Human Sexuality

Ch. 2 Classicism: The Greek Legacy, “it’s all Greek to me”.

Hellenic, Golden Age, Hellenistic

Classicism: The Greek Legacy (1200-30 B.C./B.C.E.)

Aegean Civilizations (3000-1200B.C./B.C.E.).

        The cultures that we know were the Minoan, the Mycenaean, and Dorian.

The Minoans resided in Crete, the largest of Greece’s islands and Knossos held the central palace.

Legend describes King Minos, his daughter Princess Ariadne, Prince Theseus, and the Minotaur.

Cretan frescoes display bull-leaping and there is the Priestess with Snakes figurine. It is thought that the Cretans were a matriarchal culture and there is evidence of human sacrifice.  

Mycenaean Civilization (1600-1200 B.C./B.C.E.).

The Mycenaeans are thought to be an aggressive culture and were patriarchal. They conquered the Minoans and were known for their massively walled citadels. Think of the massive walls of Troy in Homer’s Iliad and Nineveh, Iraq with its walls, “in places up to 148 feet (45 m) wide” or wide enough “a horse drawn chariot to turn around” (NASB?).

Mycenaea was conquered by the Dorians and they may have given us the Doric capitals for columns.

Relate the tale of Marathon (p. 36) and how the man who ran from Marathon to Athens (26 miles) and exclaimed Nike (Victory).

Oligarchy: government controlled by an elite minority. Democracy: government by the people (p.36). The reality of the democracy (only land owning, free men over 18 years old). How many of you think our nation is a democracy? The U.S.A. is not a democracy, it a democratic republic combining Athens w/Rome.

Hellenic - Olympic Games: every four years, became the basis for reckoning time, were in honor of the Greek gods [run fast like Hermes running the stadion/stadium (200 yard sprint), war-like wrestling as Ares, just don’t bite or break the fingers of you equally nude rival or you might need Aesclepius to heal you if you get hurt in the gymnos/gymnasium]. The games began in 776 BC.

Greek drama, tragedy & comedy, Dionysus and the ritual(s). Mention the satyrs, who they are and their behavior. The 4 playwrights:

Tragedy: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides

The Comedy: Aristophanes

Poetry:  one of the most famous poets was Sappho (610-580 B.C./B.C.E.). She was on the island of Lesbos, off the coast of Turkey and her poetry was known for homoeroticism which reflected some of the bisexuality and homosexuality within Greek culture.

Greek Philosophy (love of wisdom) was diverse and made the leap from the supernatural to natural explanations of the known & unknown. The Greek held that people are composed of physical body and the psyche (mind/soul). Body will die, but the psyche is immortal.

Pre-Socratics these philosopher-scientists reasoned that there must be a single, unifying source

 that formed the basic stuff of nature.

Thales: thought that water was the source from which all things proceeded.

Heraclitus: said the universe has no permanence and change is the basis of reality.

Leucippus: atoms moving ceaselessly in the void make physical reality.

Pythagoras: proportion through number is the basis for reality. Can I get your #? Binary language.

Hippocrates: father of medicine held that an imbalance among the 4 humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile) was the cause for disease.

The Sophists they turned from the world of nature to the world of the mind, from the physical to moral concerns, and from gathering information to the cultivation of wisdom. They argued that truth & justice were relative: what might be just & true for one individual might not be just & true for another.

Protagoras: knowledge cannot exceed human opinion and that “Man is the measure of all things.” Thus, the transition from examining matter to exploring the mind brought about humanistic philosophy.

Gorgias: tried to prove that reality is incomprehensible and that even if one could comprehend it, one could not describe it to others. (How could he comprehend that?)

Socratic, Dialectical Philosophy dialectical method popularized by Socrates employed a rigorous question and answer technique which inquired people to “Know themselves/Know thyself,” determine “What is the greatest good?,” and “Everything in moderation.”

Socrates: opposed the Sophists and insisted upon the absolute nature of truth & justice, the ethical life belonged to a larger set of universal truths and an unchanging moral order. Because of his dialectical methods, his reliance upon reason, and the departure from the supernatural, he was condemned and sentenced to death by drinking a potion containing the poisonous herb, hemlock. His analysis moved from specific examples to universal truths.

Plato: student of Socrates, who often used the character of Socrates to voice his own ideas within his own written dialogues, famous for writing Republic with its Allegory of the Cave (explain), training Aristotle, founded the first school of philosophy (the Academy), and promoting his Theory of Forms.

Theory of Forms: proposes that all sensory objects are imitations of the Forms that are the basis from which we get our earthly shapes and designs. Example: there are no completely accurate & perfect chairs for us to sit on, as they can come in a variety of shapes, colors, sizes, etc. However, there is a perfect chair somewhere that we all have a basic knowledge of and from that we try to replicate it with our own versions of that perfect chair. Yet, our chairs fail in meeting the accuracy of the perfect one because our bodies (failing and sensory as they are) prevent us reproducing the perfect chair that exists and we know of within our mind/psyche.

There is the Greek Soul/psyche (thought immortal) and the body. Again, the psyche is the mind, but it is not the physical brain.

Aristotle: student of Plato, tutor to Alexander the Great, taught that reality is here on Earth and not in the heavenlies as Plato thought, had his own school (Lyceum), advanced the empirical method, promoted ethics, wrote Politics, where he stated that all human beings are not created equal. His method of reason included going from the general to the specific (opposite to Socrates) –think on that as this nation’s founding fathers based much of the government upon the ideas of Israel, Greece, and Rome and the Declaration of Independence reads that, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (http://www.usconstitution.net/declar.html)