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Classical Athens 2520
Exam 1 - All Definitons
146
Classics
Undergraduate 2
10/27/2013

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Term
Acropolis
Definition

Acropolis is the ancient citadel of Athens in Greece that was the religious focus of the city.

It contains the remains of several classical temples, including the Parthenon

Term
Adyton
Definition
Sacred area within the Delphi where the oracle would be given
Term
Aegeus
Definition
King of Athens
Term
Agon
Definition
A contest, competition, especially the Olympic Games, or challenge that was held in connection with religious festivals
Term
Alkibiades  Alcibiades
Definition

Son of Cleinias, from the deme of Scambonidae.

He was a prominent Athenian statesman, orator, and general.

He was the last famous member of his mother's aristocratic family, the Alcmaeonidae, which fell from prominence after the Peloponnesian War.

 

He played a major role in the second half of that conflict as a strategic advisor, military commander, and politician.

Term
Altis
Definition

At first, it was a sacred of people where magnificent trees grew and within which, hidden in the center, was the Sanctuary of Zeus. Olympia was built on this site.

 

A location in what is today Peloponnese, Greece, on a little plain in Elis, on the right shore of the Alfeios River near the city of Pyrgos, around 18 kilometers away from the Ionian Sea and at the foot of Mount Cronion.

 

 

Term
Amazons
Definition
 is a nation of all-female warriors
Term
Aniconic
Definition
Symbolic or suggestive rather than literally representational: not made or designed as a likeness <trees, boulders, and other aniconic objects of primitive worship
Term
Antidosis
Definition
The Antidosis, is the title of a speech treatise by the ancient Greek rhetorician, Isocrates; literally translates as “an exchange,” and was applied in ancient Greek courts as a peculiar law pertaining to an exchange of estates between two parties,.
Term
Apatouria
Definition
Were Ancient Greek festivals held annually by all the Ionian towns, except Ephesus and Colophon.
Term
Aphrodite
Definition
is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. Her Roman equivalent is the goddess Venus.
Term
Apollo
Definition
Apollo is also the son of Zeus and Leto a god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, healing, plague, music, poetry, and more, has a twin sister Artemis
Term
Architrave
Definition
A plain horizontal band of stone on top of the capitals that looked like simple cushions and supported the columns
Term
Areopagus
Definition
Functioned as a high court of appeal for criminal and civil cases
Term
Aristophanes
Definition
Son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens.
Term
Arkhontes
Definition
An Arkhontes, is the chief public magistrates, three of whom (the Basileus, Polemarch, and Eponymous Arkhon) were especially important,.
Term
Artemis
Definition

Deities of the wild land, Mistress of Animals

One of the most widely venerated Deities of the Ancient Greek

Term
Aspasia
Definition

Very influential mistress of Pericles

A philosopher to the philosophers

Term
Athena
Definition
Goddess of reason and intelligent activities, arts and literature
Term
Athena Polias
Definition
Goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, just warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill.
Term
Aulos
Definition
A wind instrument, more like an oboe than a flute,
Term
Banausic
Definition

To be Banausic, means essentially a sedentary

Indoor occupation

very likely involving the use of fire

Term
Barbarous
Definition

Those who do not follow Greek customs

'not speaking Greek'

Term
Boule
Definition

Council of 500

Forming part of city governments in Ancient Greece

Term
Castes
Definition

Castes of heralds, aulos-players and cooks

and, though, as we should expect, there was more flexibility in Athens, the same tendency prevailed. Technical manuals were beginning to appear, but the bulk of vocational instruction was certainly transmitted orally, from father to son.

Term
Choregos
Definition
An honorary title for a wealthy Athenian citizen who assumed the public duty of financing and paying the expenses of the preparation of the chorus and other aspects of dramatic production that were not covered by the state Costs incurred by choregoi could include costumes, masks, rehearsal costs, chorus, scenery or scene painting, props, special effects, e.g. sound, musicians (except the state provided the flute player). In modern Greek the word is synonymous with the word "grantor".
Term
City Dionysia
Definition

It was the second-most important festival after the Panathenaia in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus

 

The central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies

Term
Cleon
Definition

Son of Cleaenetus

 

Cleon was the leader of the radical, imperialist faction in Athens

 

In 427 BC to kill all adult Mytilenean males and to enslave their women and children after the defeat of Mytilene.

