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 2024
- Offered
- 2024/25
- 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
- Monuments: Myth and Memory, Religion and History.
I. The throne of Apollo at Amyclae.
II. Thucydides, the Western Pediment of the Temple of Zeus in Olympia and the Early Years of the Delio-Attic Alliance
III. The Stoà poikile in Athens and the memory of the Persian wars in the 5th century BC. - 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.
And furthermore
Re. Part I
• Nafissi, M., Spartan Heroic Ancestry and Austere Virtues. Herakles, Theseus, and the Phaiakians on the Throne of Amyklai, A. Möller (hrsg.), Historiographie und Vergangenheitsvorstellungen in der Antike, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 2019, 35-56.
• Nafissi, M., Gli eroi del Trono di Apollo ad Amicle tra apoteosi, immortalità elisia e destino di morte, «Mythos» 14, 2020, 1-24 DOI: 10.4000/mythos.1868.
Re. part II:
N.B. For students attending less than 60% of lessons is furthermore required the reading of the book
• M. Lupi, Sparta. Storia e rappresentazioni di una città greca, Roma, Carocci, 2017.
or the following chapters of books:
• 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.
• Kennell, N.M., The Gymnasium of Virtue: Education and Culture in Ancient Sparta, Chapel Hill 1995, 49-69, 70–97, 115-128.
• Parker, R., Spartan Religion, in A. Powell (ed.), Classical Sparta: Techniques behind Her Success, London 1989, pp. 142-172 (also available in Italian translation)
(The above essays, to the extent that they do not contravene copyright law, will be uploaded to Unistudium)
Students with disabilities and/or with SLD who, having completed regular accreditation through SOL, have obtained access to University services, can apply for the compensatory tools ensured by law (e.g. textbooks in digital format; teaching materials in accessible formats: presentations, handouts, workbooks, provided if necessary in advance of the lessons), for which consult https://www.unipg.it/disabilita-e-dsa.
For the request, students are invited to ask the teacher, who will put them in contact with the Disability and/or DSA Department Coordinator (prof. Alessandra Di Pilla: alessandra.dipilla@unipg.it) - Educational objectives
- Knowing and understanding basic element of Greek religion.
Basic knowledge of the Laconian history, and of Laconian and Spartan religion.
Greek mythology and historical significance: myth, religion, politics, society.
Applying knowledge and understanding interdisciplinary approach to the study of Greek culture: analysis and interpretation of literary and of monuments and their decoration.
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
- Lectures. Reading sources and documents in Italian translation.
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.
Students with disabilities and/or DSA may request, in consultation with the lecturer, any teaching materials in accessible formats (presentations, handouts, workbooks), provided if necessary in advance of the lectures, 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 Departmental Contact Person (Prof. A. Di Pilla).
For the 2023/2024 academic year, the University of Perugia has admitted 11 categories of students to distance learning. Students who may be interested are invited to check the possibility of attending lectures in DAD on the website Procedura DAD - Università degli Studi di Perugia (unipg.it) - 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.
All students are tested on their knowledge of all the three topics covered in the course.
- Evidence of competence: ability to express oneself orally, in particular with regard to the concepts necessary for the description of social, political, religious and cultural institutions and phenomena and of historical development, of archaeological, monumental and figurative realities, as well as historiographical and mythical narratives. Ability to provide a clear picture of situations; ability to express complex concepts and hypotheses and to organise information in a hierarchical, logical and synthetic manner; for students of Classical Literature, the ability to translate from Greek, to contextualise and comment the texts proposed during the course.
The assessment will take into account the breadth and depth of knowledge, the ability to express oneself at a conceptual and argumentative level, the logical rigour and personal character of the exposition, and, when required, the knowledge of the Greek of the passages examined and the ability to contextualise and comment on them.
Students with disabilities and/or with SLD who, having completed regular accreditation through SOL, have obtained access to University services, can apply for the compensatory tools ensured by law (e.g. textbooks in digital format; teaching materials in accessible formats: presentations, handouts, workbooks, provided if necessary in advance of the lessons), for which consult https://www.unipg.it/disabilita-e-dsa.
