Greek and italian_civilizations

COMENIUS
«GREEK AND ITALIAN CIVILIZATIONS:
RUINS, MUSIC AND MUSICAL
INSTRUMENTS»
PART A

 This year the 2nd
Gymnasium of Heraklion is having an
educational journey of knowledge, cogitation and
entertainment. It ambitiously intends to travel to places where
the Greek element has been surviving since the 8th
century BC,
succeeding to keep the memories of a great nation alive; a
nation which carried the torch of Greek spirit all over the world.
 We will also step on the footprints in the sands of time of the
Italian civilization. Italy is the wellspring of Western civilization
and has been a world crossroads for over 2,000 years.
Continuous learning, creativity, and technological
advancement on the Italian peninsula have shaped virtually
every aspect of Western culture.
 Italy was home to many well-known and influential civilizations,
including the Etruscan, Greek, and the Roman ones.

Italian civilization
 From antiquity until the mid-17th century, Italy was
considered as the central place of Western culture and the
starting point of worldwide phenomena such as the Roman
Empire, Roman Catholic Church, and the Renaissance.
During this period, Italy gave birth to a number of famous
painters, sculptors, poets, musicians, mathematicians and
architects that created a niche of their own in history.
 Both the internal and external facets of Western culture
were born on the Italian peninsula, whether one looks at
the history of the Christian faith, civil institutions,
philosophy, law, art, opera, science, or social customs and
culture.

Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. ut melius, quidquid erit, pati.
seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare:
Tyrrhenum sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero
Quintus Horatius Flaccus
CARMEN 1.11

Do not ask, for it is forbidden to know, Leuconoe,
what end the gods have given to me, or to you. Do not try
the Babylonian numbers. It is better to suffer whatever comes.
Perhaps Jupiter has allotted you many winters, or perhaps
this is the last, which now wears the sea against the rocks
of Etruria. Be wise, strain the wine, and for a brief hour
cut short long hopes. Even as we speak time flies unbidden
Seize the day, not trusting in tomorrow.
Horace
Odes I.11
Transl. Mary L. J. McMenomy

Primo giorno in Italia
L’ arrivo a Frosinone

FROSINONE
 Frosinone is a town and
commune in Lazio, in central
Italy, the administrative seat of
the Province of Frosinone. It is
located about 75 km south-east
of Rome. It is commonly
identified as the capital of the
geographical region of Ciociaria.
 Frosinone is the place where the
“Istituto Comprensivo 1°, our
partner school, is located and
also the place of our destination
for the next ten days.

ANCIENT ROME
 Ancient Rome was an Italic civilization that
began growing on the Italian Peninsula as
early as the 8th century BC. Located along
the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the
city of Rome, it expanded to become one of
the largest empires in the ancient world.
 In its approximately twelve centuries of
existence, Roman civilization shifted from a
monarchy to an aristocratic republic and to
an increasingly autocratic empire. Through
conquest and assimilation, it came to
dominate Southern Europe, Western Europe,
Asia Minor, North Africa, parts of Northern
Europe, and parts of Eastern Europe. Rome
was preponderant throughout the
Mediterranean region and was one of the
most powerful entities of the ancient world. It
is often grouped into "Classical Antiquity"
together with ancient Greece, and their
similar cultures and societies are known as
the Greco-Roman world.

ROME
 “The Eternal City„ with the
great history and the unique
monuments, has offered a lot
to the science, culture and
arts.
 Rome was supposedly
founded in 753 BC and ever
since has been the capital of
the Roman Empire, one of the
main centres of Christianity,
the home of the Roman
Catholic Church and the seat
of the Italian Republic.
 Its historic centre is listed by
UNESCO as a World Heritage
Site.

View of Rome from the Dome of St.
Peter's Basilica

Ostia Antica
 Ostia Antica is a large archeological site,
close to the modern suburb of Ostia
(Rome). "Ostia" in Latin means "mouth". At
the mouth of the River Tiber, Ostia was
Rome's seaport, but due to silting the site
now lies 3 km from the sea. The site is
noted for the excellent preservation of its
ancient buildings, magnificent frescoes
and impressive mosaics.
 Ostia may have been Rome's first colony.

Magna Graecia
 Magna Graecia is the name of the coastal
areas of Southern Italy that were extensively
colonized by Greek settlers who began
arriving in the 8th century B.C. It extends from
Cumae (Ancient Greek Kyme), the first Greek
colony, to the south coasts of Italy and the
island of Sicily. The colonists brought with them
the Greek way of living and thinking, enriched
it and consequently spread it in all the known
Mediterranean Basin. A journey to Magna
Graecia is an exploration of the Mediterranean
civilization which gave birth to the greatest
civilizations of the world.

