...210-ONR01 16 February 2017 Unit 2 AS3-Part3 Women in Ancient Greece Women in ancient societies all had one universal purpose, childbearing. In ancient Athens, girls were sent at a young age to their husbands for this purpose. In ancient Sparta, however, girls were encouraged to participate in sports and were educated. Aristotle believed that these freedoms weakened the morale of the Spartan state, while Xenophon and Plutarch believed that it benefited the Spartans. The freedoms and equality Spartan women had counters Aristotle’s characterization of a “good wife” in his story “On a Good Wife.” Aristotle, who lived in Athens for the majority of his life, depicts the ideal wife as a wife that is ruled over by her husband. Athenian women were considered inferior when compared to men. As a result of this, Athenian women had fewer rights than their Spartan counterparts. The general purpose of Athenian women was to bear children, take care of the children, and obey her husband. Girls in Athenian society usually did not receive a formal education and were rushed to bear children when they were “ready,” usually in their teens. In contrast, Spartan women were somewhat equal to men. Spartan women were trained and educated, but the Spartan government did not train girls as much as men. The focus for...
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...Gender Roles in Ancient Greece and Rome Mary Wright HUM/100 November25, 2013 Ryan Roark Gender Roles in Ancient Greece and Rome In ancient Greece and Rome the roles of each gender played a significant part of the history that we learn of today. Each gender had particular a different role in the ancient times of both of these empires. Men and women were valued for different reasons and had different responsibilities and duties that they were to uphold. Today those roles are not thought of as the same, the gender roles have pretty well evened out. In Athens women were looked greatly upon to not gossip amongst themselves, to keep their homes neat and tidy, for giving birth to legitimate children. This is how they were valued, based upon how well they did each of these duties. Unfortunately, women in Greece were not considered as citizens. In these times, the father had rights over his daughter. After marriage a father had the right to ask for his daughters return. Women in Greece often were kept at home and could own their own property but was not allowed to sell or dispose of her property. In Rome, women were more free as they were able to own their own property as well as sell or dispose of their property. Women also were free to go about where she liked, they were not kept at home out of sight. As to where women in ancient Greece belonged to their father, women in Rome were subject to the dominant male role in her birth house or if she was married that...
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... The Ancient Greeks lived in Greece and the countries that we now call Bulgaria and Turkey. The Ancient Greece empire spread over Europe as far as France in the East. The Greek Empire was most powerful between 2000 BC and 146 BC The ancient Greeks developed new ideas for government, science, philosophy, religion, and art. Ancient Greece was split into many different states, each one was ruled in its own way. Each state had its own laws, government and money but they shared the same language and religion. The two most important city states were Athens and Sparta. Legacy of the Ancient Greeks - (How Ancient Greece influenced modern day culture.) The influence of the Ancient Greeks are still felt by us today. The major impact in our lives today are in the arts, in philosophy, and in science, math, literature and politics. How do we know about ancient Greece We know much about the Ancient Greeks from objects which have survived for thousands of years. Archaeologists have dug up Ancient Greek artifacts and buildings and marine archaeologists have found wrecks of Ancient Greek ships and their cargoes. Pottery has been the most useful find because it was often decorated with scenes of everyday life. We could work out what life was like by studying the pictures on the pots. The Romans liked the buildings, statues and paintings of the Ancient Greeks and copied them. Some of these have survived. Men Men had a much better life in Ancient Greece...
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... Feminism in Ancient Greek Culture from the Perspective of Lysistrata Lysistrata is portrayed as a hero by Aristophanes and just as Antigone had played a social role in politics, so is Lysistrata portrayed. Most ancient Greek writers were people who had established themselves in the society. They were people of class, and when they wrote about women, they mostly wrote about women from their own social class. Women were shown to participate only in the domestic roles of childbearing and that saw many women confined to their houses. They rarely ventured out of the proximity of their domestic dwellings, let alone participate in manly politics. Lysistrata, however, steps up and take up a political role, an unusual thing in ancient Greek. She empowers women and shows their ability to run the state. Lysistrata is thus shown to be a feminist hero boasting of women empowerment. Many Marxist thinkers would conclude that Lysistrata was nothing more about feminism bout about sex. The women of Greece attempt to end the war using their sexuality, an act that prevails as they see their men return home and agree to sign a peace treaty. There is, however, much more beyond sexuality as the play displays issues of gender, masculinity and femininity. In Lysistrata, the masculine authority that has always prevailed in Ancient Greek is challenged by the women of Greece. The main characters, Lysistrata, Myrrhina and kalonike are all given positive roles that depict women as heroes. ...
