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Article

markets and fairs, Greek  

David Tandy

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy

The single Greek word for market, agora, did not originally refer to a place for exchange; rather, it was a place for the gathering of chattel (as early as Linear B, e.g., Knossos Co 903) and of people. In Homer, the agora is strictly a place of gathering for political action, including military muster. The heroes in epic do not buy and sell; there are no regular markets for the acquisition of food and other necessary things. Heroes take what they want from neighbouring communities by raids. On the fringes of the narratives, however, Homer reveals the presence of one-time or spot markets, most clearly at Iliad 7.467ff.:

Many ships from Lemnos filled with wine lay at anchor, which Jason’s son Euneos had sent … On the side Jason’s son gave the Atreidae Agamamnon and Menelaos a thousand measures of wine to carry off. There the flowing-haired Achaeans got wine, some with skins, others with whole cows, others with spear-captives. And they threw themselves a jolly feast.

Article

Arcado-Cypriot dialect  

Albio Cesare Cassio

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
17 December 2020
Subjects:
  1. Linguistics
In spite of being spoken in areas so far away from each other, Arcadian (written in the Greek alphabet) and Cypriot (written in a special syllabary) were two closely related ancient Greek dialects, hence the modern appellation “Arcado-Cypriot.” They descended directly from Mycenaean, some archaic vocabulary is unique to Homer, Mycenaean, and Arcado-Cypriot, and various other features set them apart from all the other Greek dialects.Arcado-Cypriot is a modern name used for two ancient Greek dialects, Arcadian and Cypriot, which share in a number of peculiarities—both archaisms and innovations, the latter being of central importance for the reconstruction of an earlier Arcado-Cypriot unity (which was not recognised in antiquity). Obviously, beside numerous similarities, there are remarkable differences between Arcadian and Cypriot.It is likely that both dialects, neither of which seems to have given rise to literary texts, descend directly from Mycenaean, hence the frequently used label of “Achaean” dialects. In archaic and classical times Arcadian was spoken by a population inhabiting central .

Article

Sophocles (1), Athenian tragic playwright  

P. J. Finglass

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
Sophocles was one of the three great masters of the genre of Greek tragedy. His life spanned the 5th century bce, and saw him compose approximately 123 dramas, while simultaneously occupying a series of important offices within the democratic state of ancient Athens. His plays demonstrate a mastery of dramatic technique, as well as of the resources of Greek poetic language; driven by a restless searching for innovation, they confront viewers with profound questions about a man’s, or woman’s, position within their city, and the often turbulent nature of their relationship with the gods. The fascination that his dramas exerted on succeeding generations has ensured their survival down to our own day, where their ongoing cultural influence can be documented around the world.Sophocles’ life (497/6–405bce) spanned almost the whole of that century of Athens’s history that later generations would call classical; the enduring reputation of his dramas (see .

Article

Themisto  

Herbert Jennings Rose

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Myth and Religion

Themisto, name of several heroines, the only one of importance being the daughter of Hypseus (Nonnus, Dion. 9.305 f.), wife of *Athamas. Herodorus (schol. Ap. Rhod. 2.1144), makes her his first wife and mother of several children, including Phrixus and Helle.

Article

Diodorus (3), Diodorus Siculus, author of the Bibliothēkē, before 90 BCE–after 30 BCE  

Mario Baumann

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Greek Literature
Diodorus (3) of Agyrium, Sicily (hence “Diodorus Siculus”) is the author of the Bibliothēkē (‘Library’), a universal history whose scope spans (a) the time from the beginning of mankind to Diodorus’ own day and (b) the space of the entire inhabited world. Diodorus worked on the Bibliothēkē from c. 60 to c. 30 bce. His main technique is the compilation of existing historical writings. He compiled existing historical writings and organised the vast material into two narrative structures: a space-centred and a time-centred one. Key topics treated in the Bibliothēkē are paradoxography, great men and women, emotions, and technical achievements. By focussing on these aspects, Diodorus not only captivates and engrosses his readers, but also enables them to learn from his all-encompassing history.There are very few testimonies on Diodorus (3) outside of his Bibliothēkē, and even these external sources derive their information from his work. For that reason, every reconstruction of Diodorus’ biography deals with the text itself, especially with the main proem at the beginning of the .

Article

Myrrha  

Alan H. Griffiths

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Myth and Religion
Myrrha, or Smyrna, or Zmyrna, legendary Levantine beauty who conceived an incestuous passion for her father (Theias of Assyria or *Cinyras of Cyprus) and, consequently, *Adonis; she was transformed into a tree whose bark weeps the eponymous *myrrh. See Ov.Met. 10.298 ff. (no doubt influenced by the lost poem of the neoteric C.