CUMAE (KYME)
 Cumae was the first ancient
Greek settlement on Italian
mainland (Magna Graecia). It is
said to have been founded in the
8th century B.C. by Euboean
Greek settlers who had already
colonized the island of Ischia. It is
located northwest of Naples. The
colony was also the entry point in
the Italian peninsula for the
Euboean alphabet, the local
variant of the Greek alphabet
used by its colonists, a variant of
which was adapted and
modified by the Etruscans and
then by the Romans and became
the Latin alphabet.

CUMAE (KYME)
 CUMAE was the seat of the Cumaean
Sibyl. The Sybil was a prophetic
priestess sacred to the Greek god
Apollo. The Cumaean Sibyl
prophesied by “singing the fates” and
writing on oak leaves. These would be
arranged inside the entrance of her
cave but, if the wind blew and
scattered them, she would not help to
reassemble the leaves to form the
original prophecy again.

CUMAE (KYME)
 CUMAE became a sacred place in Roman
mythology according to Virgil’s tales. The Sibyl
was a guide to the underworld (Hades), its
entry being at the nearby crater of Avernus.
Aeneas employed her services before his
descent to the lower world to visit his dead
father Anchises, but she warned him that it was
no light undertaking:
“Trojan, Anchises' son, the descent of Avernus is easy.
All night long, all day, the doors of Hades stand open.
But to retrace the path, to come up to the sweet air of
heaven,
That is labour indeed.” (Aeneid 6.126-129.)

Ruins of the Temple of Apollo,
Cumae Archaeological Park

Pompeii
 The town was founded around the 7th–
6th century BC by the Osci or Oscans. It
had already been used as a safe port
by Greek and Phoenician sailors.
Pompeii was captured for the first time
by the Greek colony of Cumae, allied
with Syracuse. Romans took control of
Pompeii around 200 BC. On August 24,
79 AD, Vesuvius erupted, burying the
nearby town of Pompeii in ash and
soot, killing 20,000 people, and
preserving the city in its state from that
fateful day. Pompeii was lost for about
1500 years until its initial rediscovery in
1599.

Pompeii
 While some people fell dead
on the spot, several others
died at exit points, trying to
escape from the killer lava. As
if this was not enough, the
torrent of the lava was
followed by the flowing of
white ash from the volcano,
which systematically covered
the lava like a topping of
snow. Entire families, homes,
streets, buildings, animals,
verily the entire city was
buried underneath the layers
of hot ash and lava.

PAESTUM (POSEIDONIA)
 Paestum is the classical
Roman name of a major
Greco-Roman city in
the Campania region of
Italy. It was founded
around the end of the
7th century BC by
colonists from the Greek
city of Sybaris, and
originally was known as
POSEIDONIA.

Poseidonians
The Poseidonians forgot the Greek language
after so many centuries of mingling
with Tyrrhenians, Latins, and other foreigners.
The only thing surviving from their ancestors
was a Greek festival, with beautiful rites,
with lyres and flutes, contests and wreaths.
And it was their habit toward the festival’s end
to tell each other about their ancient customs
and once again to speak Greek names
that only a few of them still recognized.
And so their festival always had a melancholy ending
because they remembered that they too were Greeks,
they too once upon a time were citizens of Magna Graecia;
and how low they’d fallen now, what they’d become,
living and speaking like barbarians,
cut off so disastrously from the Greek way of life.
C. P. Cavafy

Sicily
 A great many mythological
characters visited or lived in Sicily:
Persephone was abducted by Hades
near Etna in the Sicilian hinterland,
Arethusa, originally an Arcadian
nymph, fled the amorous advances of
the river God Alpheios and ended up
as a spring in Siracuse, Charybdis, the
water sucking daughter of Poseidon
created the dangerous whirlpools that
almost sank Odysseus while passing
through the Straits of Messina,
Hephaestus was believed (at least by
Greeks in the Sicilian colonies of
Magna Grecia) to have his forge in
Mount Etna, and Aiolos, the God of
Winds resided in the Aeolian Islands.

Giardini Naxos
 Naxos was an ancient Greek
colony of Sicily. It founded
colonies of its own and it was
known as a religion center of
the God Apollo.
 Giardini Naxos is a commune
in the Province of Messina. It
is situated on the coast of the
Ionian Sea on a bay which lies
between Cape Taormina and
Cape Schisò. Today it is a
popular seaside resort.

