Greek Society...Could us women handle it?

After watching the documentary about ancient Greece from the people at Time Life, I began to wonder to myself if I could handle being a women in ancient Greece (or any American women in today’s society), in Athens in particular. The video suggested just a small portion of what I found was required of a woman in those times. It told of how women were seen as property, their marriage was arranged for them between their father, his brother and her future husband. The woman would have little to do with the marriage contract. Given the fact that she was considered property she was not allowed to own property and if her husband were to die for war or other means her father’s brother was given the responsibility to find her a new husband and if happened to be dead she was basically turned into a slave. One source that I found listed out a day in the life of a Greek housewife. Here is it:
7:05 Rises
7:08 Eats small piece of bread soaked in wine. Is still hungry, but must be careful about her figure
7:09 Pecks husband on cheek and sends him off to the agora. Sighs. Looks at the four bare (slightly tinted) walls. Rarely allowed out of the house, she prepares for another day at home.
7:15 Summon hand maiden to cool her with huge peacock feather.
8:30 All dressed up with no place to go, she wanders into the kitchen, eyes a piece of honey cake. Resists.
9:27 Hears argument between two servants, rushes out to mediate.
11:15 Wanders into the courtyard near flowerbed where slave girls are spinning and giggling. Asks to join them. Is reminded this is improper behavior - they suggest she ready herself for lunch.
12:15 Husband arrives, chiding her about the foolishness of make-up. Pretends to agree. Husband leaves at 12:22
3:00 Instructs daughter on her duties of being a wife.
8:05 Husband and wife sit down at low table to dinner; bread, oil, wine, a few figs, small portion of fish (only 320 calories) and beans. She hears about his day. He tells her she should not bother about the affairs of men. Pretends to agree. She is too hungry to argue.
10:10 Falls asleep. Does not dream of tomorrow. (http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/aegean/culture/womenofathens.html)
Interestingly enough this same suggested that women had a lot more power than was recorded or implied. It raised the question that if women were always seen as property and as lesser beings than why did Athenians worship and based their city around a goddess and they showed special affection and appreciation for the Greek goddesses. Another point to this was that women were often played key roles in religious ceremonies and festivals.
After reading about the treatment of women in ancient Greece, I do not think that women of our society today could handle being a woman in the days of ancient Greece. Women, in the United States especially, all want to show their independence and be their own person; this idea most likely would not have lasted in those days. Although the play that Aristophanes wrote called "Lysistrata," in some ways gives suggestion to the women’s independence movement.

As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.

While watching the movie, featuring the extremely excited historian, we were introduced to a particularly fascinating philosopher, Socrates. I know that many of us have heard of him before and maybe even studied him in a few of our classes, but for those who want to learn more or just experience a recap please read on.

With the fact that Socrates did not leave behind a written form of his ideas we have had to learn them through others interpretations. From his students, to his best friends, we have found that Socrates was not only a disliked teacher during the time, but in fact he shaped our philosophical world. With his idea on the way of life should be lived, and the questions that he forces others to think about, he has created some of the most famous philosophical ideas. One of the most important and widely used is the Socratic Method.

The Socratic Method is the way that Socrates used to understand the world around him. He exclaimed that people would learn to memorize things, but not really understand them. While using this method he would ask someone what the definition of something is? Most of the time they would answer with several things that describe the word, but Socrates did not believe that this answer was good enough, but instead he was looking for one exact meaning. He wanted to understand the difficult questions in life and with this method he was able to hold a discussion and help everyone else figure out the answers while he was learning them himself.

To know truly, to seek wisdom, one must work toward understanding. If the question "what" leads us to see what we do and do not know, then the question "why" leads us to understand our world in a more full and fundamental manner.

Socrates has helped us better understand that it is easy to memorize what you are attempting to learn, but it is also just as easy to forget it. There are so many of us that have went through school cramming the night before an exam just so we could forget it the moment you leave the classroom. We all need to take a step back, attempt to understand what exactly Socrates was trying to teach us, and realize that we are only going to get one opportunity to live the life that has been given to us.

For more fun and exciting information on Socrates you can go to the site that I used to find some of my information.

http://www.greatbooksacademy.org/html/what_is_the_socratic_method_.html

Athens as a city-state. Who is responsible?

