Contents:
Þ Sappho’s Legacy, Irene
Þ Ancient Beauty Standards in the Modern World, Annabel
Þ The Legacy of Greek Mythology, Lina
Þ A Stoic’s Duty, Eden
Þ The Legacy of Hippocrates on Modern Medicine, Yasmin
Þ Classical Crossword
Þ References
5) Ovid
3) Aristotle 4) Virgil
2) Colosseum
Sappho, the most well-known and influential female classical poet, lived in Mitylene, capital of the Greek island of Lesbos from around 630-570 BC. She produced lyric poetry (poetry that was performed with a musical accompaniment on the lyre) and was attributed with the invention of the plektron, a type of lyre. The majority of her work has not survived, unfortunately, but we do have many fragments of her work. Scholars have assumed that a lot of her work is autobiographical, with some fragments referencing real people, such as her brothers Charaxos and Larichos. However, very few facts about her life, such as her birthplace and manner of death, can be confirmed.
Sappho was renowned amongst the Ancient Greeks: even Plato, who held the opinion that most poetry had no place in the ideal state, called Sappho the ‘Tenth Muse’(the Nine Muses were Olympian goddesses of literature, science and the arts, thought to bestow inspiration and enthusiasm into poets and artists) and she was the only woman included in the canon of Nine Lyric Poets admired by the scholars at the Library of Alexandria. Sappho’s work is varied in content, ranging from epithalamia to invocations of the gods. One of the most well-known fragments is Fragment 31:
Faivnetaiv moi kh'no ı i[ıo ı qevoi ı in e[mmenæ w[nhr, o[tti ı ejnavntiov ı toi ijıdavnei kai;plav ı ion a\du fwneivı a ı ujpakouvei
kai; gelaivıa ı ijmevroen, tov mæ h\ ma;n kardivan ejn ı thvqe ı in ejptovai ı en: wj ı ga;r ãe[ ı Ã ı æ i[dw brovceæ w[ ı me fwvnhı æ oujde;n e[tæ ei[kei,
ajlla; kam me;n glw' ıı a e[age, levpton dæ au[tika crw'i pu'r ujpadedrovmaken, ojppavte ıı i dæ oujde;n o[rhmmæ, ejpibrovmei ı i dæ a[kouai, evkade mæ i[drw ı kakcevetai, trovmo ı de; pai'ıan a[grei, clwrotõevra de; pÕoiva ı e[mmi, teqõnavkhn dæ ojÕlivgw æpideõuvh ı faÕivnomæ e[mæ au[t ªai.
ajlla; pa;n tovlmaton, ejpei; kai;pevnhta
Peer of the gods is that man, who face to face, sits listening to your sweet speech and lovely laughter.
It is this that rouses a tumult in my breast. At mere sight of you my voice falters, my tongue is broken.
Straightway, a delicate fire runs in my limbs; my eyes are blinded and my ears thunder.
Sweat pours out: a trembling hunts me down. I grow paler than dry grass and lack little of dying.
(trans. William Carlos Williams)
The term ‘Lesbian’ originally meant ‘someone from Lesbos’, but nowadays it can also be taken to mean a homosexual woman(or any non-male identifying person attracted to solely non-male identifying people) as a result of Sappho’s fame and renown for her poems expressing erotic desire towards women. Despite this fact, scholars cannot confidently say that Sappho herself was a lesbian- indeed, attaching such a label to an Ancient Greek figure living over 2,000 years ago would be anachronistic. Another term derived from Sappho, ‘sapphic’, refers to any woman attracted to other women, regardless of whether said woman is also attracted to men or not.
A common motif found in Sappho’s work is nature: she often describes flowers and other nature-related images in her poetry, specifically mentioning roses, violets, hyacinths and crocuses, to name a few. Fragments which best exemplify this are: 2, 5, and 14. Also commonly found in Sappho’s work is the colour purple or violet. Violet is one of the original colours on the rainbow flag created in 1978. For this reason it is thought that Sappho contributed to the association of the colours purple and violet with both sapphics and the wider queer community, as well as the violet flower, which was first associated with lesbians after the production of the play The Captive in 1926. The play was among the first Broadway plays to tackle the theme of lesbianism, featuring a female protagonist, Iréne, sending violets to another female character as a symbol of her love, perhaps inspired by Sappho.
