CS 1000 1 Sources

Sources for the Ancient World
Sources for antiquity

• How do we know what happened in the
Greek and Roman world?
• How do we know when it happened?
• How do we know what events meant to the
ancients?
• Chronology and time-reckoning
• Literary Sources
– Language
– Greek and Latin Literature
– Inscriptions
• Archaeology
– Architecture
– Painting
– Sculpture
Chronology and time-reckoning
• This course focuses on the period ca 1500 BCE to
ca 476 CE.
• These dates are a modern convention, reflecting
the modern calendar.
• The ancient situation was more complex:
– a strong awareness of the changing seasons and months
(astronomy)
– there were many calendars for individual cities
– Caesar reformed the Roman calendar, bringing it closer
to the modern system.
• The ancient situation (cont.)
– Historical events were typically dated by the
year of a particular priest or magistrate in
which they fell.
– Often reference is made to a particular season.
– Rough lengths for a single generation were
used to date past dynasties.
– The ‘acme’ system was widely used in ancient
biography.
– Occasionally the distance is measured from
some single event, common era (e.g., the first
Olympics 776 BCE, founding of Rome 753/2
BCE, Trojan War 1183/2 BCE).
• Modern statements of historical chronology
represent a conversion of ancient modes of
time-reckoning to modern.
– e.g., a Roman writer would say that Caesar was
murdered on the Ides of March C. Caesare et
M. Antonio consulibus.
– We would say that Caesar was killed on 15
March 44 BCE.
• This modern ‘fact’ represents a series of
interpretations.
Literary Sources
Languages: Greek and Latin
• Greek is descended from Indo-European,
and Indo-European speakers seem to have
moved into the Greek world some time
before the Mycenaean Age (ca 2000 BCE).
• This new language seems to have displaced
an indigenous language (or languages), but
traces of pre-Greek vocabulary remain in
the lexicon of classical Greek.
• The Greek world is geographically disparate, and
during the classical period Greeks inhabited not
only mainland Greece, but the Aegean islands, the
coast of Asia Minor, parts of north Africa and
southern Italy.
• A number of dialects flourished, each with
considerable variation in phonology, morphology
and vocabulary.
• Although to the modern student ancient Greek is
often synonymous with Attic Greek, in fact a
standard version of Greek did not emerge until the
later part of the Hellenistic period when koinê was
used throughout much of the Greek-speaking
world.
• Latin began as the language of Latium, the region
of which Rome is the most important centre, and
Latin belongs to the Italic group of Indo-European
languages.
• Having originally been spoken at Latium from ca
800 BCE, Latin came to be the dominant language
of Italy, and later became the common tongue of
the western Mediterranean world and as far as the
Balkans to the east.
• The diffusion of Latin is a direct reflection of the
growing influence of Rome, the city that
dominated Italy politically and culturally.
• After the middle of the third century BCE there
emerged a formal literary language, which is
conventionally called Classical Latin.
• The Romans themselves spoke of sermo urbanus,
a phrase which suggests both ‘urbane speech’ and
‘speech of the city.’
• In sharp contrast to early Greece, where the
literary language reflects the influence of a
number of dialects and so a number of regions,
other Italian dialects seem to have had little or no
influence on the development of Latin literary
culture.
The character of Greek and Latin
• Very different from English.
• Inflected languages (i.e., meaning and
syntactical function are determined by
word-forms, not word-order).
• Extensive vocabularies.
• Translation is a difficult and often inexact
science.
Literature
• The Greeks and Romans each had an
extensive literary tradition
• Only a small fraction survives
• How did the ancient texts survive?
Modes of survival
• Mediaeval transmission
• papyri
• Inscriptions
• Mediaeval transmission presupposes a
number of factors:
– the transition from orality to literacy
– the introduction of writing (the Greek alphabet)
– the development of a book trade
– the consolidation of ancient texts in the Library
of Alexandria after 307 BCE
– the preservation of Greek and Latin texts in
mediaeval monasteries, etc.
A mediaeval Manuscript
The opening of Book 16 of the Iliad in the Townley Homer (London, British Library,
MS Burney 86, f. 170v): 1059 CE
The beginning of
Aristophanes’
Frogs (Codex
Ravennas, late
10th Century CE)
A modern edition
The first page of

Homer’s Odyssey
• Many mediaeval
copies
• an extensive
‘secondary’ tradition
• popularity guarantees
survival
• Not all texts were as
fortunate as the
Odyssey.
• Despite significant loss, a rich array of
Greek and Latin literature survives:
– Poetry
– Drama
– Philosophy
– Oratory
– Historiography
Papyrus texts
– fragments of ancient
copies
– often badly damaged
– new texts continue to
come to light
Papyrus texts shed light

on old problems and
create new ones.
The ‘new’ Archilochus

Inscriptions
• Texts inscribed on stone
• set up by ancient communities throughout
antiquity
• preserve a great deal of information,
shedding valuable light on historical events,
social history, religion, etc.
Bronze Age
Writing
Linear A and B
Historical Inscription
Inscription from Sardis (during the reign of Marcus Aurelius)

The Lindian Chronicle
Fasti Capitolini (Capitoline Museum, Rome)
Fasti Capitolini (detail)
Archaeology
• Archaeology
– the physical remains of antiquity
– numerous kinds of physical evidence
• ‘digs’
• architecture
• sculpture
• painting (on vases and walls)
• jewellery
• Archaeology
– the physical remains of antiquity
– numerous kinds of physical evidence
• ‘digs’
• architecture
• sculpture
• painting (on vases and walls)
• jewellery
The Classical World
Athens, Greece
Downtown Athens (from the Acropolis)
The Problem of Continuous
Habitation: Rome
Ephesus
(near Kuşadasi,
Turkey)
Pompeii (Bay of
Naples, Italy
An archaic
kouros
statue
Bronze
Zeus from
the
classical
period
Athens, National
Archaeological Museum
Prima Porta
Augustus
(Vatican Museum,
Rome)
Copy of the Prima
Porta Augustus
painted
(Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford)
Statue of Augustus from the Prima Porta (1st cent. A.D.), with modern
replica in polychrome. Vatican Museums, Rome.
Fifth-century
black-figure vase
depicting
Dionysus and
maenads
Mycenaean seal ring
Art and Text Combined
“Here stands the memorial
of Mnesagora and
Nikochares. You cannot
point out the two of them:
fate from the gods has
taken them away, and they
have left great grief for
dear father and mother
alike; for the two of them
have perished and
travelled to the house of
Hades.”
CEG 84 (ca 440 BCE)

“Here stands the memorial
of Mnesagora and
Nikochares. You cannot
point out the two of them:
fate from the gods has
taken them away, and they
have left great grief for
dear father and mother
alike; for the two of them
have perished and
travelled to the house of
Hades.”
CEG 84 (ca 440 BCE)

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CS 1000 1 Sources

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Sources for the Ancient World

Sources for antiquity

The first page of

Papyrus texts shed light

The ‘new’ Archilochus

Inscription from Sardis (during the reign of Marcus Aurelius)

CEG 84 (ca 440 BCE)

CEG 84 (ca 440 BCE)

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