 

 

By far the most hot-tempered of citizens

but most trusted by the people

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Term
Colchis
Definition

A region in the Southern Caucasus Colchis

Located on the eastern coast of the Black Sea

Centered on present-day western Georgia

Term
Corinth
Definition

The narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece

Roughly halfway between Athens and Sparta.

Term
Creon
Definition
King of Corinth
Term
Delian League
Definition

The Delian League, founded in 478 BC,

An association of Greek city-states, members numbering between 150 to 173, under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Second Persian invasion of Greece.

 

The League's modern name derives from its official meeting place, the island of Delos, where congresses were held in the temple and where the treasury stood until, in a symbolic gesture, Pericles moved it to Athens in 454 BC,.

Term
Delos
Definition

Delos is the sanctuary of the god Apollo on a mid-Aegean island

A religious center particularly sacred to the

Term
Deme
Definition
A town-ship in Attica in ancient Greece
Term
Diaspora
Definition

A dispersion of a people, language, or culture

Was formerly concentrated in one place

Term
Dikasteria
Definition

The subdivision of jury-courts

Most of the cases formerly reserved for the judgment of the magistrates The magistrates becoming no more than the presidents of the new courts

Term
Diodotus
Definition

Son of Eucrates

An opponent to the proposal of Cleon

Cleon leader of the radical, imperialist faction in Athens

In 427 BC to kill all adult Mytilenean males and to enslave their women and children after the defeat of Mytilene.

Term
Dionysos
Definition
The son of Zeus Dionysos is the god of wine and madness, vegetation, and the theatre, chief of the Olympians
Term
Doric Order
Definition

One of the decorative systems that were used for Greek temples

made use of rather sturdy columns

Their height was between four and six times their diameter

The columns rested directly on the top step of the temple

Term
Dowry
Definition

The money, goods, or estate

a woman brings to her husband in marriage

Term
Eisphorai
Definition

A war tax

An internal source of revenue of greater social significance

Term
Ekklesia
Definition
The main fact about radical democracy is this: all major matters of public policy were settled by the voting at meetings, regular or extraordinary, of the Assembly (Ekklesia).
Term
Epicene
Definition

Having characteristics of both sexes

or

No characteristics of either sex

such as

Indeterminate sex

Term
Epistates
Definition

A chairman

Every twenty-four hours sortition was used to select one

of their number to be chairman

Term
Eponymous
Definition
Having the name that is used as the title or name of something else
Term
Erastes
Definition
A Lover
Term
Eromenos
Definition
A Beloved One
Term
Eulogy
Definition

A speech, or writing in praise of a person(s) or thing(s)

especially one recently dead or retired

Term
Fault Lines
Definition
Earth quake damage
Term
Grammatistes
Definition

The shape, name and value of each letter

 

when a boy could recognize and write the letters

and

knew their values, he was ready for syllables

first

vowel or consonant and vowel

then

more complicated syllables

Term
Hagiography
Definition
The Biography that treats its subject with undue reverence
Term
Herodotus
Definition
An ancient Greek historian
Term
Hetaira
Definition
A highly skilled prostitute or courtesan
Term
Iktinos
Definition
Greek architect and the chief designer of the Parthenon at Athens
Term
Ionic Order
Definition

One of the decorative systems that were used for Greek temples

made use of slimmer columns

eight to ten times their diameter in height

which rested on a base and were topped by volute capitals

Above the capitals the architrave was divided into three horizontal steps

a subtle reflection of the three steps below, on which the temple rested

The frieze above was undivided, generally decorated either by a continuous band of relief carvings

or

with the lively regular rhythm of small tooth-like features called dentils

Term
Isonomia
Definition
To serve on the jury-courts was isonomia
Term
Jason
Definition
Son of Aeson, king of Iocus
Term
Jeunesse Dorée
Definition
Young people of wealth and fashion
Term
Kallikrates
Definition
5th century B.C., Greek architect: with Ictinus, designed the Parthenon
Term
Khoregos
Definition

a sponsor

(literally, a chorus-leader)

Term
Kithara
Definition
A heavy seven-stringed lyre
Term
Kleisthenes
Definition

A Statesman regarded as the founder of Athenian democracy

serving as chief archon

(highest magistrate)

of the city-state (525–524)

Term
Kyrios
Definition

Lord

Master

Head of Household

In religious usage it designates God

Term
Lapiths
Definition

(legendary men who were supposed to have lived in northern Greece)

with the centaurs

(monsters who were part man and part horse)

Term
Lapiths
Definition
Term
Laureion
Definition

 A Silver mine

Athens richest mineral source

Term
Lesbos
Definition

Is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea

It has an area of 630 square miles with 199 miles of coastline

The third largest Greek island

It is separated from Turkey by the narrow Mytilini Strait

Lesbos is a separate regional unit of the North Aegean region

The only municipality within it.

