CH Midterm Examl

First school of philosophy. Outside the city walls of Athens. Free of the influence of the city. Greatest student was Aristotle An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education or higher learning, research, or honorary membership.

Academy

the study of how things came to be the way they are

Etiology

embodiment of the culture and primary cultural values or attitudes.

hero

the flood of grief. A river in Hades over which Charon ferried the souls of the dead. The word Acheron itself means the "river of woe". A fitting name indeed for this river. This is the river that the old ferryman Charon ferried the dead across from the land of the living to the realm of Hades.

Acheron

additive thinking fits with oral stories (lots of ands), causative thinking is a flowing narrative (uses because)

Additive vs. Causative thinking

Different texts carved into stone face. Three different languages all with the same words. Elamite, Persian, Babylonian The Behistun Inscription (also Bisotun, Bistun or Bisutun), (Persian: بیستون, Old Persian: Bagastana, meaning "the place of god") is a multi-lingual inscription located on Mount Behistun in the Kermanshah Province of Iran, near the city of Kermanshah in western Iran. It was crucial to the decipherment of cuneiform script. The inscription includes three versions of the same text, written in three different cuneiform script languages: Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian (a later form of Akkadian). In effect, then, the inscription is to cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone is to Egyptian hieroglyphs: the document most crucial in the decipherment of a

Behistun Rock

composed of slim triangular or wedge-shaped elements which were pushed into soft clay and then made into stone, as the characters used in writing by the ancient Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and others. The great literary works of Mesopotamia such as the Atrahasis, The Descent of Inanna, The Myth of Etana, The Enuma Elish and the famous Epic of Gilgamesh were all written in cuneiform and were completely unknown until the mid 19th century CE, when men like the brilliant translator George Smith (1840-1876 CE) and Henry Rawlinson (1810-1895 CE) deciphered the language and translated it into English.

Cuneiform

originally "The Dogs" - A group of philosophers (leader is Diogenes) who believed life should be lived according to nature. Reason comes from needs. Good and bad run counterproductive to human nature 1. a person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons. "some cynics thought that the controversy was all a publicity stunt" 2. a member of a school of ancient Greek philosophers founded by Antisthenes, marked by an ostentatious contempt for ease and pleasure. The movement flourished in the 3rd century BC and revived in the 1st century AD.

Cynics

any interpretation of myths that derives the gods from outstanding men and seeks the source of mythology in history is the practice of reading myth as anthropological evidence. That is, a euhemeristic reading of a myth seeks to determine, from the stories a culture tells itself, the nature of that culture's values, its structure, its technologies, etc. For example, a euphemistic reading of The Epic of Gilgamesh might deduce from its empasis on city walls the importance of baked clay bricks to ancient Sumer, and of the city as the basic societal structure of the Sumerians

Euhemerism

story of Jesus after he dies, he goes to hell and tears stuff up and takes all the good people to heaven that died before he was born.

Harrowing of hell

Humbaba's mouth is fire; his roar the floodwater; his breath is death. Enlil made him guardian of the Cedar Forest, to frighten off the mortal who would venture there. But who would venture there? Humbaba's mouth is fire; his roar is the floodwater; he breathes and there is death. He hears the slightest sound somewhere in the Forest. Enlil made him terrifying guardian, Whose mouth is fire, whose roar the floodwater. —Tablet II What could I offer the queen of love in return, who lacks nothing at all? Balm for the body? The food and drink of the gods? I have nothing to give to her who lacks nothing at all. You are the door through which the cold gets in. You are the fire that goes out. You are the pitch that sticks to the hands of the one who carries the bucket. You are the house that falls down. You are the shoe that pinches the foot of the wearer. The ill-made wall that buckles when time has gone by. The leaky water skin soaking the water skin carrier. —Tablet VI

Humbaba's

a nomadic people who conquered and ruled ancient Egypt between the 13th and 18th dynasties, c1700-1580 b.c.: believed to have been a Semitic people that originally migrated into Egypt from Asia. Were foreign rulers The Hyksos or Hycsos (/ˈhɪksɒs/ or /ˈhɪksoʊz/; Egyptian heqa khaseshet, "ruler(s) of the foreign countries"; Greek Ὑκσώς, Ὑξώς) were a multiracial people from the Middle East who took over the eastern Nile Delta, ending the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt and initiating the Second Intermediate Period.

Hyksos

this theory states that the first five books of the Bible were not written completely by Moses, but by different post-Mosaic authors. It is alleged that these authors are detectable through the variations of usage of different words within those books. These supposed authors are known as the Jehovist, the Elohist, the Priestly, and the Deuteronomist. Jawist (or Yahwist, from Yahweh) - describes God as Yahweh, starting in Gen 2:4, it includes much of Genesis and parts of Exodus and Numbers. It is dated around 850 B.C. Elohist (from Elohim) - primarily describes God as El or Elohim. Starting with Gen 15, it covers material similar to "J". It is dated around 750 B.C. (J and E are said to be difficult to distinguish). Deuteronomy - a different source (or author) is associated with Deuteronomy alone, and is usually dated around 621 B.C. Priestly - this encompasses writings scattered from Gen 1 through the notice of Moses' death at the end of Deuteronomy. It is supposedly dated around 500 B.C.

JEDP (the documentary hypothesis)

(in Sumerian mythology) the world of the dead. In Sumerian mythology, Kur is considered the first ever dragon, and usually referred to the Zagros mountains to the east of Sumer.

Kur

Academy's rival school. Founded by Aristotle. A school and sports ground of ancient Athens: site of Aristotle's discussions with his pupils The Lyceum (Ancient Greek: Λύκειον, Lykeion) was a gymnasium and before that a public meeting place in a grove of trees in Classical Athens. The grove was named in honor of its patron Apollo Lyceus ("Apollo as a wolf" or "Apollo in the form of a wolf"). Though best known for its connection with Aristotle, the Lyceum was in existence long before his founding the Peripatetic school there in 334 / 335 BCE and continued long after his flight from Athens in 323 BCE until the Roman general Sulla sacked Athens in 86 BCE.[1]

Lyceum

a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.

Myth

three entrances with three inscriptions; 1) know thyself; ΓΝΟΘΙ ΣΕΑΥΤΟΝ 2) nothing in excess; ΜΕΔΕΝ ΑΓΑΝ 3) E (Greek for "you are") Delphi was inhabited since Mycenaean times (14th - 11th c. B.C.) by small settlements who were dedicated to the Mother Earth deity. The worship of Apollo as the god of light, harmony, and order was established between the 11th and 9th centuries. Slowly over the next five centuries the sanctuary grew in size and importance. During the 8th c. B.C. Delphi became internationally known for the Oracular powers of Pythia--the priestess who sat on a tripod, inhaled ethylene gasses, and muttered incomprehensible words that foretold the future. The ancient people of the Mediterranean had such faith in Pythia's view of the future that no major decision was made without consulting the Oracle of Delphi first. Greek and foreign dignitaries, heads of state, and common folk made the pilgrimage to the Delphi sanctuary, and paid great sums for Pythia's oracles. Since the sanctuary only served the public a few days over nine months out of the year, great sums were paid by the more affluent ones in order to bypass the long line of pilgrims.

Oracle of Delphi

hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women.

misogyny

social status. Ascribed but not necessarily achieved.

