Crete-*Cyrene. The well-preserved Roman-period city was extremely extensive (c. 150 ha.: 370 acres), and includes a large governor's residence (praetorium), baths, a circus, a theatre and amphitheatre, and seven Christian basilicas including one to Agios Titos (late 6th/early 7th cent. ce).

Article

Graeco-Persian style  

Michael Vickers

An amalgam of Greek and *Achaemenid Persian stylistic traits. The Persian conquest of Lydia and Ionia in the 6th cent. bce led to craftsmen from the west working for Persian patrons. A foundation tablet from the palace of *Darius I at *Susa attests the activities of Ionian and Carian masons and carpenters. *Theodorus (1) of Samos was commissioned to make a gold wine-mixing bowl for Darius' bedroom (Ath. 12. 515a), and a golden vine encrusted with emeralds and rubies that ‘grew’ over the Great King's bed is also attributed to him (Athen. 12. 514f; Himer.Ecl. 31. 8). Nothing on this scale survives in precious metal: some silver-gilt phialai, ‘libation bowls’ (one from *Rogozen), indicate the ways in which Persian motifs might be rendered by Greek or Ionian craftsmen. The degree to which monumental Achaemenid sculpture depended on Greek stylistic norms is uncertain; there may well have been a two-way traffic between the Greek and Persian worlds, and matters will be clearer when chronological issues are resolved. By the later 5th cent., there is a genre of Persian gem-engraving that is distinctively Greek in both form and content. In contrast with the formality of Achaemenid court art, ‘Graeco-Persian’ *gems display a range of motifs showing the home life of Persian aristocrats, their hunting activities, and their prey.

Article

graffiti  

Jacqueline DiBiasie-Sammons

Graffiti are informal, unofficial writings or drawings on surfaces not first produced for writing purposes, such as walls, pavement stones, rocks, and ceramics. Graffiti elucidate a great deal about life in the ancient world including topics such as social history, literacy, linguistic variation, sexuality, religious practices, and the use of space in ancient cities. These texts were composed in a variety of media: typically, they were scratched into the physical support, but paint, charcoal, and chalk were used as well. Graffiti have been found in many cities of the Greco-Roman world and in a variety of spaces including houses, tombs, religious spaces, and public areas. Since the texts were often inscribed or written on delicate surfaces such as wall plaster, only a small portion of the thousands that were once inscribed survive to the present.Graffiti (singular graffito) are informal, unofficial writings or drawings on surfaces not first produced for writing purposes, such as walls, pavement stones, rocks, and ceramics. A narrow definition of the word from its Italian root meaning “to scratch” only includes texts or drawings scratched into a hard surface such as plaster, stone, or marble. Because informal writings made with materials such as charcoal and chalk served the same purposes and were written in the same locations, and, in some instances, by the same authors as their inscribed counterparts, they are also included in the genre. The term graffiti, now used in English for writing of this sort from any era, was coined by .

Article

Greco-Roman architecture, reception of  

Elizabeth R. Macaulay

Since antiquity Greek and Roman architecture has been subject to diverse and complex receptions. Architectural forms have experienced different and wide-scale transformations across space and time, both in antiquity and in postantique contexts. These adapted forms have emerged because of the complex interactions between building traditions and contemporary needs.

At a fundamental level, architecture must be functional. It must work for the purpose for which it was designed, be it a temple, law court, or residence. Vitruvius endorses this view in De Architectura (I.2.5), the only surviving architectural treatise from Greco-Roman antiquity. At the same time, architecture has a unique ability to concretise ideas. Not only were there political, religious, economic, social, and ideological concepts associated with specific types of ancient buildings, but the architectural forms of the classical world have had a powerful range of resonances that postantique architects, patrons, and regimes have been only too keen to exploit. Classical architectural forms come with a lot of baggage.

Article

gymnasium  

Richard Allan Tomlinson

In Greek cities, the gymnasium originated as a place of exercise for the citizens specifically to fit the *epheboi for the rigours of service as *hoplites. At first no more than an open space, with a water supply, often sited in conjunction with a sanctuary or shrine, as late as the 5th cent. bce gymnasia seem not to have needed architectural development, shade and shelter being provided rather by groves of trees. Descriptions of the Athenian gymnasia, the Lyceum, Cynosarges, and above all the Academy conform with this (see athens, topography).Frequented also by older citizens, and particularly from the connection with the 4th-cent. philosophers, they became more intellectual centres. Though the element of exercise was never lost, the concept of education became more important. Some—those at Athens in particular—through the interests of the philosophical schools became in effect universities. More usually in the cities of the Hellenistic age they functioned as secondary schools. More specialized architecture was required, and the gymnasia became enclosed areas, their buildings arranged largely on the courtyard principle. The *Academy at Athens acquired such a courtyard, with shrine-building and fountain-house, but is badly preserved and not fully understood.

