Σεμινάριο ΚΕΕΛΓ Ακαδημίας Αθηνών 2018-2019

Σεμινάριο ΚΕΕΛΓ Ακαδημίας Αθηνών 2018-2019

Μέγαρο Ακαδημίας Αθηνών, Ανατολική αίθουσα (Πανεπιστημίου 28, Αθήνα)

Επιστημονική Υπεύθυνη: Έφη Παπαδόδημα

Ancient Greek Literature and the Foreign

Η θεματική του Σεμιναρίου για το έτος 2018-2019 (Οκτώβριος-Ιούνιος) ορίζεται ως ‘Η αρχαία ελληνική λογοτεχνία σε διάλογο με το ξένο’ (‘Ancient Greek Literature and the Foreign’). Θα διερευνηθoύν διάφορες πτυχές της αλληλεπίδρασης της αρχαίας ελληνικής λογοτεχνίας με λογοτεχνίες άλλων αρχαίων πολιτισμών, καθώς και ζητήματα απεικόνισης και αναπαράστασης των ξένων στην αρχαία ελληνική λογοτεχνία.

Ομιλητές: Luigi Battezzato (Piemonte Orientale), Paul Cartledge (Cambridge), Edith Hall (London), Simon Hornblower (London), Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (Cardiff), David Konstan (New York), M. Lefkowitz (Wellesley), Irad Malkin (Tel Aviv), Richard Seaford (Exeter), Rosalind Thomas (Oxford), Phiroze Vasunia (London), Κώστας Βλασόπουλος (Κρήτης),  Έφη Παπαδόδημα (Αθήνα), Μιχαήλ Πασχάλης (Κρήτη).

2018

11 Οκτωβρίου, Έφη Παπαδόδημα (Ερευνήτρια Γ, ΚΕΕΛΓ): Οι Ατρείδες της τραγωδίας και η εθνοκεντρική ρητορική (τους): οι περιπέτειες του συλλογικού αυτοπροσδιορισμού

29 Νοεμβρίου, Κώστας Βλασόπουλος (Επίκουρος Καθηγητής Αρχαίας Ελληνικής Ιστορίας, Πανεπιστήμιο Κρήτης): Διαπολιτισμικές σχέσεις και βαρβαρικό ρεπερτόριο στη Μεσόγειο της κλασικής εποχής

Περίληψη: Η μελέτη των διαπολιστισμικών επαφών στην αρχαιότητα έχει κυριαρχηθεί από δυο διαμετρικά αντίθετες αντιλήψεις. Η μια θεωρεί ότι οι διαπολιτισμικές επαφές βασίζονται σε μια σχετικά απλή μεταφορά πληροφοριών, γνώσης και αντικειμένων από έναν πολιτισμό σε έναν άλλο. Η δεύτερη, επηρεασμένη από τη στρουκτουραλιστική σχολή της πολιτισμικής ανθρωοπολογίας, θεωρεί ότι οι διαπολιτισμικές επαφές δομούνται με βάση την πολικότητα, και ότι ως εκ τούτου οι εικόνες των άλλων πολιτισμών που βρίσκουμε στην αρχαία ελληνική λογοτεχνία έχουν ως στόχο την οικοδόμηση των ελληνικών ταυτοτήτων μέσω της αντιδιαστολής με την βαρβαρική ετερότητα, παρά τη μετάδοση πραγματικής γνώσης για τους άλλους πολιτισμούς. 
Η ομιλία μου έχει ως στόχο να παρουσιάσει μια διαφορετική προσέγγιση στο θέμα. Αυτή η προσέγγιση εκκινεί από τη διαπίστωση ότι υπάρχουν ριζικά διαφορετικοί τρόποι με τους οποίους ένας πολιτισμός σχετίζεται με άλλους πολιτισμούς. Η διάκριση μεταξύ αυτοαναφορικών και ετεροαναφορικών πολιτισμών είναι αναγκαία προκειμένου να αντιληφθούμε την ιδιαιτερότητα του τρόπου με τον οποίο ο αρχαιός ελληνικός πολιτισμός σχετίζεται με άλλους πολιτισμούς. Η οικοδόμηση του «βαρβαρικού ρεπερτορίου», που περιλαμβάνει μια πλειάδα από διαφορετικές και συχνά διαμετρικά αντίθετες εικόνες για τους άλλους πολιτισμούς, και η πολυμορφία των χρήσεων αυτών των εικόνων, αποτελεί μια από τις πιο περίεργες αλλά και σημαντικές όψεις του αρχαίου ελληνικού πολιτισμού.