rank

Ovid Immortals Jupiter - The king of the gods. Jupiter is the son of Saturn, the husband and sister of Juno, and the brother of Neptune and Dis. He is often called Jove. Jupiter's decisions drive much of the plot of the Metamorphoses. A violent and sexual god, he floods the earth and frequently rapes young maidens. Read an in-depth analysis of Jupiter. Juno - The queen of the gods. Juno is the daughter of Saturn and the wife and sister of Jupiter. A wrathful woman, she often catches her husband cheating and seeks to punish his lovers. Read an in-depth analysis of Juno. Apollo - The god of the sun. Apollo is Jupiter's son. A great archer, he is oftentimes hotheaded and lustful. Read an in-depth analysis of Apollo. Venus - The goddess of love. Venus is the daughter of Jupiter and Dione and the mother of Cupid and Aeneas. Cupid - The god of love. Cupid is the son of Venus and Mars. He often causes mischief. Many of the gods fall victim to his arrows, including Apollo, who falls in love with Daphne; Dis, who falls in love with Proserpina; and Venus, Cupid's mother, who falls in love with Adonis. Neptune - The god of the sea. Neptune is the son of Saturn and the brother of Jupiter and Dis. Mercury - Jupiter's messenger. Mercury is the son of Jupiter and Maia. Bacchus - The god of wine. Bacchus is the son of Jupiter and Semele. He comes to full term in Jupiter's thigh. As an adult, he takes vengeance on Pentheus and the daughters of Minyas. Minerva - A virgin warrior and the patron of Athens. Minerva is the daughter of Jupiter. She competes with Arachne in a weaving contest. Proserpina - The queen of the underworld. Proserpina is the daughter of Jupiter and Ceres and the wife of Dis, who rapes her and takes her to the underworld. Ceres - The goddess of agriculture. Ceres is the sister of Jupiter, who is also the father of Ceres's daughter, Proserpina, with Jupiter. She searches for Proserpina after Dis steals her. Aesculapius - The god of healing. Aesculapius is the son of Apollo and Coronis. He rids Rome of its plague in Book XV. Dis - The god of the underworld. Dis is the son of Saturn, the brother of Jupiter and Neptune, and the husband of Proserpina, whom he forces into his kingdom. Vulcan - The metal smith of the gods. Vulcan is the son of Juno and the husband of Venus. Io - The daughter of Inachus. Jupiter rapes Io and turns her into a bull. Later, she becomes Isis. Achelous - A river god and shape-shifter. Achelous fights Hercules for the hand of Deianira. Hercules overpowers him and breaks his horn. Latona - The daughter of Titans Coeus and Phoebe and the mother of Apollo and Diana. Latona takes revenge on Niobe. Furies - Three sisters and goddesses of vengeance. The Furies can cause living people to go mad. Thetis - A sea nymph. Thetis is the daughter of Nereus and Doris, the wife of Peleus, and the mother of Achilles. Salmacis - A nymph. Salmacis seeks Hermaphroditus and becomes one with him. Scylla (nymph) - A nymph. Scylla rejects Glaucus. Circe changes her into a monster. Scylla (daughter of Nisus) - Another character named Scylla, this one is the daughter of Nisus, She falls in love with Minos and betrays her father and people. Inachus - A river god. Inachus is the father of Io. Daphne - The daughter of Peneus. Daphne is transformed into a laurel tree as Apollo seeks to rape her. Echo - A nymph. Juno punishes Echo, making her unable to speak except to repeat the words of others. Echo loves Narcissus. Galatea - A nymph. Galatea loves Acis. Polyphemus loves Galatea. Circe - A magician. Circe is the daughter of the Sun and the nymph Perse. Legendary Mortals Orpheus - A famous bard and poet. Orpheus is the son of Apollo and Calliope and the husband of Eurydice. He sings in Books X and XI. He tells some of the most memorable stories in the poem, such as the tale of Pygmalion. He loses his wife twice but rejoins her in the underworld. Read an in-depth analysis of Orpheus. Pygmalion - A great artist. Pygmalion sculpts an ivory statue of a woman that comes to life. Theseus - A famed warrior. Theseus is the son of Aegeus, the husband of Phaedra, and the father of Hippolytus. He destroys the Minotaur. Cadmus - The son of Agenor, the husband of Harmonia, and the founder of Thebes. He slays a serpent to establish Thebes, and at the end of his life he is turned into a serpent. Minos - The King of Crete. Minos is the son of Europa and the husband of Pasiphae. Actaeon - The grandson of Cadmus and the son of Autonoe. Diana turns Actaeon into a deer as a punishment for seeing her naked. Arachne - Minerva's rival in the art of weaving. Arachne is the daughter of Idmon. Minerva transforms Arachne into a spider. Pentheus - The King of Thebes. Pentheus is the son of Echion and Agave. He is a vocal opponent of the worship of Bacchus. Perseus - A comical Greek hero, in Ovid's portrayal. Perseus is the son of Jupiter and Danae and the husband of Andromeda. Perseus slays Medusa and the sea monster. Pyramus - Thisbe's lover. Pyramus commits suicide because he believes Thisbe is dead. Jason - The son of Aeson and the husband of Medea. Jason procures the Golden Fleece. Calliope - The Muse of poetry. Calliope is the mother of Orpheus. She sings in a contest against the Pierides in Book V. Callisto - A follower of Diana. Callisto is the daughter of Lycaon and the mother of Arcas. After Jupiter rapes Callisto, Juno transforms her into a bear. Finally, Jupiter makes her into a constellation. Medea - A powerful magician. Medea is the daughter of Aeetes and the wife of Jason. She delivers the most soul-searching soliloquy in the Metamorphoses, in Book VII. Caunus - The son of Miletus and Cyanne and the twin brother of Byblis. Byblis falls in love with him. Narcissus - The son of Cephisus, a river god, and Liriope, a nymph. Narcissus falls in love with his own reflection and dies. Andromeda - The daughter of Cepheus and Cassiope. Perseus rescues Andromeda from the sea monster and marries her. Procne - The daughter of Pandion, the sister of Philomela, the wife of the tyrant Tereus, and the mother of Itys. Phaethon - The son of Clymene and the Sun. Phaethon takes his father's chariot and almost destroys the world. Acoetes - A shipmaster and a convert to Bacchus. Acoetes tries to convince Pentheus to worship Bacchus. Daedalus - A great inventor. Daedalus is the father of Icarus. He creates the labyrinth and wings to flee from Crete. Hercules - The greatest Greek hero, and the first person to be deified in the Metamorphoses. Hercules is the son of Jupiter and Alcmena and the husband of Deianira and Hebe. Propoetides - Prostitutes. Venus turns the Propoetides to stone for their shamelessness. Pyrrha - One of the two survivors of the flood. Pyrrha is the daughter of Epimetheus and the wife of Deucalion. Alcmena - The mother of Hercules. Peleus - The son of Aeacus, the brother of Telamon, the husband of Thetis, and the father of Achilles. Semele - The daughter of Cadmus, the lover of Jupiter, and the mother of Bacchus. Sibyl - The priestess of Apollo at Cumae. Deucalion - One of the two survivors of the flood. The son of Prometheus and the husband of Pyrrha. Thisbe - Pyramus's lover. Coronis - A nymph. Coronis is a lover of Apollo, who kills her in a fit of passion. She bears Aesculapius. Picus - The King of Latium. Picus is the son of Saturn and the husband of Canens. Circe transforms him into a woodpecker after he spurns her love. Pierides - Nine daughters of Pierus. The Pierides challenge the Muses to a poetry contest. The Pierides lose, and the Muses turn them into magpies for their arrogance. Hippomenes - The son of Megareus. Venus turns Hippomenes into a lion for his ingratitude. Icarus - The son of Daedalus. Icarus flies too close to the sun and plunges to his death. Europa - The daughter of Agenor and the mother of Minos and Rhadamanthus. Jupiter rapes Europa. Alcyone - The daughter of Aeolus and the beloved wife of Ceyx. Alcyone is changed into a bird with her husband. Ceyx - The King of Trachin. Ceyx is the husband of Alcyone. He dies in a storm and is changed into a bird with his wife. Atalanta - A huntress in the Calydonian boar hunt. Atalanta is known for her speed. Autonoe - The daughter of Cadmus, the mother of Actaeon, and the aunt of Pentheus. Autonoe rips off Pentheus's arms in a bacchic frenzy. Byblis - The daughter of Miletus and Cyanee and the twin sister of Caunis. Byblis falls in love with her twin brother, Caunis. Deianira - The wife of Hercules. Deianira accidentally kills Hercules by giving him a poisoned robe. Medusa - The daughter of Phorcys and Keto. Neptune rapes Medusa, and Athena turns her into a monster. Medusa's gaze turns people to stone. Midas - The Phrygian king. Midas has a golden touch, and he is a poor literary critic. Apollo punishes him by giving him donkey ears. Myrrha - The daughter of Cinyras. Myrrha falls in love with her father and manages to sleep with him. He is transformed into a Myrrh tree. Hippolytus - The son of Theseus and an Amazon woman. Hippolytus is falsely accused of sleeping with his father's wife. He appears in a resuscitated form in Book XV. Historical Mortals Ulysses - A famously clever Greek soldier. Ulysses is the son of Laertes and the husband of Penelope. He defeats Ajax in a verbal contest for the arms of Achilles. Aeneas - A Trojan hero and the founder of Rome. Aeneas is the son of Anchises and Venus and the father of Ascanius. Aeneas is the second person in the Metamorphoses to be deified. Ajax - A great Greek warrior. Ajax is the son of Telamon. He contends with Ulysses for Achilles' armor and loses. He commits suicide and turns into a flower. Achilles - The greatest Greek warrior in the Trojan War. Achilles is the son of Peleus and Thetis. He kills Hector in hand-to-hand combat. Julius Caesar - A Roman statesman and general. Julius Caesar is assassinated in 44 B.C. and deified. His nephew, Augustus, is the first emperor of Rome. Nestor - The son of Neleus. Nestor is fond of telling stories. Augustus - The first emperor of Rome. Augustus is the nephew of Julius Caesar. He may be equated with Jupiter in Book XV. Cycnus - The invulnerable son of Neptune and Canace. Achilles strangles Cycnus in battle and kills him. Hector - The champion of Troy. Hector is the son of Priam. Achilles bests him in battle in the Trojan War. Diomede - A great Greek warrior. Diomede is a friend of Ulysses'. Agamemnon - A Greek general and the king of Mycenae. Agamemnon is the son of Atreus. Romulus - The son of Mars and Ilia and the brother of Remus. Romulus is the third person to be deified in the Metamorphoses. Anchises - The father of Aeneas and a lover of Venus. Ascanius - The first King of Alba Longa. Ascanius is the son of Aeneas and Creusa.

who wrote Metamorphoses?

people are trapped in corrupt ideas (cave) and the only enlightened people accept the idea of forms. These people are philosophers (out of the cave, into the light.) In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk.

