Introduction to the Ancient World: Greece

Lecture 13 

 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. 


modified Feb. 20, 2005
s_davies@mail.utexas.edu