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The World of Her Father

Charlotte Greenspan

in Pick Yourself Up: Dorothy Fields and the American Musical

This chapter focuses on the show business career of Dorothy's father Lew Fields. Fields and childhood friend Joe Weber first developed was a patchwork of entertaining bits—songs, dances, and humor, ... More

This chapter focuses on the show business career of Dorothy's father Lew Fields. Fields and childhood friend Joe Weber first developed was a patchwork of entertaining bits—songs, dances, and humor, both verbal and physical. For five years, until 1889, they moved around the country as members of assorted traveling variety shows. In 1890, when they were twenty-three, Weber and Fields felt ready to produce and manage their own traveling show. By May 1896, Weber and Fields were playing at the Olympia Theater on Broadway between Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Streets. Their success was a reaffirmation of the belief that the team could entertain audiences not only on the Lower East Side where they had spent their childhood or touring across the nation where they had spent much of their adolescence, but also on Broadway.Less

Giving Wings to the Aeginetan Sculptures: The Panhellenic Aspirations of Pindar's Eighth Olympian

Lucia Athanassaki

in Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry: Myth, History, and Identity in the Fifth Century BC

This chapter discusses Pindar's Olympian 8 in the context of escalating tensions between Aegina and Athens. It interprets the political significance of some major poetic choices in light of the ... More

This chapter discusses Pindar's Olympian 8 in the context of escalating tensions between Aegina and Athens. It interprets the political significance of some major poetic choices in light of the historical background of the composition and performance, linking a number of issues that scholars have previously assessed independently: the importance of the two different performance settings that poem indicates; the political significance of Apollo's prophecy to Aiakos in the ode's myth; Pindar's allusion to the two pediments of the Temple of Aphaia temple; comparison of Apollo's prophecy with the Delphic oracle to the Athenians to mark out a precinct to Aiakos recorded at Herodotus 5.89. Pindar's mythical variant, building on the sculptural programme of the Temple of Aphaia, challenges the force of the Athenian tradition as a charter for the eventual destruction of Aegina. The opening description of a performance at Olympia underlines the Panhellenic aspirations of these Aeginetan counter-claims.Less

Mapping Identities

Joseph E. Skinner

in The Invention of Greek Ethnography: From Homer to Herodotus

This chapter identifies some of the major building-blocks upon which “ethnographic discourse” might be founded: knowledge relating to a variety of foreign peoples, both Greek and non-Greek, and the ... More

This chapter identifies some of the major building-blocks upon which “ethnographic discourse” might be founded: knowledge relating to a variety of foreign peoples, both Greek and non-Greek, and the mechanisms by which it was deployed. The chapter goes on to extend the analysis to encompass unfamiliar settings and far-flung locations: the wilds of Scythia, Magna Graecia, and, at the “imagined center,” the great Panhellenic sanctuaries at Delphi and Olympia. This broad canvas is necessary in order to demonstrate that discourses of identity indicative of a self-conscious engagement with questions of cultural difference were not only widespread well before their supposed epiphany during the fifth century bc—the point at which Greek identity is purported to have switched from “ethnic” to cultural criteria1—but also intrinsic to the processes by which identities (of any kind) were constructed.Less

The Materiality of God's Image: The Olympian Zeus and Ancient Christology

Jan N. Bremmer and Andrew Erskine

in The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations

The issue is the representation of the invisible and immaterial god in the mode of a material image. In the new movement of Christian religion there is besides the polemic against cult-images also ... More

The issue is the representation of the invisible and immaterial god in the mode of a material image. In the new movement of Christian religion there is besides the polemic against cult-images also continuity in the framework of ancient religion. In regard to the relation between god (“father”) and man-god (“son”) the ancient theory on the relation between god and image is used as an argument for the Christology. But also in Christian ritual practice there is some continuity with the cult of the Greek gods. The chapter looks in particular at the influence of Pheidias’ statue of Zeus.Less

Zeus at Olympia

Jan N. Bremmer and Andrew Erskine

in The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations

The worship of Zeus at Olympia is manifested in the Classical period by dozens of monuments, many of them military votives erected as thank offerings by victorious poleis. While such monuments also ... More

The worship of Zeus at Olympia is manifested in the Classical period by dozens of monuments, many of them military votives erected as thank offerings by victorious poleis. While such monuments also feature in other Panhellenic sanctuaries, such as those dedicated to Apollo at Delphi, and Zeus receives military thank offerings at other sites, such as Dodona, Zeus’ connection with warfare at Olympia extends back in time, perhaps to the earliest period of cult activity at the site in the tenth century B.C. Moreover, the particular form of the Classical dedications to Zeus differs from that of military thank offerings elsewhere in their scale and their use of mythological narratives, sometimes involving the god himself.Less