Allegory of the Cave

In the modern literary usage of the concept, the contrast between Apollo and Dionysus symbolizes principles of collectivism versus individualism, light versus darkness, or civilization versus primitivism. Nietzsche does not fit any ordinary conception of the philosopher. He is not only remote from the world of the professorial or donnish philosopher, from tomes and articles, footnotes and jargon -- in brief, from the more modern image of the philosopher. He is equally far from the popular notion of the wise man: serene, past passion, temperate, and Apollonian. But this is clearly -- for those of you willing to explore -- part of Nietzsche's point: that is, to offer a new image, a philosopher who is not an Alexandrian academician, nor an Apollonian, but Dionysian. Apollonian and Dionysian are terms used by Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy to designate the two central principles in Greek culture. The Apollonian, which corresponds to Schopenhauer's principium individuationis ("principle of individuation"), is the basis of all analytic distinctions. Everything that is part of the unique individuality of man or thing is Apollonian in character; all types of form or structure are Apollonian, since form serves to define or individualize that which is formed; thus, sculpture is the most Apollonian of the arts, since it relies entirely on form for its effect. Rational thought is also Apollonian since it is structured and makes distinctions. The Dionysian, which corresponds roughly to Schopenhauer's conception of Will, is directly opposed to the Apollonian. Drunkenness and madness are Dionysian because they break down a man's individual character; all forms of enthusiasm and ecstasy are Dionysian, for in such states man gives up his individuality and submerges himself in a greater whole: music is the most Dionysian of the arts, since it appeals directly to man's instinctive, chaotic emotions and not to his formally reasoning mind. Nietzsche believed that both forces were present in Greek tragedy, and that the true tragedy could only be produced by the tension between them. He used the names Apollonian and Dionysian for the two forces because Apollo, as the sun-god, represents light, clarity, and form, whereas Dionysus, as the wine-god, represents drunkenness and ecstasy. Finally, a word or two from Walter Kaufmann: Nietzsche's ideas about ethics are far less well known than some of his striking coinages: immoralist, overman, master morality, slave morality, beyond good and evil, will to power, revaluation of all values, and philosophizing with a hammer. These are indeed among his key conceptions, but they can be understood correctly only in context. This is true of philosophic terms generally: Plato's ideas or forms, Spinoza's God, Berkeley's ideas, Kant's intuition all do not mean what they would mean in a non-philosophic context; but scarcely anybody supposes that they do. In Nietzsche's case, however, this mistake is a commonplace -- surely because few other philosophers, if any, have equaled the brilliance and suggestiveness of his formulations. His phrases, once heard, are never forgotten; they stand up by themselves, without requiring the support of any context; and so they have come to live independently of their sire's intentions.

Appolonian v. Dionysian

axial like the axle of a wheel. Period from 800-200 B.C.E In 1949 the German philosopher Karl Theodor Jaspers coined the phrase "Achsenzeit" ("Axial Age" or "Axis age" in English) to describe a time between approximately 900 - 200 BCE when "The spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently and these are the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today." It was a pivotal time in early human history when human beings began to reflect for the first time about individual existence, and the meaning of life and death In Europe: Northern Mediterranean-The fifth century BCE saw upheaval in Greece as well. It was also a time of terrifying violence. Axial Age Greek philosophers, such as Thales, Xenophanes, and Heraclitus, thought about and asked similar questions as those being discussed elsewhere. In the Middle East - The small states of Judea and Israel were imperiled by the threat of engulfment by surrounding empires. Similar ideas are developed by the prophets such as Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.

Axial Age

noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a hero, in which a series of great achievements or events is narrated in elevated style: Homer's Iliad is an epic poem.

Epic

the river of tears. A river in Hades that was said to be a tributary of the Acheron. The word Cocytus means "river of lamentation". Those who died and were not properly buried were stuck walking about the banks of this river for most of their afterlife.

Cocytus

Enkidu, . . . your mother is a gazelle, and . . . your father who created you, a wild ass. [You were] raised by creatures with tails, and by the animals of the wilderness, with all its breadth. The paths going up to and down from the forest of cedars All mourn you: the weeping does not end day or night —Tablet VIII

Enkidu

there is an ideal version of everything perceived and imperfectly seen in a material world. (the idea itself is perfect) A form is an abstract property or quality. Take any property of an object; separate it from that object and consider it by itself, and you are contemplating a form. For example, if you separate the roundness of a basketball from its color, its weight, etc. and consider just roundness by itself, you are thinking of the from of roundness. Plato held that this property existed apart from the basketball, in a different mode of existence than the basketball. The form is not just the idea of roundness you have in your mind. It exists independently of the basketball and independently of whether someone thinks of it. All round objects, not just this basketball, participate or copy this same form of roundness. In order to see exactly what a form is and how it differs from a material object, we need to look at the first two of the properties that characterize the forms. The forms are transcendent. This means that they do not exist in space and time. A material object, a basketball, exists at a particular place at a particular time. A form, roundness, does not exist at any place or time. The forms exist, or subsist, in a different way. This is especially important because it explains why the forms are unchanging. A form such as roundness will never change; it does not even exist in time. It is the same at all times or places in which it might be instantiated. A form does not exist in space in that it can be instantiated in many places at once and need not be instantiated anywhere in order for the form to exist. The form of roundness can be found in many particular spatial locations, and even if all round objects were destroyed, the property of roundness would still exist.

Forms

an ancient region in W Asia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers: now part of Iraq. from the Ancient Greek: Μεσοποταμία "[land] between rivers"

Mesopotamia

the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Pentateuch

a school of thought founded in the 6th Century BC. They introduced new opinions contrary to the prevailing viewpoint on how the world was organized, in which natural phenomena were explained solely by the will of anthropomorphized gods. The Milesians presented a view of nature in terms of methodologically observable entities, and as such was one of the first truly scientific philosophies. As mentioned last time, Miletus was a city state on the coast of the Aegean sea in Ionia (modern day Turkey) which had served as the center of the Ionian rebellion that sought freedom from the Persian Empire. The first ancient Greek philosophers, Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, were all from Miletus, and so they are known as the Milesian School. They were primarily invested in cosmology, the order and interaction of the elements, and observation of nature. In the ancient world, cosmology and science were primarily passive observation. As the Chinese, Muslims and then Europeans developed the mechanics and mathematics of the modern world, science was increasingly driven by active experimentation. Experimentation is still observation, but set in an active arrangement.

Milesian School

assisting or intended to assist the memory by using repetition. Particularly helpful with long sagas told orally in history

Mnemonic Device

the river of fire. A river of fire, one of four rivers surrounding Hades. This was the river of fire in Hades. It's said that while the fire burned, it did not consume anything within it's flames.

Phlegethon

is a genre of prose literary works developed in Greece at the turn of the fourth century BC, preserved today in the dialogues of Plato - either dramatic or narrative - in which characters discuss moral and philosophical problems. Socrates is often the main character. Socratic dialogue (Ancient Greek: Σωκρατικὸς λόγος) is a genre of prose literary works developed in Greece at the turn of the fourth century BCE, preserved today in the dialogues of Plato and the Socratic works of Xenophon. Characters discuss moral and philosophical problems, illustrating a version of the Socratic method. The dialogues are either dramatic or narrative, and Socrates is often the main character.

Socratic dialogue

the river of hate. A river in the underworld, over which the souls of the dead were ferried by Charon, and by which the gods swore their most solemn oaths. The Styx (/stɪks/; Ancient Greek: Στύξ [stýkʰs], "Hate, Detest") is a river in Greek mythology that formed the boundary between Earth and the Underworld (the domain usually called Hades, which is also the name of its ruler).

Styx

an ancient region in southern Mesopotamia that contained a number of independent cities and city-states of which the first were established possibly as early as 5000 b.c.: conquered by the Elamites and, about 2000 b.c., by the Babylonians; a number of its cities, as Ur, Uruk, Kish, and Lagash, are major archaeological sites in southern Iraq. Babel, Tower of Babel - (Genesis 11:1-11) a tower built by Noah's descendants (probably in Babylon) who intended it to reach up to heaven; God foiled them by confusing their language so they could no longer understand one another

Sumer/Babylon

the three Jewish divisions of the Old Testament, comprising the Law or Torah, the Prophets or Neviim, and the Hagiographa or Ketuvim, taken as a whole. a term used among Jews for the Hebrew Bible; the Old Testament. The Hebrew Bible is divided into three parts: (1) The Torah, "Law," or Pentateuch. (2) The Prophets . . . (3) The Kethubim, or the "Writings," generally termed Hagiographa. - C. H. H. Wright.

Tanak

is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory. In it, Aristotle offers an account of what he calls "poetry" (a term which in Greek literally means "making" and in this context includes drama—comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play—as well as lyric poetry, epic poetry, and the dithyramb). He examines its "first principles" and identifies its genres and basic elements; his analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion.