Sappho’s love for other women was very well-known among Romans. The two Roman poets most associated with Sappho were Catullus and Ovid: Catullus was a poet of the late Roman Republic, also renowned for his expressive, emotional lyric poetry. The Sapphic imprints on Catullus’ work are evident, and the poet even did a translation of Fragment 31 into Latin. The ‘Lesbia’ mentioned in much of his work(see Catullus 2, 5, 7, 85 for examples) is a nickname for the object of his desires, taking inspiration from Sappho the Lesbian. Sappho also makes an appearance in Ovid’s Heroides: the letter from Sappho to Phaon is the only one in Ovid’s collection written from the perspective of a real historical figure. Ovid’s Sappho abandons her initial sexuality, declaring Phaon as her one true love and holding him in higher esteem than the multitude of women she has known in her lifetime, and plans to hurl herself into the sea out of grief. Ovid’s creation of this particular fictitious legend about Sappho was hugely damaging to the perception of Sappho as an openly sapphic historical figure, considering his own wide reach in the literary world, as the fictional Sappho of Ovid became merged with the real Sappho in the minds of many for the next 19 centuries.
The vast majority of women who lived pre-20th century would most likely not have received a classical education and been well-versed in Greek, unlike their male counterparts. As a result, translations of Sappho’s work done by male poets were the only translations available: this was a huge problem, as many chose to
deliberately change the sex of Sappho’s love object, thereby erasing the most important aspect of her writing. This myth of the solely ‘straight’ Sappho was therefore perpetuated through the lack of access to the original text and compounded by the popularity of Ovid’s tale of Sappho and Phaon.
Sappho has provided poetic inspiration for countless other writers, including male literary greats like Tennyson and Baudelaire. But she has been an even greater inspiration to other women writers, in particular Virginia Woolf: the existence of such a famous and openly expressive female poet in Classical Greece gave Woolf the courage to pursue her same-sex relationship with Vita Sackville-West and to write in an era when female writers were little acknowledged.
H.D. , or Hilda Doolittle, was a highly influential poet of the 20th century, producing work informed by her extensive classical knowledge and scholarship of Sappho. She was an important figure of the brief Imagist movement of the 1910s, with her friend/ex-fiancé/editor Ezra Pound claiming that he himself, alongside H.D. and her husband Richard Aldington, invented the principles of Imagism. The Imagists found Sappho, Catullus, and Villon to be the best writers of all time, whose poetry set the standards by which new lyric poetry should be judged. While the Imagists also borrowed from French, Chinese, and Japanese culture, H.D. and Aldington foremostly believed Imagism to have been derived from Hellenism. Pound’s and H.D.’s imagist poetry drew heavily from Sappho in style, theme and content. In this way Sappho’s legacy has persisted through the ages, and the Archaic
Greek poet manages to stay relevant to both the queer community and the literary community.
Throughout time, beauty standards have changed drastically with different body typed and facial structures varying in degrees of desirability as different eras and cultures emerge. Although beauty standards are ever-evolving, those who meet the criteria of objective beauty continually receive benefits on the basis of their appearance.
Several psychological studies present how beautiful people are considered to be morally good, more successful and more intelligent than their less physically attractive counterparts: facial attractiveness helps in obtaining higherranking jobs and a better valuation of achieved results to the extent that there are attempts to legally address the issue of lookism and appearance-based discrimination. However, these studies can be viewed as flawed because beauty is subjective, thereby most of the research relies on highly individual ratings of beauty. Most of us agree that in our society there is an unconscious belief that beauty is tied to positive moral traits. From a logical point of view, there is no causal relationship between beauty and moralitythere is even a counter-thesis relying on personal experience that encourages us to believe that outwardly attractive people are not as good as we perceive them to be initially, because we often naïvely trust them, and sometimes they abuse the power
their beauty affords them. This can be traced back to the ancient world.
On one hand, in Ancient Greece, there was evidence of awareness that one could not judge if someone was good or bad based solely on their appearance. This idea recurs throughout Greek poetry. For instance, in Carmina Convivalia Attica 6:
ἐξῆν ὁποῖός τις ἦν ἕκαστος
τὸ στῆθος διελόντ’, ἔπειτα τὸν νοῦν ἐσιδόντα, κλείσαντα πάλιν, ἄνδρα
“If only it were possible to see what sort each man was, by opening up his chest and, thereupon having seen his mind, closing it back up, to regard the man as a friend for his heart without deceit.”
Although the message of this extract can be hidden under its graphic depictions of extracting a heart out of someone's body, it illustrates the ancient Greeks’ awareness that outward appearances can be deceiving and therefore, there is no way to know what sort of person someone is on the inside.
However, the inextricable links between the value of beauty and goodness and an individual’s outward appearance and inner character are historically ancient. The ancient Indian Siddhars defined samudrika shastra as the use of physical features to identify personal characteristics and Chinese Mianxiang or face reading can be traced back to around 770 to 476 BCE.