The Tombstones

Olympia Morata

in The Complete Writings of an Italian Heretic

This chapter shows that Olympia Fulvia Morata's tombstone stands today in the north entrance hall of the Peterskirche in Heidelberg. Andreas Grunthler's tombstone had been lost by 1620 but was copied ... More

This chapter shows that Olympia Fulvia Morata's tombstone stands today in the north entrance hall of the Peterskirche in Heidelberg. Andreas Grunthler's tombstone had been lost by 1620 but was copied by contemporaries. The chapter also explores Guillaume Rascalon's tombstone writing in honor of Morata as sacred to God immortal: “To the virtue and memory of Morata, daughter of the philosopher Fulvius Morato of Ferrara, beloved wife of Dr. Andreas Grunthler, a woman whose genius and singular knowledge of both languages, whose probity in morals and highest zeal for piety were always held above the common level. Men's judgment of her life was confirmed with divine testimony by the most holy and peaceful death which she died. She died in exile in the year of Salvation 1555 age 29. She was buried there with her husband and brother Emilio Morato.”Less

Documents

Olympia Morata

in The Complete Writings of an Italian Heretic

This chapter explores the documents pertaining to Olympia Fulvia Morata by Lilio Gregorio Giraldi, Caelius Secundus Curio, who personally heard her declaiming in Latin, speaking in Greek, expounding ... More

This chapter explores the documents pertaining to Olympia Fulvia Morata by Lilio Gregorio Giraldi, Caelius Secundus Curio, who personally heard her declaiming in Latin, speaking in Greek, expounding Cicero's Paradoxa, and responding to questions, so well that she seemed able to be compared to any girl of ancient times, who was outstanding for praise of her intellect. She was more cultured in literature and the arts, Greek as well as Latin, than anyone would think possible, and famous for her knowledge of theology. So much about Morata. One can get anything else from Georg Hörmann. The chapter also explores documents from a letter by medical student Jakob Baldenburger, and from a letter by Johannes Sinapius to Jean Calvin.Less

Greek Festivals and the Ritual Process: An Inquiry into the Olympia-cum-Heraia and the Great Dionysia

Synnøve des Bouvrie

in Greek and Roman Festivals: Content, Meaning, and Practice

Our knowledge of ancient festivals is rather extensive, the evidence telling much about what people were doing, but not why they were doing it, for example, in some cases the ritual process can be ... More

Our knowledge of ancient festivals is rather extensive, the evidence telling much about what people were doing, but not why they were doing it, for example, in some cases the ritual process can be captured. Greek festivals can be defined as facts of culture. By including theories about the neurophysiological bases of cultural phenomena, anthropological understanding of festive social action are applied, and liminality, symbolism, cultural performances, prescribed sentiments, and power aspects are discussed. Departing from these theoretical viewpoints, the festivals of the Olympia and the Heraia at Olympia are analysed as manifestations of elaborating symbols, establishing the ‘nature’ of male and female, while the Olympia generated the summarising symbol of Hellenic ethnicity. In contrast, the Dionysia at Athens gathered the community in an atmosphere of Dionysiac disorder. Its programme manifested a liminal phase, including expressions arousing comic and tragic fascinations — sentiments aimed at provoking the audience’s cultural sense of normality.Less

Pelops Joins the Party: Transformations of a Hero Cult within the Festival at Olympia

Gunnel Ekroth

in Greek and Roman Festivals: Content, Meaning, and Practice

This chapter explores, within the festival of Zeus at Olympia, the role and function of the hero Pelops in a diachronic perspective, using archaeology to throw light on the written sources. The ... More

This chapter explores, within the festival of Zeus at Olympia, the role and function of the hero Pelops in a diachronic perspective, using archaeology to throw light on the written sources. The changes in the cult of Pelops, both in form and function, can be connected with the developments of the sanctuary, the festival and the games, but also with the role of heroes within Greek religion. Thus Pelops, being the principal hero of the festival in Archaic times, in the Classical period became the national hero of the city of Elis. In Roman times funerary traits of the Pelops cult became more pronounced, as also observed in other contemporary Greek hero cults. Participation in his cult caused pollution and Pelops must now have become more separated from Zeus. This ritual antagonism between Pelops and Zeus, often claimed as an original feature of the festival, is rather a Roman elaboration.Less

Flashback: An Engineer’s Education

Ian Christie

in Robert Paul and the Origins of British Cinema

Robert Paul was the oldest of five children, born to a London shipping agent and a clergyman’s daughter in Islington in 1869. The family moved around London, while Robert seems to have been the only ... More