Population is approximately 86,000, a third of which lives in its capital

Term
Liturgy     Liturgies
Definition

Liturgy

A citizen appointed trierarch for one year in at least nominal command of an Athenian warship

 

 

Liturgies

A Public Service (military or civilian)

An internal source of revenue

Term
Lord Elgin
Definition
Scottish nobleman and diplomat known for being a dipshit when He cracked central portion of the east frieze of the Parthenon in the middle in 1801 when he ordered it to be moved to the British Museum in London
Term
Marathon
Definition
A city/state along the plain on the Athenian coast
Term
Medea
Definition
A barbarian princess and as a sorceress, related to the gods, Princess of Colchis and wife Jason
Term
Metics
Definition

Resident Alien

Immigrants

People who have changed their homes

 

Term
Metopes
Definition
Rectangles that could be decorated with paint or sculpture
Term
Misogynist        Misogynistic
Definition

Misogynist

Hostile to women

 

Misogynistic

Having or showing a hatred and distrust of women

Term
Mytilene
Definition

A city on the island of Lesbos

Founded in the 11th century BC by the family Penthilidae

Arrived from Thessaly, and ruled the city-state until a popular revolt (590–580 BC) led by Pittacus of Mytilene ended their rule

The Mytilenean revolt was an incident in the Peloponnesian War in which the city of Mytilene attempted to unify the island of Lesbos under its control and revolt from the Athenian Empire

In 428 BC, the Mytilenean government planned a rebellion in concert with Sparta, Boeotia, and certain other cities on the island, and began preparing to revolt by fortifying the city and laying in supplies for a prolonged war

These preparations were interrupted by the Athenian fleet, which had been notified of the plot, and the Mytileneans sent representatives to Athens to discuss a settlement, but simultaneously dispatched a secret embassy to Sparta to request support.

Term
Naos
Definition

A house in which the statue of the divinity could be kept safe from the weather and the birds

It did not have to be very elaborate; a single room was quite enough, with a porch added in front for dignity

Term
Nepotism
Definition
Favoritism shown by somebody in power, to relatives and friends, especially in appointing them to good positions
Term
Nouveaux Riches
Definition

Rich people who acquired their wealth within their own generations

 

The man or woman who previously had belonged to a lower social class but the new money allowed upward social mobility and provided the means for conspicuous consumption, the buying of goods and services that signal membership in an upper class

Term
Oikeo
Definition

To manage

To govern the state

Term
Oikos
Definition

The Household

The House

The Family

Term
Old Oligarch         Oligarchy
Definition

Is the form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people

 

These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, or military control

Term
Omphalos
Definition

'Navel'

which was supposed to mark the centre of the world.

Term
Orchestra
Definition

The area in front of an ancient Greek stage

reserved for the Greek chorus

Term
Orpheus
Definition

A seemingly shamanic figure in Greek mythology

A legendary musician, poet, and prophet

in ancient Greek religion and myth

Term
Ostracism
Definition

To be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years

The obsolescent institution of ostracism, devised originally to break political deadlocks, entitled the community to deprive one household a year of its kyrios without the necessity of proving that he had broken any law

the victim went into exile for ten years, but his property was not confiscated, and when he returned, his rights were undiminished

 

The community did confiscate the property of perpetrators of heinous crimes like treason, murder, sacrilege or other forms of gross impiety

Term
Otiose
Definition

Futile

Ineffectual

Useless

Impractical

Ineffective

Hopeless

Term
Paidagogos
Definition
A household slave selected for the task of accompanying the boy during the day to school
Term
Palaistra        Palaistrai
Definition

wrestling school

in ancient Greek

Term
Panathenaia
Definition

An Athenian festival celebrated every June

in honour of the goddess Athena

 

The Lesser Panathenaia was an annual event

The Greater Panathenaia was held every four years

Term
Panhellenic
Definition

Of or relating to all Greek peoples

or

A movement to unify them

 

