Iliad Review Books 1-6

I apologize for the rambling. Here are the documents and also some of the line numbers. I'll continue to update this over the weekend.

1. Reasons to watch Troy for fun but not for correct content:

No Trojan horse in the Iliad

No sack of Troy in the Iliad

No sex scenes with Briseis in the Iliad

Phoinix and Ajax are not in the Embassy to Achilles in the movie

Priam and Achilles DO NOT die in the Iliad

Troy is missing the funeral games for Patroklos and Hektor

No gods on battlefield in Troy

2. Hard time recalling each book? Try to give the books a title. For example, I titled book 3 "Helen reviews the champions, Menelaos and Paris fight". Or, for book 5 I have "Diomedes' killing rage".

3. Questions to think about as you go: 

What kinds of functions do the gods perform?

What powers do they have? what do they lack?

**What is the relationship between gods and men?

How do the humans think of the gods?

Is the relationship consistent?

Background of Trojan war in Greek mythology:

Story of the Apple of Discord

Wedding of Thetis & Peleus (WHO is Thetis?)

ERIS (personnification of strife) throws a golden apple into the wedding party with a note "to the fairest" attached.

Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite ALL think it's for them, which causes an argument 

Judgement of Paris

Goddesses want to know who deserves the Apple of Discord

They ask Paris, son of Priam (Trojan King)

Each offers him a gift to bribe him

Aphrodite offers the most beautiful woman: Helen of Sparta, married to Menelaos

Paris steals Helen from Sparta

BOOK ONE: Make sure to read & focus on the following

Chryses & Invocation of Apollo (lines 1-52)

a. Who is Chryses? Chryseis? 

b. Why is he angry at Agamemnon? (lines 8-33)

c. What does he ask Apollo to do? (line 35-52)

d. Prayer & offering scene (445-475)

Achilles & Agamemnon

a. Why is Achilles angry at Agamemnon? (105-194)

b. What/Who does Agamemnon steal from Achilles? (180-187)

c. What does Achilles try to do? Who stops him? (187-195)

d. What is Achilles' response to Agamemnon? (292-303)

e. What does Achilles do after this? (350-427)

f. What does his mother Thetis do? (495-530)

Achilles & Athena

Think about relationships between gods & men here.

How does Athena appear to Achilles?

What is his response to her?

Achilles

Why does he think he's special?

Agamemnon?

Why does he think he's special?

BOOK THREE

Paris & Menelaos "Fight"

Paris (30-36)

Paris & Hektor (38-75)

See oath scene, line 276, before the fight (Zeus is god of oath swearing)

Why do they end up not fighting? (370-382)

What happens to Paris?

Helen & Aphrodite (383-426)

BOOK FIVE & SIX: Diomedes' Aristeia

Diomedes & Athena

What power does she give him?

Who does he attack?

Diomedes & Glaukos

XENIA!

Story of Bellerophon

Diomedes & Aphrodite 5.334 & following

Aphrodite is carrying Aeneas (from Virgil's Aeneid), he has a crushed hip

Aphrodite is "scratched" by Diomedes, drops Aeneas & runs away to Olympus

Diomedes & Ares

Diomedes & Apollo 5.432

5.440 - "Take care, give back, son of Tydeus,and strive no longer to make yourself like the gods in mind, since never the same is the breed of gods, who are immortal, and men who walk groundling"

Other sections of note

Andromache & Hektor (6. 405-end)

Status in the Iliad

Agamemnon - King of Mycenae (i.e. most powerful Greek)

Menelaos - King of Lacedaemonia (i.e. Sparta)

Achilles - King of the Myrmidons

Odysseus - King of Ithaca

Aias (Ajax) - from Salamis

Diomedes - from Argos

Guest Lecture This Thursday!

