LITMIR.BIZ

Chapter 7

      Greek Art, the Olympian Ego, and the Inventors of the Modern World

      IN THIS CHAPTER

       Everything that grows great also decays. But the memory of our greatness will be bequeathed to posterity forever … the admiration of the present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not left our power without witness, but have shown it by mighty proofs … we have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere … have left imperishable monuments behind us.

      —PERICLES (Athenian Statesman, Fifth Century BC)

      Pericles was right. The world he helped create did decay. But its memory and influence have lasted for nearly 2,500 years, reaching across the ages into our day-to-day lives.

      Whether you’re watching a play or movie; cheering your country at the Olympics; debating an ethical question; visiting the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.; wrestling with an abstract math problem; or voting for your local mayor, your actions are rooted in Ancient Greece. The Greeks wrote the blueprint for the modern world. They invented democracy, logic, ethics, drama, the Olympics, the study of history, theoretical math, and rational inquiry (the precursor of modern science). They also laid the foundations of Western art and developed architectural styles that we still mimic today.

We owe our Western heritage to all of Ancient Greece, but especially to Athens (located on the coast of the Aegean Sea), which may be the most creative city in history. (Florence, Italy, runs a close second — see Chapter 12.)

      How did a tiny city-state the size of Toledo, Ohio, launch the modern world two and a half millennia ago? Read on.

Mingling with the Minoans: Snake Goddesses, Minotaurs, and Bull Jumpers

      Aegean culture (civilization around the Aegean Sea) didn’t begin with the Greeks — it started with the Minoans in the late third millennium BC. The Minoans lived on the island of Crete (south of what became the Greek mainland). Crete is about 160 miles long and 37 miles wide (at its widest). Though they traded with the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, the Minoans lived in relative isolation and developed a unique culture. Their art focused not on death and war like the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, but on life, beauty, and partying!

      The Minoans are named after the mythical King Minos who supposedly ruled Crete and owned a half-man, half-bull “pet” called the Minotaur. The pet’s name is a variant of the king’s because the Minotaur was also his stepson. Minos’s wife cheated on him with a bull! Minos penned up his monstrous stepson in a labyrinth and sacrificed young Athenian men and women to him until the mythical Athenian hero Theseus slew the beast.

      Actually, the Minoans were a peaceful people. They made more tools than weapons, and their chief god was not a thunderbolt-wielding macho man like Zeus, but a sexy-looking snake-goddess. Her cult animals (animals associated with worship) included the dove, snake, and bull. The Minotaur myth probably evolved from the Minoans’ infamous religious sport, bull jumping, in which young men and women somersaulted off the backs of wild bulls.

      Notice that the women vaulters (in front of and behind the bull) are white skinned, suggesting that they spent more time indoors than the dark-skinned male jumper. Yet we see total sexual equality here. Man and woman are equal partners in this dangerous but playful religious sport. In fact, the women outnumber the men in the fresco.

      The streamlined bodies in The Toreador Fresco brim with exuberant life. Even the bull’s S-shaped tail looks like a wisp of playful energy. Here is a breakdown of other aspects of the Minoan art style: