Transgression in ancient Greek society and culture
01: 190: 399 ~ Fall 2010
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Transgression in Ancient Greek Society and Culture
E. Allen-Hornblower ~ emiallen@rci.rutgers.edu
Violence. Obscenity. Gender roles. Punishment. What constituted a transgression in any of these
realms was defined very differently by the ancient Greeks than it is by us. This course invites
students to examine violations of cultural norm in ancient Greek practical, civic, religious, and
intellectual life, through close critical analysis of their myths, literature, laws, and rituals.
Course description and learning goals
 to provide the undergraduate student (both
classicist and non-classicist) with a better
understanding of ancient Greek culture through an
exploration of its implicitly and explicitly
established norms, and what was conceived to be a
transgression of these norms.
Method
 to apply an interdisciplinary approach to the artistic,
documentary and literary evidence at our disposal,
bringing into play modern theory and comparative
anthropology.
Corpus
 The corpus of texts and iconographic material
covered in this class ranges from the archaic Greek
period to the end of the Hellenistic period, covering
roughly the 1,000 years BCE, thus providing
students with an overview of the broader cultural,
historic and social framework and trends within
which the conceptions of boundary and
transgression evolved.

Topics range from the religious to the sexual, and
from the individual and bodily to the civic and
institutional.
Eugène Delacroix, Médée et ses fils. 1838, Louvre, Paris.
Course Requirements and Assessment:
 Regular attendance, homework submission, and active in-class participation: 30%

Prepared, informed contributions to class discussion based on close readings of
assignments – included in the 30% above
 10-15 minute quizzes (bi-weekly): 20%
 Midterm examination (1 class period): 20%
Transgression in ancient Greek society and culture
01: 190: 399 ~ Fall 2010

