MATSEC IM Classical Studies flashcards

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

Cleisthenes' reforms

Athenian reforms of 508/7 BC that reorganised the citizen body into ten tribes and created the Council of 500, laying the institutional basis of Athenian democracy.

Ostracism

Athenian procedure in which citizens voted with potsherds to exile a politician for ten years; a quorum of 6,000 was required and property was retained.

Cursus honorum

The fixed sequence of Roman public offices-quaestor, aedile, praetor and consul-which aristocrats followed to advance a political career.

Ephors

Five Spartan officials elected annually who supervised the kings, directed foreign policy and exercised wide judicial authority over Spartan citizens.

Constitutio Antoniniana

Edict issued in AD 212 by the emperor Caracalla granting Roman citizenship to nearly all free inhabitants of the Roman empire.

Patron-client relationship

Roman social bond in which a patron gave legal and financial protection to clients, who in return offered political support, services and deference.

Battle of Actium

Naval battle of 31 BC in which Octavian's fleet under Agrippa defeated Antony and Cleopatra, leading to the annexation of Egypt and the principate.

Dactylic hexameter

The metre of Greek and Roman epic, consisting of six dactylic feet, with the fifth foot normally dactylic and the sixth a spondee or trochee.

Homeric simile

An extended comparison in epic introduced by 'as when', often drawn from nature or daily life and developed beyond the point of likeness.

In medias res

Narrative technique of opening a story in the middle of the action, with earlier events supplied later through flashback or character narration.

Parabasis

In Old Comedy, the moment when the chorus steps out of character to address the audience directly, often on political or social themes.

Deus ex machina

A playwright's device in which a god appears by stage machinery to resolve an otherwise insoluble plot, notably in several plays of Euripides.

Herodotus' Histories

Nine-book Greek prose account of the Persian Wars, framed by ethnographic digressions and an enquiry into the causes of conflict between Greeks and barbarians.

Tacitus' Annals

Latin historical work covering the Roman emperors from Tiberius to Nero, marked by a compressed, pointed style and moralising judgement on imperial power.

Theogony

Hesiod's hexameter poem narrating the genealogy of the gods and the succession of divine rule from Uranus through Cronus to Zeus.

Thysia

The ordinary Greek blood sacrifice: an animal is led to the altar, killed, partly burnt for the god and shared among participants in a communal feast.

Eleusinian Mysteries

Secret initiation cult of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis, promising initiates a better fate after death; the rites were never publicly divulged.

Pontifex maximus

Chief priest of the Roman state religion, responsible for the calendar and sacred law; the office was held by the emperor from Augustus onwards.

Lares and penates

Roman household gods: the lares guarded the home and its boundaries, while the penates protected the storeroom and the family's prosperity.

Imperial cult

Worship of the emperor, living or deceased, as a divine figure; it spread through the Greek East and bound provincial loyalty to Roman rule.

Doric order

Greek architectural order with a plain column capital, no base and a frieze of alternating triglyphs and metopes, associated with mainland Greece.

Contrapposto

Sculptural pose in which the weight rests on one leg so that hips and shoulders tilt in opposition, producing a natural and dynamic balance.

Opus caementicium

Roman concrete made from lime mortar and aggregate, which made possible vaults, domes and structures far larger than traditional ashlar masonry allowed.

Black-figure technique

Attic pottery decoration in which figures are painted in black slip on the red clay ground with details incised; dominant before about 530 BC.

Parthenon

Peripteral Doric temple on the Athenian Acropolis, built 447–432 BC by Ictinus and Callicrates with sculpture overseen by Phidias.

Stratigraphy

Archaeological principle that deposits accumulate in layers over time, so lower layers are normally earlier than the layers above them.

Primary source

Evidence produced by a participant or contemporary of the events studied, such as an inscription, coin, letter or eyewitness history.

Quellenforschung

Source criticism that reconstructs the lost sources an ancient author used, by comparing parallel accounts, stylistic features and internal inconsistencies.

Winckelmann

German art historian whose 1764 History of Ancient Art idealised Greek sculpture as 'noble simplicity and calm grandeur', shaping European neoclassicism.

Oral tradition

Material transmitted by speech before being written down; formulaic epithets and repeated type-scenes are used to detect it in epic poetry.

Anachronism

The attribution of ideas, objects or practices to a period in which they did not exist, a central pitfall in source analysis and translation.

Res Gestae

Augustus' autobiographical inscription recording his achievements, set up at Rome and copied across the empire; a key documentary source for the principate.