Of or relating to all Greek-letter fraternities and sororities

Term
Pediment
Definition

The pitched roof of a Greek temple

that leaves a triangular gable at the front and back

which could be filled with sculpture

it was a difficult task to design sculpture to fit such an awkward space

Term
Peipteral
Definition
A temple with a peristyle
Term
Pelops
Definition

King of Pisa in the Peloponnesus

He was venerated at Olympia

His cult developed into the founding myth of the Olympic Games

The most important expression of unity, not only for the Peloponnesus, "island of Pelops", but for all Hellenes

Term
Peplos
Definition
A richly woven robe
Term
Pericles
Definition

Son of Xanthippus

The most prominent and influential Greek statesman

Orator and general of Athens during the Golden Age

Specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars

Term
Peristyle
Definition

The colonnade running around the four sides of the temple

is called a peristyle (from peri - around, and stylos - column)

and

a temple with a peristyle is called peripteral

 

The number of columns along the sides could be anything from eleven to eighteen, but there were usually just six columns along the front and back.

Term
Persepolis
Definition

In Persia, built a great palace at between 500 and 460 BC

processions were carved to line the stairways and passages traversed by the participants in the traditional annual tribute-bearing processions

Term
Phaedra
Definition

Theseus wife

 

Daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë

Term
Phidias
Definition

Sculptor for the Parthenon in 5th Century Athens

 

appointed to make the gold and ivory statue

and

to be in overall charge of the project

 

A friend of Pericles

Term
Philanthropy
Definition

"love of humanity"

 

"what it is to be human"

 

caring for, nourishing, developing, and enhancing

 

 both the benefactors' and beneficiaries'

Term
Phoenix
Definition

A constellation of the southern hemisphere

situated between Sculptor and Eridanus

Term
Phratria
Definition

The Phratria, is larger than the genos

was another hereditary group, more closely tied to a locality

the phratry (phratria, brotherhood)

Term
Phylai
Definition

The principal units segmenting the populations

and/or

territories of many, perhaps originally all, city-states

Term
Pindar
Definition

Was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes

Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece

His work is the best preserved

Term
Pneuma
Definition

Word for "breath"

 

In a religious context for

"spirit"    or    "soul"

Term
Pnyx
Definition

The meeting-place, for more than 6,000

A hill in central Athens, to host there popular assembles

One of the earliest and most important sites in the creation of democracy

Term
Polis
Definition

The State

or

The Sphere of culture

Term
Polytheism
Definition

Is the worship or belief in multiple deities

Usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses

along with their own religions and rituals

Term
Poseidon
Definition
The God of the sea
Term
Proagon
Definition

An official theatrical presentation

taking place a few days before the Great Dionysia began

Term
Prophesies
Definition
The Pythia’s vision of the future
Term
Prytaneis
Definition

A presiding committee, of the Council

At any given time there were fifty representatives of one of the ten tribes They served for a tenth of the year

(about thirty-six days)

Term
Rhetores
Definition

Those who spoke regularly and built up a following

'the speakers' (rhetores)

The nearest thing in Athens to professional politicians

Their speeches in the Assembly largely determined national policy

 

They commonly held no public office

and

were not accountable in the same way as magistrates

Term
Satyr play
Definition

An ancient Greek form of tragicomedy

Similar in spirit to the bawdy satire of burlesque

They featured choruses of satyrs

were based on Greek mythology

were rife with mock drunkenness, brazen sexuality

(including phallic props)

pranks, sight gags, and general merriment

Satyric drama was one of the three varieties of Athenian drama

the other two being tragedy and comedy

It can be traced back to Pratinas of Phlius, 500 BC

Term
Shaman
Definition

Magician

or

Sorcerer

Term
Skene
Definition

The background building to which the platform stage was connected

 

Costumes and Periaktoiwere were stored

(painted panels serving as the background)

and were connected

Term
Solon
Definition

An Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and poet

He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic, and moral decline in archaic Athens

His reforms failed in the short term, yet he is often credited with having laid the foundations for Athenian democracy

Term
Sophists
Definition

Doctrinaires

Obscurantists

Obfuscators

Scholars

Nitpickers

Theoreticians

Hairsplitters

Term
Sortition
Definition

The lot system

most civilian magistrates were appointed

Term
Strategoi
Definition

The board of ten generals

literally meaning "army leader"

Term
Syncretism
Definition

Reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief

As in philosophy or religion

Especially when success is partial or the result is heterogeneous

Term
Synoikismos
Definition
The amalgamation of villages and small towns in Ancient Hellas into larger political units such as a single city
Term
Temenos
Definition

A Sanctuary

or

Holy Grove

or

Holy Precinct

Term
Theatron
Definition

Where the audience of a Greek tragedy sat to view the performance.