Article

haltēres  

Frederick Adam Wright, Robert Leslie Howland, and Stephen Instone

Haltēres were pieces of iron or stone used by Greek long jumpers. Shaped and gripped like modern dumb-bells, they normally weighed between 1.4 and 2.3 kilos (3–5 lb.). The long jump was a standing jump without a run-up: while holding the haltēres, the athlete would probably throw his arms forwards and upwards on take-off, and then downwards and backwards when in mid-air, hoping thereby to increase the distance of the jump (cf. Arist.

Article

harbours  

Philip de Souza

The earliest man-made harbour facilities in the Mediterranean region were the riverside quays of Mesopotamia and Egypt, for which records go back to at least the second millennium bce. Maritime installations probably began to appear around the Levantine coast in the early iron age, but the earliest securely datable harbour-works are the late 6th-cent. breakwater and ship-sheds of *Polycrates (1), tyrant of *Samos (Hdt. 3. 60). The development of specialized naval and merchant vessels, and a gradual increase in overseas trade, meant that quays and docks of increasing size and complexity were required in the Classical and Hellenistic periods.Early construction techniques made the most of natural features such as sheltered bays and headlands, as at *Cnidus. Exposed shores were protected with breakwaters and moles, like that at Samos. The development in Roman times of concrete which could set underwater enabled ambitious offshore constructions to be attempted, notably *Caesarea (2) in Palestine.

Article

Heraclea (2) by Latmus  

Antony Spawforth

Heraclea (2) by Latmus, a city of *Caria allegedly founded by *Endymion, on the slope of Mt. Latmus, c. 25 km. (15½ mi.) east of Miletus; in antiquity it stood at the head of an Aegean gulf gradually silted up by the Maeander to become (not before Roman times) a lake. The present city, laid out on a grid, is a refoundation, superseding Classical Latmus, the site of the last lying outside and east of the superb Hellenistic circuit-wall, which (on grounds of style) is unlikely to be pre-*Alexander (3) the Great. A recently discovered inscription dated between 323 and 313 bce (SEG 47. 156, treaty between Latmus and Karian Pidasa) shows that the city was still called Latmus at that time; it was probably refounded as a Heraclea by *Antigonus(1) Monophthalmos. The inscription is of great interest for its provisions about intermarriage. A Delphic inscription of c.

Article

Heraion  

Richard Allan Tomlinson

Sanctuary of *Hera. The most important are the Heraion of *Argos(1), and the Heraion of *Samos. Both are situated at some distance from the cities which controlled or dominated them. The Argive Heraion is at an important but abandoned late bronze age site, which may have influenced its selection; the Samian Heraion also may have had earlier significance. Both developed early, having peripteral temples by at latest the first half of the 7th cent. bce. These had stone footings, with wooden columns. Both sanctuaries include structures designed for the crowds of worshippers, particularly stoas from which to view the religious activities, and processional ways linking them physically and symbolically with the polis-centre. See sanctuaries.

Article

Hermogenes (1), Greek architect  

Richard Allan Tomlinson

Hermogenes (1), a Greek architect from *Alabanda in Caria (Vitr. De arch. 3. 2. 6). His date is a matter of debate, though a floruit c.170 bce seems probable. His chief works are the temple of *Dionysus at *Teos and the temple of *Artemis Leucophryene at *Magnesia(1) ad *Maeandrum, both in the Ionic order. From these, and from his books about them, *Vitruvius derived some of the principles of proportion included in his own book, even though the remains of the two temples do not exactly agree with the precepts he attributes to Hermogenes; nor was the octastyle pseudodipteral type of temple invented by Hermogenes as he states, though he revived its use. He also includes Hermogenes among those architects who objected to the use of the Doric order in sacred buildings because of the complications arising from the spacing of the triglyphs. This may result from the reconstruction of the Doric temple of *Asclepius at *Pergamum as an Ionic building after its destruction by *Prusias II in 156 bce.

Article

hippeis  

John F. Lazenby and P. J. Rhodes

In a number of Greek states the aristocracy was known as the ‘hippeis’ (e.g. *Eretria and Boeotian *Orchomenus(1); and cf. the ‘hippobotai’, of *Chalcis and, below, the Spartan élite (§ 3) and Athenian property class (§ 4)). Aristotle (Pol. 1297b17 ff., cf. 1289b36 ff. and 1321a8 ff.), while drawing attention to the fact that only the wealthy possessed *horses, seems to have thought that this was the basis of their political power, since their states depended upon cavalry in war. But although there is some evidence for cavalry in early wars, for example the 8th-cent. bce Lelantine War, it is doubtful whether many Greek states south of Boeotia really had powerful forces of cavalry in early times. No cavalry is mentioned in *Tyrtaeus, for example, and the Athenians notoriously had no cavalry at the battle of *Marathon, despite the existence of a class of hippeis.

