The Theme Of Violence In Ancient Greek Society

Theater in ancient Greece was considered the climax of the days long cultural festival of The City Dionysia. At the festival, various types of plays were shown but one of the most popular was tragedy. These tragedies show the main character, usually a god or person of myth, going through human suffering and the terrible sequence of events that followed; and were produced in 472- 401 BCE. In order for a play to be performed at The City Dionysia festival; tragic playwrights would first have to appeal to the state official that was organizing the festival by submitting ideas to him and his committee. The ideas submitted were outlines of main themes and points of interest to be performed in the play. If a playwright was selected by the state official and his committee, then they received a financial backer and a chance to compete in the drama competition of the festival. The state official, or his committee, was likely pushing their own agenda and choose playwrights that matched their ideals. This is just one example of how theater in ancient Greece was used to influence the morality of Greek culture by using the stories of tragedies, like those of Euripides.

Much information about Ancient Greek culture and what they valued morally can be gained from Homer’s epic,The Odyssey. The Odyssey has a variety of different archetypes that are still relevant in modern times. The legend of Odyssey has been passed down from poet to poet for five hundred years until finally Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey down somewhere between eight hundred fifty and seven hundred fifty B.C. In Homer’s epic there are three archetypes that provide insights to Ancient Greek civilizations and their morals. These are the hero archetype, the monster or villain archetype, and the hero's journey archetype. Each archetype provides an example of what was moral,heroic,and frightening. Odysseus was considered a hero among the people in Ancient Greek times.

The society of Ancient Greece was very much centered around the gods, and a healthy fear of the consequences of not obeying their laws. The next most important staples of the society were the concepts of braver, pride, and hospitality, or Xenia. The significance of these values is shown quite clearly in The Odyssey of Homer.

She possesses great vulnerability as victim to Apollo, who gave her powers, Agamemnon, her kidnapper, and Clytemnestra, her murderer. The first group of people she spoke to were the Chorus, who acted as the voice of the common man throughout the trilogy. She described her visions, in detail, of the future. Cassandra tells the chorus how she deceived Apollo by promising to marry him in exchange for prophetic powers but backed out. Upon realizing her deceit, Apollo cursed her so that no one would believe her prophecies. She wails that the House of Atreus is cursed because of the blood-soaked hands of the past fathers. She predicts that Clytemnestra will kill Agamemnon and describes the frantic splashing of Agamemnon in the bath tub while Clytemnestra stabs him. She also predicts her own murder at the hands of two butchers, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Cassandra, uninvolved in the family’s ordeals, fears for her own life but then soon realizes that fate is inexorable and accepts her death with courage. The Chorus doesn’t understand her utterances, but know that they are full of sorrow. She also foretells Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, will avenge his father’s death by murdering his mother. Cassandra isn’t presented as a citizen but rather as an unstable, dirty (matter out of place) slave. Carson situates women as “pollutable, polluted, and polluting in several ways at once” resulting in the male fearing the woman for lack of personal boundary

Homer’s epic poem, “The Odyssey” reveals many aspects of ancient Greek life and culture through character and plot. Through each of the tales circling the life of Odysseus and the Greek people, Homer depicts the history, legends, values, and merits of the ancient Greeks. Greek culture is known to be one of the most flavored and thorough in history, and each facet of it—from religion to ideology to mentalities and beliefs.

The first way that violence is utilized by Homer in The Odyssey, is as plot device that conveys an important

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” The words of Martin Luther King perfectly illustrates the difficulties of fighting for social injustice. Similarly, the two works of literature Antigone and In the Time of the Butterflies can also teach us about the sacrifices and rewards from taking direct action against injustice. Antigone is about a girl sentenced to death by the king for burying her traitor brother. In the Time of the Butterflies is the story about three sisters who fight for freedom against the Dominican Republic’s dictator,

In the ancient societies of Greece, war means many things; power, glory, honor. The idea of fighting is not just a daily task for the Greeks but a necessity. In