The Poetics (c. 335 BCE)

as a verb it means to build on a raised area. As a noun it is a type of rectangular temple tower or tiered mound erected by the Sumerians, Akkadians, and Babylonians in Mesopotamia. The tower of Babel is thought to be one of these (in ancient Mesopotamia) a rectangular stepped tower, sometimes surmounted by a temple. Ziggurats are first attested in the late 3rd millennium BC and probably inspired the biblical story of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9).

Ziggurat

of or pertaining to ancient Greek athletic contests. Defined by struggle, conflict, competition and the need for power

agonistic

the hero's sudden awareness of a real situation, the realization of things as they stood, and finally, the hero's insight into a relationship with an often antagonistic character in Aristotelian tragedy the point in the plot especially of a tragedy at which the protagonist recognizes his or her or some other character's true identity or discovers the true nature of his or her own situation.

anagnoresis

regarding humans as the most important and central factor in the universe especially as opposed to God or animals.

anthropocentric

ascribing human form or attributes to a being or thing not human, especially to a deity.

anthropomorphic

the best of the best. Most elite citizens.

aristos

excellence; the aggregate of qualities, as valor and virtue, making up good character. Arete (/ˈærətiː/; Greek: ἀρετή), in its basic sense, means "excellence of any kind".[1] The term may also mean "moral virtue".[1] In its earliest appearance in Greek, this notion of excellence was ultimately bound up with the notion of the fulfillment of purpose or function: the act of living up to one's full potential. The term from Homeric times onwards is not gender specific. Homer applies the term of both the Greek and Trojan heroes as well as major female figures, such as Penelope, the wife of the Greek hero Odysseus. In the Homeric poems, Arete is frequently associated with bravery, but more often with effectiveness. The man or woman of Arete is a person of the highest effectiveness; they use all their faculties--strength, bravery and wit--to achieve real results. In the Homeric world, then, Arete involves all of the abilities and potentialities available to humans. The concept implies a human-centered universe in which human actions are of paramount importance; the world is a place of conflict and difficulty, and human value and meaning is measured against individual effectiveness in the world.

arête

the conditional promises made to humanity by god, as revealed in Scripture. Literally, a contract. In the Bible, an agreement between God and his people, in which God makes promises to his people and, usually, requires certain conduct from them. In the Old Testament, God made agreements with Noah, Abraham, and Moses.

covenant

justice. Not modern justice but more of a historical viewpoint of a wrong for a wrong. Translations of Ancient Greek sources, especially those by Plato, usually translate the Greek word δίκη (dike) as 'justice'. It is important to note when reading Plato and other Ancient Greek sources that the modern English word 'justice' has a history full of meanings and connotations that did not exist in ancient Greece. Instead, the Ancient Greek word dike means something like behaving in accordance with nature, or how your group normally behaves. The word does not have moral implications — it does not speak of how things should be or act, but rather how they normally are and how they usually act. This is evident from a number of ancient Greek sources, including Homer and Hippocrates.[1]. The transition towards dike as 'justice' did exist in ancient times. For instance, the Greek goddess Dike was the goddess of justice, and she was equated with the Roman goddess Justitia — the Latin word iustus came from the Old Latin ious, which seems to have been a religious term meaning 'sacred way', again related to the correct way. This translation of dike as 'justice' in a modern sense does not fit with Plato's text. Scholars believe that Plato did mean to describe justice in its original sense, and so when Plato uses the word δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosyne), he simply means acting in the way that one normally does in one's situation. The Scottish scholar W. K. C. Guthrie describes this as "'minding your own business', doing the thing, or following the way, which is properly your own, and not mixing yourself up in the ways of other people and trying to do their jobs for them"[2]. The confusion between the Ancient Greek word dike and its translation as 'justice' has led to some significant confusion and difference of interpretation among scholars and students reading Plato's Republic and other works that use the term. The modern Greek word δίκη means 'trial' in the sense of a legal trial. Guthrie, W. K. C. The Greek Philosophers: From Thales to Aristotle. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. pp 5-7. return Ibid. p. 7. return

dike

an extended simile that is used typically in epic poetry to intensify the heroic stature of the subject Epic or Homeric similes are an elaborate comparison between two unlike objects using like or as. The Odyssey is an epic poem and epic similes in The Odyssey abound. Following are examples of epic similes in The Odyssey. Epic Simile: I drove my weight on it from above and bored it home like a shipwright bores his beam with a shipwright's drill that men below, whipping the strap back and forth, whirl and the drill keeps twisting, never stopping --So we seized our stake with it fiery tip and bored it round and round in the giant's eye. Commentary: Odysseus gives a descriptive account of how he defeats the Cyclops Polyphemus. Because he is speaking to the Phaecians, a sea-faring people, they would understand the comparison to a shipwright's drill. Epic Simile: its crackling roots blazed and hissed - as a blacksmith plunges a glowing ax or adze in an ice-cold bath and the metal screeches steam and its temper hardens - that's the iron's strength - so the eye of Cyclops sizzled round that stake. Commentary: Odysseus compares the sizzling sound of the Cyclops' eye to that of sticking fire-hot metal in cold water. Epic Simile: Her mind in torment, wheeling like some lion at bay, dreading the gangs of hunters closing their cunning ring around him for the finish. Commentary: Penelope expresses her feeling of helplessness by comparing the suitors to hunters and herself to a trapped lion. The lion reference shows she still considers herself noble. Epic Simile: "Weak as the doe that beds down her fawns in a mighty lion's den - her newborn sucklings - then trails off to the mountain spurs and grassy bends to graze her fill, but back the lion comes to his own lair and the master deals both fawns a ghastly, bloody death, just what Odysseus will deal that mob - ghastly death."

epic simile

1) the material cause (what is it made of?); 2) the formal cause (blueprints, plan); 3) the efficient cause (who made it?); 4) the purposive cause (what is it made for?) We must inquire into the nature of causes (aitia ), and see what the various kinds of cause are and how many there are. Since our treatment of the subject aims at knowledge, and since we believe that we know a thing only when we can say why it is as it is—which in fact means grasping its primary causes—plainly we must try to achieve this with regard to the way things come into existence and pass away out of it, and all other natural change, so that we may know what their principles are and may refer to these principles in order to explain everything into which we inquire. In one sense, what is described as a cause is that material out of which a thing comes into being and which remains present in it. Such, for instance, is bronze in the case of a statue, or silver in the case of a cup, as well as the genera to which these materials belong.1 In another sense, the form and pattern are a cause, that is to say the statement of the essence general to which it belongs; such, for instance, in the case of the octave, are the ratio of two to one, and number in general; and the constituent terms in a definition are included in the wider class of a definition.2 Then there is the initiating source of change or rest: the person who advises an action, for instance, is a cause of the action; the father is the cause of his child; and in general, what produces is the cause of what is changed.3 Then there is what is a cause insofar as it is an end (telos): this is the purpose of a thing; in this sense, health, for instance, is the cause of a man's going for a walk. "Why," someone asks, "is he going for a walk?" "For the good of his health," we reply, and when we say this we think that we have given the cause of his doing so. All the intermediate things, too, that come into being through the agency of something else for this same end have this as their cause: slimming, purging, drugs, and surgical instruments—all have the same purpose, health, as their cause, although they differ from each other in that some of them are activities, others are instruments. These are pretty well all the senses in which we talk of causes; the consequence of our using the term in all these senses is that there are many causes of the same thing. Both the art of sculpture and the bronze, for instance, are causes of the statue, without either of them being its cause in respect to its being anything other than a statue; they are, however, causes in different ways, the one being its matter, the other the source of the movement that produced it. There are some things that are even each other's causes; working hard, for instance, is a cause of one's fitness, and one's fitness is a cause of one's working hard; but they are not causes in the same way; the one is an end, the other is a source of movement. Again, the same thing will be the case of two contraries, for we will sometimes describe what is by its presence the cause of one thing, as being by its absence the cause of that thing's contrary: for instance, we describe the absence of the pilot as the cause of the ship's being sunk, whereas his presence would have been the cause of its preservation. But all the causes that we have just mentioned fall into the four most obvious groups. The letters of a syllable, the raw material of a manufactured article, fire and such things in bodies, the parts of a whole, and the premises of a syllogism—all these are causes in the sense of being what a thing comes from; but whereas some are causes in the sense of being a substratum (the parts of a whole are, for instance), others are causes by virtue of being a thing's essence: the whole, the combination, and the form. The seed, the doctor, the adviser, and the producer, in general, are all sources of change or rest. Other things are causes by virtue of being the end and the good of everything else. For being the purpose means being the best of things and the end of everything else—and let us understand that it makes no difference whether we speak of the real or of the apparent good.

