Unit POLITICS, RELIGION AND CULTURE IN THE GREEK WORLD
- Course
- Italian, classical studies and european history
- Study-unit Code
- A002657
- Curriculum
- Civiltà e cultura dell'antico
- Teacher
- Massimo Nafissi
- Teachers
-
- Massimo Nafissi
- Hours
- 36 ore - Massimo Nafissi
- CFU
- 6
- Course Regulation
- Coorte 2021
- Offered
- 2021/22
- Learning activities
- Affine/integrativa
- Area
- Attività formative affini o integrative
- Academic discipline
- L-ANT/02
- Type of study-unit
- Opzionale (Optional)
- Type of learning activities
- Attività formativa monodisciplinare
- Language of instruction
- Italian
- Contents
- Spartan Issues II.
1. Artemis Orthia. Education, rituals and competition in the history of the city.
2. The Spartan Agora. Spaces, Institutions, Myth, Religion, and History. - Reference texts
- Students attending more than 60% of lessons
• Study of the booklet on the lessons, to be issued and uploaded in Unistudium at their end.
Two among the following papers or chapters of book:
• Cartledge, P., A Spartan Education, in Id., Spartan Reflections. London 2001, 79-90.
• Ducat, J., Spartan Education. Youth and Society in the Classical Period, Swansea 2006, 1-34.
• Nafissi, M., Freddo, caldo e uomini veri. L’educazione dei giovani spartani e il De aeribus aquis locis, «Hormos - Ricerche di Storia Antica» n.s. 10, 2018, 162-202.
• Parker, R., Spartan Religion, in A. Powell (ed.), Classical Sparta: Techniques behind Her Success, London 1989, pp. 142-172 (disponibile anche in traduzione italiana)
For part 1, three among the following papers or chapters of book:
• S. des Bouvrie, Artemis Ortheia. A goddess of nature or a goddess of culture?, in T. Fischer-Hansen e B. Poulsen (eds.), From Artemis to Diana. The Goddess of Man and Beast, Copenhagen 2009, 153-178.
• Bonnechère, P. Orthia et la flagellation des éphèbes spartiates: un souvenir chimérique de sacrifice humain. «Kernos», vol. 6, 1993, pp. 11-22.
• Brelich, A., Paides e parthenoi, I, Roma 1969, 126-140.
• Christesen, P., Athletics and Social Order in Sparta in the Classical Period, «Classical Antiquity» 31, 2, 2012, 193-255.
• Ducat, J., Spartan Education. Youth and Society in the Classical Period, Swansea 2006, 249-260.
• Kennell, N.M., The Gymnasium of Virtue: Education and Culture in Ancient Sparta, Chapel Hill 1995, 49-69, 70–97, 115-128.
• Richer, N., La religion des Spartiates. Croyances et cultes dans l'antiquité, Paris 2012, 343-382.
For Part 2:
• M. Nafissi, Forme di controllo a Sparta, Il Pensiero Politico, XL 2, 2007, 329-344;
• M. Nafissi, Erodoto, Sparta e gli oracoli su Tegea e Oreste, «Seminari Romani di cultura greca», n.s. III 2, 2014, 295-332;
• M. Nafissi, Oreste, Tisameno, gli ephoreia e il santuario delle Moire a Sparta, in V. Gasparini (a cura di), Vestigia, Miscellanea di studi storico-religiosi in onore dell’80° anniversario di Filippo Coarelli, Potsdamer Altertumswissenschaftliche Beiträge, Stuttgart 2016, 633-644
• E. Greco, With Pausanias (and Others) in the Agora of Sparta, in A. Ercolani, M. Giordano (Eds.), Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture. The Comparative Perspective, Berlin – Boston, 2016, 113-130.
Further bibliography will be indicated during the lessons.
N.B. For students attending less than 60% of lessons is furthermore required the reading of
• M. Lupi, Sparta. Storia e rappresentazioni di una città greca, Roma, Carocci, 2017. - Educational objectives
- Knowing and understanding basic element of Greek religion.
Basic knowledge of Spartan history, religion and political and social institutions.
Greek mythology and its historical significance: myth, religion, politics, society.
Applying knowledge and understanding interdisciplinary approach to the study of Greek culture: analysis and interpretation of literary, epigraphic sources, as means to reconstruct meaningful cultural messages.
Improvement of the students' skill of historical interpretation of the sources. - Prerequisites
- It is useful, but not necessary, to have taken exams of Greek History and Greek Archeology.
- Teaching methods
- Readings
Seminar lessons and/or paper, if requested by the students
Attendance checked by roll call.
Supplementary readings are imposed to students who attend less than 60% of lessons. Attendance by working students is not checked. - Other information
- Beginning, schedule and room of the lessons, see Department Official Pages http://www.lettere.unipg.it/didattica/calendari
- Learning verification modality
- Oral exam (ca. 30', after the course). Students of the LM-15 degree the exam are expected to show their ability to translate and comment on passages in Greek, chosen from a list among those examined during the year.
or, on request of single students, written paper (ca. 10, max. 15 pp.) and/or presentation in seminar on topics regarding the course. - Extended program
- 1. Artemis Orthia. Education, rituals and events in the history of the city.
The sanctuary of Artemis Orthia represents one of the best known places in Sparta. Literary texts have transmitted to us numerous accounts of the celebrations which were held there, and important excavations have been conducted on the spot at the beginning of the 20th century, revealing i.a. a rich epigraphic documentation. These epigraphic texts sheds inter alia important light on Sparta's age class system, some aspects of which are analyzed. The youth rituals and contests that took place at the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia are a reflection of the peculiar Spartan educational practices: these practices too must therefore be considered when studying Orthia and its contests. Although sometimes incomplete and cursory, the information available makes it possible to recognize an evolution of the most famous competition that took place there, and which in Roman times took the form of flagellation. We study the characteristics and the development of this peculiar agon.
2. The agora of Sparta. Spaces, institutions, myth, religion and history.
The agora of Sparta is only partially known to us thanks to archaeological exploration and as a whole through the description of Pausanias. Other information on its monuments and their religious and political significance, on the events and ceremonies that took place in it, comes from the remaining ancient tradition, from Herodotus to Plutarch. The course focuses on some salient aspects of this space, starting from the cultural dimension that it assumed for a visitor educated in the second century. A.D., Pausanias. Upstream from this moment, particular attention is paid to the institutionalization of the political sphere in the context of historical dynamics, from the Archaic to the Classical and Hellenistic periods. We will reflect on the role of signs of honor, myth and religion in this process of defining political institutions as abstract roles, with stable dignity and function, and independent of the people who hold them. Some sacred places are also investigated, on whose meaning the sources provide more abundant information.