Article

Pyramus and Thisbe  

Stephen J. Harrison

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Myth and Religion
Pyramus and Thisbe are the hero and heroine of a love story mainly known from Ovid, Met., 4. 55–165. They were next-door neighbours in Babylon, and, as their parents would not let them marry, they talked with each other through a crack in the party wall between the houses. Finally, they arranged to meet at Ninus’s tomb. There Thisbe was frightened by a lion coming from its kill; she dropped her cloak as she ran and the lion mauled it. Pyramus, finding the bloodstained cloak and supposing Thisbe dead, killed himself; she returned, found his body, and followed his example. Their blood stained a mulberry tree, whose fruit has ever since been black when ripe, in sign of mourning for them. The story is likely to be derived to some degree from Hellenistic sources, according to which the two lovers may have been transformed into a river and a stream, and can be linked with the eastern Mediterranean and the river Pyramus in Cilicia. Ovid’s narrative, told by the daughters of Minyas who show stereotypically ‘feminine’ romantic interests in Roman terms, may draw on a lost Greek novelistic source, as well as taking elements from the plots of new comedy (young neighbours in love). Ovid’s narrative is highly popular in art, especially in Pompeian wall paintings; it is notably picked up by Shakespeare in the 1590s, in comic form as the subject of the parodic play of the rude mechanicals in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and in tragic form in its adaptation in the suicides of the protagonists in Romeo and Juliet.

Article

Stasinus, of Cyprus, poet  

Martin Litchfield West

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature

Poet sometimes named as author of the Cypria (see epic cycle). *Pindar (fr. 265 S.-M.) already knew the story that *Homer gave Stasinus the poem as a dowry. The tale served to reconcile alternative ascriptions.

Article

Cumae  

Matteo D'Acunto

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
Cumae was an early Greek colony that was established by the Euboeans (c. 750 bce), conquered by the Campanians (421 bce), and subjected to the rule of Rome (from 338 bce), benefitting from an enduring prosperity throughout the Imperial period. An important city of ancient Italy, Cumae’s economy was based mainly on agriculture and commerce. During the Campanian and Roman periods, it preserved Greek-rooted cults and traditions even as it adopted first Oscan and then Latin languages and customs.Cumae (Greek Kymē; Latin Cumae; modern Cuma), Euboean colony, founded c. 750bce, 16 km (10 mi.) northwest of Naples (Neapolis). It was an important city of ancient Italy during the Greek, Campanian (Samnite), and Roman periods; in the Medieval period it became a castrum (military fortification).The ancient settlement lies on the coast north of Cape Misenum in the region called the Phlegraean (“Fiery”) Fields due to its volcanic activity. The acropolis of Cumae is a rocky spur and in antiquity was a headland protruding into the sea. A north–south ridge, known as Monte Grillo, lies .

Article

Thessaly  

Bruno Helly

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
Thessaly, region of northern Greece, divided into the four tetrades (districts) of *Thessaliotis, *Hestiaeotis, *Pelasgiotis, and *Phthiotis, along with the so-called perioecic regions (see perioikoi) of Perrhaebia (see perrhaebi), Magnesia, Achaea Phthiotis, and Dolopia. Comprising two vast plains divided by the modern Revenia hills, Thessaly is enclosed by mountains (notably *Olympus(1), *Ossa, *Pelion, Othrys, and Pindus) which, far from forming obstacles to communication with neighbours, are pierced by valleys and passes with the generic ancient name of tempē (cf. tempe), by which, in all periods, travellers, merchants, and armies have reached the Thessalian plains. Thessaly has access to the sea only by the gulf of *Pagasae, with its two neighbouring ports, the one in the bay of Volos, in antiquity successively Iolcus, Pagasai, and *Demetrias, and the other in the bay of Halmyrus (Pyrasus, or Demetrieum, absorbed c.

Article

reciprocity, Greek  

Tazuko Angela van Berkel

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Philosophy

Reciprocity is a modern concept used in classical scholarship to denote the principle and practice of voluntary requital, both of benefit-for-benefit (positive reciprocity) and of harm-for-harm (negative reciprocity). The concept originated in the discipline of economic anthropology, but has been fruitful in the analysis of social, erotic, financial, political, and religious life in the Greek world. As a principle, reciprocity structures the plot of Homeric epics and Attic tragedy. It is also a phenomenon reflected on in diverse genres: its political meaning is explored in Homeric depictions of leadership crises and in Xenophon’s leadership theory. Presocratic cosmologies and early Greek historiography experiment with reciprocity as an explanatory principle. Attic tragedy and moral philosophy expose the implications and shortcomings of the ethical norm of reciprocity.

