Introduction to the Ancient World: Greece

 Athens and Tragedy

I. One more reform of Kleisthenes (see Lect.12): ostracism

II. The Persian Wars 

A. The first expedition; Aristagoras at Miletus, satraps, Datis and Artaphernes, Battle of Marathon (490 B.C.)
B. And the second try: Xerxes at Salamis (480 B.C.); Themistocles, Thermopylae (Leonidas), Pausanias at Plataea (479 B.C.)
C. What if the Persians had won??? Persepolis 

III.  Tragic drama - key elements

tyche, moira, the question of Job, katharsis, pity and fear, hybris,  catastrophe, not "tragic" ending but resolution

IV. The setting 

A. audience; liturgy
B. the theater building: orchestra, skene; deus ex machina 

V. Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.) 

VI. The Agamemnon (and the next two plays) 

A. domestic themes; characters, hybris

B. universal themes-the curse on the House of Atreus

generations 1 and 2:  Tantalus/Pelops
generation 3:  Atreus and Thyestes
next:  Agamemnon/Clytemnestra/ Aegisthus
next: Orestes, Electra, Iphigenia

C. historical and political themes 

 VII. Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, and the carpet scene (905ff.)

Lecture 13 Images 

 Please bring texts to class next time and on Friday.