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Final examination: 30%
Office hours: Mondays 11:30am-1:30pm and by appointment.
Required reading: Most readings are included in the coursepack. Additional readings will be
posted on the course Sakai.
Course website:
 you will receive an invitation to the Sakai course website soon after our first class, on which
you will find the course syllabus and various links. Login with your RU netID username
and password. Our Sakai website will be the primary way in which I will communicate with
you outside of class. Throughout the term, resources and announcements will be posted to
this site. You will receive notification by e-mail each time a new item is posted, but you are
responsible for checking the website (the “Announcements” and “Resources” sections in
particular) very regularly, particularly if your email address tends to be unreliable and
assign Sakai messages to “Spam.” Go to our site to find anything you may have missed or
lost: syllabus, etc.
 For all course-related e-mail, please use your Rutgers e-mail account. You are responsible
for any information I send to that address. Check it frequently. As soon as possible,
exchange contact information with another student or students in the class. Use this in the
event that you have to miss a class, to find out what you missed and get the notes. Please let
me know in advance if you must miss a class for religious or medical reasons, and bring a
note from the doctor or dean’s office.
Week 1: (half-week)
Wed. Spt. 1: First meeting. Introduction to the course and its goals: theoretical framework and
basics of structural anthropology.
Week 2:
Mon. Spt. 6: LABOR DAY. NO CLASS.
Wednesday Spt. 8: Blood and Pollution. Readings: Aeschylus, Agamemnon; Choephori. Parker,
Miasma.
Week 3:
Monday Spt. 13: Purification: scape-goats and witch-hunts. Aeschylus, Eumenides. Sophocles,
Oedipus Tyrannus. Euripides, Orestes. Lysias 28 and 29.
Wednesday Spt. 15: Monstrosity and erotic transgression. Centaurs and Satyrs in vasepaintings, sculpture and myth: drunkenness, bestiality, and hyper-sexuality. Lissarrague, “The
Sexual Life of Satyrs.” Euripides, Cretans: selected fragments.
Week 4:
Monday Spt. 20: Institutionalizing and containing transgression: female initiation rituals. Vasepaintings: the bears of Brauron. Dodd and Faraone, Initiation in Ancient Greek Rituals and
Narratives. Marriage and Initiation. Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus.
Wednesday Spt. 22: Institutionalizing and containing transgression: male initiation rituals.
Ephebeia. Calame, C. “Indigenous and modern perspectives on tribal initiation rites: Education
according to Plato,” in M. W. Padilla (Ed.), Rites of passage in Ancient Greece: Literature, religion,
society.
Transgression in ancient Greek society and culture
01: 190: 399 ~ Fall 2010
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Week 5:
Monday Spt. 27: Human sacrifice: myth, ritual and anthropology. Euripides, Taurian Iphigeneia;
Iphigeneia at Aulis. Burkert, Homo Necans.
Wednesday Spt. 29: Sexuality: purity and pollution. Greek virginity, G. Sissa. From individual
transgression to collective menace: the Lemnian Women. Euripides’ Hypsipyle (selected
fragments). Hyginus; Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica I.
Week 6:
Monday Oct. 4: Sexuality: homosexuality. Excerpts from Sappho, Archilochus, Anacreon,
Theognis, and Hipponax. Dover, Greek Homosexuality. Erastês and erômenos in vase-painting.
Wednesday Oct. 6: Gender subversion: Women as men. The Amazons in myth and art.
Herodotus IV.110f. Centaurs and Amazons, du Bois. Euripides, Medea. Sophocles, Electra;
Trachinian Women. Additional selections from coursepack.
Week 7:
Monday Oct. 11: Gender subversion: Men as Women. Theater and gender-bending: Dionysos.
Zeitlin, Playing the Other. Euripides, Bacchae.
Wednesday Oct. 13: Obscenity: taboo language and ritual transgression. J. Henderson, The
Maculate Muse. Aristophanes, Lysistrata. Ritual aischrologia. Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae.
Week 8:
Monday Oct. 18: Violence within: murder or justice? Lysias XII, Against Eratosthenes.
Wednesday Oct. 20: MIDTERM EXAMINATION: see outline of what to review under course
Sakai “Announcement.”
Week 9:
Monday Oct. 25: Violence within: torture. Aristophanes, Frogs. Lycurgus, Against Leocrates, 29.
D. M. MacDowell, The Law in Classical Athens.
Wednesday Oct. 27: Violence without: the polis at war. Defining boundaries and the war crime.
Thucydides, Mytilenian debate (book III) and Melian dialogue (book V) of the Peloponnesian War.
H. van Wees, War and Violence in ancient Greece.
Week 10:
Monday Nov. 1: Human and Divine: Bridging the gap. Iliad V. J.P. Vernant, Mortals and
Immortals.
Wednesday Nov. 3: Human and Divine: punishment for transgression. Selections from myth in
coursepack: vase-paintings. Hesiod, Works and Days. Euripides, Hippolytus. Callimachus, Bath of
Pallas.
Week 11:
Monday Nov. 8: Bodily transgression: nudity. Men vs. women, gods vs. mortals: nudity in vasepainting and sculpture from the archaic to the hellenistic periods. A. Kolowski-Otrow, Women,
Sexuality and Gender in Classical Art and Archaeology.
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Wednesday Nov. 10: Bodily transgression: rape. Susan Deacy and Karen Pierce, eds. Rape in
Antiquity: Sexual Violence in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Erotica on Attic red-figure cases.
Selections from the Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology.
Week 12:
Monday Nov. 15: Bodily transgression: hermaphrodites. M. Delcourt, Hermaphrodite. Plato’s
Symposium. Greek and Roman hermaphroditic statues. The myth of Tiresias. Bisexual Eros in
orphic cosmogonies.
Wednesday Nov. 17: Mental transgression: notions of madness as penetration of the mind or
invasion of the senses by gods. Padel, In and out of the Mind. Sophocles, Ajax.
Week 13:
Monday Nov. 22: Spatial Transgression: Sacred spaces and hybris. Herodotus I, VII. Aeschylus,
Persians. Lysias VII.
Wednesday Nov. 24: THANKSGIVING RECESS – NO CLASS.
Week 14:
Monday Nov. 29: Status transgression. Herodotus I: Cresus; Herodotus IX: Xerxes. Fisher, N. R.
E. 1992. Hybris: A Study in the Values of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greece.
Wednesday Dec. 1: Status transgression: divine and mortal punishment. Euripides, Bacchae.
Prometheus, Tantalus, Sisyphus: selections from the Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology.
Week 15:
Monday Dec. 6: Spatial Transgression: entering the realm of the Dead. The Underworld. Ghosts.
Odyssey XI, Aeneid VI. Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
Wednesday Dec.8: Conclusions.
Week 16:
Monday Dec. 13: In-class review for final examination.
FINAL EXAMINATION:
The final exam will occur during exam period at the time scheduled by the registrar’s office.
We will confirm date, time and place early in the semester.