The Department of the Classics is pleased to present a lecture by Thomas Habinek, Professor of Classics at the University of Southern California, on Thursday 26 February at 3:30 PM in the Music Room of the Levis Faculty Center, 919 West Illinois Street, Urbana. The lecture is entitled "Seeing Like a Stoic: Ancient Thought, Modern Science, and an Ethics of Perceptual Alignment." Professor Habinek's research focuses on Latin literature, Roman cultural history, classical rhetoric, cognitive and evolutionary approaches to human culture, theory and practice of imitation, and antiquity in the genealogy of modernity. He is currently engaged in a project on changing concepts of mimesis in Western literature and art, especially in relationship to new developments in the cognitive and social sciences. Professor Habinek is the author of several books, including The Politics of Latin Literature: Writing, Identity, and Empire in Ancient Rome (Princeton University Press 1998), The World of Roman Song: From Ritualized Speech to Social Order (Johns Hopkins University Press 2005) and Ancient Rhetoric and Oratory (Wiley 2005).
This lecture is sponsored by the Department of the Classics, the Philosophy Department and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.

Homer's Iliad and related stuff

This week we start reading the Iliad, so I thought you might enjoy more tangents...

Heinrich Schliemann
A German "Archaeologist" who claimed he found the ancient city of Troy and the "mask of Agamemnon". He is one of the most controversial figures in archaeology and classical studies, mostly due to his excavation methods.
http://www.utexas.edu/courses/wilson/ant304/biography/arybios97/kingbio.html

We'll also be talking about Homeric Meter in class. In case you want to hear someone else reading the Iliad in ancient Greek, check out this link

http://wiredforbooks.org/iliad/
Stanley Lombardo recorded himself reciting the Iliad in Ancient Greek and you can listen to it on his website if you're interested. It will make more sense tomorrow, but this way you have it in advance if you want to listen to it.

Some interesting reading related to the Iliad...
Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam (1994)
Guenter Duethorn Achilles Shield and the Structure of the Iliad (1962)
Robert Graves Anger of Achillles - Homer’s Iliad (1959)
John Miles Foley Companion to Ancient Epic (2005)

More Ancient Archaeology

More related links... 

Archaeological Digs:

http://www.digonsite.com/links.html

http://www.archaeologydigs.blogspot.com/

http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/492

International Council of Museums

http://icom.museum/

SAFE (Saving Antiquities For Everyone)

http://www.savingantiquities.org/

Other Museums of Note:

(Check out their classics collections and how they "obtained them")

The Getty Museum in LA (Rather controversial, but still worth looking at)

http://www.getty.edu

The Metropolitan Museum of NY

http://www.metmuseum.org

The New Acropolis Museum in Athens

http://www.newacropolismuseum.gr/

The British Museum

http://www.britishmuseum.org

Maybe interested in Classics? Or What the Hell Is Classics Anyway?

So, I know a number of you guys are undecided freshmen/sophomores. No pressure, I promise. But in case you think any of this is kind of interesting, here are a few things to think about...

I came in undecided as well. 115 was actually the first Classics course I took on campus during my first semester as a freshman. I liked it so, I tried 116 and 114 but didn't intend on becoming a minor or major until one of my TAs suggested I try the languages (Ancient Greek and Latin). I think one of the most important reasons to learn these languages is that if we don't learn them as well as our current professors (or better) these two languages will eventually be lost to us. I don't consider myself a history buff, but I think preserving ancient cultures is a really big deal both as a Classicist and Anthropologist. If you have any questions, feel free to talk to me.

So I'm hoping some of you will enjoy this class and consider taking others. I've given you a couple of ideas to consider below.

1. Intro level classes on similar topics:
Both of these are pretty good courses on ancient history, drama, and culture in general (they also count as gen-eds)
CLCV 114 - Ancient Greek Culture
CLCV 116 - The Roman Achievement
ANTH 102 - Intro to Archaeology & Biological Anthropology (great professors & good intro to practical applications of archaeology)
Art History 131/132 - Art History of Ancient Greece & Rome (Difficult classes, but extremely worthwhile)
Anth 105 - World Archaeology
Anth 180 - The Archaeology of Death (Not what it sounds like. You look at how people are buried in relation to things like what that means for their social status when they were alive, what things are important for the "afterlife" for that time period, etc.)