Robert Paul was the oldest of five children, born to a London shipping agent and a clergyman’s daughter in Islington in 1869. The family moved around London, while Robert seems to have been the only one to benefit from a public school education at the City of London, which was also among the first in Britain to offer science. He progressed to a new college, the Finsbury Technical, bringing him into contact with electrical pioneers such as Silvanus Thompson and William Ayrton, who would help him start in business on his own account in 1891, repairing and soon inventing instruments for the emerging electricity industry. By the end of 1895, both Paul and his former associate Acres were at work developing projectors that functioned like magic lanterns, throwing moving pictures on a screen. Paul premiered his Theatrograph in February 1896 on the same day as the first Lumière Cinématographe demonstration in London. Another of his shows led to Paul being hired to screen a programme at Olympia, soon followed by his projector appearing at the Egyptian Hall on Piccadilly, and then at the Alhambra music hall, next door to the Cinématographe at the Empire, both in Leicester Square.Less

In the Artificial Gardens of Eden-Olympia

Dominic Pettman

in Love and Other Technologies: Retrofitting Eros for the Information Age

Examination of J.G. Ballard's Super–Cannes locates the modern state of “whateverbeing” with respect to the emotional detachment and autocratic administration proposed by the ... More

Examination of J.G. Ballard's Super–Cannes locates the modern state of “whateverbeing” with respect to the emotional detachment and autocratic administration proposed by the new form of the highest social class, the elites. The two parts of the business park, namely Eden and Olympia, serve as the origin of the chapter's analysis. Included in Eden–Olympia is the “detraditionalization” or the fragmentation or modification of norms, especially in the fields of politics, ethics, culture, technology, and love, and their relationship to the members of the community. Due to the authority and power of the mentioned ruling class in the market, the masses or workers have to go beyond their limits up until the boundaries set forth by God.Less

The Economics of Dedication at Greek Sanctuaries

Anthony Snodgrass

in Archaeology and the Emergence of Greece

Whether at Panhellenic sanctuaries — Olympia, Delphi, Delos — or at city and ethnos sanctuaries — Lindos, Perachora, Isthmia, the Argive and Samian Heraea, the Athenian Acropolis, Pherae — there is a ... More

Whether at Panhellenic sanctuaries — Olympia, Delphi, Delos — or at city and ethnos sanctuaries — Lindos, Perachora, Isthmia, the Argive and Samian Heraea, the Athenian Acropolis, Pherae — there is a very marked preponderance in the number of small dedications of geometric and archaic date, by comparison with those of later times. This profligacy of dedication was not a practice of time-honoured antiquity: in most cases, it had itself only come into being in the course of the eighth century BC. We are thus dealing initially with an episode that is roughly co-terminous with the archaic period of Greece. We must immediately concede that it is a phenomenon which relates entirely to preserved dedications. Parallel patterns of dedication, with a climax in the seventh and sixth centuries BC and a decline thereafter, can be observed in other categories of dedication, such as metal armour and weapons. At Olympia, for example, we have also a rich series of helmets which have been well studied.Less

The ‘Hoplite Reform’ Revisited

Anthony Snodgrass

in Archaeology and the Emergence of Greece

In classical Athens, someone in each community would be charged with the duty of mustering a given number of hoplites from their district. In his analysis of the Homeric battle scenes, Joachim Latacz ... More

In classical Athens, someone in each community would be charged with the duty of mustering a given number of hoplites from their district. In his analysis of the Homeric battle scenes, Joachim Latacz cites the Homeric poems. His thesis won important support from historians and archaeologists: the implication was that any such episode as a ‘hoplite reform’, if indeed it had happened at all, did so at an earlier date than previously assumed, in time for its effects to permeate the text of the Iliad. This chapter argues that there is a substantial class of evidence, that of the actual surviving pieces of armour dedicated at Olympia and other sanctuaries, which is more robust than either new textual interpretations of Homer, or new readings of battle scenes in art. It argues that the systematic use of a pitched battle formation like the later phalanx, with tactics like those of the later synaspismos, has no part in hoplite warfare.Less

Statues, Stelai, and Turning Posts in Greece, c.565–c.465 BCE: The Limits of Iconography

Richard Neer

in Landscape and Space: Comparative Perspectives from Chinese, Mesoamerican, Ancient Greek, and Roman Art

This essay is about Greek sculpture of the Archaic and Classical periods but addresses larger issues of method. It argues that iconography, while indispensable, is a limited way to study sculpture. ... More

