Corrupting Luxury in Ancient Greek Literature

Corrupting Luxury in Ancient Greek Literature
Author: Robert Gorman
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 493
Release: 2014-11-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0472052292

Traces the principle that luxury corrupts its possessor as seen through a millennium of Greek literature

Corrupting Luxury in Ancient Greek Literature

Corrupting Luxury in Ancient Greek Literature
Author: Vanessa B Gorman
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 493
Release: 2014-11-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0472120468

A widely accepted truism says that luxury corrupts, and in both popular and scholarly treatments, the ancient city of Sybaris remains the model for destructive opulence. This volume demonstrates the scarcity of evidence for Sybarite luxury, and examines the vocabulary of luxury used by the Hellenic world. Focus on the word truphe reveals it means an attitude of entitlement: not necessarily a bad trait, unless in extreme form. This pattern holds for all Classical evidence, even the historian Herodotus, where the idea of pernicious luxury is commonly thought to be thematic. Advancing a new method to evaluate this fragmentary evidence, the authors argue that almost all relevant ancient testimony is liable to have been distorted during transmission. They present two conclusions: first, that there exists no principle of pernicious luxury as a force of historical causation in Hellenic or Hellenistic literature. Rather, that idea is derived from early Latin prose historiography and introduced from that genre into the Greek writers of the Roman period, who in turn project the process back in time to explain events such as the fall of Sybaris. The second conclusion is methodological. The authors lay down a strategy to determine the content and extent of fragments of earlier authors found in cover texts such as Athenaeus, by examining the diction along synchronic and diachronic lines. This book will appeal to scholars of intellectual history, the history of morality, and historiographical methodology.

Luxury and Wealth in Sparta and the Peloponnese

Luxury and Wealth in Sparta and the Peloponnese
Author: Chrysanthi Gallou
Publisher: Classical Press of Wales
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2022-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1910589845

A Spartan lifestyle proverbially describes austerity; ancient Greek luxury was associated with Ionia and the oriental world. The contributions to this book, first presented at a conference held by the University of Nottingham's Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies, reverse the stereotype and explore the role of luxury and wealth at Sparta and among its Peloponnesian neighbors from the Iron Age to the Hellenistic period. Using literary, archaeological, epigraphic and numismatic evidence, an international team of specialists investigates the definition and changing meanings of the term luxury and its nearest ancient Greek equivalents, providing new insights into Sparta's supposed abstention from luxury, and the way that this was portrayed by ancient writers. They analyse wealth production and private and public spending, emphasising features that were distinctive to Sparta and the Peloponnese compared with other parts of ancient Greece. Other chapters investigate issues still familiar in the contemporary world: economic crisis and debt, austerity measures, and relief provisions for the poor.

Accustomed to Obedience?

Accustomed to Obedience?
Author: Joshua P. Nudell
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2023-03-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0472133373

A dedicated study of Classical Ionia

Reading Greek and Hellenistic-Roman Spolia

Reading Greek and Hellenistic-Roman Spolia
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2023-11-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004682708

Plundering and taking home precious objects from a defeated enemy was a widespread activity in the Greek and Hellenistic-Roman world. In this volume literary critics, historians and archaeologists join forces in investigating this phenomenon in terms of appropriation and cultural change. In-depth interpretations of famous ancient spoliations, like that of the Greeks after Plataea or the Romans after the capture of Jerusalem, reveal a fascinating paradox: while the material record shows an eager incorporation of new objects, the texts display abhorrence of the negative effects they were thought to bring along. As this volume demonstrates, both reactions testify to the crucial innovative impact objects from abroad may have.

Mythogenesis, Interdiscursivity, Ritual

Mythogenesis, Interdiscursivity, Ritual
Author: Burkhard Fehr
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2024-08-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 900467974X

The studies included in Mythogenesis, Interdiscursivity, Ritual —offered to Professor Demetrios Yatromanolakis, a pioneering scholar— shed new light on a variety of areas: the encounters of ancient Greece with other societies and cultures in antiquity; the interplay between art (vase-painting and sculpture) and broader ideological developments/mentalities in antiquity; ritual in ancient Greek contexts; political ideologies and religion; history of scholarship, textual criticism/critical editing, and hermeneutics; the reception of myth and of archaic and classical Greek culture and philosophy in diverse discursive, mediatic, and sociocultural contexts — from impressionist painting, to modernism and the avant-garde, to Foucauldian thought.