four causes

the flaw in character which leads to the downfall of the protagonist in a tragedy "Oedipus" in a famous Greek Tragedy is a perfect example of hamartia i.e. his downfall is cause by unintentional wrongdoings. His "hubris" makes him try to defy the prophecy of gods but he ends up doing what he feared the most. "The Oracle of Delphi" told him that he would kill his father and marry his mother. To avoid this, he leaves "Corinth" and headed towards "Thebes". On his way, he killed an old man in a feud and later married the queen of "Thebes" as he was made king of the city after he saved the city from a deadly "Sphinx". He committed all these sins in complete ignorance but he deserved punishment because of his attempting to rebel against his fate. His reversal of fortune is caused by his actions, which are in a sense blasphemous.

hamartia

the worship of one deity (of several) as the special god of one's family, clan, or tribe

henotheism

(in Greek tragedy) an excess of ambition, pride, etc, ultimately causing the transgressor's ruin

hubris

people who have the tendency to represent things in an ideal form, or as they might or should be rather than as they are, with emphasis on values. Argued that everything that exists is determined by human perceptions Idealism is a philosophical approach that has as its central tenet that ideas are the only true reality, the only thing worth knowing. In a search for truth, beauty, and justice that is enduring and everlasting, the focus is on conscious reasoning in the mind. Plato, father of Idealism, espoused this view about 400 years BC, in his famous book, The Republic. Plato believed that there are two worlds. The first is the spiritual or mental world, which is eternal, permanent, orderly, regular, and universal. There is also the world of appearance, the world experienced through sight, touch, smell, taste, and sound, that is changing, imperfect, and disorderly. This division is often referred to as the duality of mind and body. Reacting against what he perceived as too much of a focus on the immediacy of the physical and sensory world, Plato described a utopian society in which "education to body and soul all the beauty and perfection of which they are capable" as an ideal. In his allegory of the cave, the shadows of the sensory world must be overcome with the light of reason or universal truth. To understand truth, one must pursue knowledge and identify with the Absolute Mind. Plato also believed that the soul is fully formed prior to birth and is perfect and at one with the Universal Being. The birth process checks this perfection, so education requires bringing latent ideas (fully formed concepts) to consciousness. In idealism, the aim of education is to discover and develop each individual's abilities and full moral excellence in order to better serve society. The curricular emphasis is subject matter of mind: literature, history, philosophy, and religion. Teaching methods focus on handling ideas through lecture, discussion, and Socratic dialogue (a method of teaching that uses questioning to help students discover and clarify knowledge). Introspection, intuition, insight, and whole-part logic are used to bring to consciousness the forms or concepts which are latent in the mind. Character is developed through imitating examples and he

idealists

starting with a conflict in or into the middle of events or a narrative into the middle of a narrative; without preamble. "having begun his story in medias res, he then interrupts it" into the midst of things.

in medias res

fame or glory. Most notably the kind of recognition that comes from having your story known as a heroic tale. Kleos is a term used in epic poetry that means immortal fame, but can also mean rumor or renown. A Greek soldier can earn kleos through his courage. A monument can bring kleos, as can reports of one's offspring's virtuous deeds. Reference: "The Kleos of Telemachus: Odyssey 1.95," by Peter V. Jones. The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 109, No. 4 (Winter, 1988), pp. 496-506. is the fame or renown which a hero wins when he accomplishes some great deed, like the killing of a powerful enemy or the sacking of a city. Like time, it has both an abstract sense--something like English "glory"--and a more concrete sense, for it is based in the first place on what is reported and can only survive if people, and especially poets, continue to speak or sing of it. To the Homeric heroes, who believe in a dismal and shadowy afterlife for all men, kleos is the closest thing to immortality that a human being can attain. It is thus the ultimate goal of the warrior.

kleos

the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, especially through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music. Originating from ancient Greece, the word "catharsis" refers to the emotional outpouring of a character. Often, when a character in a tragedy realizes his/her flaws or downfall, a cathartic speech is delivered. In other definitions it also says that the audience also experiences this, but I don't understand at all what is meant by this. The above definition reminds me of an epiphany, but I don't see at all why the audience would experience this too, since the flaws of a character are usually known by the audience from the start. Can someone clear up my confusion regarding this subject? The definition of katharsis in Aristotle's Poetics. Creators: Cook, Elizabeth M. Issue Date: 2005-12. Abstract: Aristotle's Poetics is a foundational piece in the history of literary criticism. In chapter six of the Poetics, Aristotle presents the concept of katharsis (trans.

katharsis

the entering of a soul after death upon a new cycle of existence in a new body either of human or animal form the supposed transmigration at death of the soul of a human being or animal into a new body of the same or a different species.

metempsychosis

the rational principle that governs and develops the universe. Logic. Logos (Logical) means persuading by the use of reasoning. This will be the most important technique we will study, and Aristotle's favorite. We'll look at deductive and inductive reasoning, and discuss what makes an effective, persuasive reason to back up your claims. Giving reasons is the heart of argumentation, and cannot be emphasized enough. We'll study the types of support you can use to substantiate your thesis, and look at some of the common logical fallacies, in order to avoid them in your writing.

logos

people who believe the philosophical theory that regards matter and its motions as constituting the universe, and all phenomena, including those of mind, as due to material agencies. Argued that everything in the universe is made up of some sort of "matter." In philosophy, the position that nothing exists except matter — things that can be measured or known through the senses. Materialists deny the existence of spirit, and they look for physical explanations for all phenomena.

materialists

the belief or doctrine that there is only one God

monotheism

meant cunning, craftiness, or verbal skills. Odysseus is known for his mêtis. In Greek mythology, Metis /ˈmiːtɨs/ (Μῆτις, "wisdom," "skill," or "craft") was of the Titan generation and, like several primordial figures, an Oceanid, in the sense that Metis was born of Oceanus and his sister Tethys, of an earlier age than Zeus (God of lightning) and his siblings.

mêtis

returning to home. Homecoming. (nostoi) plural

nostos

means something like home, household or feudal estate

oikos

a form of social organization in which a male is the head of the family and descent, kinship, and title are traced through the male line

patriarchy

derived from the name of a father or ancestor, especially by the addition of a suffix or prefix indicating descent.

patronymic

a sudden turn of events or an unexpected reversal, especially in a literary work. Aristotle introduces the concepts of peripeteia (reversal of fortune) and anagnorisis (discovery or recognition) in his discussion of simple and complex plots. All plots lead from beginning to end in a probable or necessary sequence of events, but a simple plot does so without peripeteia or anagnorisis while a complex plot may have one or both of these elements. The peripeteia or anagnorisis of a complex plot should themselves be necessary or probable consequences of what came before so that they are a part of the plot and not unnecessary add-ons. Peripeteia is the reversal from one state of affairs to its opposite. Some element in the plot effects a reversal, so that the hero who thought he was in good shape suddenly finds that all is lost, or vice versa.

peripeteia

an ancient Greek city-state The word politics comes from this Greek word. In the ancient world, the polis was a nucleus, the central urban area that could also have controlled the surrounding countryside. (The word polis could also refer to the city's body of citizens.) This surrounding countryside (chora or ge) could also be considered part of the polis. Hansen and Nielsen say there were around 1500 archaic and classical Greek poleis. The region formed by cluster of poleis, bound geographically and ethnically, was an ethnos (pl. ethne). The polis of Athens, the largest of the Greek poleis, was the birthplace of democracy. Aristotle saw the household "oikos" as the basic social unit of the polis, according to J. Roy.

polis

the worship of or belief in more than one god

polytheism

a singer in ancient Greece. Ancient scholars suggested two etymologies. The first related the word with the staff (rhabdos) on which the singer leaned during his performance. In that view, the rhapsode is a "singer with a staff." The second connected the word with the poetic act of sewing (rhaptein) the poem (oide). Thus, the rhapsode is a "stitcher of songs." a person who recites epic poems, especially one of a group in ancient Greece whose profession it was to recite the Homeric poems from memory.

rhapsode

A type of argument with a deductive inference consisting of two premises and a conclusion, all of which are categorical propositions. A syllogism (Greek: συλλογισμός syllogismos, "conclusion, inference") is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two or more propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true. In its earliest form, defined by Aristotle, from the combination of a general statement (the major premise) and a specific statement (the minor premise), a conclusion is deduced. For example, knowing that all men are mortal (major premise) and that Socrates is a man (minor premise), we may validly conclude that Socrates is mortal. Syllogistic arguments are usually represented in a three-line form (without sentence-terminating periods): All men are mortal Socrates is a man Therefore, Socrates is mortal

syllogism

the Hebrew word for god, consisting of the four letters yod, he, vav, and he, transliterated consonantally usually as YHVH, now pronounced as Adonai or Elohim in substitution for the original pronunciation forbidden since the 2nd or 3rd century b.c. the Hebrew name of God transliterated in four letters as YHWH or JHVH and articulated as Yahweh or Jehovah.

tetragrammaton

location where new life is assigned

the spheres

customs long practiced but not consistently enforced by the gods. A goddess, daughter of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth). In Homer she was the personification of order and justice, who convened the assembly of the gods. is an ancient Greek Titaness. She is described as "of good counsel", and is the personification of divine order, law, natural law and custom.

themis

a manifestation of a deity to man in a form that, though visible, is not necessarily material a visible manifestation to humankind of God or a god.

