Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment - Softcover

Snodgrass, Anthony M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520043731 ISBN 13: 9780520043732

Verlag: University of California Press, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Until quite recently, it has been the accepted view that the Archaic period of Greek history was by definition merely a prelude to the Oassical period, an era regarded as unsurpassed in its literary, intellectual, artistic, and political achievements. Lately, however, ancient historians and Classical archaeologists have undertaken a major reappraisal of their subject, one result of which has been a broadening view of the Archaic period and its importance to the history of Greece. In this first major book on Archaic Greece to be written by an archaeologist, Professor Snodgrass shows how the supremacy of Classical Greece would have been impossible without the preceding centuries of the Archaic period.

 

The intellectual revolution which divided the Archaic period from the Oassical transformed something remarkable into something unique. But there was an earlier revolution, a "structural revolution," which took place not merely within the Archaic period, but at its beginning. It had far-reaching effects: it established the economic basis of Greek society, as well as the main outlines of its social framework; it drew the political map of the Greek world in a form that was to endure for four centuries; it set up, with even greater permanence, the forms of state that were to determine Greek political history; it provided the interests and goals, not merely for Greek but for Western art as a whole, which were to be pursued over the next two and a half millennia; it gave Greece in the Homeric epics an ideal of behavior and a memento of past glory to sustain it; it provided much of the basis of Greek religion; and it furnished many lesser things, among them the means for Greek society to defend its independence militarily. It is doubtful whether, before or since, all these features have ever come about in one conn try with such concertedness and such speed.

 

Archaic Greece gives a broader cultural history of the period than has hitherto been attempted, and Professor Snodgrass shows that it can be seen, for perhaps the first time, as a complete episode in its own right. His fresh and personal approach to his subject, together with the book's superb illustrations, will ensure a wide audience.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Anthony M. Snodgrass is Emeritus Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.

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Archaic Greece

By Anthony M. Snodgrass

University of California Press

Copyright © 1981 Anthony M. Snodgrass
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780520043732
Chapter One
The Health of a Discipline

DIE ARCHDOLOGIE IST IM GRUNDE EINE NAIVE WISSENSCHAFT.
W.-H. Schuchhardt, Adolf Furtwdngler (1956)

Many of the more thoughtful professional exponents of archaeology in the present generation have been troubled by the suggestion that they practice a "naive science." A good number have joined in the active search for changes to raise the intellectual standing of their discipline. Few of this number, however, have been classical archaeologists; and this is merely a recent and relatively conspicuous sign of a long-standing, and long-accepted, state of affairs.

Elementary grammar might suggest that "classical archaeology" is a subdiscipline that forms an integral part of one subjectarchaeologyand has especially close links with anotherclassics. But elementary grammar, here as in some other instances, is profoundly misleading. In the first place, it obscures the fact that, operationally speaking, classical archaeology is more closely linked to a third discipline, art history, than it is to either archaeology or classics. That is to say, research and teaching connected with the history of Greek and Roman art have accounted for a very large proportion of the activities, over the past two hundred years, of those called classical archaeologists. Even now, more than half of the sum of their work must be of this kind.

But, secondly, when we turn from the operational to the institutional aspect, the realities again give the lie to grammar: for we find that classical archaeologists, if they work in universities, are much more often grouped formally with classicists than with archaeologists, or for that matter with art historians, though there are exceptions.

It is not difficult to discern the accidental historical factorsthe extraordinary artistic attainments of the Greeks and Romans in the first case, the educational background of the individual classical archaeologist in the secondthat explain these apparent discrepancies. If it were merely a question of nomenclature, one could point to many other academic subjects that, at least in older universities, sometimes retain namesfrom "Physic" and "Natural History" to "Rhetoric"that once corresponded both to real activities and to contemporary linguistic practice for describing those activities; but that have been rendered misleading by subsequent developments in one or both respects. But I do not believe that classical archaeology is in quite the same position as these other subjects, or that the issue is , in its case, purely one of nomenclature. Rather, I would argue, many classical archaeologists are to this day consciously or unconsciously pursuing, albeit in a more organized way, the same objectives as the founding father of their discipline, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, dead now for more than two hundred years. Likewise, the normal institutional arrangement within universities reflects the hard fact that the published results of the activity of classical archaeologists, where their interest extends beyond the confines of the subject itself, are more likely to be read and used by classicists than by the practitioners of archaeology, art history, or any other subject.

But from these preliminaries, we come now to a somewhat paradoxical conclusion. Grammar and nomenclature, operational and institutional practice may all unite in implying that classical archaeology is a dependent subsidiary of some other subject; yet in a way that implication is false. The fact is that the

traditional activities of classical archaeologists do not today conform at all closely to those of any other discipline. To this extentand herein lies the paradoxclassical archaeology is an independent subject.

The reasons for this qualified independence, as so far considered, are negative ones: the subject is tradition-bound and it lacks wide academic appeal. Of the three adjacent disciplines that have come under discussion, two at least have passed through a period of change, or at least of ferment: there are today both a new archaeology and a new art history. Both these new movements have gained considerable ground within their subjects; but in so doing, they have had the effect of carrying those subjects further away from any contact with classical archaeology.

This has not been an encouraging introduction, and it is time to say something more positive. If one of the messages of this book is that even the present degree of qualified independence retained by classical archaeology should be given up, this will not, I think, prove to be a major sacrifice; certainly not in proportion to the potential gains. What I believe is that the present dignified remoteness of the subject on the academic plane could give way to the kind of acknowledged intellectual vitality that attracts attention across a range of other disciplines. If this happens, I believe that classical archaeology will still be found to be an exceptional discipline; but exceptional in its capacity to contribute to the fulfillment of new aims rather than in its fidelity to old ones. I think that classical archaeology can answer some of the more pressing needs of the new movement in archaeology, and that its capacity to integrate ancient art history into the study of the total material culture of the classical civilizations opens the way to a kind of art-historical approach that is often impossible in the case of other epochs. This broadening of range would undoubtedly also increase the potential participation of classical archaeology in the work of the other branches of classical studies.

Since classical archaeology's closest relationship is with classics, it is worth taking a slightly closer look at the present nature of this relationship. Some classical archaeologists would accept their traditional grouping within classics without question, and under pressure many more would on balance settle for a continuation of that arrangement. But it is harder to elicit true candor as to how classicists regard classical archaeology, and I want to try to consider this topic without relapsing into anecdotalism. There are certain considerations that are more obviously relevant to the British university system than to any other, but that may nevertheless deserve mention. First, it is not only possible but relatively common in Britain to achieve a degree in classics, even an outstanding degree, without having devoted one hour's study to classical archaeology. Second, to broach more delicate matters, it is also quite common for a very moderate undergraduate performance in classics to be the prelude to a specialized career in classical archaeology. This second observation loses much of its significance if, as many would maintain, classical archaeology requires quite different skills from pure classics; and both points depend for their importance on the degree to which the British pattern is matched in other countries.

At this point, however, objective criteria begin to run out, and I fall back on my subjective impressions, formed by experience of three very different British universities, and refined by briefer encounters with a number of institutions in other countries. I hazard the generalization that the repute of classical archaeology as a discipline has, in the past, been a fairly modest one among other classicists; but that the situation is today slowly improving. Scholars in other branches of classical studies seem increasingly to be acknowledging the relevance of...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of California Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0520043731
• ISBN 13: 9780520043732
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 263
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar