NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Theognis of Megara

Theognis of Megara (fl. 6th century BC) was an ancient Greek poet. More than half of the elegiac poetry of Greece before the Alexandrian period is included in the 1,400 lines ascribed to Theognis. (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 6th century BC started on January 1, 600 BC and ended on December 31, 501 BC. // Overview Monument 1, an Olmec colossal head at La Venta The 5th and 6th centuries BC were a time of empires, but more importantly, a... Ancient Greece is the period in Greek history which lasted for around one thousand years and ended with the rise of Christianity. ... A poet is some one who writes poetry. ... Elegiac refers either to those compositions that are like elegies or to a specific poetic meter used in Classical elegies. ... Alexander the Great fighting the Persian king Darius (Pompeii mosaic, from a 3rd century BC original Greek painting, now lost). ...

This collection contains several poems acknowledged to have been composed by Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus and Solon; with two exceptions (T.W. Allen in Classical Review, Nov. 1905, and E. Harrison); modern critics unanimously regard these elegies as intruders, that is, not admitted into his works by Theognis himself; for this and other reasons they assume the existence of further interpolations which we can no longer safely detect. Generations of students have exhausted their ingenuity in vain efforts to sift the true from the false and to account for the origin and date of the Theognidea as we possess them; the question is fully discussed in the works of Harrison and Hudson-Williams. Tyrtaeus was a Greek elegiac poet who lived at Sparta about the middle of the 7th century BC. According to the older tradition he was a native of the Attic deme of Aphidnae, and was invited to Sparta at the suggestion of the Delphic oracle to assist the Spartans in... Mimnermus of Colophon, Greek elegiac poet, flourished about 630-600 BC. His life fell in the troubled time when the Ionic cities of Asia Minor were struggling to maintain themselves against the rising power of the Lydian kings. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Elegies are the Morning Musume 2005 shuffle group consisting of Ai Takahashi and Reina Tanaka, along with Melon Kinenbis Ayumi Shibata and Country Musumes Mai Satoda. ... In the mathematical subfield of numerical analysis, interpolation is a method of constructing new data points from a discrete set of known data points. ...

The best-attested elegies are those addressed to Cyrnus, the young eromenos to whom Theognis imparts instruction in the ways of life, bidding him be true to the "good" cause, eschew the company of "evil" men (democrats), be loyal to his comrades, and wreak cruel vengeance on his foes. The poems are true to the pederastic theme in which the poet (and lover) is "cynical, quarrelsome, resentful, ever ready to accuse, but nevertheless helplessly devoted."[1] Theognis' pederasty is political and pedagogical — the elite male's method of passing on his wisdom and loyalties to his beloved.Andrew Lear, "The Idealization of Pederasty in Archaic Greek Poetry and Vase-Painting" In the pederastic tradition of Classical Athens, the eromenos (Greek á¼ÏÏŒÎ¼ÎµÎ½Î¿Ï‚, pl. ... Democracy (literally rule by the people, from the Greek demos, people, and kratos, rule) is a form of government for a nation state, or for an organization in which all the citizens have a vote or voice in shaping policy. ... Pederastic courtship scene Athenian black-figure amphora, 5th c. ...

Theognis lived at Megara on the Isthmus of Corinth during the democratic revolution in the 6th century BC; some critics hold that he witnessed the "Persian terror" of 590 BC and 580 BC; others place his floruit in 545 BC. We know little about his life; few of the details usually given in textbooks are capable of proof; we are not certain, for instance, that the poem (783-88) which mentions a visit to Sicily, Sparta and Euboea comes from the hand of Theognis himself; but that is of little concern, for we know the man. Megara (Greek: ÎœÎÎ³Î±ÏÎ±; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. ... The Isthmus of Corinth is the narrow landbridge which connects the Peloponnesos peninsula with the mainland of Greece, near the city of Corinth. ... Centuries: 7th century BC - 6th century BC - 5th century BC Decades: 640s BC 630s BC 620s BC 610s BC 600s BC - 590s BC - 580s BC 570s BC 560s BC 550s BC 540s BC Events and Trends 598 BC - Jehoaichin succeeds Jehoiakim as King of Judah 598 BC - Babylonians capture Jerusalem... Centuries: 7th century BC - 6th century BC - 5th century BC Decades: 620s BC - 610s BC - 600s BC - 590s BC - 580s BC - 570s BC - 560s BC - 550s BC - 540s BC - 530s BC Events and Trends 589 BC - Apries succeeds Psammetichus II as king of Egypt 588 BC _ Nebuchadnezzar II of... Centuries: 7th century BC - 6th century BC - 5th century BC Decades: 590s BC - 580s BC - 570s BC - 560s BC - 550s BC - 540s BC - 530s BC - 520s BC - 510s BC - 500s BC - 490s BC Events and Trends 548 BC -- Croesus, Lydian king, defeated by Cyrus. ... Sicily (Sicilia in Italian and Sicilian, Î£Î¹ÎºÎµÎ»Î¯Î± in Greek) is an autonomous region of Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, with an area of 25,700 sq. ... Sparta (Doric: , Attic: ) is a city in southern Greece. ... Euboea or Negropont (Modern Greek: Î•ÏÎ²Î¿Î¹Î± Evia, Ancient Greek Î•ÃºÎ²Î¿Î¹Î± EÃºboia; see also List of traditional Greek place names), is the largest island of the Greek archipelago. ...