There is a reason Athens is taught about in history books, as there is a reason Sophocles’ Antigone is still read to this day. One of those reasons in both cases is the prominent use of violence, how it is justified, and for what reason it is used. Instances of violence in both writings are carried out using force, which is justified to secure the city or empire if that security cannot be reached through peaceful means. The security of the empire is what is best for the citizens of that particular city or empire, and their rulers will go to great lengths to achieve that goal. Both authors agree that sympathy is viewed as weakness when doled out by a powerful person, and if situations

While frantically celebrating her appalling marriage to King Agamemnon, giving praise to Hymen, the god of marriage, she says, “O Mother, crown my triumph with a wreath” (I, i, 361). Here she does not show signs of terrible heartache about being sent to a bridal bed that will ruin her life’s work and sacrifice her virginity. Until she begins to tell her mother how she will try to take revenge for her family does she show pain by saying, “I shall kill [Agamemnon] mother, lay his house as low as he laid ours, make him pay for all he made my father suffer, brothers . . .”(I, i, 367-369). Raving, she prophecies, “If Apollo lives, my marriage will be bloodier than Helen’s,” and in time we see that she is right with the fall of Greece (I, i, 364-365). She also makes an interesting point on the defeat of Troy. She explains that the Greeks are just there to fight and conquer, and that their families are not there to soften their hearts. The Trojans fight as a family for their people. The Trojans have lost, but they died with great honor trying to save and protect their country and kinsmen. Cassandra refers to those soldiers, her family, who fought with a final divination, “Brothers, in Troy’s earth laid, my father, a little time and I am with you. You dead, I shall come to you a victor. Those ruined by my hand who ruined us” (I, i, 469-472). Even though she is portrayed as mad, the evidence of her wisdom, whether it be given to her by the god she has devoted her life, or just insane predictions, shows us that women could be intelligent and know of things to come just as men. Giving us our second example of feminism, Cassandra shows her intellect equivalent to

Whilst the Greek and Roman predecessors of revenge tragedy showed little compunction in gruesome on-stage violence, the Elizabethan spectators were, by the time of publication and performance of Shakespearian plays, a more educated audience who would appreciate the poetic style and subtle references to classical literature. This is not to say that the sixteenth century public were sensitive to acts of startling brutality; public executions and bear baiting were frequent occurrences that no doubt permeated the psyche of a nation. It has been argued that Shakespeare, conscious of his contemporaries' efforts in this genre decided to `out-do his predecessors' but a far more probable explanation is that Shakespeare, accommodating the

A person’s worth and identity in modern culture is not determined solely by the principles of either of the two Greek cultures; rather, both have contributed aspects to the system we have. The

Nowadays, it is hard to turn on a television program, catch a movie or buy your younger sibling a video game without encountering a warning for extreme violence. Everyday, our lives are exposed to violence on the screen, whether it is in the latest Sopranos episode or even watching the six o'clock news. For quite a while now, people have been demanding that stricter censorship be placed on the media, especially those programs and video games that can easily be obtained by the youth, due to their feelings that this violence can influence people to "act out". However, this is not a new idea. Back in ancient Greece, the philosopher Plato believed that exposure to the emotions of the arts

After reading Homer’s text, we realize that while it contains fine poetic history it is in fact about the human condition and how it affects people, Achilles primarily. The reality for people in the world of The Iliad is that they live under many gods, and that they can not please all of them; indeed, the gods are at odds with each other and to support one means to upset another. While the ideal condition for the Greeks is to possess sophrosyne, in reality there are too many uncontrollable external pressures to do so. Just as the gods who influence men are not harmonious, therefore, we find this quality also in the explanation of the human condition for Greek cultures.

When problems arise, individuals attempt to make sense of the situations by either looking for solutions to the problems or by attempting to make the best of the situation as much as they can when it is impossible to avoid. In the passage of Agamemnon by Aeschylus, Agamemnon has just came back from destroying the city of Troy, and brought back Cassandra, the princess of Troy, as a slave for Argos. However, Cassandra seems to have already seen this coming as she received a gift and a curse from Apollo to be able to give prophesies, but not have anyone to believe it. Due to the curse given by Apollo, Cassandra sees series of misfortunes that eventually will lead to her death, nevertheless, after having experienced the mixed emotions of anger