On the other hand, certain other Ancient Greeks also tended to associate ugliness with evil and beauty with good. This links to physiognomy which was pioneered by the ancient Greeks. Physiognomy is defined as judging a person's facial features or expressions to indicate character. It stems from the Greek word φύσις (physis) translating to “nature” and γνώμων (gnomon) meaning “interpreter” or “judge.” An example of this is that cows have big, sleepy eyes, subsequently, humans that look like cows are perceived as lazy. The Ancient Greek mathematician, astronomer, and scientist Pythagoras is claimed to have inquired “into the character and dispositions of men by an inference drawn from their facial appearance and expression, and from the form and bearing of their whole body.” Once, Pythagoras rejected a prospective follower named Cylon as a result of his belief that Cyclon’s appearance indicated an unhealthy character. Furthermore, Aristotle believed that individuals with large heads were unkind, those with smaller faces were resolute, broad faces mirrored foolishness, and spherical faces signalled bravery. Moreover, the Ancient Greeks had a belief that having a beautiful body corresponded to a beautiful mind. The Greeks created a phrase to describe this which is ‘καλος καγαθος’ , or ‘kalos kagathos’ when transliterated. It is an adjectival phrase
which contains the adjective καλος meaning beautiful and αγαθος meaning virtuous. Its use has been traced back to Herodotus and the classical period. Classical Greek writers used this phrase to describe the Greek ideal of the male archetype who is perfected inside and outside. Many Greek aristocrats famously pried themselves on being ‘καλοι καγαθοι’.
This association between evil and ugliness traced back to ancient Greece is extremely prevalent in modern American film and television. The hero of the story is almost always portrayed as good-looking, while the villain is often portrayed as ugly. Although in the real world there is proven to be no correlation between how good someone looks and how virtuously that person behaves, however, storytellers still use beauty and ugliness as a kind of code to tell audiences whom they are to support.
Today’s society starts to inculcate the idea that beauty parallels goodness and ugliness parallels evil into our children at a very young age. This association is present in nearly every Disney movie; the hero is always good-looking, while the villain is always someone ugly. Research done by the Appalachian State University in North Carolina affirmed that the stereotypes in Disney movies negatively affect children. They pointed out that most Disney villains for instance Ursula or Cruella De Ville do not fit today’s beauty standards whereas the heroes and heroines such as Princess Jasmine and Ariel have unrealistic body shapes and attractive features. This equation of beauty equalling good and unattractiveness equalling bad is a prevalent stereotype as people have a bias
to trust more attractive people solely based on their appearance alone.
In the modern-day, we continue to enforce this concept in places even where the ancient Greeks did not. For example, in the fantasy action film ‘300’, which is extremely loosely based on the story of the Battle of Thermopylae, the Greek warriors are all portrayed as handsome young men with muscular stature on show. Meanwhile, the Ephors are portrayed as hideous, inbred priests who are seemingly infected with leprosy and the traitor Ephialtes is portrayed as a hideous, deformed hunchback who can barely stand upright.
Trachis was deformed. Indeed, he could just as likely have been handsome. Furthermore, the Ephors were elected officers, not hereditary priests and, once more, there is no historical backing that they were deformed. This was merely a stylistic choice that was put in place to emphasize the concept of equivalence between physical perfection and ethical goodness.
This concept is harmful, especially for the more vulnerable and impressionable younger generations. The status of these villains as astoundingly hideous is dangerous as it perpetuates the social bias that attractive people are less likely to be dangerous. The media’s representation of villains as unsightly has conditioned us to be less cautious of those who fit the beauty standard. Some may argue that it is wrong to restrict the creative freedom of film producers to portray characters how they would like in order to incite instinctive responses by the audience by exploiting their biases towards deformity. However, this argument does not take into account the consequences of what it means to exploit society’s beauty standards. There are many means to frighten people and reduce their sympathy for the villain which evade the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes and idealistic beauty standards.
However, according to ancient historical sources, there was nothing to indicate that the Greeks who fought at Thermopylae were remarkably good-looking and, in historical reality, they certainly would have worn armour, meaning that any muscles would have been predominantly covered up. We do not have any evidence to suggest that the historical Ephialtes of
Overall, the tendency to associate beauty with goodness and ugliness with evil is present in many human cultures and has not faded away over the more recent years. This trope is ubiquitous in modern culture. Whether consciously or subconsciously, it is a concept that humankind still follow.
In many areas of today’s culture, the Greek myths still have an extraordinary influence. They are far from being limited to retellings or adaptations of myths by poets and artists, and expand across computer games, television, and film, which are seen in our day to day lives. This influence is not just prevalent today, but has had an impact for centuries, from as early as the Archaic period of Greek history.