 Η διάλεξη είναι διαθέσιμη μαγνητοσκοπημένη στον ιστότοπο του blod.gr.

7 Δεκεμβρίου, Luigi Battezzato (Professor of Greek Literature, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale ‘Amedeo Avogadro’): Hector the Barbarian?

Abstract: Hector is a paradoxical figure. For modern readers, he is effectively a Greek hero, and has been often seen by modern writers and interpreters as the symbol of the human condition itself.
Such an interpretation occurs for instance in the work of the Italian poet Ugo Foscolo, born in the Greek island of Zakynthos. He ends his most beautiful poem, ‘On Sepulchers’, with a celebration of Hector’s heroism:

And you, Hector,
will have homage of tears, wherever tears
are shed for the blood that heroes spill
to hallow the fatherland, and as long as sunlight
falls on the horrors of our human kind
(translation P. Burian)

In ancient Greek culture, Hector is one of many ‘foreign’ heroes (like Sarpedon, Glaucus, Rhesus, Andromeda, and Memnon) who do not exist in non-Greek mythologies. But, more than any other ‘foreign’ Greek hero, he is presented as an enemy of the Greeks who however attracts sympathy of Greek audiences.
He is a Trojan, but worships Greek gods; his name, like that of his brother Alexander, has a clear Greek etymology. The most ancient and most representative text of Greek culture ends with prominent display of mourning for his death. When facing death, Hector even attracts the pity of the supreme Greek god Zeus. Greek tragedy presented Hector as a barbarian that attracts pity, thus unsettling any chauvinistic contraposition between Greek and ‘the foreign’.
Hellenistic interpreters of the Iliad reversed this representation. They saw Hector as the embodiment of barbarism: his conduct is berated as rash, cruel, and pretentious. This ancient approach influenced modern interpreters, who still often condemn Hector’s choice of action in the Iliad. The paper discusses these evaluations of ancient interpreters and writers and confronts them with the representation of Hector in the Iliad. Hector’s rash attack against the Greeks is in fact motivated by a chain of circumstances that exonerates his misjudgment.

13 Δεκεμβρίου, Irad Malkin (Professor of Ancient History Emeritus, Tel Aviv University): Equality and kleros: Distributing Lands to New Settlers in Archaic Greece and Encounters with non-Greeks

Abstract: The evidence for land distribution among Greek settlers (or “colonists”), whether textual or archaeological, reveals Greek concerns with concepts of fairness and equality as early as the eighth century, as well as awareness of the coherence of their respective political communities. Isai kai homoiai is a formula we find in foundation contexts, key terms to be further discussed.
The combination of oikos (house, home, household) and kleros (allocated plot of land) expresses the aspirations of early individual settlers. It also points to the system of distribution: allocation by lot (kleros, again) implying the equal chances of getting better lots (better in terms of quality and location) as well as insisting on equality of size. The larger context of Archaic Greek lotteries (e.g., distribution of booty, partible inheritance, choice of soldiers and settlers by lot) allows us to better understand both the mechanism and the egalitarian principles that directed it.
Protoi kleroi, “first lots” are discussed within the framework of Greek lawgivers and reformers, with an emphasis on the notion that such lots are inalienable, preserving the formula “one man per one oikos/kleros.”
Comprehensive land-distribution at the time of settlement, and the entitlement of settlers to equal and fair distribution, also implies the exclusion of others, often non-Greek neighbors, from the initial settlement. This consideration may falsify claims that initial Greek settlements were “hybrid” since the exclusion of non-settlers, as revealed by patterns of equal land distribution by lot to a pre-defined group seems rather to have been the rule.

 Η διάλεξη είναι διαθέσιμη μαγνητοσκοπημένη στον ιστότοπο του blod.gr.