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...Women in the Ancient World From the very beginning of time, women have played a very significant role in development and advancement of life, serving as the companion for men as well as procreating with them to ensure the world would be inhabited and settled. In present-day society, we view women as essential to everyday life. Society sees and treats women as intelligent individuals who are equally efficient for most of the same work and intellectual skills as men. In most cases, we believe that women and men are equal, as women are able to legally run for and hold government offices, perform physical labor, work in medical professions, and basically anything they desire so long as, like anyone else, they attain the required certifications, education, etc. However, this outlook on women’s roles and abilities was not always shared among the social order. Throughout history, women’s roles in society, economy, government and culture have evolved and shifted dramatically. Throughout each culture and society in the ancient world, we find differences in the way women were treated, the responsibilities expected of them, and their learned place in the social order. Women featured in Homer’s The Iliad were some of some earliest examples of women being viewed with poor outlooks in the eyes of men in Greek culture. David Harvey claims that Aristotle had no doubt that women were inferior in this particular society (Harvey, 46). They were mainly viewed as prizes throughout Homer’s...
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...“Ancient Greece had the perfect democracy” Ancient Greece did not have a perfect democracy. They established the roots of democracy and most of their ideas were accurate, but it was still quite far from perfect. Their system showed signs of racism, sexism, imperialism and corruption. In ancient Greece, women, the poor, slaves, and tax defaulters were not allowed to vote as they were not considered citizens. Neither were those who didn’t have citizen parentage on both sides. Only Athenian males above the age of 18 had the right to vote. Even though the status of women was lower in Athens than it was in many Greek cities, women were still not able to vote anywhere. This is extremely sexist, as gender should not change someone’s rights and the way they are perceived. These days slavery is considered illegal in most countries, however in ancient Greece, it was acceptable to have slaves working for you. A key part in modern day democracy is the right to vote for everyone, including women, tax defaulters and the poor. It can easily be said that their politics were more like an exclusive gentleman’s club then a democracy. Ancient Greek democracy can be described as being minoritarian, where a minority of the population (e.g. the male population) is eligible to a certain degree of dominance in society and has the right to make decisions that affect the entire society. Equality and freedom are both valued concepts of democracy, and if these concepts were not in place in ancient Greece...
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...Daniel Smithson HIS-321 (Ancient World of Greece & Rome) Analysis Paper Greek Culture / Society and Homosexuality Greek Culture / Society and Homosexuality By Daniel Smithson Southern New Hampshire University HIS-321 Professor Charles Disantis Daniel Smithson HIS-321 (Ancient World of Greece & Rome) Analysis Paper Greek Culture / Society and Homosexuality Ancient Greece: The golden age of the Grecian empire said to span the years 500 to 300 BCE. This time gave breath to the great philosophers Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. This was also the time of great playwrights such as Aristophanes, Sophocles and Aeschylus. How did the Greeks maintain familial ties in a culture with more sexual freedom and seemingly non-existent sexual stigma than today? Grecian Patriarchal Society: Although the Grecian people valued family life, Greek society was stalwartly patriarchal in its social-political structure. The men of Greece coveted the aesthetic of the male form and enjoyed nude wrestling in the arena. Grecian men often shared what we today would call “Homoerotic” or “Homosexual” experiences, Indecorous witticisms illustrated in the compositions of Aristophanes and many other playwrights. Sexual fluidity among men was an intrinsic characteristic of Grecian society. In the Iliad Homer tells the story...
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...The Ancient Egyptian Government valued their gods and brought order to their civilization using their religion and the government itself. This system that the Ancient Egyptians used is what we now call a theocratic monarchy. Firstly, how does this policy work? A theocratic monarchy is a government system where the king rules by the command of the gods, in this case, the king being the Pharaoh. Religion and the government were woven tightly together for the Ancient Egyptians, and they believed that the Pharaoh was the representative of the gods, and at one point in time, was also believed as a god in human form. Since they believed that the Pharaoh had some kind of bond with the gods, they gave him, or even her, numerous responsibilities. Secondly, the social hierarchy of Ancient Egypt brought stability to their civilization because of how each level of the social hierarchy worked together. Starting at the very top of the social hierarchy, the different levels consisted of the Pharaoh, viziers and high priests, royal overseers, district governors, scribes, and finally, artisans, farmers, and labourers(See Fig....
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...a very familiar name, but there were the ancient Olympics and the modern Olympics. There are many differences between these, even including the histories of the games. The reasons they were held, who was allowed to watch, and even some things that happened during the games. Even if there are the similarities- which there are- if you know the histories behind these games, you can see the differences. These games are ancient themselves. The ancient Olympic games began in 776 B.C., in an attempt to stop discourse between the cities of Greece- they all fought very often. Starting the games didn't assist them for this reason very much at all, but it united the peoples of Greece, through their religion- although women were not allowed to enter. The games were held at Olympia, where the Greek gods were said to have resided- the Olympics were clearly very closely linked to honoring their gods. One hundred oxen were even sacrificed to Zeus, the head of them, and an altar to him was made out of their ashes. In 394 A.D., the emperor Theodius banned...
