History regarding acropolis

1. The Acropolis of
Athens

2. The Evidence
• Greek households, a space developed for the private life
of the citizen, women, and children central to it
• Men in a larger sense very public in the polis, attending
rituals performed collectively, symbolic of political and
ceremonial life.
• An ideal was for the women to bare a son for her
husband, he inherited his father’s estate, girls were for
marriage, only inheriting if there were no male Aires
• To pass it on to her husband at marriage.
• Daughters were married at 18 and to an older male
chosen by her father, a formal arrangement the sacred
union was for life.
• A bridge to private space via the andron, a room meant
for the male owner to entertain his friends and business
acquaintances, for which there were regular Symposia
and dinner parties

3. Context of
the Evidence
• Women dining in the courtyard in Demosthenes’ speech
(Reading 1.4 in Chapter 1 ‘Athens: places and people’)
• Lysias in the case "Against Evergus." Portrays the sharp
contrast of family and outsiders with gender distinction
• At his house, men forced entry and accosted his wife and
children, who were having their lunch in the court, and
with them was also the old nurse, who had become a
free woman
• The house's female slaves were in a tower room where
they lived
• Closed the door when the men intruded into the house
• They carried off furniture, and we read the wife was
arguing with the intruders about the furniture

4. Details of the
Evidence
• Xenophon's Oikinomia depicts Socrates' discussion with
Ischomachus on seclusion of females within his house,
• From archeology Greek housing is more diverse, such as
at Olynthus, industry, and domesticity side by side,
dwellings designed to present a public image and have
workshops and storefronts.
• At the Athenian Agora, families living in more than one
house and houses not conforming, those lacking an
andron, this does not suggest a lack of symposia,
• They were more impromptu affairs, or these residences
were for non-Greeks or resident aliens such as metics.
• Nero's architects, Severus and Celer, visionary design
echoing his fascination with the classical era Greek
architecture

5. Time Period
in that
Society
• Like most peoples of the ancient world, the Greeks
were polytheists, worshipping a variety of gods and
goddesses who were immortal but otherwise acted
just like people.
• As elsewhere, Greek religion was primarily a matter
of ritual, with rituals designed to appease the
divinities believed to control the forces of the
natural world.
• Processions, festivals, and sacrifices offered to the
gods were frequently occasions for people to meet
together socially.
• Mystery religions Belief systems that were
characterized by secret doctrines, rituals of
Initiation, and sometimes the promise of rebirth or
an afterlife.

6. Continued
• The Greek city-states wore themselves out fighting one
another, and Philip II, the ruler of Macedonia, a kingdom in the
north of Greece,
• Gradually conquered one after another and took over their
lands.
• He then turned against the Persian Empire but was killed by an
assassin.
• His son Alexander continued the fight. Alexander conquered
the entire Persian Empire from Libya in the west to Bactria in
the east.
• Alexander's most important legacy was the spread of Greek
ideas and traditions across a wide area, a process scholars
later called Hellenization.
• To maintain contact with the Greek world as he moved farther
eastward, Alexander founded new cities and military colonies
and settled Greek and Macedonian troops and veterans in
them.

7. Thank You