Article

Hippodamus, of Miletus  

Richard Allan Tomlinson and Antony Spawforth

Hippodamus of *Miletus, was the most famous Greek town-planner. He was born probably about 500 bce. Ancient authorities speak of his nemēsis or allocation of sites. Towards the middle of the 5th cent. he planned *Piraeus for the Athenians, and boundary stones found there are probably evidence of his work (cf. R. Garland, The Piraeus (1987)). The agora there was known as the Hippodamian. In 443 he went with the colony to *Thurii and he may well have been responsible for its rectangular plan. *Strabo (14. 2. 9) records a tradition that the ‘architect of Piraeus’ planned Rhodes which was founded in 408 bce. Most modern authorities reject this on the ground that the date is too late for Hippodamus. Aristotle (Pol. 2. 5) speaks of Hippodamus' foppish appearance, and his political theories, and notes that he thought that the ideal size for a city was 10,000 (i.e. probably citizens).

Article

honey  

Robert Sallares

Honey (μέλι; mel), the chief sweetener known to the ancients, who understood apiculture (Arist.Hist. an. 623b5–627b22; Verg. G. bk. 4) and appreciated the different honey-producing qualities of flowers and localities. Thyme honey from *Hymettus in Attica was very famous, both for its pale colour and sweet flavour; Corsican, harsh and bitter; Pontic, poisonous and inducing madness (Dioscorides, Materia medica 2. 101–3). Honey was used in cooking, confectionery, and as a preservative. It was used in medicines, e.g. for coughs, ulcers, and intestinal parasites (Theophr. Hist. pl. 9. 11. 3, 18. 8). It had a very important role in religion, cult, and mythology. Its religious associations derive from the idea that it was a ros caelestis (‘heavenly dew’), which fell on to flowers from the upper air for bees to gather (Arist.Hist. an. 553b29–30). According to poets it dripped from trees in the *golden age (Ov.

Article

horse- and chariot-races  

Sinclair W. Bell, Jean-Paul Thuillier, and Carolyn Willekes

From the Olympian Games to the modern film Ben-Hur , horse- and chariot-races have proven a potent and enduring symbol of the agonistic culture of Classical Antiquity. Similarities did exist between Greek, Etruscan, and Roman cultures: equestrianism of all forms, due to the expense involved, had aristocratic overtones. But in contrast to the Greeks’ equal passion for mounted horse races and chariot racing, Romans strongly favored the latter, which they developed under the primary influence of the Etruscans and expanded into an empire-wide, professionalized industry.The horse was a significant status symbol in the Greek world, as in the Etruscan and Roman worlds.1 This was due in large part to the cost of purchasing and maintaining equines (see horses), as few regions in the Greek peninsula were suitable for large-scale horse breeding, with regions such as Thessaly and Macedonia being notable exceptions.2 The importance of the horse and horse breeding in Thessaly is evident from the frequent use of equine and equestrian iconography on coinage, including images of mares and foals, as well as horses in naturalistic poses (.

Article

houses, Greek  

Michael H. Jameson

Private houses of the Classical and Hellenistic periods were basically the same throughout the Greek world. Most rooms opened onto one or more sides of a small, rectangular courtyard, as did a doorway to the street, often preceded by a short passage. Windows were few and small and living areas were not visible from the street. An upper storey, reached by a ladder or, more rarely, a built stairway, was common but is often hard to detect. Construction was in mud-brick or rubble on stone socles. Interior walls were plastered and often painted simply, mostly in red and white. Floors were of beaten earth. In most houses, on the ground floor, one or two rooms with heavier floors and provisions for bathing, heating water, and cooking can be identified, but cooking could take place on simple hearths or portable braziers in any room or in the courtyard. The concept of the hearth and its goddess, *Hestia, symbolized the identity and cohesion of the *household (oikos) but formal, fixed hearths were not common, nor were *altars for domestic ritual.

Article

hunting  

John Kinloch Anderson

Epic heroes (see homer) hunt to fill their bellies or to rid the land of dangerous beasts (Hom. Od. 9. 154–48, 10. 157–63; Il. 9. 533–49). The boar is the most formidable antagonist; venison is highly valued; mentions of lions are problematic. Hunters go on foot, armed with spear or bow. In Greek Classical literature the educational value of hunting is emphasized (Pl. Leg. 822d; Xen.Cyn. 1), but hunting is still for the pot and the methods described in *Xenophon (1)'s Cynegeticus (Hunting Man) are often unsporting. These include the use of snares and foot-clogs and the beating of fawns so that their cries will draw their mothers within range. Hare-hunting receives special attention; the hunters, on foot, drive the hares into nets with the help of hounds. Hounds and nets are also used for boar-hunting; but the beast must ultimately be faced by men on foot armed with boar-spears. Opportunities for hunting on horseback are rare and generally to be found in the east (compare Xen. An.