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Ithaca, New York

Ithaca, New York

The city of Ithaca (named for the Greek island of Ithaca in Homer's Odyssey) sits on the southern shores of Cayuga Lake, in Central New York.

Setting

Central New York The valley in which Cayuga Lake is located is long and narrow, with a north-south orientation. Ithaca was founded on flat land just south of the lake — land that formed in fairly recent geological times when silt filled the southern end of the lake. The city ultimately spread to the adjacent hillsides, which rise several hundred feet above the central flats: East Hill, West Hill, and South Hill. Its sides are fairly steep, and a number of the streams that flow into the valley from east or west have cut deep gorges, usually with several waterfalls. Ithaca experiences a moderate continental climate, with cold, snowy winters and sometimes hot and humid summers. The valley flatland has slightly milder weather in winter, and occasionally Ithacans experience simultaneous snow on the hills and rain in the valley. The natural vegetation of the Ithaca area, seen in areas unbuilt and unfarmed, is northern temperate broadleaf forest, dominated by deciduous trees. Among these, maples are particularly common. Steep hillsides seen from a distance resemble a curtain of green from late May through September, show bright fall colors in October, and are a display of gray trunks and branches, often with a white snowy background, from November through early May. The region surrounding Ithaca is dotted with numerous wineries, many of which specialize in the native Labrusca grape varietals, although more and more vintners have started to focus upon the classic Vinifera styles such as Riesling and Cabernet Franc. Despite the relatively short growing season in the Finger Lakes American Viticultural Area, vineyards can flourish due to the microclimates created by the impact of the lakes. microclimates

The life of the city

The economy of Ithaca is based on education and tourism, with some manufacturing. The city is home to Cornell University, which overlooks the town from East Hill, and Ithaca College, similarly situated on South Hill.　The student population is very high, as almost 20,000 students are enrolled at Cornell, with an additional 6,300 students at Ithaca College. The Ithaca City School District, which encompasses Ithaca and the surrounding area, enrolls about 5,500 K-12 students in eight elementary schools, two middle schools, Ithaca High School, and the Lehman Alternative Community School, which provides its students wide-ranging freedom to choose their own curriculum, occasionally resulting in controversy over political content in academic events. Tourists come largely for the natural scenery, including three gorges within the city limits and three in nearby state parks. Visitors also enjoy Cayuga Lake, hiking trails, and visits to wineries in lakeside vineyards found north and west of the city. With some level of success, Ithaca has tried to maintain a traditional downtown shopping area that includes the Ithaca Commons pedestrian mall and Center Ithaca, a small mixed-use complex built at the end of the urban renewal era. Therefore, some in the community regret that downtown has lost vitality to two expanding commercial zones to the northeast and southwest of the old city. These areas contain an increasing number of large retail stores and restaurants run by national chains. Others say the chain stores boost local shopping options for residents considerably, many of whom would have previously shopped elsewhere, while increasing sales tax revenue for the city and county. The tradeoff between sprawl and economic development continues to be debated throughout the city and the surrounding area. (Another commercial center, Collegetown, is located next to the Cornell campus. It features a number of restaurants, shops, and bars, and an increasing number of high rise apartments.) Ithacans support a popular farmer's market[http://www.ithacamarket.com/home.php], professional theaters[http://www.kitchentheatre.org],[http://www.hangartheatre.org],[http://www.icarustheatre.com], a civic orchestra, much parkland, a [http://www.sciencenter.org/ science museum] for children, and a new [http://www.priweb.org/museumoftheearth/index.html paleontological museum]. Ithaca is noted for its annual artistic celebration of community: The Ithaca Festival[http://www.ithacafestival.org]. (The Ithaca Festival Parade[http://www.ithacafestival.org/about/parade.htm] and Circus Eccentrithaca[http://www.ithacafestival.org/about/circus.htm] are legendary!) Another gem is the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts [http://www.saltonstall.org] which provides grants and Summer Fellowships at the Saltonstall Arts Colony for NYS artists and writers. Ithaca also hosts what is described as the third-largest used-book sale in the United States. used-book sale Politically, the city's population has a strong liberal Democrat political tilt, standing in stark contrast to the more conservative leanings of the region of Upstate New York that surrounds it. Ithaca is known for its amazing variety of liberal groups and activities. Ithaca has many of the businesses characteristic of small American university towns: used bookstores, art house cinemas, craft stores, and vegetarian restaurants. The collective Moosewood Restaurant, founded in 1973, was the wellspring for a number of vegetarian cookbooks; Bon Appetit magazine ranked it among the thirteen most influential restaurants of the twentieth century. The dominant local newspaper in Ithaca is a morning daily, the Ithaca Journal, founded 1815. The paper is owned by Gannett, Inc., publishers of USA Today. Other local print publications include the Ithaca Times, the Cornell Daily Sun, the Ithacan, and the Tattler. (The latter three are run by student staffs at Cornell University, Ithaca College, and Ithaca High School, respectively.) Local residents often subscribe to out-of-town papers as well. The Post Standard of Syracuse and the New York Times are popular among many community members. Ithaca has also pioneered the Ithaca Health Fund, a popular cooperative health insurance. Ithaca is also home to one of the United States' first local currency systems, Ithaca Hours