Whether, with Harrison, we hold that Theognis wrote "all or nearly all the poems which are extant under his name" or follow the most ruthless of the higher critics (Sitzler) in rejecting all but 330 lines, there is abundant and unmistakable evidence to show what Theognis himself existed. However much extraneous matter may have wormed its way into the collection, he still remains the one main personality, and stands clearly before us, a living soul, quivering with passion and burning with political hate, the very embodiment of the faction-spirit (stasis) and all it implied in the tense city-state life of the ancient Greek. A city-state is a region controlled exclusively by a city. ...

There is neither profound thought nor sublime poetry in the work of Theognis; but it is full of sound common sense embodied in exquisitely simple, concise and well-balanced verse. As York Powell said, "Theognis was a great and wise man. He was an able exponent of that intensely practical wisdom which we associate with the 'Seven Sages of Greece.'" Had he lived a century later, he would probably have published his thoughts in prose; in his day verse was the recognized vehicle for political and ethical discussion, and the gnomic poets were in many ways the precursors of the philosophers and the sophists, who indeed often made their discourse turn on points raised by Theognis and his fellow-moralists. No treatment of the much-debated question "Can virtue be taught?" was regarded as complete without a reference to Theognis 35-36, which appears in Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Musonius Rufus and Clement of Alexandria, who aptly compares it with Psalm 18. Look up Common sense in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Verse is a writing that uses meter as its primary organisational mode, as opposed to prose, which uses grammatical and discoursal units like sentences and paragraphs. ... Frederick York Powell (January 4, 1850â€“May 8, 1904), English historian and scholar, was born in Bloomsbury, London. ... The Seven Sages (of Greece) (c. ... Politics is the process by which decisions are made within groups. ... Ethics is a general term for what is often described as the science (study) of morality. In philosophy, ethical behavior is that which is good or right. ... It has been suggested that Gnomic literature be merged into this article or section. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... Sophism was originally a term for the techniques taught by a highly respected group of philosophy and rhetoric teachers in ancient Greece. ... For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ... Xenophon, Greek historian Xenophon (In Greek , c. ... Aristotle (Greek: , AristotÃ©lÄ“s) (384 BC â€“ March 7, 322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ... Musonius Rufus, a Roman Stoic philosopher of the 1st century AD, was born in Volsinii, Etruria about AD 20-30. ... Clement of Alexandria (Titus Flavius Clemens), was the first member of the Church of Alexandria to be more than a name, and one of its most distinguished teachers. ... Psalms (Tehilim תהילים, in Hebrew) is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, and of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. ...

Besides the elegies to Cyrnus, the Theognidea comprise many maxims, laments on the degeneracy of the age and the woes of poverty, personal admonitions and challenges, invocations of the gods, songs for convivial gatherings and much else that may well have come from Theognis himself. The second section ("Musa Paedica") deals with the love of boys, and, with the exceptions already noted, scholars are at one in rejecting its claim to authenticity. Although some critics assign many elegies to a very late date, a careful examination of the language, vocabulary, versification and general trend of thought has convinced the author of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica article that practically the whole collection was composed before the Hellenistic period. Look up maxim in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A lament or dirge is a song or poem expressing grief or regret. ... A boy from an East Cipinang trash dump slum in Jakarta, Indonesia shows his find. ... (Redirected from 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica) The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ... The Hellenistic period of Greek history was the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the Greek peninsula and islands by Rome in 146 BC. Although the establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which...

Nietzsche and Theognis

Theognis is referenced in Nietzsche's Zur Genealogie Der Moral ("On The Genealogy Of Morality") in which he describes Theognis' apparent disdain for the "deceitful, common man" and the general decline of the nobility in his day. Nietzsche, as a professor of philology, was also influenced by Theognis' writings concerning the shift and change in the meaning of words.

We struggle onward, ignorant and blind,
For a result unknown and undesign’d;
Avoiding seeming ills, misunderstood,
Embracing evil as a seeming good.

Fragment LVIII (above) in particular provided some basis for the etymological theory mounted in Zur Genealogie Der Moral. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 - August 25, 1900) was a highly influential German philosopher. ... Philology is the study of ancient texts and languages. ...

Editions

August Immanuel Bekker (1815, 2nd ed. 1827)
Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (1826); both these are epoch-making books which no serious student can ignore
Theodor Bergk (1843, 4th ed. 1882; re-edited by E. Hiller, 1890, and Otto Crusius, 1897);
Jakob Sitzler (1880)
Ernest Harrison, Studies in Theognis (1902)
Thomas Hudson-Williams, The elegies of Theognis and other elegies included in the Theognidean sylloge, (1910).

Recent Teubner ed.: edited by Douglas Young after Ernest Diehl (1998) (ISBN 3-519-01036-4) August Immanuel Bekker (May 21, 1785 - June 7, 1871), was a German philologist and critic. ... Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (1784-1868), German philologist and archaeologist, was born at Grünberg in the grand duchy of Hesse. ... Theodor Bergk (1812-1881), German philologist, was born at Leipzig on May 22 1812. ... Ludwig Friedrich Otto Baumgarten-Crusius (1788 - May 31, 1842), German Protestant divine, was born at Merseburg. ... The covers of Bibliotheca Teubneriana Greek texts through the years: Philodemi De ira liber, ed. ...

Editions

See also