Taormina
 Taormina is a commune and
small town on the east coast of
the island of Sicily, in the
Province of Messina.
 Taormina's area was inhabited
by the Siculi even before the
Greeks arrived on the Sicilian
coast in 734 BC to found a town
called Naxos. The theory that
Tauromenion was founded by
colonists from Naxos is
confirmed by Strabo and other
ancient writers.

AGRIGENTO (AKRAGAS)
 Agrigento is a city on the southern
coast of Sicily and the capital of the
province of Agrigento. It is renowned
as the site of the ancient Greek city of
AKRAGAS.
 Pindarus praised Akragas as “the most
beautiful of the mortal cities”. It was
the home of artists, philosophers, and
important men of the ancient period
 The Valley of the Temples is one of the
most outstanding examples of Magna
Graecia art and architecture, and is
one of the main attractions of Sicily as
well as a national monument of Italy.

AGRIGENTO
Temple of Concordia at Night

Agrigento
The Temple of Hera at Night

Agrigento
Temple of the Dioscuri
(Castor and Pollux)

Agrigento
Remains of the Temple of Hercules

AGRIGENTO
Remains of one atlas in the Olympeion field

Piazza Armerina
 Piazza Armerina is an Italian
commune in the province of Enna
of Sicily. The town is famous chiefly
for its Roman mosaics in the Villa
Romana del Casale.
 Villa Romana del Casale is a
Roman villa built in the first quarter
of the 4th century and located
about 3 km outside the town of
Piazza Armerina. Containing the
richest, largest and most complex
collection of Roman mosaics in the
world, it is one of THE UNESCO
World Heritage Sites in Italy.

Villa Romana di Casale
The "bikini girls" mosaic, showing
women playing sports

SIRACUSE
 Syracuse is a historic city in Sicily, the capital of
the province of Syracuse. The city is notable for its
rich Greek history, culture, theatres, architecture,
and as the birthplace of the preeminent
mathematician and engineer Archimedes. This
2,700-year-old city played a key role in ancient
times, when it was one of the major powers of the
Mediterranean world. Syracuse is located in the
southeast corner of the island of Sicily, right by the
Gulf of Syracuse next to the Ionian Sea.
 The city was founded by Ancient Greek
Corinthians and became a very powerful city-
state. Syracuse was allied with Sparta and Corinth,
exerting influence over the entire Magna Graecia
area of which it was the most important city. Once
described by Cicero as "the greatest Greek city
and the most beautiful of them all", it later
became part of the Roman Republic and
Byzantine Empire.

The ancient Greek theatre in Siracuse

Noto
 Noto is famous for its fine
buildings of the early 18th
century, considered among
the main masterpieces in the
Sicilian baroque style. It is a
place of many religious
buildings and several palaces.

CATANIA
 Catania is the second biggest town in
Sicily. Catania is nearby Etna. It was
founded in 729 B.C. by colonists from the
Greek city of Naxos (Sicily), under the
guidance of a leader named Euarchus.
 Catania is known for its seismic history,
having been destroyed by a catastrophic
earthquake in 1169, another in 1693, and
several volcanic eruptions from the
neighboring Mount Etna volcano, the
most violent of which was in 1669.
 One of the most important monument in
Catania is the ancient theatre.

CATANIA: View from the port and volcano Etna

Mount Etna
It is an active volcano in Sicily. It is
the tallest active volcano in Europe.

Etna
Snowy Etna, nurse of biting snow all year round,
from whose depths belch forth holiest springs
of unapproachable fire; during the days rivers of lava
pour forth a blazing stream
of smoke, but in times of darkness
a rolling red flame carries rocks into the deep
expanse of the sea with a crash.
That monster sends up most terrible springs
of Hephaistos’ fire — a portent
wondrous to behold.
Pindar, Pythian Ode I, lines 15-27

Crotone
Crotone is a city and commune in Calabria,
southern Italy, on the Ionian Sea coast. It was
founded in 710 B.C. appr. as the Achaean
colony of Croton.
Pythagoras the Greek Philosopher founded his
school, the Pythagoreans, at Croton in 530 B.C.
Among his pupils were the early medical
theorist Alcmaeon of Croton and the
philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer
Philolaus.
Its inhabitants were famous for their physical
strength and for the simple sobriety of their lives.
From 588 B.C. onwards, Croton produced many
generations of victors in the Olympics and the
other Panhellenic Games, the most famous of
whom was Milo of Croton.