Local government

The name "Ithaca" actually designates two governmental entities in the area. The Town of Ithaca is one of the nine towns comprised by Tompkins County. ("Towns" in New York are something like townships in other states; every county outside New York City is subdivided into towns.) The City of Ithaca is surrounded by, but legally independent of, the Town of Ithaca. Other non-municipal areas within the Town of Ithaca identified by the US Census Bureau as census-designated places are:
- East Ithaca
- Forest Home
- Northeast Ithaca
- Northwest Ithaca
- South Hill In addition, the Town of Ithaca contains the Village of Cayuga Heights, a small incorporated upper-middle class suburb located to the northeast of the City of Ithaca. The Town of Ithaca is bordered by other towns of Tompkins County as follows:
- Enfield to the west
- Ulysses to the northwest
- Lansing to the northeast
- Dryden to the east
- Danby to the south
- Newfield to the southwest Newfield The majority of local property taxes are actually assessed by an entirely independent agency with entirely different borders, the Ithaca City School District.

Population and income figures

For census and income data on the two municipalities called "Ithaca" see Ithaca (city), New York and Ithaca (town), New York.

Transportation

Ithaca (town), New York Ithaca is in the rural Finger Lakes region about 250 miles to the northwest of New York City; the nearest larger cities, Binghamton and Syracuse, are an hour's drive away by car. Ithaca is served by Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport, located about three miles to the northeast of the city center. US Airways Express offers flights to New York LaGuardia and Philadelphia using a mixture of small jets and propeller craft. Northwest Airlink provides twice-daily service to Detroit Metro airport. Many residents travel to Syracuse Hancock International Airport, Greater Binghamton Airport, Elmira-Corning Regional Airport or Greater Rochester International Airport for more service options. Ithaca lies at over a half hour's drive from any interstate highway, and all car trips to Ithaca involve at least some driving on two-lane state rural highways. The city is at the convergence of many regional two-lane state highways: Routes 13, 13A, 34, 79, 89, 96, 96B, and 366. These are usually not congested except in Ithaca proper. There is frequent intercity bus service by Greyhound, Adirondack Trailways, and Shortline (First Transit), particularly to New York City. Ithaca is the center of an extensive bus public transportation system — [http://www.tcatbus.com Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit] (TCAT) — which carried 2.8 million passengers in 2004. TCAT was reorganized as a non-profit corporation in 2004 and is primarily supported locally by Cornell University, the City of Ithaca and Tompkins County. TCAT operates thirty nine routes, many run seven days a week. It has very frequent service to Cornell, Pyramid Mall, and downtown, but less frequent service to many residental areas. GADABOUT Transportation Services, Inc. provides demand -response paratransit service for seniors over 60 and people with disabilities. [http://www.ithacataxi.biz/ Ithaca Dispatch]and Finger Lakes Taxi provide local and regional taxi service. Ithaca Airline Limousine connects to the airport. Regional short haul freight trains use the valley's rails, mainly to deliver coal to the Milliken Power Station. There is no passenger rail service (although in the 19th century there were no less than four lines).

