ONLINE DISCUSSION: "Ideal and the Real in Ancient Athens"
Thursday, Oct. 20
"Ideal and the Real in Ancient Athens" - ONLINE DISCUSSION
(NO PHYSICAL CLASS MEETING.... PROF AT CONFERENCE!)
Reading Assignment: "Ideal & the Reality of Classical Athens," in Discovering the Ancient Past
Online Discussion Questions:
Post comment of a couple of paragraph on the blog addressing the following questions: "What ideals do the writers set forth for the individual, the household, and the government (and why?) Are these ideals reflected in the more realistic descriptions of life in Athens and in the way Athenians built their houses and their city (and why or why not?)"
(You'll get extra-credit for returning and commenting on your classmates' comments!)
"Ideal and the Real in Ancient Athens" - ONLINE DISCUSSION
(NO PHYSICAL CLASS MEETING.... PROF AT CONFERENCE!)
Reading Assignment: "Ideal & the Reality of Classical Athens," in Discovering the Ancient Past
Online Discussion Questions:
Post comment of a couple of paragraph on the blog addressing the following questions: "What ideals do the writers set forth for the individual, the household, and the government (and why?) Are these ideals reflected in the more realistic descriptions of life in Athens and in the way Athenians built their houses and their city (and why or why not?)"
(You'll get extra-credit for returning and commenting on your classmates' comments!)
posted by Michelle-aneous Musings | 8:38 AM
5 Comments:
Hey everyone...seems as if I'm the first poster..well..here it goes...
The ideals that these early philosophers set forth are functional ideals. Not in the utopian sense where everyone can lounge about and there is music and dancing, but in the "well oiled machine" ideal. You can see this when Socrates is talking to his friend about the man's young wife. People should behave, know their role, and stick to it. Everything and everyone has to contribute to the Athenian powerhouse, whether it is with providing children, or winning wars. The one sentence that really bothered me was when that passage was talking about the children "We shall think about how best to raise them, for we share an interest in securing the best allies and support for our old age." They don't even see the children as their own children, but as allies (or potential enemies) for their old age. These same almost detached ideals are in the government and most of the social classes. The reason for this is because Athens needed these kinds of ideals to survive. If the Athenians would have gotten softer ideals, or more lenient in the way they thought of themselves, they would have never been able to raise a strong and vast empire for as long as they had. By making these ideals key, Athens preserved herself for a longer amount of time.
I don't think that the ideals were cemented into Athenian life as much as the book claims. I believe it's more practical than ideal that lends itself into structure of houses. For example, from the floor plan of the house from Olynthus seems very practical. It's got to storeroom right across from the banquet hall, so that the food can stay were it's cooler, and it can be easily kept in the store room until the meal is ready to be served. You've also got the Alter in the middle of the house, which can show that these people were devout in their religion, and that the house centered around the gods. It's also a sizeable courtyard, so that more than one person can worship if they wanted to. The kitchen is next to the women's quarters, because obviously the men aren't going to cook. The women's and men's quarters are separated by the kitchen and a hallway to keep wayward thoughts out of mind. That's a natural temptation, and it would be sensible to try and employ population control. Therefore, it was not necessarily values, so much as sensibility.
The ideals of ancient Athens were very much different from the reality of the Athenians. These ideals were simply set as a standard for the Athenians; however that does not mean these ideals were followed. The individuals lead very contrasting lives compared to the ideals set forth by the writers. Aristotle makes it seem as if each household follows the rule of “…a house and a wife and an ox...” The reality of that was that not every household was as “luxurious.” On the other hand, Xenophon doesn’t make things seem that luxurious. Xenophon asks Ischomachus, “‘Did you train your wife yourself or did she already know how to run a house when you got her from her father and mother?’” Ischomachus replies that yes, indeed he had to train her. Was that the Athenian idea, that men were trainers of their wives? Was this just another duty to them to make them feel superior? I think, in reality men had more on their minds than training wives. After all, it was the women’s quarters that were located near the kitchen. For, wives were able to socializes and learn themselves. That is, if they were in a high enough social class. If they were not of a high class then they made due working as merchants.
The ideals of government were portrayed by Plato. Plato expresses that elders basically led the government. By elders, of course, he means elder men. Because socially women were not considered as citizens. These elders must have been thought as wiser, for they handled “important” aspects of daily lives. For example, working and fighting for the military. This specific ideal is more like reality, I think. Because elders were valued and even made councils in ancient Greece. Overall, the ideals set forth by ancient writers seem to be a little more glorified than that of the reality.
As in any society, ancient or modern, the Athenians held very high ideals for all aspects of their lives. On an individual level, an Athenian man was expected to be virtuous, and always a strong leader at all times ( Weisner 110). The most common way for a man to prove his worth was “war, the ultimate test of human ideals, morals, and values” (Weisner 107). Athenian women, however, were not thought to posses any virtues. “Silence brings credit to a woman, but that is not so for a man,” said one orator (Weisner 117). Women of Athens were expected too obey their husbands, fathers, or authoritive male in their lives, and to bear many strong sons. Without sons, a widow in Athens would be unable to survive. Ideally, women would have staid inside the home at all times, rarely meeting a man outside the home. “Greatest will be her [glory] who is least talked of among the men whether for good or for bad.” (Weisner 112). Although many philosophers varied in their theories as to what the foundation for an ideal society would be, “for aristotle… it was the perfectly managed hoursehold” (Weisner 107). The household, a woman’s responsibility, was expected to be run in accordance with her husband’s wishes only. A smooth running household was a “microcosm” representing the way that all of Athens should exist, under ideal circumstances. In theory, several different classes of Athenians would exist within one single household. However, these classes would have worked side-by-side in order to work to their full potential—there would be no alienation of a person’s rights based on their status. “Class considerations [were] not allowed to interfere with merit” so that every citizen of Athens lived the life which the deserved (Weisner 110). The ideal Athenian government was open to new ideas, and welcomed new cultures into a society which embraces social differences. Athens claimed to “never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing” in their society (Weisner 111). Had all of these ideals, preached to the Athenian masses and other societies by orrators of long ago actually been a reality, Athenian life would must have been a utopia in every way. However, other sources from the past reveal that reality in Golden Greece was nowhere near as wonderful.