This essay is about Greek sculpture of the Archaic and Classical periods but addresses larger issues of method. It argues that iconography, while indispensable, is a limited way to study sculpture. As an alternative, it addresses some of the ways in which Greek sculptural monuments could intervene in landscapes. It examines the connections between statues, stelai, turning posts and boundary stones in the Greek imagination. A secondary goal is to advocate an approach to Greek epigraphy that goes beyond semantics to include the connotative aspects of visual features such as mise en page and the difference between epigraphic and metrical line breaks. Examples include the class of “Man-and-Dog” stelai, the “Mourning Athena” from the Athenian Acropolis, and inscriptions from Athens, Eleusis, Troezen, and elsewhere.Less

“The Sandman”

in Alchemical Mercury: A Theory of Ambivalence

This chapter presents an alchemical reading of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1815 tale “The Sandman.” For the modern critic, this text has become inextricable from Freud's 1919 essay “Das Unheimliche” (“The ... More

This chapter presents an alchemical reading of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1815 tale “The Sandman.” For the modern critic, this text has become inextricable from Freud's 1919 essay “Das Unheimliche” (“The Uncanny”). Separated by a century, both texts were written with an eye toward the second part of the tale, the explosive trauma caused to Nathanael by Olympia, the automaton, and by the evil barometer seller Coppola. Given Freud's interest in repression, it would seem particularly important to concentrate on the protagonist's early life as it emerges in the tale and in Freud's analysis.Less

The Reuse, Recycling, and Displacement of Levantine Luxury Arts

Marian H. Feldman

in Communities of Style: Portable Luxury Arts, Identity, and Collective Memory in the Iron Age Levant

The chapter explores different ways in which communities could form around displaced artworks through several case studies of Levantine artworks that followed complicated biographical trajectories: ... More

The chapter explores different ways in which communities could form around displaced artworks through several case studies of Levantine artworks that followed complicated biographical trajectories: bronzes found in Greece at pan-Hellenic sanctuaries (reworked bands at Olympia and horse harness elements at Samos and Eretria), ivories from within official palatial contexts (at Arslan Tash) and from outside (in the Town Wall Houses at Nimrud and at Til Barsip), and refashioned ivories and bronzes from a “royal” tomb at Salamis on Cyprus. The chapter also highlights the different ways in which these objects were used, and in some cases refashioned, for varying purposes of community formation by multiple cultural groups. These stories of access to and (re)use of portable luxury goods speak to their ongoing efficacy in social life. Such luxury portable objects could be acquired through official, state-sponsored collection and redistribution of booty and tribute. Yet non-state sponsored activities like looting, scavenging, and salvaging also allowed for the dissemination of prestigious elite materials into alternative channels of circulation. The case studies presented here illustrate the diversity and complexity of interactions in the Iron Age Near East and Mediterranean.Less

Plato and Ribbons

Stephen G. Miller

in The Berkeley Plato: From Neglected Relic to Ancient Treasure, An Archaeological Detective Story

Plato was much involved with athletics. He repeatedly used the status of the Olympic victor as representing the happiest of lives and Olympia as the best place to be honored by the dedication of a ... More

Plato was much involved with athletics. He repeatedly used the status of the Olympic victor as representing the happiest of lives and Olympia as the best place to be honored by the dedication of a statue. Ribbons were not, however, restricted to athletic victories, even though they seem to have originated there. Other contexts for these ribbons are not so serious. One example is a kylix that has symposiasts around the exterior and a youth on the interior. Ribbons are also to be found in another athletic context: the palaistra and gymnasion—the schools of ancient Greece. Perhaps the most relevant depiction of ribbons in the palaistra, however, comes on a red-figure krater in Agrigento. Here, a herm is about to be crowned by a beribboned athlete while Nike brings a ribbon for the herm.Less

Inventing the Center

SUSAN GUETTEL COLE

in Landscapes, Gender, and Ritual Space: The Ancient Greek Experience

This chapter examines the concept of a centered polis nested within the broader networks organized around regional sanctuaries and the institutions of the prytaneion. Olympia is the only Greek site ... More

This chapter examines the concept of a centered polis nested within the broader networks organized around regional sanctuaries and the institutions of the prytaneion. Olympia is the only Greek site where both buildings commonly associated with a polis—a prytaneion and a bouleuterion—have actually been found, but Olympia was never itself a polis. The myth of Delphic centrality conveyed a message of security, in sharp opposition to the challenges faced by cities protecting a local landscape. The prytaneion was a place for creating male community and male solidarity. The movement from akropolis to prytaneion connects the procedures of the prytaneion with the most hallowed ritual site in the city and suggests that the segment at the prytaneion was the original reason for the entire sequence. The link between akropolis and prytaneion showed that the judicial procedures of the polis required the same divine protection as its physical spaces.Less