Problems faced by the city

Although Ithaca is considered by many to be a very desirable place to live, it also faces some problems. One key problem is transportation. As a growing urban area, Ithaca is facing rapid increases in levels of vehicular traffic on the city grid and on the state highways. Many areas are still poorly served by the bus system (including the airport), and most people consider a car essential. Ithaca is one of a few small urbanized areas in the US without direct access to the American Interstate highway system. At one point, it was planned to convert Route 13 from Horseheads to Cortland through Ithaca into an expressway (it is currently an expressway only for three miles heading north from Ithaca), but the plan quickly fell out of favor. Occasionally suggestions or proposals to connect Ithaca to the Interstate system still are made, but it seems highly unlikely that this would happen any time in the foreseeable future. The City's emphasis is on traffic management and better using the existing road capacity rather than building new roads. New road-building in any of the congested areas would require substantial condemnation of private property. Some pro-highway critics have argued that this is an ineffective means of dealing with increasing traffic congestion, especially in the City's West end. The [http://www.tompkins-co.org/itctc/ Ithaca-Tompkins County Transportation Council] is the coordinating body for federal and state funded transportation projects covering Ithaca. One positive trend for the health of downtown Ithaca is the new wave of increasing urban density in and around the Ithaca Commons. But as multi-story mixed-use projects (of offices, hotels, shops, parking and residences) are built, traffic congestion around the Commons will progressively increase. Retail development trends in the city have created traffic pressure in neighborhoods. In the late 1990's, the City decided to encourage "big box" retail development in an area known as the Southwest. To influence traffic traveling through neighborhoods, the [http://ithaca.govoffice.com/index.asp?Type=NONE&SEC= City Government] adopted traffic plans to introduce traffic calming elements on City roads including, traffic tables at intersections, mini traffic circles, traffic humps, and a traffic rotary. (These “traffic calming devices” are unpopular among many drivers from Ithaca and the surrounding areas, and are a common local subject of criticism and satire.) The City also rebuilt a long-absent road bridge over Six Mile Creek. In 2005, Mayor Peterson emphasized pedestrian and bicycle circulation, safety education and traffic enforcement. Highly publicized pedestrian-vehicle and bicycle-vehicle accidents have focused attention on these traffic conflicts. Underfunding of sidewalk construction and maintenance are basic pedestrian infrastructure issues facing the City. The near-disappearance of grocery stores from neighborhood areas (replaced by larger stores in the commercial strips) has made it harder for Ithacans without cars to shop for food. For decades, the Ithaca Gun Company dumped lead near Fall Creek (a tributary of Cayuga Lake) and Ithaca Falls. A major clean-up effort sponsored by the United States Superfund took place from 2002 to 2004. There have been recent significant increases in property values in the City. House shopping is very competitive.

History

The original inhabitants of the Ithaca area were the Cayuga Indians, who formed part of the Iroquois confederation. They were driven from the area by the Sullivan Expedition, which opened the region to settlement by people of European origin, a process which began in 1789. In 1790, an official program began for distributing land in the area as a reward for service to the American soldiers of the Revolutionary War; most local land titles trace back to the Revolutionary war grants. As part of this process, the majority of the Finger Lakes region was surveyed by Simeon DeWitt, who had a fondness for ancient Greek and Roman history. He got to name everything he surveyed, and this is how the city received the name Ithaca, after the Greek island home to Odysseus. Many of the towns in the region retain the ancient Greek and Roman names he gave them, including Syracuse and Troy. Perhaps because of the name, The Odyssey is routinely taught to elementary school students in the Ithaca area. In the 1820s and 1830, Ithacans held high hopes of becoming a major city, during a canal and railroad boom. These hopes collapsed in the depression of 1837, and the city has always remained small. Cornell University was founded by Ezra Cornell in 1865. It was coeducational from its inception, which was extremely unusual at the time. Ezra Cornell also established a [http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/presidents/view_item.php?sec=2&sub=5 public library] for the city. Ithaca College was founded as the Ithaca Conservatory of Music in 1892. During the early 20th century, Ithaca was an important center in the silent film industry. The most common type of film produced was the cliffhanger serial, and the films often featured the local natural scenery. Eventually the film industry centralized in Hollywood, which offered the possibility of year-round filming, and film production in Ithaca effectively ceased. Few of the silent films made in Ithaca are preserved today.