Crotone
Temple of Hera Lacinia (Capo Colonna)

Other worth seeing cities or places of
Magna Graecia that are closely
related to the history of the two
neighbouring countries

Napoli
 It is the capital of Campania and the third-
largest municipality in Italy, after Rome
and Milan.
 In the 8th century B.C., a settlement called
Parthenope was founded by settlers from
Cumae in the Naples region. In the 6th
century B.C., after the decline of
Parthenope, the new urban zone of
Neápolis was founded, eventually
becoming one of the foremost cities of
Magna Graecia, playing a key role in the
merging of Greek culture into Roman
society and eventually becoming a
cultural centre of the Roman Republic.

Mount Vesuvius
Mount Vesuvius is best known for its eruption
in AD 79 that led to the burying and
destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii,
Herculaneum and Stabiae.

Elea
 Velia is the Italian (and Latin) name of the
ancient town of Elea located in Campania
region. Originally it was founded by the
Greeks as Hyele in Magna Graecia around
538–535 BC. It is best known as the home
of the philosophers Parmenides and Zeno
of Elea, as well as the Eleatic school of
which they were a part.
 The Eleatics were a school of pre-Socratic
philosophers. The group was founded in
the early fifth century B.C. by Parmenides.
Other members of the school were Zeno of
Elea and Melissus of Samos. Xenophanes is
sometimes included in the list, though
there is some dispute over this.

Elea
Ruins of the Greek theatre

TARANTO
 Taranto was founded in 706 BC by Dorian Greek
immigrants as the only Spartan colony. Its origin is
peculiar: the founders were Partheniae ("sons of
virgins"), sons of unmarried Spartan women and
Perioeci (free men, but not citizens of Sparta). The
Partheniae arrived in Apulia, and founded the city,
naming it Taras after the son of the Greek sea god,
Poseidon, and of a local nymph, Satyrion.
 Taranto increased its power, becoming a
commercial power and a sovereign city of Magna
Graecia, ruling over the Greek colonies in
southern Italy. Its independence and power came
to an end as the Romans expanded throughout
Italy.

Calabria
 Calabria is a region in southern Italy, located at
the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city
of Calabria is Catanzaro. The most populated
city and the seat of the Calabrian Regional
Council, however, is Reggio. It is bounded to the
north by the region of Basilicata, to the south-
west by the region of Sicily, to the west by
the Tyrrhenian Sea, and to the east by the Ionian
Sea.
 In ancient times the region was the focus of
powerful and prosperous Greek colonization,
notably at Crotone, Sybaris, and Rhegium
(Reggio di Calabria)

Sybaris
 Sybaris was a Greek colony on
the western shore of the Gulf of
Taranto in Calabria, at the very
southern end of the Italian
peninsula. Enjoying an excellent
weather, surrounded by fertile
land, and extremely wealthy
due to its busy port, the city's
level of prosperity was vast, and
its inhabitants were famous for
their hedonism, feasts, and
excesses, to the extent that
"sybarite" and "sybaritic" have
become bywords for opulent
luxury and outrageous pleasure
seeking.

Thurii
 Thurii, also called by some Latin
writers Thurium, was a city
of Magna Graecia, situated on
the Tarentine gulf, within a short
distance of the site of Sybaris,
whose place it may be considered
as having taken. The ruins of the
city can be found in the Sybaris
archaeological park near Sibari in
the Province of Cosenza Calabria.
 Thurii was one of the latest of all
the Greek colonies in this part of
Italy, not having been founded
until nearly 70 years after the fall of
Sybaris.

Lokri
 Locri is a town and commune
(municipality) in the province of Reggio
Calabria. The name derives from the
ancient Greek town Locris.
 Epizephyrian Locris (from Greek epi-
Zephyros, "under the West Wind")was
founded about 680 BC on the Italian
shore of the Ionian Sea, near modern
Capo Zefirio, by the Locrians, apparently
by Opuntii (East Locrians) from the city of
Opus, but including Ozolae (West
Locrians) and Lacedaemonians. Strabo
suggests that it was the Ozolae who were
the main founders.

Lokri
Pinax of Persephone and Hades

Reggio di Calabria
 After Cumae, Reggio is one of the oldest
Greek colonies in southern Italy. The colony
was settled by the inhabitants of Chalcis in
720 B.C. on the site of the older settlement,
Erythrà , meaning "the Red one".
 It is the oldest city in the region, and despite
its ancient foundation – Ρήγιον was an
important and flourishing colony of Magna
Graecia - it boasts a modern urban system,
set up after the catastrophic earthquake on
December 28, 1908, which destroyed most of
the city.
 Reggio, with Naples and Taranto, is home to
one of the most important archaeological
museums, the prestigious National
Archaeological Museum of Magna Græcia,
dedicated to Ancient Greece.