Mid-level classes:
Anth 220 - Intro to Archaeology (More serious version of Anth 102)

ARTH 215 - Greek Art

Upper level classes:
CLCV 363 - Intro to Oral Traditions
Anth 314 - Intro to Museum Studies
Anth 456 - Human Osteology (Human Bone Structure)

CLCV 443 - The Archaeology of Greece

CLCV 444 - The archaeology of Rome

The Illinois Classics Department Website:
http://classics.uiuc.edu

Major Information for Classics Majors:

http://courses.illinois.edu/cis/2008/fall/programs/undergrad/las/classics.html

Homer's Odyssey - The Simpsons Version

Thought you might all enjoy a Greek myth Simpsons style :)

What the Hell is a Proem?

So. I'm guessing most of you have no idea what the hell Richard Hamilton is talking about. It is a sort of oddly structure article, which assumes the reader has a decent background in reading Hesiod's Theogony.

First you need to have read the Theogony by Hesiod. It helps to read it side by side with Hamilton's article.

Then, you should recognize that what Hamilton calls a proem is basically Hesiod's introduction, prologue, what have you for the Theogony. According to Hamilton the proem is the first 104 lines, go check 'em out. The first 21 lines make up the Helikonian proem and the rest make up the Olympian proem.

Compare some other proems (from Homer) and it might start to make more sense...

Iliad I.1-7 (trans. Richard Lattimore)
Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus
and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians,
hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls
of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting
of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished
since that time when first there stood in division of conflict
Atreus' son the lord of men and brilliant Achilles.

Odyssey I.1-10 (trans. Richard Lattimore)
Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven
far journeys, after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel.
Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of,
many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea,
struggling for his own life and the homecoming of his companions.
Even so he could not save his companions, hard though
he strove to; they were destroyed by their own wild recklessness,
fools, who devoured the oxen of Helios, the Sun God,
and he took away the day of their homecoming. From some point
here, goddess, daughter of Zeus, speak and begin our story.


What else? Notice that all three INVOKE the muses. Who are the muses? Check your lecture workbook and bring it to discussion tomorrow.

We'll talk about the rest tomorrow :)


Other links which might be helpful:

Perseus' Encyclopedia entry on Hesiod:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0004%3Aid%3Dhesiod

"The Proem of the Iliad" by James Redfield (Classical Philology)
http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0009-837X(197904)74%3A2%3C95%3ATPOTIH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q&cookieSet=1

Another blog that may be of interest:

http://frankly-mr-shankly.blogspot.com/2006/02/great-buildings-by-stephen-cox-20.html

Apes & Monkeys

In case you missed the email I sent with these clips...

Bonobo Video Clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eubDSQrFako

Chimpanzee Video Clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRN-fHdGzUY

Recall that the difference between Apes and Monkeys, generally speaking anyway, is that Monkeys have tails and Apes do not. There are 5 Great Apes: Humans (Homom sapiens), Gorillas, Chimpanzees, Orangutans, and Bonobos. Of these 5, Bonobos are the most like humans.

Enjoy :)

Chronological Brain Size Chart

Hi Everyone,
I hope you'll find this blog and the facebook group helpful for the rest of the semester. I will try to use these two resources to post interesting material and helpful links rather than bogging down your in-boxes. This way, if you find it all ridiculously boring, you don't have to look at it. AND if you like it, you will have one more way to procrastinate :)

So, first off for this week... the promised chart of brain sizes across human evolution. This particular chart is borrowed from Florida State University. I think I can find better ones, but it may take some digging.

http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/people/faculty/falk/fig3.jpg

Also, check out Tufts University's website called the Perseus Project:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu

This website is a complete library of all Greek and Latin texts in both the original language and English version. There's also a lot of other cool stuff on the site...