"Most Enlightened Town in America"

Ithaca is commonly listed among the most culturally liberal and enlightened of American cities. In 2004, Cities Ranked and Rated named Ithaca the best "emerging city" to live in the United States (although some have criticized the book's methodologies.) The Utne Reader named Ithaca "America's most enlightened town" in 1997 [http://cafeutne.org/towns/ithaca.html]. These designations have at times polarized local residents: some note the recognition with pride, while others see it as an indication of decadence.

"Sin City"

In its early years, Ithaca had a less savory reputation. It was known as [http://www.wlcj.org/nys/ERIE/ithaca.html "Sin City"], and carried the name of the Biblical city of sin [http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=922 "Sodom"] in frontier days, due to its reputation as a town of readily-available loose pleasures. One the many gorgeous nearby waterfalls is known locally as [http://www.ithacanews.org/lucifer.html Lucifer Falls], adding informally to the city's former alleged association with the Dark Side. The name didn't last long; Simeon Dewitt renamed the town Ithaca in the early 1800s, as part of his renaming of most of the Finger Lakes region. Dark Side Nevertheless, old names stick around; a remnant of one of the old routes into the city retains the name [http://maps.yahoo.com/maps_result?addr=sodom+rd&csz=ithaca%2C+ny&country=us&new=1&name=&qty= "Sodom Road"] to this day.
- [http://www.wlcj.org/nys/ERIE/ithaca.html Sodom, Sin City] (Women's League for Conservative Judiasm)
- [http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/state/his/bk7/ch7.html Sodom, The Flats, The City] (History of NY State, Tompkins Cty)
- [http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=922 Sodom, The Flats] (Ithaca NY Community Profile)
- [http://waterfront.data3m.com/?t=76 Sodom, The Flats, The City] (Cayuga Waterfront Trail - History)

Notable residents and natives


- A.R. Ammons, resident, poet
- Hans Bethe, resident, physicist, Nobel Prize winner, head of theoretical division of the Manhattan Project
- Adam C. Engst, native, resident, publisher of TidBITS and Take Control ebook series
- Richard Feynman, resident, physicist, Nobel Prize winner
- Alex Haley, native, author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and the Autobiography of Malcolm X
- Karel Husa, resident, composer
- Steven Stucky, resident, classical american composer. Professor of composition at Cornell University. Winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Music Composition
- Vladimir Nabokov, resident, author (most famously of Lolita)
- Roy H. Park, resident, media executive, founder of Park Communications and the Park Foundation
- Carl Sagan, resident, astronomer, popularizer of science, and author and host of Cosmos
- Rod Serling, resident, screenwriter, creator and host of The Twilight Zone
- Steve Squyres, resident, astronomer
- David Foster Wallace, native, novelist
- Robert R. Wilson, resident, physicist
- Paul Wolfowitz, native, academic, Deputy Secretary of Defense (2001-2005), World Bank President (2005-)

External links


- [http://www.ci.ithaca.ny.us/ City of Ithaca's municipal Web site]
- [http://www.wikitravel.org/en/article/Ithaca Wikitravel article on Ithaca]
- [http://www.sciencenter.org/SaganPW/ Carl Sagan Planet Walk] Category:Cities in New York Category:Tompkins County, New York Category:University towns Category:Ithaca, New York

Greece

Greece, (Greek: Ελλάδα, older form: Ελλάς, Hellas), officially the Hellenic Republic (Greek: Ελληνική Δημοκρατία, Ellinikí Dimokratía; see also List of traditional Greek place names), is a country in southern Europe on the tip of the Balkan peninsula. It has land boundaries with Bulgaria, The Republic of Macedonia, and Albania to the north and with Turkey to the east. The waters of the Aegean Sea border Greece to the east, and those of the Ionian and Mediterranean Sea to the west and south. Regarded by many as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, Greece has a long and rich history during which its culture has proven especially influential in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Name