Greek mythology has greatly influenced the Roman world through the literary works that still are renowned today, which were influenced by some of the most famous Greek myths to exist. The first and most well-known example is Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro 70-19BC), whose work intertwines myth with the political landscape of Rome at the time. One of his works, the Eclogues, composes a renewal to the pastoral genre, as seen by the descriptions of idyllic landscape and the reflective songs of the herdsmen interwoven with the accounts of political turmoil of contemporary Rome. His use of the Greek myths was significant for the development of pastoral literature as social commentary in an increasingly urbanised world.
Catullus (Gaius Valerius Catullus 8454BC) is another great example. The central theme throughout his works is erotic passion, using myths as metaphors to further amplify the descriptions of his
explorations of feeling. Poem 64 is a complicated composition of more than 400 hexameters, and here, he mostly narrates the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. However, in the middle of the poem, he mentions a drastically different myth, that of the abandonment of Ariadne at Naxos by Theseus. This juxtaposition explores the oppositions of faith (between the union of a mortal and immortal), and the abandonment of one’s lover, illustrating the poet’s longing for stability and permanence in his relationships. Catullus adapted several erotic myths told by the Greeks, while making a statement about lifestyle and politics, rejecting the world of Roman public politico-military virtues. In the Middle Ages, Ovid had a large influence, and despite not being Greek, he retold several of the most famous myths in his works, most notably in his famous Metamorphoses, which was reinterpreted in the highly influential Ovide Moralisé, a 14th century anonymously written 70,000line poem. This retold the famous stories of those who metamorphosed, but as a Christian edification (e.g. Phaeton synonymous with Lucifer, the rebellious angel). Furthermore, during this period, the Trojan War was seen as a hugely pivotal moment in world history, with the people from all over central Europe claiming to be descendants of the heroes of the Greek myth. Astrology has also been hugely under the influence of the Greek myths, specifically after the Hellenistic period. The study of the heavens consisted of complex links between celestial and terrestrial events, and became more and more popular during medieval times, despite the huge opposition from the Church. Therefore, the fascination relating to astrology never completely died out, and was especially popular during the 12th
and 14th centuries, due to several astrological texts making their way to Europe during the Crusades and via Muslim Spain and Sicily. Even today, most words relating to the planets and stars have been given names related to mythological figures which are seen to have similar features to those of the arrangements of the stars.
Another way in which Greek mythology has impacted modern society can be seen in the countless films that have been made about characters in Greek mythology, or just retellings of the myths themselves. Some of the most famous Englishlanguage productions of the 20th and 21st centuries include Jason and the Argonauts (1963) by Don Chaffey, or Clash of the Titans (1981) by Desmond Davis, without forgetting the lasting impact of Disney’s Hercules (1997), which still lives in the memories of adults and children alike today. The fame of these films is just one of the ways to show that Western countries have far from extinguished their appetite for these fascinating mythological characters and stories.
It is often thought that the concept of moral duty is a modern invention, attributed to Immanuel Kant. However, the ancient Greek philosophy which predates Kantian ethics suggests otherwise. Inducing both harsh criticism and enthusiasm along the way, Stoicism has stayed strong for over 2,000 years. Its aim? Human happiness.
As a eudemonistic theory, Stoicism deems ‘εὐδαιμονία’ or ‘happiness’ to be the culmination of human endeavour, known as an end Its founder Zeno defines this end as “ὁμολογουμένως τῃ φύσει ζῆν” or ‘living in agreement with nature', which Kant would have regarded as a hypothetical, not categorical, imperative. However, despite Stoic resistance to the universalisation of maxims, the phrase “τῃ φύσει” meaning ‘with nature’ indicates that they may have derived early notions of moral duty. Because ‘nature’ is such a central coefficient of Stoicism, a Stoic’s understanding of the aim of human striving is both rich and multivalent.
In the first instance, the end may refer to our nature as human beings, explained by the theory of οἰκείωσις or ‘appropriation’. It outlines that the impulse of everything is an affiliation towards whatever one belongs to. Thus, the first act of οἰκείωσις is towards maintaining our own existence; so, where plants bear fruit in the season, humans behave according to their unique capacity for reason. Hence, much like Spinoza’s conatus, Stoicism may suggest that to live in agreement with our nature as
rational beings, we are obligated to act as such.
