preview

Ancient Greek Culture Research Paper

Good Essays

Ancient Greek culture was a culture of poets, philosophers, warriors, and most importantly of all: athletes. As most young men today would wake up in the morning and go to school, young men from ancient Greece would wake up and go to their city’s gymnasium where they would workout and prepare for the highlight of every ancient Greek persons life: the ancient Olympic Games. The Olympic Games was an event so grand that it could be compared to the modern day Super Bowl, Thanksgiving, and Macy’s day parade put together! The ancient Olympic Games were also highly representative of ancient Greek culture at the time of its occurrence. These similarities were seen through many ways such as expressing the already established rivalry between Greek city-states, …show more content…

However, these parties weren't just an excuse to get drunk and dance on tables, but a way to wine, dine and engage in organized conversations-some parties even had conversation guides who would direct a conversation and be in charge of the topics to be discussed at the party/banquets (Perrottet, 119). The ancient Greek culture of partying was heavily incorporated into the Olympic Games. The feasts during the Olympic Games had a plethora of Greek dishes, erotic dancing, thoughtful conversations, and at the end of the night-fine wine, accompanied with other worldly pleasures (Perrottet, 119). The Fringe was another aspect of the Olympic Games that brought partying to a whole new level. Streets were covered with tents that individual merchants/entertainers had set up. There were acrobats, brothels, dancers, sword swallowers, and even professional storytellers (Perrottet, 74). The sex market was also an integral part of the Olympic Festival. “Pornai”, or buyable women, were quite in demand for the Olympic Games. Ancient Greek’s believed in the notion that having relations with prostitutes during religious celebrations would strengthen monogamy during the rest of the year (Perrottet, 76). In fact, prostitution was such a huge part of the festival that merchant ships arriving from Asia Minor and Egypt every four years carried cargoes of women instead of wine! (Perrottet, 77). Additionally, there were different types of prostitutes that men could …show more content…

The role (or lack thereof) of women during the Games was much comparable to actual ancient Greek life for females. In Greek society, women were only seen as a necessity to produce male heirs and were treated like dependents- a necessary burden. This notion was highlighted by the role of women during the Games. Married women weren't allowed in the Stadiums to watch the events due to ancient Greece’s “conservative” morales. This rule was highly important because if a married woman was found inside any of the athletic events, it would be punishable by death, more specifically, being flung off a cliff. Unmarried women, however, were allowed to attend events. In fact, many fathers would bring their unmarried daughters to find a victor to marry them off to. The Games were a very good representation of the limits that were put on Greek women in their day to day lives. While married women watched the Games from afar (on top of a mountain), their husbands were off having sexual relations with other women, drinking, and watching the Olympians among the roaring and exhilarating crowd. Since the Games occurred during ancient times and was held in the ancient Greek city-state of Olympia, every notion of the existing culture in Greek society was present in the Games. Occasionally, you would get a cynic such as Peregrinus (Perrottet, 184) who would say that the

Get Access