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...most complex goddesses portrayed throughout history. Unlike many other goddesses who have kept relatively stable images, Hera has been tossed out and about being perceived on entirely different ends of the spectrum as both the Great Mother Goddess and the nagging and jealous wife of Zeus. She is the perfect example of a matriarchal deity that was taken over and transformed by patriarchal culture. It was in “Old” Ancient Greece that Hera was the primary divinity of a matriarchal culture, until the “New” Ancient Greece was founded by the Indo-European Hellenes from the north. It was the Mediterranean pre-Hellenic Greeks that worshiped Hera, and their culture was based around women (Morgan, 2006). Hera was portrayed in the three stages that women experience: the maiden (youth without children or responsibility), the mother (women with children and families in the prime of their lives), and the crone (past mothers who live for themselves once again). There was actually a competitive festival that happened every four years (like a sort of female Olympics) in which women of all ages were divided into three age groups (representing the three stages of Hera) and participated in 160-yard races, bare-breasted and with their hair unbound. There were three winners (one for each age/life stage category) and each winner had the honour of placing a statuette of herself in Hera’s shrine, received an olive crown, and had a share of the cow sacrificed for the festival in the honour of Hera (Morgan...
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...Daily Life in Ancient Greece The daily life of ancient Greeks was very interesting. Men in Greece had a lot of freedom but as for women in Greece, their lives were very restricted. Children in Greece had very different lives depending on what gender they were. Boys learned about sports and wrestling and the girls learned about chores, weaving, and cooking. There is much more stuff about their daily life, keep reading to find out. The daily life of a man was just how you would expect it to be in ancient Greece, military, fighting, sports and more. One interesting thing was that the men made all of the important decisions in the house and the wives usually got no say in the decision he was making. I don't like how the wives didn't have a say in it, they should be able to help make the decision because it it their family/home too. Men also were very active and they participated in many sports and sometimes in the Olympics that was at Olympia. All of the men there must have been very strong fit and were always doing something. Most men were also required to...
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...unhealthy behaviors associated with it. Much like the ancient Greeks, people nowadays commit suicide for...
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...Although women in Greece were typically disrespected, Homer integrates examples of women’s strength by incorporating clever and intelligent women in The Odyssey. In ancient Greece, the common belief was that under the law, women were completely under control of their husbands. This is evident because women who were the only child of their fathers wouldn’t inherit his property; but rather her husband. As a result, this became a defining stereotype that ruled over women in Greece. Also,because the Greek law requires women to be ruled by their husbands, the idea that women were unable to make their own decisions and were denied the basic rights that all men in Greece were granted is portrayed. Contrasting this common belief of Greek values;however, Penelope is illustrated as a powerful women by using her wits to trick the suitors. In The Odyssey, Penelope was able to hold off the suitors during her husband’s absence by unraveling the shroud she is weaving for Odysseus. While she claims she would eventually marry one of the suitors once she finished her loom, she prevents this by, “weaving at her great web-by night...she’d unravel all she’d done”(Homer 96). Throughout Penelope’s actions, the strength of women in ancient Greece is revealed because of her role in the household during Odysseus’...
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...Early Greece and All Its Glory Amy Villegas Matthew Geier Strayer University March 4, 2010 Early Greece and All Its Glory Phoenician Alphabet The Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet. Just like the Phoenicians the Greek alphabet is written from right to left. The direction of writing later changed to ox-turning. Ox-turning is a written language that is written from right to left and on the next line it continues from left to right and so on. Eventually, the Greek alphabet does change to left to right but that’s during the fifth century. (Bantwal, 2008) Greek Education For Greek children, their education mostly consisted of poetry and song. (Hadas, 1950) Education was more popular among young boys but it was not uncommon for girls. The wealthier children remained in school for ten years. Grammatistes, paidotribes and kitharistes were the teachers who taught the children. Grammatistes taught literature, arithmetic, reading and writing. Paidotribes coached boxing, wrestling, and gymnastics. Kitharistes taught music. At age eighteen, boys would train for the military for two years before further education. (Discovery Channel, n.d) The Illiad and the Odyssey Homer wrote the two most classic poems titled the Illiad and the Odyssey. The Illiad is based on the last six weeks of the Trojan War. The main character of the Illiad is Achilles. Achilles and Agamemnon get in a heated argument and Achilles retracts from the war. The Greeks are losing...
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...great civilizations that disappeared, only leaving fragments of their existence for the rest of modern society to ponder. Only separated by the Mediterranean Sea, approximately 1,599km or 994mi, both the countries of Egypt and Greece were once the heavyweight champions of their era. Although they reside on different continents, these civilizations are more similar than what history may portray them to be. Each civilization holds similar foundations. Egypt and Greece were ahead of their time by giving birth to an evolving society that represented greater gender equality and independence, in a time where it was uncommon in...
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