2019

24 Ιανουαρίου, Edith Hall (Professor of Classics, King’s College London): Barbarian, Foreign and Athenian Identities in Aristophanes' Acharnians

Η διάλεξη δυστυχώς αναβάλλεται λόγω αδυναμίας της ομιλήτριας

14 Φεβρουαρίου, Phiroze Vasunia (Professor of Greek, University College London): A God  in Translation? Lucian, Dionysus and Gandhara

Abstract: Dionysus’ conquest of India enthralled ancient writers and artists from the Hellenistic period onward. Lucian’s Dionysus is a fascinating text since it offers us a humorous interpretation of Dionysus’s invasion and Indian reactions to the event. The text prompts its readers to reflect on Alexander’s Dionysiac self-fashioning, especially in south Asia, and not least to ask after Indian reactions to Dionysus. It so happens that what we might arguably term ‘Indian’ responses to Dionysus also can be perceived in other ways since ‘Dionysiac’ images survive in some quantity from Bactria and Gandhara, regions that Alexander and the Greeks thought of as India. The images date to a period that is roughly contemporaneous with Lucian’s lifetime and, in their own terms, also explore the relationship between Dionysus and India. These Gandharan images were recovered during the period of British rule in India, and the colonial context of recovery is important. Reflecting on Lucian and the Gandharan images together gives us a worthwhile opportunity to think comparatively about Dionysus and to inquire into the politics of religious ‘translation’.

7 Μαρτίου, Μιχαήλ Πασχάλης (Ομότιμος Καθηγητής Κλασικής Φιλολογίας, Πανεπιστήμιο Κρήτης): Η αρπαγή της Ευρώπης από τον Μόσχο έως τον Νόννο

Περίληψη: Στην αρχή της Ιστορίης του ο Ηρόδοτος παραθέτει την άποψη Περσών λογίων, σύμφωνα με τους οποίους τα αίτια της σύγκρουσης με τους Έλληνες ανάγονται σε μια σειρά από αμοιβαίες αρπαγές: πρώτοι οι Φοίνικες άρπαξαν την Ιώ, την κόρη του Ίναχου, από το Άργος και ανταπέδωσαν τα ίσα οι Κρήτες, αρπάζοντας τη βασιλοπούλα Ευρώπη από την Τύρο· αργότερα οι Έλληνες άνοιξαν δεύτερο κύκλο, αρπάζοντας τη Μήδεια, την κόρη του βασιλιά της Κολχίδας, και συνέχισε ο Αλέξανδρος, ο γιος του Πρίαμου, με την αρπαγή της Ελένης, που είχε ως αποτέλεσμα να εκστρατεύσουν οι Έλληνες κατά της Τροίας. Κατά τη λογοτεχνική αναπαραγωγή μια αρπαγής αυτού του είδους δεν θα ήταν παράδοξο ο ελληνοκεντρισμός να δώσει τη θέση του σε σχήματα όπου «Έλληνες» και «βάρβαροι» αντιμετωπίζονται ισότιμα και αδιάκριτα ή ακόμη όπου η μεταξύ τους αξιολογική σχέση ανατρέπεται. Ειδικά όταν στον πολιτισμό που δημιούργησαν αργότερα οι κατακτήσεις του Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου και των Ρωμαίων ο γνωστός κόσμος ενοποιείται και οι παλιότερες ταυτοτικές αντιθέσεις περιορίζονται ή εξαφανίζονται, και τη θέση τους παίρνουν άλλες νεότερες.
Χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα είναι οι αφηγήσεις για την αρπαγή της Ευρώπης, έμμετρες και πεζές. Ο μύθος ήταν γνωστός στον Όμηρο και δημοφιλής στην αρχαιότητα, από τον Γυναικών κατάλογον του Ησιόδου μέχρι τα Διονυσιακά του Νόννου. Η πρώτη σωζόμενη έμμετρη αφήγηση είναι το επύλλιο Ευρώπη του ποιητή Μόσχου από τις Συρακούσες (περ. 150 π. Χ.), που επηρέασε όλες σχεδόν τις μεταγενέστερες αρχαιοελληνικές εκδοχές. Οι επινοήσεις του Μόσχου εμπλέκουν καίρια θέματα, όπως τη «συνάντηση» Ευρώπης - Ασίας, την «αμοιβαιότητα» στις αρπαγές και τον χαρακτήρα αυτής της ίδιας της αρπαγής· Ευρώπη και Ασία αντιμετωπίζονται ισότιμα ή σημειώνονται διαδοχικές ανατροπές, για να καταλήξουμε στην ιδανική ενότητα που παίρνει τη μορφή γαμήλιας τελετουργίας. Με αφετηρία τον Μόσχο, η ανακοίνωση θα εξετάσει εν συντομία όλες τις ελληνορωμαϊκές εκδοχές του μύθου μέχρι τον βιργιλιανό κέντρωνα Europa, παρακολουθώντας τις τύχες των παλιότερων εθνοκεντρικών στερεοτύπων — η απολυτότητα των οποίων έχει βέβαια αμφισβητηθεί τα τελευταία χρόνια.