Main article: Names of the Greeks The historical name of Greece in Greek is Ellás . This name is also written Hellas in English, following the ancient Greek pronunciation . In modern Greek it is called more commonly Ελλάδα Elládha . The mythical ancestor of the Greeks is the eponymous Hellen. The name of Greece in European languages (English: Greece, French: Grèce, Portuguese: Grécia, Spanish and Italian: Grecia, Welsh: Groeg, German: Griechenland, Dutch: Griekenland, Russian: Греция, etc.) comes from a different root: Graikós (via Latin Graecus) which according to Aristotle was an ancient name for the Greeks. The Japanese name is ギリシャ (Girisha), lent from European languages. On the other hand, the name of Greece in some Middle Eastern and Eastern languages (Turkish: Yunanistan, Arabic: يونان, Hebrew: יוון, ancient Persian: Yaunâ, Indian Pali: Yona, Malay and Indonesian: Yunani) derives from the Greek toponym Iōnía. Norwegian, Chinese (希腊 Xila) and Vietnamese are three of the few languages apart from Greek in which the name Hellas predominates. An interesting and unique form is kept in Georgian. In ancient times, Georgians (Colchs and Iberians) called Greeks ბერძენი berdzeni. This form derives from the Georgian word ბრძენი brdzeni – wise. According to Georgian historians, the name is connected with the notion that philosophy was born in Greece. Modern Georgians still call Greeks ბერძენი berdzeni and Greece საბერძნეთი saberdznet'i, 'Greeks' land' or literally 'land of the wise'. Some Greeks prefer the name Hellas for the country and Hellenes for the people even in English. See Hellenes for discussion.

History

Hellenes Main Article: History of Greece.

Prehistory and antiquity

The shores of Greece's Aegean Sea saw the emergence of the first civilizations in Europe, namely the Minoan and the Mycenaean. After these, a Dark Age followed until around 800 BC, when a new era of Greek city-states emerged establishing colonies along the Mediterranean. Greek culture would later become the basis of the Hellenistic civilization that followed the empire of Alexander the Great. For a detailed history of Ancient Greece see the relevant articles in: History of Greece.

Roman rule and Middle Ages

Militarily, Greece itself declined to the point that the Romans conquered the land (168 BC onwards), though, in many ways, Greek culture would in turn conquer Roman life. Greece became a province of the Roman Empire, but Greek culture continued to dominate the eastern Mediterranean. When the Roman Empire finally split in two, the Eastern Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire, centered around Constantinople (known in ancient times as Byzantium), remained Greek in nature, encompassing Greece itself. From the 4th century to the 15th century, the Byzantine Empire survived eleven centuries of attacks from the north, west and east until Constantinople fell on May 29 1453 to the Ottoman Empire, when Constantine XI, the last emperor of the Palaeologus dynasty, fell. Greece was gradually conquered by the Ottomans during the 15th century.

Ottoman rule

While the Ottomans completed the conquest of the Greek Mainland, two Greek migrations occurred. The first migration saw the Greek intelligentsia migrate to Western Europe and contribute to the advent of the Renaissance. The second migration of Greeks left the plains of the Greek peninsula and resettled in the mountains. The Ottomans were unable to create a permanent military and administrative presence in these mountainous regions. As a result some Greek mountain clans across the peninsula, as well as some islands, were able to maintain a status of independence. The Sphakiots of Crete, the Souliots from Souli of Epirus, and the Maniots from Mani of Peloponnesus were the most resilient mountain clans throughout the Ottoman Empire. By the end of the 16th century and until the 17th century, Greeks began to migrate back to the plains and cities, adding to the increasing urban population. The millet system contributed to the ethnic cohesion of Orthodox Greeks by segregating the various peoples within the Ottoman Empire based on religion. The Orthodox Church, a religious institution with a strong national character, helped the Greeks from all geographical areas of the peninsula (i.e. mountains, plains, and islands) to preserve their ethnic, cultural and linguistic heritage during the years of the Ottoman rule (although at the time it was not stictly speaking a "Greek" church - the Greek Church was instituted after the liberation). The Greeks who remained on the plains during Ottoman occupation were either Christians, who dealt with the burdens of foreign rule, or to a considerable extent Crypto-Christians (Greeks Muslims who were secret practitioners of the Orthodox faith) in order to avoid heavy taxation. The Greeks who converted to Islam and were not Crypto-Christians became Turks in the eyes of Orthodox Greeks. There were no "Greek Muslims", and no "Christian Turks". As a result, religion played an integral part in the formation of the Modern Greek and other post-Ottoman national identities. Turks