Although life in Athenian society was often portrayed as absolutly ideal, individual lifestyles were far less as virtuous. Men were not always as virtuous and strong as they were expected to be. Although Athenian soldiers were ready to fight whenever the need arose, they avoided conflicts that were unnecessary. One man said of his polis’s relations with other city-states, “if we do not molest them it is because we are afraid” to meet them in battle (Weisner 113). Women, too, were also forced to find ways in which they could appear to reach the high ideals of Athenian society. Until a “woman bore legitimate children, [she could not have ] earned higher status and greater freedom in the family” (Hunt 72). Because of the intense pressure on women to bare many children—especially sons, it was not uncommon to hear of “women who smuggled in male babies born to slaves and passed them off as their own” if they were unable to have male children of their own (Hunt 73). Although the Athenian household should have been a model of ideal society, they hardly represented the equality between the classes which Pericles, a leader in ancient Athens, had suggested. Instead, slaves were considered a staple for all households. These slaves were generally considered to be closer to animal than human, and unable to advance in life—either mentally or socially. It was said that a slave “participates in the reasoning faculty so far as to understand but not so as to possess it. … the use, too, of slaves hardly differs at all from that of domestic animals” (Weisner 116). Just as the realities of individual and household life fell far below the ideals, Athenian government was not nearly as accepting as some proclaimed. When “the Melians surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, who put to death all the grown men whom they took, and sold the women and children for slaves” (Weisner 115). This hardly can be described as the limitless kindness towards foreigners which Athenian government claimed to possess. And, in order to limit the number of new or radical ideas from spreading throughout the city-state, ostracism was used. One male citizen could be voted out of the city-state every year if he was perceived as a threat towards Athenian democracy in any way (Hunt 63). The ideals of Athenian society in the Golden age of Greece were so high-minded and unattainable that accurate sources will show the realities of life in Athens were nowhere near as wonderful. Perhaps if the ideals of society had reflected the ideas actually held by citizens in societies of the Golden Age, reality would not have contradicted the ideals in individual, household, and government lives.
Individual ideals were noble-valor in battle, as discussed by Pericles' Funeral Speech. He had a strong sense of nationalism. Pericles was in a leadership position, and one may assume that his views were a good indicator of what a significant portion of the population believed. The people of Athens had a competitive and militaristic sense of foreign policy, believing that they had to take over Melian or else they would show weakness. Though these beliefs strike me as being universal among the Athenians, the equality that Pericles stresses in a part of his speech is not a universal ideal among Athenians in the strictest sense. As an unknown author's view of Athenian Democracy shows, elitism was existant in Athens. The author, evidently an upper class citizen, equates the comon people of Athens to slaves, slaves who the Athenians viewed as no different than domnesticated animals and in dialectical interaction debated whether slaves even had souls and were capable of virtue. Besides this elitist perspective and slavery, most of the Athenian ideals expressed in the evidence were reasonable if not virtuous right.
The ideals expressed in the readings were what the Athenians strived for but not necesarily the reality. A good example is their perception of equality and voting: everyone is equal...except the slaves, and the aliens, and children, and women, and in some eyes the commoners. But the people did strive for an fair, egalitarian, functioning government as described in the excerpt from The Republic. There was a desire to fight bribery among public officials. Pericles talks about fighting as a last resort, but the Athenians diverge from that ideal and choose to fight Melian to save face. The Athenians strived to meet their ideals and sometimes did meet those ideals like their belief in piety as can be concluded from the altar being central in the floor plan of the Olynthus house. But sometimes they fell short of their ideals as with equality and foreign policy.
In ancient Athenian society, there were many established ideals that most Athenians attempted to achieve. Although these ideals are what we think their society was always like, only a few families got to such a level.
Individually, the Athenians sought out many virtues to gain respect from their peers and to move up in society. Virtues such as self respect, justice, courage, and bravery were all considered "good conditions of the soul" and were without question highly sought after. Although slaves, women, and children could attain these traits, only the matured males could use these traits to move up in society.
When establishing a household, it was commonly believed that it was prudent to "Get first a house and a wife and an ox to draw the plough". These were the three main priorities to begin a succussful household in Athens. It was also advantageous to have many "tools" in the household. Tools can be things like a plough, a shovel, or even a slave. Yes, even a slave was considered a tool. The Athenians believed that everything that was property that could be used to get something done was considered a tool. A household with many tools was considered a successful one.
The Athenian government established one ideal that they tried to fulfill in a few ways. This priority of the government was to favor the many, not just the wealthy. This idea of democracy was an original idea, the Athenians were the first society to establish something like this. They prided themselves on being "leaders, not followers".
Post a Comment
<< Home