14 Μαρτίου, Rosalind Thomas (Professor of Greek History, University of Oxford): Greek History,  Ethnography and the Persian Empire (5th.c.-4th.c. B.C.).

Abstract: The paper will discuss the ways in which various Greek writers engaged with the complexities of the Persian Empire, especially Herodotus, Xenophon, Aristotle, and some fourth-century writers (fragmentary) of Persika.  It will examine the tension between Greek hostility towards Persia and the conventional stereotypes, and their need to understand more about the Empire in a new form of ethnography. New insights into the Persian Empire (and new evidence) encourage returning to the Greek writers afresh and examining them from different angles: the paper argues that amidst the clichés, there was also a seriousness and urgency in the fourth century about trying to understand the Persian Empire and its monarchy.

 Η διάλεξη είναι διαθέσιμη μαγνητοσκοπημένη στον ιστότοπο του blod.gr.

28 Μαρτίου, Paul Cartledge (A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture Emeritus, University of Cambridge): Herodotus and the Foreign Revisited: Re-viewing a Great Book

Abstract: The Histories of Herodotus are one of the greatest works of extant ancient Greek Literature, well worth revisiting, constantly. Herodotus was himself 'foreign' - or at any rate he had a father (Lyxes) and an uncle (Panyassis, an epic poet) with non-Greek names, and he seems to have been unusually interested in as well as unusually connected with the world of 'barbarians'. His work, he tells us, was intended as a celebration and commemorating of the 'great and wondrous deeds' accomplished by Greeks and non-Greeks alike. Indeed, he even applied his 'barbarian thesis' to the Greek world itself, both by showing how Sparta was in significant ways 'barbarian' as well as Greek, and by attributing a significant part of his explanation of the outcome of the Graeco-Persian Wars to a vision of 'Greekness'. Alongside his ethnographic project ran a moral-philosophical vein of thinking - humanistic, pacifistic, and rationalist but also tolerantly religious. All this was in the service of explanation - above all an explanation of why Greeks and Persians had fought each other, and of why (some) Greeks had won. The late great Nicole Loraux once wrote of Herodotus's main successor Thucydides that he 'is not a colleague'. Nor is Herodotus a historian 'just like us'. But he is - or should be - 'one of us', today and es aiei.

4 Απριλίου, Mary Lefkowitz (Professor of Classical Studies Emerita, Wellesley College): The Phrygian Slave in Euripides’ Orestes

Abstract: A scene in Euripides’ Orestes (408 B.C.), although often misinterpreted by modern critics. has direct relevance to the topic of this seminar: “Ancient Greek Literature and the Foreign.” The scene, in which a Phrygian eunuch slave describes what he supposes to have been the murder of Helen, illustrates how Athenian writers had a nuanced understanding of foreignness. Yes, they regarded foreigners as others, and called attention to their strange costumes and manners. But they also could portray them as fellow humans who shared with themselves many of the same reactions to deception, violence, and most particularly, death.  When the occasion demanded, ancient Greek orators would emphasize differences between Greeks and foreign enemies. But the same time other Greek thinkers were emphasizing the unity of humankind. Homer and the tragedians portray many of their foreign characters, who –for better or for worse-- thinking and acting as a Greek might have done in similar circumstances. That is the ultimate message of the scene in the Orestes where Euripides lets his audience see the actions of Orestes and Pylades through the eyes of a Phrygian slave.