Around the year 495 Athens was starting to make a name for itself, with Pericles as their leading statesman. He brought Athens to great power during his forty year reign from 495-429 B.C. Throughout his 40 year reign, he had the opportunity to erase all remaining traces of Aristotic Institutions, which had already started deteriorating. During the age of Pericles in power, Athens became a powerful city-state. Athens was bursting with rich art, religious festivals and culture, which had uniquely united both the rich and the poor citizens. Athens was enjoying their power and freedom.
Pericles was a distinguished orator, it is no doubt that he had an inaudible effect on the rise of oratory as a political force in Athens' military forces. Pericles was able to gain the respect of the citizens by his demeanor, dignity and his undeniable wisdom. Pericles was also responsible for instituting Athens' first congressional meeting. This shaped the future for Athens and other future city-states to follow.
Pericles was an influential leader and one that made an impact on Greek history.

Until next time, Thanks for reading!

First Lucy, Now Ardi?

Remember Lucy? The oldest fossil revealing a human ancestor more than 4 million years ago? Well now she's the second oldest. Ardipithicus ramidus, otherwise known as Ardi, has now taken that spot, dating back from 5 to 6 million years ago. From Miss Ramidus, chimps and apes were on one path of evolution while Humans were on another. Ardi was found in Ethiopia, in an desert region called Aramis, which is full of hominid fossils. The team that found Ardi spent nearly twenty years collecting information about Ardi, including bones and pollen. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113387960 

Excavators and archaeologists previously found some teeth and bones of Ardi some years ago but now they have more than 100 bones, a partial skeleton of a female, a.k.a. Ardi and other remains that were new to everyone. Such as the skull, which had been destroyed to pieces. They were able to reconstruct it however, after many years of hard work and patience. Concluding from Ardi's anatomy, it looks like she was able to walk on two legs, even though she probably spent most of the times in forests, living in a moist wooden environment. Ardi is evidence that hits the stereotypical idea that Humans evolved from chimpanzees. It's mostly likely that our most common ancestor had some chimp qualities yet some monkey ones as well. Ardi isn't totally different from sister Lucy though, having similar teeth structure.

This is so important, because it is another piece in a grand puzzle of where we originated. With the find of Ardi, we're one step closer to finding out where we began and the pieces along the way. With continued evidence in the future, we'll be able to track our far ancient past.  

However, with any big discovery, comes skepticism. But that's the price you pay for finding your oldest ancestor. 

Pericles

I am 50% Greek, so I thought a good topic would be something related to the video we watched on Wednesday. Pericles was the leader of the Athenians in 461 B.C. He was unlike previous leaders for a few reasons, one big one being that he encouraged participation from citizens in the government. He also transformed the goverernment into more a a democracy and helped the poor out, not by just handing them things, but by giving them work to earn it. Athens had been damaged during war so Pericles went to work on rebuilding it (the Parthenon was built during this time). To me, Pericles seems like he was a great leader and really just wanted to help people. But every story has two sides. The money he was getting to rebuild the city was from allie cities and they started becoming uneasy. To make a long story short, Sparta declared war and won. So what does this have to do with Pericles..? He received most of the blame for the war and around 429 B.C., he was no longer the leader. He later died of the plague that struck the city. (http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b2pericles.htm#) Overall, Pericles was important to history because he started to introduce us to democracy and I think he really just wanted to be a good leader and help his people. THANK YOU PERICLES.

Welcome to Me

Hey Everyone:

Jamison Clark here, sorry for such a late post but better late then never I guess. I am currently a Sophomore at GV and hail from inner city Grand Rapids. I started school at St Stephen Elementary then moved on to Grand Rapids Catholic Central and so have had the joy of going to a catholic school all of my life, fun right. My first amazing experience at Grand Valley was the ability to actually wear jeans on the first day of classes, crazy I know. At Catholic I was on the Ski team and participated in marching band all throughout school. I live just south of Eastown in GR and work not only on campus but at Breton Village Blimpie location.

I am a newly declared History major with a minor in Anthropology, specifically Archeology. My background of the Internet is summed up mainly of talking to friends, looking up facts, or simply just facebook...ing. So I hope to learn many, many things about blogging from this class.

So hang on; This is gonna be nuts.

This is me!

Hello Bloggers!
My name is Melissa Vandermeer and I am beginning my third year at Grand Valley. I am going to Grand Valley to get a degree in social studies with a minor in elementary education. I grew up in Standale, Michigan anf graduated from Grandville High School in 2007. While there I cheered for four years, I also was a member of the National Honors Society. I currently am a busy full-time student and also working a lot at Applebee's. I am not sure if I remember what it means to have fun anymore. I guess thats what it means to go to college.

I am looking forward to using blogger this semester. I am not very familiar with blogging but I hope to learn many new things about this site and about history that I can share with all of you. I am also looking forward to reading what my group mates have posted as well as others within my class. I hope that you all enjoy reading our blog this semester.

Fasten your seat belts, its going to be a bumpy ride. (through History that is...)