VCE Classical Studies flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Sortition in Athens

Selection of officials by lot rather than election, used for the boule and many magistracies; it was thought to prevent factionalism and express the equality of citizens.

Spartan agoge

The state-run education and training system for Spartan boys from about age seven, emphasising obedience, endurance and military discipline as preparation for citizenship.

Patronus and cliens

Roman reciprocal relationship in which a patron provided protection and support to a client, who in turn offered political backing, services and deference.

Mos maiorum

The 'custom of the ancestors', an unwritten body of Roman norms and precedents that conferred legitimacy on political and social behaviour.

Greek xenia

Ritualised guest-friendship between households, involving hospitality, gift exchange and inherited obligations; its violation, as in the Iliad, provokes serious consequences.

Roman pax deorum

The 'peace of the gods', the proper harmonious relationship between the Roman state and its deities, maintained through correct ritual and interpreted through prodigies.

Etiological myth

A narrative that explains the origin of a custom, place name, institution or natural phenomenon, such as the founding myths of Rome or Athenian festival aetiologies.

Hero cult

Worship offered at a hero's tomb, typically with chthonic offerings such as libations, distinct from the burnt sacrifices given to Olympian gods at altars.

Eleusinian Mysteries

Secret initiation cult of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis promising a better afterlife to initiates; details remained hidden, so evidence is largely allusive.

Structuralist myth analysis

Approach associated with Levi-Strauss that treats myths as systems of opposed categories, such as nature and culture, mediated through narrative structure.

Hesiodic succession myth

The account in the Theogony of divine rule passing from Ouranos to Kronos to Zeus through conflict, establishing Zeus's order over gods and mortals.

Epic simile

An extended comparison in hexameter epic that develops a scene from ordinary life, as when Homer compares warriors to lions or farmers.

Aristotelian catharsis

In the Poetics, the purgation or clarification of pity and fear produced in spectators by tragic action, especially through reversal and recognition.

Parabasis in Old Comedy

A choral address in Aristophanic comedy where the chorus speaks directly for the poet, often on political or literary themes, breaking dramatic illusion.

Thucydidean speeches

Speeches in Thucydides' History that he presents as reconstructions of what was fitting to say, acknowledging difficulty of exact recall.

Ciceronian oration structure

Standard arrangement of a speech into exordium, narratio, argumentatio and peroratio, supported by appeals to ethos, pathos and logos.

Epinician ode

A victory song, notably by Pindar, celebrating an athletic triumph and weaving in myth, genealogy and moral reflection for the patron.

Focalisation

Narratological term for the perspective through which a narrative is presented, distinguishing the narrator's voice from the viewpoint of characters.

Black-figure and red-figure

Two Athenian vase-painting techniques: black-figure silhouettes figures in black on a light ground, while red-figure reserves figures in the clay colour against a black ground.

Doric and Ionic orders

Greek architectural systems distinguished by capitals and friezes: Doric has plain capitals and a triglyph-metope frieze, Ionic has volute capitals and a continuous frieze.

Res Gestae Divi Augusti

Augustus's monumental inscription recording his achievements, honours and expenditures, displaying imperial self-presentation through a first-person public statement.

Terra sigillata

Red-gloss Roman tableware, produced at centres such as Arretium and later Gaul, whose stamped potters' names help date and trace trade networks.

Numismatic evidence

Coins studied for types, legends, hoards and dies; they date events, circulate with trade and transmit imperial propaganda through images and titles.

Curse tablets

Inscribed lead tablets deposited in sanctuaries or graves, invoking deities against rivals; they reveal popular religious practice and social conflict.

Winckelmann's neoclassicism

Eighteenth-century idealisation of Greek art as 'noble simplicity and quiet grandeur', shaping European aesthetics, sculpture and architecture.

Reception theory

Approach holding that the meaning of classical texts and images is produced in each receiving culture, shaped by its own concerns and horizons of expectation.

Mixed constitution

Polybius's analysis of Rome combining monarchic, aristocratic and democratic elements through consuls, Senate and assemblies, admired by later republican thinkers.

Appropriation of antiquity

Deliberate use of classical symbols to claim authority or legitimacy, as when modern political movements adopt Roman imagery for their own ends.

Corroboration of sources

Testing a claim against independent evidence of different type, such as an inscription, coin or archaeological find, before treating it as reliable.

Literary topos

A conventional theme or motif repeated across texts, such as the good death or the noble savage, signalling rhetorical framing rather than direct observation.

Argumentative thesis

A contestable, specific claim answering the question, stated in the introduction and sustained by evidence and analysis throughout the essay.

Rebuttal in essays

Acknowledging an opposing interpretation and defeating or qualifying it with evidence, which demonstrates critical evaluation rather than one-sided assertion.