theophany

a dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or society, to downfall or destruction. Tragedy is kind of drama that presents a serious subject matter about human suffering and corresponding terrible events in a dignified manner. Greek Tragedy The term is Greek in origin, dating back to the 5th century BC. It was a name assigned by the Greeks to a specific form of plays performed on festivals in Greece. The local governments supported such plays and the mood surrounding the presentation of these plays was that of a religious ceremony, as the entire community along with the grand priest attended the performances. The subject matter of the Greek tragedies was derived chiefly from Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" which included misfortunes of heroes of history and religious mythology. The three prominent Greek dramatists were Aeschylus (525-456 BC), Sophocles (496-406 BC), and Euripides (480-406 BC). Aristotle defines Tragedy in his famous work "Poetics" as: "Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete (composed of an introduction, a middle part and an ending), and possesses magnitude; in language made pleasurable, each of its species separated in different parts; performed by actors, not through narration; effecting through pity and fear the purification of such emotions." From the above definition, we can understand the objective of the Greek tragedies i.e. "...purification of such emotions" also called "catharsis". Catharsis is a release of emotional tension, as after an overwhelming experience, that restores or refreshes the spirit.

tragedy

the doctrine or study of types or prefigurative symbols, especially in scriptural literature.

typology

Aristotle In Physics II 3 and Metaphysics V 2, Aristotle offers his general account of the four causes. This account is general in the sense that it applies to everything that requires an explanation, including artistic production and human action. Here Aristotle recognizes four types of things that can be given in answer to a why-question: The material cause: "that out of which", e.g., the bronze of a statue. The formal cause: "the form", "the account of what-it-is-to-be", e.g., the shape of a statue. The efficient cause: "the primary source of the change or rest", e.g., the artisan, the art of bronze-casting the statue, the man who gives advice, the father of the child. The final cause: "the end, that for the sake of which a thing is done", e.g., health is the end of walking, losing weight, purging, drugs, and surgical tools. All the four (types of) causes may enter in the explanation of something. Consider the production of an artifact like a bronze statue. The bronze enters in the explanation of the production of the statue as the material cause. Note that the bronze is not only the material out of which the statue is made; it is also the subject of change, that is, the thing that undergoes the change and results in a statue. The bronze is melted and poured in order to acquire a new shape, the shape of the statue. This shape enters in the explanation of the production of the statue as the formal cause. However, an adequate explanation of the production of a statue requires also a reference to the efficient cause or the principle that produces the statue. For Aristotle, this principle is the art of bronze-casting the statue (Phys. 195 a 6-8. Cf. Metaph. 1013 b 6-9). This is mildly surprising and requires a few words of elaboration. There is no doubt that the art of bronze-casting resides in an individual artisan who is responsible for the production of the statue. But, according to Aristotle, all the artisan does in the production of the statue is the manifestation of specific knowledge. This knowledge, not the artisan who has mastered it, is the salient explanatory factor that one should pick as the most accurate specification of the efficient cause (Phys. 195 b 21-25). By picking the art, not the artisan, Aristotle is not just trying to provide an explanation of the production of the statue that is not dependent upon the desires, beliefs and intentions of the individual artisan; he is trying to offer an entirely different type of explanation; an explanation that does not make a reference, implicit or explicit, to these desires, beliefs and intentions. More directly, the art of bronze-casting the statue enters in the explanation as the efficient cause because it helps us to understand what it takes to produce the statue; that is to say, what steps are required to produce the statue. But can an explanation of this type be given without a reference to the final outcome of the production, the statue? The answer is emphatically "no". A model is made for producing the statue. A mold is prepared for producing the statue. The bronze is melted and poured for producing the statue. Both the prior and the subsequent stages are for the sake of a certain end, the production of the statue. Clearly, the statue enters in the explanation of each step of the artistic production as the final cause or that for the sake of which everything in the production process is done.

who designed The Four Causes?

Unknown. It is an oral tale from a really long time ago Gilgamesh The protagonist of the story and the King of Uruk. He is credited with having built the city walls of Uruk to protect its people. In most translations, he is described as being one-third man and two-thirds god. His mother is Ninsun, a goddess. His father is Lugalbanda, a past King of Uruk. Enkidu A wild man who becomes Gilgamesh's best friend. After being visited by Shamhat, the prostitute, Enkidu is civilized and leaves the animal world behind to journey with Shamhat to Uruk. Enkidu accompanies Gilgamesh to defeat Humbaba before he passes away. Gilgamesh journeys to the Underworld to try to bring Enkidu back to life. Shamhat A temple prostitute sent by Gilgamesh to civilize Enkidu. Shamhat seduces Enkidu and he sleeps with her for six days and seven nights. She brings him back to Uruk with her where he first encounters Gilgamesh. Ninsun Gilgamesh's mother and a goddess. She prays for Gilgamesh and Enkidu before they embark to fight Humbaba in the cedar forest. Humbaba/Huwawa The Guardian of the cedar forest. Humbaba is defeated and killed by Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Ishtar/Irnini Goddess of Love, Fertility, and War, and daughter of Anu. Ishtar sends the Bull of Heaven to attack Gilgamesh after he spurns her advances. Anu The father of the Sumerian Gods. Ishtar appeals to him for help after Gilgamesh spurns her advances. Urshanabi The boatman who takes Gilgamesh over the waters of the dead to see Utnapishtim. Utnapishtim Instructed by Ea to build a boat before the flood that destroyed the city of Shurrupak. Utnapishtim is granted immortality for his role. Gilgamesh seeks him out after Enkidu's death. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh of the flood and tells him where to find a magic plant that can grant immortality. The Bull of Heaven Referred to in some translations as "Gugalanna," the Bull of Heaven was sent to punish Gilgamesh for rejecting Ishtar's sexual advances. Gilgamesh and Enkidu slay the Bull of Heaven and insult Ishtar. Siduri A barmaid and alewife that Gilgamesh encounters on his journey into the Underworld. Siduri resides in a cottage by the sea. She discourages Gilgamesh on his pursuit for immortality but ultimately directs him to the boatman Urshanabi. Enlil The storm god, wind god, and god of destiny. Lugalbanda The father of Gilgamesh, a great hero king of Uruk. Aruru/Mammetum The mother goddess who established life and death. Nergal Lord of the underworld. Ninurta The god of war, chaos, and silence. Shamash The god of light and the sun, he aids Enkidu and Gilgamesh in their fight with Humbaba. Sin The god of the moon. Sumuqan The god of cattle.

who wrote Gilgamesh?

Euripides Dionysus - Originator, protagonist and central axis of The Bacchae, this god of wine, theater and group ecstasy appears mostly in disguise as a beautiful, longhaired, wine-flushed Lydian, the Stranger. His non-human forms and powers are also felt acutely throughout the play and Dionysus the god is clearly different from Dionysus in disguise, as the Stranger, and yet they are the same. Still, they exist in their different forms simultaneously, so while the audience and the chorus hear the divine god give the command for the earthquake, the Stranger is inside the palace torturing Pentheus. Dionysus is the son of Zeus and the mortal Semele, daughter of Cadmus. Read an in-depth analysis of Dionysus. Pentheus - Pentheus is the king of Thebes, son of Agaue, grandson of Cadmus and the first cousin of Dionysus. Structurally Pentheus is Dionysus's foil, thus he is a preserver of law and order, a military man, a stern patriarch, and ultimately a doomed mortal. Pentheus is not merely a mirror or inverted double of Dionysus; he is puritanical and obstinate, but also curious and voyeuristic. Read an in-depth analysis of Pentheus. Agaue - Mother of Pentheus and daughter of Cadmus. Agaue is already one of the maenads (a worshipper of Dionysus participating in orgiastic rites, from the Greek mainad to be mad) at the start of the play. Even though she only enters the play at the very end, her scene is the most powerful and tragic in the play. Cadmus - Former king of Thebes, father of Agaue and Semele, grandfather of Pentheus and Dionysus. Cadmus is the only one in his family to declare allegiance to Dionysus. Servant - He captures the Stranger and brings him to Pentheus in Scene II. First Messenger - One of three anonymous witnesses in the play. The first messenger is a cowherd who spies on the maenads and comes back to relate the incident to Pentheus. Second Messenger - The second messenger accompanied Pentheus and Dionysus up the mountain and witnessed the death of his king. He returns to the palace to relate the event to the chorus. Chorus - Female bacchants from Lydia, led by Dionysus in his human form as the Stranger. Tiresias - A famous Theban seer and friend of Cadmus. Tiresias persuades Cadmus to worship Dionysus.

who wrote The Bacchae?