Herodotus and the Presocratics

Herodotus and the Presocratics
Author: K. Scarlett Kingsley
Publisher:
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2024-03-06
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1009338528

Herodotus' Histories was composed well before the genre of Greek historiography emerged as a distinct narrative enterprise. This book explores it within its fifth-century context alongside the extant fragments of Presocratic treatises as well as philosophizing tragedy and comedy. It argues for the Histories' competitive engagement with contemporary intellectual culture and demonstrates its ambition as an experimental prose work, tracing its responses to key debates on relativism, human nature, and epistemology. In addition to expanding the intellectual milieu of which the Histories is a part and restoring its place in Presocratic thought, K. Scarlett Kingsley elucidates fourth-century philosophy's subsequent engagement with the work. In doing so, she contributes to a revision of the sharp separation between the ancient genres of philosophy and history. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

The Politics of Viewing in Xenophon’s Historical Narratives

The Politics of Viewing in Xenophon’s Historical Narratives
Author: Rosie Harman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2023-01-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1350159034

This book considers cultural identity and power relations in early fourth-century BCE Greece through a reading of Xenophon's historical narratives, the Hellenica, Anabasis and Cyropaedia. These texts depict conflicts between Greek states, conflicts between Greeks and non-Greeks, and relations between the elite individual and society. In all three texts, politically significant moments are imagined in visual terms. We witness spectacles of Spartan military victory, vistas of Asian landscape or displays of Persian imperial pomp, and historical protagonists are presented as spectators viewing and responding to events. Through this visual form of narration, the reader is encouraged imaginatively to place themselves in the position of the historical protagonists. In viewing events from different perspectives, and therefore occupying multiple, often conflicting political positions, the reader not only experiences the problems faced by historical actors, but becomes engaged in the political conflicts acted out in the narratives. The reader is prompted to take pleasure in the sight of Panhellenic achievement, but also to witness the divisions and conflicts between Greeks on class and ethnic lines. Similarly the reader is invited to identify with spectacular Greek and non-Greek figures of power as emblems of Greek imperial potential, but also to see through the eyes of those communities subjugated at their hands. The depiction of spectacles and spectators draws the reader into an active participation in the ideological contradictions of their time, in a period when Panhellenic aspiration co-existed with hegemonic competition between Greek states, and when Greeks could be both beneficiaries and victims of imperialism.

Body Technologies in the Greco-Roman World

Body Technologies in the Greco-Roman World
Author: Maria Gerolemou
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2023-11-16
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1835536433

A collection of papers that introduces the notion of the technosoma (techno body) into discussions on the representations of the body in classical antiquity. By applying the category of the technosoma to the ‘natural’ body, this volume explicitly narrows down the discussion of the technical and the natural to the physiological body. In doing so, the present collection focuses on body technologies in the specific form of beautification and body enhancement techniques, as well as medical and surgical treatments. The volume elucidates two main points. Firstly, ancient techno bodies show that the categories of gender and sexuality are at the core of the intersection of the natural and the technical, and intersect with notions of race, age, speciesism, class and education, and dis/ability. Secondly, the collection argues that new body technologies have in fact a very ancient history that can help to address the challenges of contemporary technological innovation. To this end, the volume showcases the intersection of ‘natural’ bodies with technology, gender, sexuality and reproduction. On the one hand, techno bodies tend to align with normative ideas about gender, and sexuality. On the other hand, body modification and/or enhancement techniques work hand in hand with economic and political power and knowledge, thus they often produce techno bodies that are shaped according to individual needs, i.e. according to a certain lifestyle. Consequently, techno bodies threaten to alter traditional ideas of masculinity, femininity, male and female sexuality and beauty.

How Greek Philosophy Corrupted the Christian Concept of God

How Greek Philosophy Corrupted the Christian Concept of God
Author: Richard R. Hopkins
Publisher: Cedar Fort Publishing & Media
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2023-02-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1462100031

This insightful book brings profound new insights to the Trinitarian doctrines of “orthodox” Christianity. With clear and precise documentation, the book shows how these doctrines migrated into early Christianity from Greek philosophy. The various aspects of Trinitarian belief are isolated, linked to their Greek sources, and carefully analyzed to show they differ radically from biblical teaching. The Writings of early Church Fathers, portrayed in their historical context, show that during the second century, theological concepts taught in Platonism were adopted as Christianity struggled to end Roman persecution. Emperor Marcus Aurelius, a famous Stoic philosopher, was putting Christians to death because their belief did not conform to the Hellenized religion of the day. The book shows that the early church fathers sought to save their people’s lives by redefining the Christian God in Greek terms. Their efforts brought metaphysics to Christianity and ushered in concepts like the Trinity. After presenting the historical setting in which these philosophical errors were embraced as Christian doctrine, the book compares orthodox Christian theology today, called “classical theism,” to biblical teachings. The book identifies how Greek philosophy has influenced major attributes of God taught in classical theism. The book constitutes a major challenge to those who accept the tenants of classical theism but do not know the many aspects of their doctrine that are based on Greek philosophy.