Reciprocity is a modern concept used in classical scholarship to denote the principle and practice of voluntary requital.1 Although the principle applies to both the requital of benefit-for-benefit (positive reciprocity) and of harm-for-harm (negative reciprocity, for instance revenge or retaliation), most debate has focused on positive reciprocity as an economic and interpersonal principle. The underlying intuition, that giving goods or rendering services imposes upon the recipient a moral obligation to respond, appears to be a universal.

Article

officials, Greek, accountability of  

Pierre Fröhlich

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 August 2017
Subjects:
  1. Greek Law
From the end of the Archaic era to the end of the Hellenistic period, all officials of Greek cities were required to render their accounts (euthynai) through procedures, which varied according to political regimes and times. Most of the time a board of controlling officials examined the accounts. This examination would take place at the end of the officials’ terms of office, but sometimes a partial examination took place during the terms. The controlling magistrates could initiate prosecutions against officials. In democracies, ordinary citizens could also sue magistrates in court. The procedure for holding officials accountable is called euthynai (correction) in the ancient sources. Many literary texts and epigraphic sources show the importance of the practice, particularly during the Classical and the Hellenistic periods. It was one of the most important features of civic institutions. From the End of the Archaic Period onwards, the Greek cities took a series of measures to prevent abuses of power by officials: accountability was only one of these measures. In fact, in Greek political thought, tyrannical power is characterised as aneuthynos (e.g., Herodotus 3.80.3), which broadly means “not subject to legal proceedings” or “uncontrolled.” Officials had to render their accounts (mostly logon apodidonai or tas euthynas didonai in Greek), at the end of their time in office as well as while in office. In most poleis, a separate body of magistrates was tasked with examining these accounts. At these moments, a set of procedures (which varied from city to city) enabled ordinary citizens to bring charges against officials before the courts.

Article

mysteries, Eleusinian  

Fritz Graf

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
19 December 2017
Subjects:
  1. Greek Myth and Religion
The mystery cult of the Eleusinian goddesses Demeter and Persephone was the most important Greek mystery cult. During its very long existence, the Eleusinian Mysteries influenced other cults and attracted and inspired countless ancient humans and gave them better hopes for their afterlife.The Eleusinian Mysteries was an annual Athenian festival celebrated in the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore outside the small city of Eleusis, about twenty-two kilometres northwest of Athens (see figure 1).Its local name, Mystēria, conforms to many other festival names in the Attic-Ionian calendar, such as Plyn-tēria (“Washing Festival”) or Anthes-tēria (“Flower Festival”) (thus the distinction between the festival name with a capital M and the generic noun). The underlying root is visible in the term mýs-tēs, the “initiate,” a noun derived from the verb mýō (that is a sigmatic stem*mýs-o whose /s/ remained preserved before the dental /t/), “to close” (one’s eyes), to which .

Article

Ioannes Damascenus, priest-monk and theologian, 650/675?–c. 750 CE  

Andrew Louth

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Christianity
  2. Near East
Little is known of the life of John of Damascus, save what can be deduced from his taciturn writings and a few references to him in chronicles; the later Greek life is unreliable. He seems to have come from a family in Damascus that had for several generations been in charge of fiscal matters; his grandfather, in Arabic Mansur ibn Sarjun, had apparently retained his position during the regime changes in the first half of the 7th century ce (Roman–Persian–Roman–Arab) and had been succeeded by John’s father, with whom John was initially employed. Most likely around 705, John left the service of the caliph and became a monk in or near Jerusalem (traditionally, but a late tradition, at the monastery of Mar Saba in the Judaean desert). He remained there for the rest of his life. For a time he seems to have been close to the patriarch of Jerusalem, John V (d. 735). He opposed the iconoclasm of the Byzantine emperors in three treatises (or one treatise, twice revised), the first from around 730. His opposition was known in Constantinopolitan circles (though not much of the detail of the treatises, perhaps); at the Synod of Hiereia in 754, he was anathematized, under his Arabic name, Mansur, along with Germanus of Constantinople and George of Cyprus, as already dead (“The Trinity has deposed the three of them”1).

Article

Soterichus, epic poet, c. 300 CE  

Richard Hunter

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature

Epic poet from Libya; the Suidas lists epics on various mythical and historical subjects and an Encomium of *Diocletian.

Article

Aias  

Herbert Jennings Rose and Jenny March

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Myth and Religion
Aias (Αἴας, Lat. Aiax)(1) Son of *Telamon (1), king of *Salamis (1), hence Aias Telamonius, and also known as the Great(er) Ajax. He brought twelve ships from Salamis to Troy (Il. 2.557). In the Iliad he is of enormous (πελώριος) size, head and shoulders above the rest (3.226–229), and the greatest of the Greek warriors after *Achilles (2.768–789). His stock epithet is “bulwark (ἔρκος) of the Achaeans,” and his characteristic weapon a huge shield of seven-fold ox-hide. He clearly has the better of *Hector in a duel (7.181–305) after which the heroes exchange gifts, Aias giving Hector a sword-belt in return for a sword; and he is at his memorable best when with unshakeable courage he defends the Greek wall and then the ships (see especially 15.676–688, 727–746, 16.101–111). He is also a member of the Embassy to Achilles, when he gives a brief but effective appeal to Achilles on friendship's grounds (9.624–642). At *Patroclus's funeral games he draws a wrestling match with *Odysseus, strength against cunning (23.

