Unit POLITICS, RELIGION AND CULTURE IN THE GREEK WORLD

Course
Archaeology and history of art
Study-unit Code
A002657
Curriculum
Generico
Teacher
Massimo Nafissi
Teachers
  • Massimo Nafissi
Hours
  • 36 ore - Massimo Nafissi
CFU
6
Course Regulation
Coorte 2022
Offered
2022/23
Learning activities
Caratterizzante
Area
Storia antica e medievale
Academic discipline
L-ANT/02
Type of study-unit
Opzionale (Optional)
Type of learning activities
Attività formativa monodisciplinare
Language of instruction
Italian
Contents
Politics, religion and culture in Sparta between Hellenism and the Roman Age.
1. Sparta and the Achaeans.
2. Artemis Orthia. Education, rituals and competition in the history of the city.
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.
• Cartledge, P. – Spawforth, A. (2002), Hellenistic and Roman Sparta. 2. ed. London et al., 25-95.

Readings:
• Ducat, J., Spartan Education. Youth and Society in the Classical Period, Swansea 2006, 1-34.
• Kennell, N.M., The Gymnasium of Virtue: Education and Culture in Ancient Sparta, Chapel Hill 1995, 49-69, 70–97, 115-128;

Two among the following papers or chapters of book:
• Cartledge, P., A Spartan Education, in Id., Spartan Reflections. London 2001, 79-90.
• 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).

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.
Students with disabilities and/or DSA, in consultation with the lecturer, may request any teaching materials in accessible formats (presentations, handouts, workbooks), provided if necessary in advance of the lessons, as well as the use of other technological tools to facilitate study. For general information, please consult the University Services at https://lettere.unipg.it/home/disabilita-e-dsa and contact the Contact Person for the Department.
Educational objectives
Knowing and understanding basic element of Greek religion;
elements of metropolitan Greek history during the Hellenistic and Roman periods;
basic knowledge of Spartan history, religion and political and social institutions.
myth, cultural memory and identity in Greek communities (examples from the history of Sparta);
Spartan education;
Greek religion and agonistics.

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.
At the request of individual students, the programme can be redefined and may provide for a written paper (ca. 10, max. 15 pp.) on topics regarding the course and possibly its presentation in a seminar session.
Extended program
1. Sparta and the Achaeans.
From the end of the 3rd century BC to the Bellum Achaicum, which ended in 146 BC with the destruction of Corinth, the dissolution of the Achaean League and the subordination of Greece to the governor of Macedonia, the history of Sparta was closely linked to the history of the Achaean League, of which it was an integral part from 192 until 146. Ancient tradition records that in 188 B.C. Philopoemen' abolished the 'laws of Lycurgus', and that these were later returned to the city by the Romans, apparently with reference to the events of 146. This information, which is - as the lectures will show - tendentious, generalising and simplifying in character, has greatly influenced modern reconstructions of Spartan history, particularly with regard to the history of her education, which is believed to have been abolished during these decades. There is sometimes talk of an obliteration of the individuality of the city's culture. The course highlights the weakness and implausibility of this reconstruction, and attempts to identify traces of the persistence of traditional elements in first half of 2nd cent. BC Spartan culture in contemporary witnesses. The hostility between Sparta and the Achaeans was an important fact of the history of the period, but account must also be taken of Sparta's coexistence with the league, of the at least partial integration of its elite into the league's system of government, and thus it must be assessed whether there were not also elements of cultural convergence with the Achaean world. There is no doubt, however, that Sparta's forced integration into the Achaean League left a deep mark on the city's culture, characterized by an enduring hostility towards the Achaeans until the height of the imperial age. The effects of this on historical culture and city memory are assessed.
2. 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 and competitions 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 at times sketchy and cursory, the available information makes it possible to recognise an evolution of the most famous agones that took place there, which in Roman times took the form of the flagellation (which is probably first documented in 79 BC). The form of this particular agon is studied, which in some ways seems to take on the appearance of a religious ritual, and its development is investigated, also in relation to the problems of Spartan history analysed in the first part of the course.
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