18 Απριλίου, Richard Seaford (Professor of Ancient Greek Emeritus, University of Exeter): The Foreigner as a Focus for Civic Unity: Ritual, History, and Tragedy

Abstract: The foreigner (xenos) as a focus for the unity of the polis is a deep structure found across history, ritual, and tragedy. I start with the the earliest case of the Greek deification of a living man, of Lysander by the Samians in 404 BCE. Why did this momentous innovation occur? The various explanations that have been offered omit a crucial precondition: the polis can represent its interaction with a new kind of powerful xenos by assimilating it to its traditional interaction with a deity - in particular through a crisis ended by the processional welcome of the powerful xenos (deity or human potentate) into the city by the whole polis. This processional ritual was in play, I suggest, even in the tyrannical coups at Athens of Kylon and Peisistratus. But the first man whom we know to have been deified by the Athenians was Demetrius Poliorketes. The three deities with whom he is identified or associated - Zeus Kataibates, Demeter, and Dionysos - are chosen for the power of their advent to unify the polis. In particular, the unifying arrival of Dionysos at the polis festival, and in Euripides' Bacchae, contributes to a basic form of tragedy in which the arrival of an outsider in Athens produces cult for the polis. It was a crisis of the polis that required Dionysos to be summoned to Thebes (in Sophocles' Antigone), Epimenides and Pan to come to Athens, and Eurypylus to come to Patrai. Further permutations of the deep structure are illustrated by e.g. the advent of (the bones of) Theseus into Athens, and of Mark Antony into Ephesos. 

16 Μαΐου, Simon Hornblower (London): Hellenistic Literature and the Romans

Abstract: Since the series is about Greek literature and the foreign, the lecture begins with some Greek perceptions of Romans as barbarians – and the opposite perception (Romans as Greeks). The ‘Hellenistic age’ is defined conventionally: against one recent authority, the lecture declines to extend it so as to embrace Greek Imperial writers. It also confines itself to authors for whom Rome was a centrally important preoccupation. The danger of using occasional Roman material in ‘fragmentary’ writers like Kallimachos or Euphorion is illustrated by two sharply contrasting modern interpretations of a passage from Agatharchides of Knidos. But the fragments of Timaios of Tauromenion are a special case; and epigraphically attested panegyrists, and scantily preserved Rome-haters, will also feature. The three main authors to be considered are however two poets and a prose historian: Lykophron the author of the Alexandra; the Third Sibylline Oracle; and Polybius. The lecture ends with an interpretative Conclusion.

13 Ιουνίου, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (Professor in Ancient History, Cardiff University): Ctesias’ Persika: Court Histories and Iranian Tales

Η διάλεξη δυστυχώς αναβάλλεται

20 Ιουνίου, David Konstan (Professor of Classics, New York University): Making Friends with Foreigners: xenia in the Homeric Epics Revisited

Abstract: Xenos is a problematic term. Dictionaries and histories are largely in agreement that the primary sense of the term is “guest-friend,” to use the awkward compound that has become standard in English (cf. Chantraine, Dictionnaire Étymologique; Liddell Scott Jones, Greek-English Dictionary; Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek; Finley, World of Odysseus; Herman Ritualised Friendship). Only later, it is argued, did the sense of “stranger” or “foreigner” develop. What is more, the relationship of guest-friendship or hospitality (xenia) is imagined as having an institutional, contractual, and hereditary character; to quote Moses Finley, whose treatment was seminal: “Guest-friendship was a very serious institution, the alternative to marriage in forging bonds between rulers.... Guest-friend and guest-friendship were far more than sentimental terms of human affection. In the world of Odysseus they were technical names for very concrete relationships, as formal and as evocative of rights and duties as marriage. And they remained so well thereafter.” Or again, Gabriel Herman writes: “a person could die, but the role of xenos could not.”
In my talk, I plan to turn this description on its head. I will argue that in Homer, the term xenos means precisely “stranger,” and that xenia is not a formal bond, does not involve reciprocal obligations, and is not passed on to descendants. I will suggest that a foreigner (xenos) may indeed be treated as a member of one’s own community, and so be regarded as a philos xenos, that is, a “dear foreigner,” an expression in which the notion of stranger is not lost or submerged under the title of “guest” (for which there is no precise term in classical Greek). I will illustrate the process by which a foreigner is afforded such hospitably recognition, which, however, has nothing to do with ritual or formal compact. I hope that this will shed new light on the nature of social relations in the archaic period of Greece.

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