 

Originally the collective noun for a group of spectators (theatai) and so became attached to the place where the theatai spectated

Term
Theogony
Definition
Genealogy of the gods
Term
Theseus
Definition

The mythical Founder-King of Athens

Son of Aegeus and Poseidon

both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night

Term
Thespis
Definition

Thespis of Icaria

The first person ever to appear on stage as an actor playing a character in a play, actor-playwrighter

According to certain Ancient Greek sources and especially Aristotle

Term
Thetes
Definition
The fourth and lowest class in the census group of citizens
Term
Thucydides
Definition

A Greek historian and Athenian general

Father of "scientific history"

Because of his strict standards of evidence-gathering and analysis in terms of cause and effect

Father of the school of political realism, which views the relations between nations as based on might rather than right

Term
Timocracy
Definition

A state described by Plato as being governed on

 

Principles of Honor

and

Military Glory

Term
Triarchy
Definition

The government by three persons

A country under three rulers

Term
Trierarchy
Definition

The most expensive of the liturgies

Sometimes costing the best part of a talent

Term
Triglyphs
Definition
Vertically grooved rectangles that remind one of beam ends
Term
Tripod
Definition
Set above this cleft, mounting which, the Pythia inhales the vapor and
Term
Trittyes
Definition

The population divisions in ancient Attica

Established by the reforms of Cleisthenes in 508 BC

The name means "thirtieth,"

There were in fact thirty trittyes in Attica

Each tribe, or phyle of Athens was composed of three trittyes

One from the coast (Asty)

One from the city (Paralia)

One from the inland area (Mesogeios)

Trittyes were composed of one or more Demes

Demes were the basic unit of division in Attica

Term
Virago
Definition

 A woman who demonstrates exemplary and heroic qualities

A woman regarded as noisy, scolding, or domineering

Term
Xenophobia
Definition

Is the irrational or unreasoned fear of that which is perceived to be foreign or strange

It comes from the Greek word (xenos), meaning "stranger," "foreigner," and (phobos), meaning "fear"

Xenophobia can manifest itself in many ways involving the relations and perceptions of an ingroup towards an outgroup, including a fear of losing identity, suspicion of its activities, aggression, and desire to eliminate its presence to secure a presumed purity

Xenophobia can also be exhibited in the form of an "uncritical exaltation of another culture" in which a culture is ascribed "an unreal, stereotyped and exotic quality"

Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action urges all governments to take immediate measures and to develop strong policies to prevent and combat all forms and manifestations of racism, xenophobia or related intolerance, where necessary by enactment of appropriate legislation including penal measure

Term
Xenophon
Definition

Son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens

Also known as Xenophon of Athens

A Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher

and

a contemporary and admirer of Socrates

Term
Xenos
Definition

Foreigner

or

Stranger

Term
Zeus
Definition

"Father of Gods and men"

Rules the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father rules the family according to the ancient Greek religion

 He is the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology

Term
Pythia Adyton
Definition
Need Definition
Term
Pausanias
Definition
Need Definition
Term
Paralia
Definition
Cleisthenes also divided Attica into three regions: city (Asty), coast (Paralia), and inland (Mesogeios). The names resembled those of the regions that supported Peisistratus and his rivals, with the significant exception of the aristocratic plain which now disappeared into the city and inland
Term
Mesogeios
Definition
Cleisthenes also divided Attica into three regions: city (Asty), coast (Paralia), and inland (Mesogeios). The names resembled those of the regions that supported Peisistratus and his rivals, with the significant exception of the aristocratic plain which now disappeared into the city and inland
Term
Asty
Definition
Cleisthenes also divided Attica into three regions: city (Asty), coast (Paralia), and inland (Mesogeios). The names resembled those of the regions that supported Peisistratus and his rivals, with the significant exception of the aristocratic plain which now disappeared into the city and inland
Term

Exam 2 Definitions

 

Definition
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