For the request, students are invited to ask the teacher, who will put them in contact with the Disability and/or DSA Department Coordinator (prof. Alessandra Di Pilla: alessandra.dipilla@unipg.it) - Extended program
- I. The throne of Apollo at Amyclae
The sanctuary of Apollo and Hyakinthos was famous in antiquity among other things for the so called Throne. Apollo’s or Bathykles’ Throne (from the name of its author) was a large late-archaic structure that surrounded an oldest huge simulacrum of the god Apollo. The structure was characterized by a very rich sculpted figurative cycle, which is completely lost. Their themes, however, were listed quickly, but with substantial completeness, by the Periegetes Pausanias in the second century A.D. Without neglecting the archaeological data – the important results of new researches are still only partially published - an attempt will be made to propose an overall interpretation of the figurative cycle. A thorough review of Pausanias’ text and of the conditions in which he proposed his presentation, the constant comparison with the the archaic and classical figurative culture and literary tradition, allow to recover the religious conceptions and the ethical categories that determined the choice of the myths and their combination on the monument.
II. Thucydides, the Western Pediment of the Temple of Zeus in Olympia and the Early Years of the Delio-Attic Alliance
The perception of the relations between Sparta, Athens and the other allies in the war against Persia in the first part of the Pentecontaetia, up to 464 BC, is in large part dependent on the narrative of Thucydides. For Thucydides, the Peloponnesian War was the inevitable consequence of the growth of Athens, to which Sparta, with its inertia, had failed to react in time. This led him, on the one hand, to encompass in his narrative the early moments of friction between Athens and Sparta, which the Athenian oral tradition, inspired by the later enmity between the two poleis, emphasised. On the other hand, he attempted to place them in a plausible framework of a gradual escalation. In his account, the symptoms of the crisis in relations between the allies are thus very early, even if they do not explode until some time later. The subsequent tradition accentuates these tensions and highlights other moments of disagreement. The temple of Zeus at Olympia reveals, if not an objectively different historical-political framework, at least a less confrontational perspective. The Olympia sanctuary was suitable, and the community that governed it, the Eleians, was interested in proposing a perspective of Panhellenic concord. The battle of Theseus and the Lapiths against the Centaurs on the western pediment of the temple alluded to the actions of Athens and its allies in the League of Delos against the barbarians, and presented them to the Greeks as a common deed to be shared emotionally.
III. The Stoà poikile and the memory of the Persian wars in 5th century BC Athens.
The Stoa Poikile, 'the painted one', also famous for the philosophers who frequented it, in particular Zeno of Cytius and his followers, who took the name of Stoics from the Stoa, is usually recognised in a building discovered in the early 1980s beyond the Athens-Piraeus railway, but the identification is not without uncertainty. The building deserves special attention for the series of large paintings with mythical and historical themes that adorned it. Among the paintings, obviously lost and known only from ancient descriptions, there was an Amazonomachia, a painting depicting the Greeks gathered to judge Ajax of Oileus, the author of the violence against Cassandra during the taking of Troy, and a battle of Marathon. The paintings were the work of the great masters of the second quarter and middle decades of the 5th century, Polignotus, Mikon and possibly Panainos. The construction of the Stoa is attributed to the initiative of Cimon's son-in-law, and its pictorial programme is therefore usually considered to be inspired by the political vision of his circle. Pausanias, who describes the Stoa, also mentions that some trophies for the victory over the Spartans at Sphakteria (425 BC) and for the victory over the Scyonians (421 BC) were kept there. The course will examine the significance of the choice of paintings, which also raise important exegetical problems in the recognition of the historical events depicted (the enigmatic battle of Oinoe), the importance of the Stoa in the construction of memories of the Persian wars, and the role of the latter in the political and ideal history of the 5th century, also in relation to the celebration of Athenian victories. All this commemorative and celebratory emphasis will be read in the context of the area of the square where the Stoa stands. - Obiettivi Agenda 2030 per lo sviluppo sostenibile