Palermo
 Palermo is the capital of Sicily and
the Province of Palermo. The city is
noted for its history, culture,
architecture and gastronomy,
playing an important role
throughout much of its existence; it
is over 2,700 years old. Palermo is
located in the northwest of the
island of Sicily, right by the Gulf of
Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
 The city was founded in 734 BC by
the Phoenicians as Ziz. The Greeks,
who were the most dominant
culture on the island of Sicily due to
the powerful city state of Syracuse
to the east, instead called the
settlement Panormus because of its
fine natural harbor.

Messina
 Founded by Greek colonists in the 8th
century BC, Messina was originally called
Zancle, from the Greek: ζάγκλον meaning
"scythe" because of the shape of its natural
harbor.
 In the early 5th century BC, Anaxilas of
Rhegium renamed it Messene in honour of
the Greek city Messene.
 Messina is the capital of the Italian
province of Messina and the third largest
city on the island of Sicily. It is located near
the northeast corner of Sicily, at the Strait of
Messina, just opposite Villa San Giovanni
on the mainland.

Megara Hyblaea
 It was unquestionably a Greek
colony, deriving its origin from
the Megara in Greece; and the
circumstances attending its
foundation are related in detail
by Thucydides .

Lentini
 Lentini, historically Leontini or
Leontium, is a town and commune in
the Province of Syracuse, southeast
Sicily.
 The ancient city was founded as
Leontini by colonists from Naxos in 729
B.C.
 It is virtually the only Greek settlement
in Sicily not located on the coast,
being some 6 miles inland.

Gela
 The city was founded around 688 BC by
colonists from Rhodos (Rhodes) and Crete,
45 years after the founding of Syracuse. The
city was named after the river Gela.
 Aeschylus died in this city in 456 BC. The
inscription on Aeschylus's gravestone
makes no mention of his theatrical renown,
commemorating only his military
achievements:
“Beneath this stone lies Aeschylus, son of
Euphorion, the Athenian,
who perished in the wheat-bearing land of
Gela;
of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon
can speak,
and the long-haired Persian knows it well”.

Heraclea Minoa
 It was an ancient Greek city,
situated on the southern coast
of Sicily at the mouth of the river
Halycus.
 Its ruins are now found near a
modern town of the same name in
the commune Montallegro in Italy.
Archaeological finds suggest that
it was founded in the middle of the
6th century BC, and was
abandoned around the beginning
of the 1st century AD.

Selinunte
 Selinunte was one of the most
important ancient Greek city on
the southern coast of Sicily. It was
situated between the valleys of the
Belice and Modione rivers. The
archaeological site contains five
temples centered on an acropolis.
Of the five temples, only the
Temple of Hera, also known as
"Temple E", has been re-erected.

Himera
 Himera was an important ancient Greek
city of Sicily, situated on the north coast
of the island, at the mouth of the river of
the same name (the modern Grande),
between Panormus (modern Palermo)
and Cephaloedium (modern Cefalù). Its
remains lie within the borders of the
modern commune of Termini Imerese.
 Himera was a colony of Zancle, but
Thucydides tells us that, with the
emigrants from Zancle, who were of
Chalcidic origin, were mingled a
number of Syracusan exiles, the
consequence of which was, that, though
the institutions of the new city were
Chalcidic, its dialect had a mixture of
Doric.

At this point, the first part of our educational program “Greek
and Italian civilization”, which began in our schools in
September 2012, comes to an end. All of us, students and
teachers, who had eagerly anticipated for this journey to
occur, are happy to say that this whole experience was
beyond all our expectations. So filled with creativity,
experience, and indelible memories, we come back more
experienced and at the same time more conscious citizens of
a world without cultural boundaries. We had the opportunity
of stepping on the footprints in the sands of time of the two
civilizations, the Greek and Italian one, where they lived
together in harmony and their “syncretism” has been creating
across the ages reciprocal influences and eternal bonds
between the two neighbouring countries.

We will continue the second part of our
program during the next school year
(2013-2014), passing from Rome to
Athens, the two eternal cities, going to
Gortys, the capital of Crete during the
Roman Period (Greece), and ending our
cultural journey in Candia - Chandax, the
capital of Crete during Venetian Period
(Heraklion - Greece).

Greek and italian_civilizations

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (19)

Ähnlich wie Greek and italian_civilizations

Ähnlich wie Greek and italian_civilizations (20)

Mehr von aldo moro scuola

Mehr von aldo moro scuola (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Greek and italian_civilizations