Article

Alcinous (1)  

Herbert Jennings Rose

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Myth and Religion

Alcinous (1) (Ἀλκίνοος), in mythology, son of Nausithous (Od. 7.63), husband of Arete, his niece (7. 66), king of the Phaeacians in Scheria (6. 12, etc.), father of *Nausicaa. He received *Odysseus hospitably and sent him to Ithaca on one of the magic ships of his people (13.70 ff.), though he had had warning of the danger of such services to all and sundry (13.172 ff.). In the Argonautic legend (see especially Ap. Rhod. 4.993 ff.) the *Argonauts visit Scheria (here called Drepane) on their return from Colchis; the Colchians pursue them there and demand *Medea. Alcinous decides that if she is virgin she must return, but if not, her husband *Jason (1) shall keep her. Warned by Arete, she and Jason consummate their marriage. For a *temenos of Alcinous on *Corcyra see Thuc. 3.70.4 with Hornblower, Comm. on Thuc.

Article

Lucillius  

Lucia Floridi

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature

Lucillius was a Greek epigrammatist who lived under Nero. He is the author of about 130 scoptic (“satiric”) epigrams in the Greek Anthology. Many are jokes about physical types (old and/or ugly women, smelly people, hairy men, small and thin people), moral vices (the miser, the slob, the parasite, the glutton, the thief), or professions (astrologers, doctors, poets, rhetors, philosophers, actors, singers, etc.); others are clever parodies of inscriptions celebrating athletic victories. Most of Lucillius’s targets—stock characters, not individuals—bear speaking names. His epigrams are composed according to a variety of structures—from parodies of inscriptions, to second-person addresses, to anecdotes/short stories—and they are characterized by hyperbole, paradoxes, and surreal images. His style is informal, influenced by common speech on both a lexical and a syntactical level, but it is also capable of elevation in diction through the creation of sophisticated neologisms, the adoption of poetic forms, and actual poetic quotations. Lucillius’s work strongly influenced contemporary and later authors, both Greek and Latin; among these are Martial and Ausonius.

Article

Gla  

Michael F. Lane

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Material Culture: Bronze Age
Gla (Mod. Gr. Γλας, ancient name unknown) is a Late Helladic fortress and likely administrative centre built on a rocky outcropping (once an island) in the north-east quarter of former Lake Copais in northern Boeotia.Gla—also occasionally “Glas” in archaeological literature—is a fortified site built on an outcropping in the north-east quarter of former Lake Copais, about 1.5 km south-east of the modern village of Kastro, formerly Topolia, Boeotia. While Kastro/Topolia has been identified with the site of Greco-Roman Copae, the ancient name of Gla is unknown, though it has been the subject of much inconclusive speculation. The modern name is derived from Arvanitic goulas (γουλάς), also the name of a locale near Evangelistria above Haliartus on the south side of the Copaic Basin (cf. Albanian kullë from Turkish kulle “tower,” particularly “watchtower”). This appellation is reported to refer particularly to the extant ruins on Gla’s summit. The site has also been called Palaiokastro (“Oldcastle”) in modern times. The nearest village’s Slavic place name Topolia (“Poplar Place”) was officially abolished in the mid-.

Article

Tiryns  

Joseph Maran

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 July 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Greek Material Culture: Bronze Age
The strongly fortified acropolis of Mycenaean Tiryns is situated about 1.5 kilometres from the present coast of the Bay of Nauplion (but only about five hundred metres in the Early Bronze Age and one kilometre in the Late Bronze Age), where it perches on a narrow, rocky outcrop that reaches a height of up to twenty-eight metres above sea level (Fig. 1). The hill slopes from south to north, a topographic feature used during the Mycenaean period to create a division into an upper citadel, a middle citadel, and a lower citadel by demarcating the limits of the different parts of the hill with strong, supporting walls. The acropolis was surrounded by an extensive settlement, the lower town, whose size during the different phases of occupation is still difficult to determine.Because of its impressive appearance, the identification of the site as ancient Tiryns was never disputed, which is why the site very early on attracted the attention of travellers and archaeologists. The remains of the last Mycenaean palace on the upper citadel were largely uncovered in 1884 and 1885 by Heinrich Schliemann and Wilhelm Dörpfeld.