Following on, because Stoics believe that all things are mutually interdependent according to the design of an impersonal deity, the theory explains that our second act of οἰκείωσις will be an affiliation towards others. However, particularly in the case of humans, since we form part of a larger society of other rational beings, the good of others will always correspond to our own. This belief known as Sympatheia is perhaps best expressed by practising Stoic and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius: “The universe made rational creatures for the sake of each other, with an eye toward mutual benefit based on true value and never for harm.” (Meditations 9.1)
Hence, the second meaning of the end as living in agreement with others illustrates that morality is both natural and logical Consequently, because the first definition proposes that our primary obligation is to be rational, by extension we are also rationally obligated to be moral. This is reinforced by the ensuing concept of “καθήκοντα” or ‘appropriate behaviours’, which οἰκείωσις relates are adopted through the process of affiliation. Given that the pre-Stoic use of καθήκον has a prescriptive and normative force, evidently Zeno must have selected it to denote moral obligations. Therefore, it is clear that Stoicism at least precedes Kantian ethics in conceiving moral duty, despite being a eudemonistic theory. However arguably, since the Stoics rationalise moral and loving acts as necessary for functioning as opposed to merely right, they make an even more compelling account of moral duty than Kant.
Thus, it is no surprise that Stoic morality have proved highly influential throughout the ancient and modern worlds. Aside from ambassadorship by emperor Marcus Aurelius, slave Epictetus, and playwright Seneca, possibly one of its greatest legacies is cosmopolitanism.
Originating from οἰκείωσις, the Stoic interpretation of cosmopolitanism is that goodness requires serving others as best one can, and that the most effective service typically requires political engagement, explained in traces of Chrysippus’ On Lives. This is a principle present in everything from Roman Imperialism to the UN, which has and will continue to define the role of citizens for millennia to come.
Overall, it can be seen that the Stoic pursuit of happiness through the wider context of our existence is both highly cogent and grounded. Therefore, it is understandable why Stoicism has stood the test of time, but also why it may become a progressively pertinent philosophy in an increasingly interconnected world.
The Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates lived from around 460 BC to 375 BC. At the time he was alive, most people thought that disease was a punishment from the gods, but Hippocrates taught that all types of sickness occurred naturally. He created the first intellectual medical school, which earned him the title of the “Father of Medicine”, and it was largely because of him that medicine moved in a much clearer and more scientific direction.
There are around 60 surviving medical documents attributed to Hippocrates today which have been gathered into a collection called the Hippocratic Corpus. Although he did not write all of these documents, they reflect his beliefs and teachings.
The most famous of Hippocrates’ theories is the four humours – or fluids – found in the body. These were blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile, and each one was connected with a different element of nature, two qualities, certain organs and ages. Hippocrates believed that the interactions between the humours, seasons and planets determined the overall health of a person, as well as their personality and mood.
According to Hippocrates, the key to good health was keeping the humours balanced, as he believed that an imbalance would cause sickness. Food was one of the most vital ways to balance the humours and reduce the risk of disease, and Hippocrates famously said, “let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”.
Although the idea of the four humours sounds strange today, it demonstrated the first step away from a paranormal view of sickness, and towards the idea that it is linked to what is happening in the body and its environment.
The Hippocratic Oath is one of the most well-known Ancient Greek medical texts. It requires new physicians to pledge to uphold high standards of care, both professional and ethical.
However, it has been rewritten many times and in many unique ways to suit the values of different cultures which have been influenced by Hippocrates and medicine in Ancient Greece. It is also not required to be sworn in many medical schools as it is often seen as outdated, although some schools use more modern versions that suit society today.
In the oath, the physicians swear to prescribe only helpful and beneficial treatments, in keeping with their own ability, knowledge and judgement, to abstain from causing harm and to live a commendable professional and personal life. The ideas that are described in the Hippocratic Oath,
although written many years ago, are still relevant and appropriate to the 21st century.
The main difference now is that the oath was originally intended to be a binding agreement, but it is now seen as a promise to uphold the art of medicine and to act in the best interests of the patients.
In conclusion, Hippocrates had a large contribution to modern medicine by understanding and sharing that medicine relies on detailed analytical examination, judgement and reason to present a diagnosis and treatment. He set a pathway for the foundations of medicine today, creating new medical terms and meanings, and rules for the classification of diseases which are now considered vital for the diagnosis, management and prevention of sickness.
Across
4) Author of the Aeneid
5) Author of the Metamorphoses
6) What Athens was famous for
8) Former temple on the Athenian acropolis
10) Month named after the Roman god of doors and beginnings
1) Greek messenger god
2) Largest amphitheatre in the world
3) Philosopher and student of Plato
7) Richest man in Rome
9) Enemy of Athens
See contents page for answers !
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