Homer Odysseus - The protagonist of the Odyssey. Odysseus fought among the other Greek heroes at Troy and now struggles to return to his kingdom in Ithaca. Odysseus is the husband of Queen Penelope and the father of Prince Telemachus. Though a strong and courageous warrior, he is most renowned for his cunning. He is a favorite of the goddess Athena, who often sends him divine aid, but a bitter enemy of Poseidon, who frustrates his journey at every turn. Read an in-depth analysis of Odysseus. Telemachus - Odysseus's son. An infant when Odysseus left for Troy, Telemachus is about twenty at the beginning of the story. He is a natural obstacle to the suitors desperately courting his mother, but despite his courage and good heart, he initially lacks the poise and confidence to oppose them. His maturation, especially during his trip to Pylos and Sparta in Books 3 and 4, provides a subplot to the epic. Athena often assists him. Read an in-depth analysis of Telemachus. Penelope - Wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus. Penelope spends her days in the palace pining for the husband who left for Troy twenty years earlier and never returned. Homer portrays her as sometimes flighty and excitable but also clever and steadfastly true to her husband. Read an in-depth analysis of Penelope. Athena - Daughter of Zeus and goddess of wisdom, purposeful battle, and the womanly arts. Athena assists Odysseus and Telemachus with divine powers throughout the epic, and she speaks up for them in the councils of the gods on Mount Olympus. She often appears in disguise as Mentor, an old friend of Odysseus. Read an in-depth analysis of Athena. Poseidon - God of the sea. As the suitors are Odysseus's mortal antagonists, Poseidon is his divine antagonist. He despises Odysseus for blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, and constantly hampers his journey home. Ironically, Poseidon is the patron of the seafaring Phaeacians, who ultimately help to return Odysseus to Ithaca. Zeus - King of gods and men, who mediates the disputes of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is occasionally depicted as weighing men's fates in his scales. He sometimes helps Odysseus or permits Athena to do the same. Antinous - The most arrogant of Penelope's suitors. Antinous leads the campaign to have Telemachus killed. Unlike the other suitors, he is never portrayed sympathetically, and he is the first to die when Odysseus returns. Eurymachus - A manipulative, deceitful suitor. Eurymachus's charisma and duplicity allow him to exert some influence over the other suitors. Amphinomus - Among the dozens of suitors, the only decent man seeking Penelope's hand in marriage. Amphinomus sometimes speaks up for Odysseus and Telemachus, but he is killed like the rest of the suitors in the final fight. Eumaeus - The loyal shepherd who, along with the cowherd Philoetius, helps Odysseus reclaim his throne after his return to Ithaca. Even though he does not know that the vagabond who appears at his hut is Odysseus, Eumaeus gives the man food and shelter. Eurycleia - The aged and loyal servant who nursed Odysseus and Telemachus when they were babies. Eurycleia is well informed about palace intrigues and serves as confidante to her masters. She keeps Telemachus's journey secret from Penelope, and she later keeps Odysseus's identity a secret after she recognizes a scar on his leg. Melanthius - The brother of Melantho. Melanthius is a treacherous and opportunistic goatherd who supports the suitors, especially Eurymachus, and abuses the beggar who appears in Odysseus's palace, not realizing that the man is Odysseus himself. Melantho - Sister of Melanthius and maidservant in Odysseus's palace. Like her brother, Melantho abuses the beggar in the palace, not knowing that the man is Odysseus. She is having an affair with Eurymachus. Calypso - The beautiful nymph who falls in love with Odysseus when he lands on her island-home of Ogygia. Calypso holds him prisoner there for seven years until Hermes, the messenger god, persuades her to let him go. Polyphemus - One of the Cyclopes (uncivilized one-eyed giants) whose island Odysseus comes to soon after leaving Troy. Polyphemus imprisons Odysseus and his crew and tries to eat them, but Odysseus blinds him through a clever ruse and manages to escape. In doing so, however, Odysseus angers Polyphemus's father, Poseidon. Circe - The beautiful witch-goddess who transforms Odysseus's crew into swine when he lands on her island. With Hermes' help, Odysseus resists Circe's powers and then becomes her lover, living in luxury at her side for a year. Laertes - Odysseus's aging father, who resides on a farm in Ithaca. In despair and physical decline, Laertes regains his spirit when Odysseus returns and eventually kills Antinous's father. Tiresias - A Theban prophet who inhabits the underworld. Tiresias meets Odysseus when Odysseus journeys to the underworld in Book 11. He shows Odysseus how to get back to Ithaca and allows Odysseus to communicate with the other souls in Hades. Nestor - King of Pylos and a former warrior in the Trojan War. Like Odysseus, Nestor is known as a clever speaker. Telemachus visits him in Book 3 to ask about his father, but Nestor knows little of Odysseus's whereabouts. Menelaus - King of Sparta, brother of Agamemnon, and husband of Helen, he helped lead the Greeks in the Trojan War. He offers Telemachus assistance in his quest to find Odysseus when Telemachus visits him in Book 4. Helen - Wife of Menelaus and queen of Sparta. Helen's abduction from Sparta by the Trojans sparked the Trojan War. Her beauty is without parallel, but she is criticized for giving in to her Trojan captors and thereby costing many Greek men their lives. She offers Telemachus assistance in his quest to find his father. Agamemnon - Former king of Mycenae, brother of Menelaus, and commander of the Achaean forces at Troy. Odysseus encounters Agamemnon's spirit in Hades. Agamemnon was murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus, upon his return from the war. He was later avenged by his son Orestes. Their story is constantly repeated in the Odyssey to offer an inverted image of the fortunes of Odysseus and Telemachus. Nausicaa - The beautiful daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of the Phaeacians. Nausicaa discovers Odysseus on the beach at Scheria and, out of budding affection for him, ensures his warm reception at her parents' palace. Alcinous - King of the Phaeacians, who offers Odysseus hospitality in his island kingdom of Scheria. Alcinous hears the story of Odysseus's wanderings and provides him with safe passage back to Ithaca. Arete - Queen of the Phaeacians, wife of Alcinous, and mother of Nausicaa. Arete is intelligent and influential. Nausicaa tells Odysseus to make his appeal for assistance to Arete.

who wrote The Odyssey?

Ovid Ceres, goddess of the harvest had a daughter fathered by Jove, and the girl's name was Proserpine. When Pluto, god of the underworld, had come up to earth, Cupid's arrow instilled love for Proserpine in his heart. The king of Hades kidnapped the girl from the field she played in, and he took her, unwillingly, to the Underworld. Cyane, a water nymph who pitied Proserpine, tried to block Pluto's entrance to the Underworld, but he used his powers to make a hole in the earth and descend to his realm despite her. Cyane was so sad for Proserpine and so hurt that the glade around her stream had been violated that she cried herself away and dissolved into her own pool. Ceres looked everywhere for her daughter, but no one knew where to find Proserpine until she came to Cyane's pool and saw Proserpine's scarf floating on the water. Furious that no one could help her, Ceres began to destroy the crops of Sicily, where she had discovered her daughter's scarf. Then another water nymph helped her. Arethusa told Ceres that she had come to Sicily from her homeland, and she had traveled through the Underworld to get there. While she had been part of the river Styx that flows through Hades, she had seen Proserpine below as the Queen of Hell. Ceres was undone. She went to Jove demanding that he get Proserpine back for her, and though he tried to argue that Pluto was a fine son-in-law, Ceres would have none of it. She wanted her daughter back, and Jove said that if Proserpine had eaten none of the food of Hades, she could return. Unfortunately, Proserpine had eaten six pomegranate seeds, and she had been seen by Ascalaphus. He told what he had seen, and so Proserpine was forced to stay in the Underworld for half the year while she could spend the other half with her mother. In revenge, Proserpine turned the boy into a screech owl, the harbinger of bad news. It was said that Proserpine's ascent to earth and descent to Hades cause the change in seasons.

who wrote The Rape of Porserpine?

Plato The Republic (Greek: Πολιτεία, Politeia; Latin: De Republica[1]) is a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 380 BC, concerning the definition of justice (δικαιοσύνη), the order and character of the just city-state and the just man[2]—for this reason, ancient readers used the name On Justice as an alternative title (not to be confused with the spurious dialogue also titled On Justice).[3] The dramatic date of the dialogue has been much debated and though it might have taken place some time during the Peloponnesian War, "there would be jarring anachronisms if any of the candidate specific dates between 432 and 404 were assigned".[4] It is Plato's best-known work and has proven to be one of the most intellectually and historically influential works of philosophy and political theory.[5][6] In it, Socrates along with various Athenians and foreigners discuss the meaning of justice and examine whether or not the just man is happier than the unjust man by considering a series of different cities coming into existence "in speech", culminating in a city called Kallipolis (Καλλίπολις), which is ruled by philosopher-kings; and by examining the nature of existing regimes. The participants also discuss the theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, and the roles of the philosopher and of poetry in society.[7]

who wrote The Republic?

Hesiod Son of Cronus and Rhea. Only one of his siblings Cronus doesn't swallow. Zeus Born from Zeus' head Athena Father of Zeus and other main gods. Swallows all of them except Zeus. Cronus The Earth. Came from Chaos. Mother of the Titans, with Uranus. Gaia From which everything came. Chaos Opened the box. Pandora Came from the testicles of Uranus and the sea. Aphrodite God of the Sea. Son of Cronus. Poseidon (In Theogony) Tell the story Muses Children of Uranus and Gaia Titans Please allow access to your computer's microphone to use Voice Recording. Having trouble? Click here for help.

who wrote The Theogony?

