GREECE TEST REVIEW

Back to Syllabus.

General comments:

The format of the test will be as before. A few pictures, some short-answer questions, one essay. The essay should be specific and substantive, not just a couple of sentences. Therefore, plan your time so you don't shortchange that question. On the short-answer questions too, be sure to include as much as the question asks for. The more complete the answer, the higher the grade!

Dates:

We have one culture to deal with this time, and a lot more specific dates. You should be able to give a 10-20 year date range for important people, developments, vases and statues that the handouts give dates for. Not for anything else, but you should know what period (archaic, early classical, etc.) things belong in.

Mycenaeans:

• Late Helladic (LH) I: Mycenae shaft graves: sudden wealth, but not influx of new people
  • foreign contact, esp. with Minoans
• LH II: problem of style--hard to tell whether Minoan or Mycenaean artists made a given piece
  • cf. Vaphio cups
  • tholos tombs--beehive shape, corbelled dome roof
• LH III: palaces: key sites Pylos, Tiryns, Mycenae; megaron unit the central part
  • kingdom administration--Linear B tablets
    • what kinds of things to they tell us about?
  • signs of trouble c. 1250--wall-building; unexplained disasters c. 1200 B.C.
    • trouble for Egyptians, Hittites, etc. at same time
    • Trojan War: the reality fits into this context of trouble and attacks
      • Trojan War legend: fought to retrieve a captured Greek Queen, Helen, from Troy

Dark Ages:

• dark for us, dark for them; don't worry about it.

Geometric-Archaic periods:

• cultural history
  • 8th century renaissance
    • colonies; writing rediscovered (from Phoenicians); rise of polis; mythology
  • 7th century orientalizing influence begins--in vase painting, textiles, sculpture etc.
    • vases pick themes from Greek mythology
  • 6th century orientalizing motifs continue in vases, Ionic temples, but Greek forms become standardized
    • tyrants (non-hereditary kings) take over in Athens, some other places
  • c. 500, change in all areas
    • c. 520 shift to Red Figure vase painting
    • c. 500 Athens throws off tyranny and settles for democracy
    • c. 500 Persians threaten Greeks in Turkey (Ionian revolt)
      • revolt put down by 494, but Persians vow to pay Greeks back, esp. Athens
      • 490 B.C. they invade; Athenians beat them in battle at Marathon
        
• vase-painting
  • geometric designs; silhouette figures c. 750; narrative art by 700
  • 700-580: proto-Attic vases show mythological scenes
  • 580-520: Attic Black Figure: Exekias esp. important
  • 520 onward: Attic Red Figure: Euphronios esp. important
    
• sculpture
  • 600-500 kouroi and korai start stiff like Egyptian statues; gradually become more 'lifelike'
  • c. 480 Aegina temple sculpture and Kritios Boy show transition from Archaic to Early Classical Period
    • One pediment of Aegina temple is Archaic, the other 10 years later is Early Classical in style
      
• architecture
  • be able to identify and describe a Doric temple and an Ionic temple, and give examples

Classical period:

• Athenian success in repelling Persians (490, 480) makes them preeminent in Greece
• Athens develops an increasingly repressive control of polises it controls
• general resentment culminates in the Peloponnesian War, in which Sparta and many other polises take on Athens in war, and ultimately beat her (in 404 B.C.)
  
• sculpture
  • bronze original statues, Roman marble copies
    • (problem of assessing original on the basis of copies)
    • architectural sculpture (reliefs, pediments) is original in marble
    • Doryphoros of Polykleitos--illustrates his ideal of proportions
      
• architecture
  • Temple of Zeus at Olympia, Parthenon--sculpture by Phidias
    • when are these built?
    • layout of Parthenon, metopes, frieze and pediments; special illusions make it special
      • also it's a combination of Doric and Ionic elements
    • gold and ivory statue of the deity (Zeus, Athena) to whom the temple dedicated
  • Nike Temple at Athens
    • small Ionic building on the Acropolis
  • Erechtheum at Athens
    • large ornate Ionic temple on the Acropolis