Some people say Moses, but it is usually attributed to four different authors: J, D, E, and P. SparkNotes Login with email Sign Up for a Free AccountHelp SPARKNOTES NO FEAR TEST PREP VIDEO SPARKLIFE THE MINDHUT Home → SparkNotes → Literature Study Guides → Bible: The Old Testament → Character List CONTENTS General Info Context Overview Character List Analysis of Major Characters Themes, Motifs & Symbols Summary & Analysis Genesis, Chapters 1-11 Genesis: Chapters 12-25 Genesis Chapters 25-50 Exodus Leviticus, Numbers & Deuteronomy Joshua Judges The First Book of Samuel The Second Book of Samuel The First & Second Books of Kings Job Ecclesiastes Psalms The Song of Solomon Proverbs Study Tools Important Quotations Explained Key Facts Study Questions & Essay Topics Quiz Suggestions for Further Reading How to Cite This SparkNote BIBLE: THE OLD TESTAMENT ←Character List→ God - The creator of the world and an all-powerful being. God calls himself the only true deity worthy of human worship. As the figurehead of Israel and the force behind every event, God acts as the unseen hero of the Old Testament. God reveals his intentions by speaking to people. Physical manifestations of God are always indirect or symbolic. God appears in many different forms, including an angel, a wrestler, a burst of fire, and a quiet whisper. Read an in-depth analysis of God. Abraham - The patriarch of the Hebrew people. Abraham is traditionally called "Father Abraham" because the Israelite people and their religion descend from him. God establishes his covenant, or promise, with Abraham, and God develops an ongoing relationship with the Israelites through Abraham's descendants. Abraham practices the monotheistic worship of God, and his resilient faith in God, despite many challenges, sets the pattern for the Israelite religion's view of righteousness. Moses - The reluctant savior of Israel in its exodus from Egyptian bondage to the promised land. Moses mediates between God and the people, transforming the Israelites from an oppressed ethnic group into a nation founded on religious laws. Moses's legendary miracles before Pharaoh, along with his doubts and insecurities, make him the great mortal hero of the Old Testament. He is the only man ever to know God "face to face." Four out of the five books of the Pentateuch are devoted to Moses and Israel's activities under his leadership. Read an in-depth analysis of Moses. David - The king of Israel and the founder of Jerusalem, or "Zion." David's reign marks the high point of Israel in the biblical narrative. Although David's claim to the throne is threatened by Saul and by David's own son, Absalom, David maintains his power by blending shrewd political maneuvering with a magnanimous and forgiving treatment of his enemies. David's decision to bring the Ark of the Covenant—Israel's symbol of God—to the capital of Jerusalem signals the long-awaited unification of the religious and political life of Israel in the promised land. Read an in-depth analysis of David. Jacob - The grandson of Abraham, Jacob is the third patriarch of the Israelite people and the father of the twelve sons who form the tribes of Israel. Jacob experiences a life fraught with deception, bewilderment, and change. He steals his brother Esau's inheritance right and wrestles with God on the banks of the Jabbok River. Appropriately, the nation that springs from Jacob's children derives its name from Jacob's God-given name, "Israel." "Israel" means "struggles with God," and Jacob's struggles are emblematic of the tumultuous story of the nation of Israel. Joseph - Jacob's son and the head official for the Pharaoh of Egypt. Despite being sold into slavery by his brothers, Joseph rises to power in Egypt and saves his family from famine. Joseph's calm and gracious response to his brothers' betrayal introduces the pattern of forgiveness and redemption that characterizes the survival of the Israelite people throughout the Old Testament. Saul - Israel's first king. After God chooses Saul to be king, Saul loses his divine right to rule Israel by committing two religious errors. Saul acts as a character foil to David, because his plot to murder David only highlights David's mercy to Saul in return. Saul's inner turmoil over the inscrutability of God's exacting standards makes him a sympathetic but tragic figure. Solomon - David's son and the third king of Israel. Solomon builds the opulent Temple in Jerusalem and ushers in Israel's greatest period of wealth and power. God grants Solomon immense powers of knowledge and discernment in response to Solomon's humble request for wisdom. Solomon's earthly success hinders his moral living, however, and his weakness for foreign women and their deities leads to Israel's downfall. Elijah & Elisha - The prophets who oppose the worship of the god Baal in Israel. After the division of Israel into two kingdoms, Elijah and his successor, Elisha, represent the last great spiritual heroes before Israel's exile. Their campaign in northern Israel against King Ahab and Jezebel helps to lessen Israel's growing evil but does not restore Israel's greatness. Israel's demise makes Elijah and Elisha frustrated doomsayers and miracle workers rather than national leaders or saviors. Adam & Eve - The first man and woman created by God. Adam and Eve introduce human evil into the world when they eat the fruit of a tree God has forbidden them to touch. Noah - The survivor of God's great flood. Noah obediently builds the large ark, or boat, that saves the human race and the animal kingdom from destruction. Noah is the precursor to Abraham, because Noah represents the first instance of God's attempt to form a covenant with humanity through one person. Isaac - Abraham's son and the second member in the triumvirate of Israel's patriarchs. Isaac's importance consists less in his actions than in the way he is acted upon by others. God tests Abraham by commanding him to kill his son Isaac, and Isaac's blindness and senility allow his own son Jacob to steal Isaac's blessing and the inheritance of God's covenant. Aaron - Moses's brother, who assists Moses in leading the Israelites out of Egypt. God designates Aaron to be the first high priest in Israel. The quiet Aaron often stands between Moses and the people to soften Moses's angry response to their sinful behavior. Joshua - The successor of Moses as Israel's leader. Joshua directs the people in their sweeping military campaign to conquer and settle the Promised Land. Joshua's persistent exhortations to Israel to remain obedient to God imply that he doubts Israel will do so. His exhortations foreshadow Israel's future religious struggles. Samson - One of Israel's judges and an epic hero who thwarts the neighboring Philistines with his superhuman strength. Samson is rash, belligerent, and driven by lust for foreign women—qualities that contradict Jewish religious ideals. Samson's long hair is both the source of his strength and the symbol of his religious devotion to God as a Nazirite. Samson's character demonstrates that in the bible, heroic potential is gauged not by human excellence but by faith in God. Samuel - The last of Israel's judges and the prophet who anoints both Saul and David as king. Samuel fulfills political and priestly duties for Israel, but he ushers in Israel's monarchy mainly as a prophet—one who pronounces God's words and decisions. Samuel's stoic and aloof position in Israel allows Saul to struggle with God and his fate on his own. Absalom - David's son, who attempts to overthrow his father's throne. Absalom's violent rise to power suggests that the evil that corrupts Israel comes from within. Joab - King David's loyal military commander. Joab serves as a foil to David's successful combination of religion and politics. Joab's reasonable desire to see justice and retribution delivered to the kingdom's traitors emphasizes the unusual quality of David's kindness to his enemies. Rehoboam & Jeroboam - The opposing kings who divide Israel into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Rehoboam and Jeroboam introduce rampant worship of idols and false gods into their kingdoms. Each king acts both as a point of contrast and a double, or mirror, for the other, allowing the biblical reader to trace the rapid growth of evil in Israel's two kingdoms. Ahab & Jezebel - The most wicked rulers of Israel. Ahab and Jezebel spread cult worship of the pagan god Baal throughout the northern kingdom. Dogs gather to eat their blood at their deaths, fulfilling Elijah's prophecy. Esther - A timid Jewish girl who becomes the queen of Persia. Esther boldly and cunningly persuades the king of Persia to remove his edict calling for the death of the exiled Jews. Job - The subject of God and Satan's cosmic experiment to measure human faithfulness to God in the midst of immense pain. Job scorns false contrition and the advice of his friends, preferring instead to question God's role in human suffering. He retains an open and inquisitive mind, remaining faithful in his refusal to curse God.

who wrote the Pentateuch?

from a Greek word meaning "hospitality." Universally recognized as "kindness to strangers." The most important sources for xenia are preserved in literature, particularly Homeric epic. Both the Odyssey and the Iliad are filled with episodes in which xenia is either honored or ignored -- and the consequences are notable. For instance, when Odysseus sails to the island of the cyclops, the monster's treatment of Odysseus and his sailors (the cyclops begins to eat Odysseus' crew) is a violation of the custom of xenia. The cyclops is punished for the transgression, however -- Odysseus blinds his "host" and escapes. Though the cyclops episode depicts an abuse of xenia, the absence of host-guest laws also indicates just how savage the island is. The Odyssey complicates the codes of xenia, exploring situations where the laws of hospitality might be tested. For instance, Odysseus' wife Penelope is forced by custom to entertain an entire household of suitors. From the start of the story, these men slowly drain the household of resources -- all because they assume their host Odysseus is dead. In short, they not only make unreasonable, burdensome requests (impolite for guests), but do so with the assumption that the host himself is no longer alive. The conclusion of the poem, Odysseus's slaughter of the suitors, can be seen as retribution for an egregious abuse of xenia -- or conversely, a violation of its precepts.

xenia