Creation of the modern Greek state

The Ottomans ruled Greece until the early 19th century. In 1821, the Greeks rebelled and declared their independence, but did not succeed in winning it until 1829. The elites of powerful European nations saw the war of Greek independence, with its accounts of Turkish atrocities, in a romantic light (see, for example, the 1824 painting the Massacre of Chios by Eugène Delacroix). Scores of non-Greeks volunteered to fight for the cause — including people like Lord Byron. At times the Ottomans seemed on the verge of entirely suppressing the Greek revolution but were eventually forced to give in by the direct military intervention of France, Great Britain and Russia. This was the prelude of the so called "Eastern Question", the gradual dismemberment of the decaying empire by the western powers. The Russian ex-minister of foreign affairs, Ioannis Kapodistrias, himself a Greek, actually a noble from the Ionian Islands, a British protectorate in the Ionian Sea, was chosen as President of the new Republic following Greek independence. That republic disappeared when a few years later Western powers helped turn Greece into a monarchy, the first king coming from Bavaria and the second from Denmark. During the 19th and especially the early 20th centuries, in a series of wars with the Ottomans, Greece sought to enlarge its boundaries to include the ethnic Greek population of the Ottoman Empire (the Ionian State however was donated by Britain upon the arrival of the new king from Denmark in 1863, and Thessaly was ceded by the Ottomans without a fight). Greece would slowly grow in territory and population until reaching its present configuration in 1947. In World War I, Greece sided with the entente powers against Turkey and the other Central Powers. In the war's aftermath, the Great Powers awarded parts of Asia Minor to Greece, including the city of Smyrna (known as Izmir today) which had a large Greek population. At that time, however, the Turkish nationalists, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, denounced the Sultan's government in Istanbul and organised a new one in Ankara. During the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) the Turks eventually defeated the Greek armies and regained control of Asia Minor. Soon afterwards, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed, fixing the borders to this date. A population exchange was included in the agreement and immediately afterwards, hundreds of thousands of Turks then living in mainland Greek territory left for Turkey in exchange for about a million Greeks living in Turkey. The refugees from Asia Minor revived the population, provided cheap labour and hellenized the now depopulated regions, especially in Macedonia. In 1936, General Ioannis Metaxas established an authoritarian conservative dictatorship in Greece, seen as similar to Antonio Salazar's "New State". Greece under Metaxas is also compared to Spain at the time, although it lacked the political violence associated with Francisco Franco's regime. Despite the country's numerically small and ill-equipped armed forces, Greece made an important contribution to the Allied efforts in World War II. At the start of the war Greece sided with the Allies and refused to give in to Italian demands (see Oxi Day). Italy invaded Greece on 28 October 1940, but Greek troops repelled the invaders after a bitter struggle (see Greco-Italian War). This marked the first Allied victory in the war. Hitler then reluctantly stepped in, primarily to secure his strategic southern flank. Troops from Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Italy successfully invaded Greece, overcoming Greek, British, Australian, and New Zealand units within weeks. To reduce the threat of a counter-offensive by Allied forces in Egypt, the Germans attempted to seize Crete in a massive attack by paratroops. Allied forces, along with Cretan civilians, however, offered fierce resistance. Although Crete eventually fell, it is pointed out by historians that this, and the whole Greek campaign, delayed German plans significantly, with the result that the German invasion of the Soviet Union started fatally close to winter. During the years of Nazi occupation, hundreds of thousands of Greeks died in direct combat, in concentration camps, or of starvation. The occupiers murdered the greater part of the Jewish community despite efforts by the Greek Orthodox Church and many Christian Greeks to shelter Jews. The Greek economy languished. After liberation, Greece experienced an equally bitter Greek Civil War between the communist-led Democratic Army and the Hellenic Army that lasted until 1949, when the communists were defeated in the battle of Grammos-Vitsi. In the 1950s and 1960s, Greece continued to develop slowly with grants and loans through the Marshall Plan, and later through growth, notably in the tourism sector. In 1967, the Greek military seized power in a coup d'état and overthrew the conservative government of Panayiotis Kanellopoulos which had been preparing a general election set for May 28. The military established what became known as the Régime of the Colonels. In 1973, the régime abolished the Greek monarchy. In October 1973, George Papadopoulos appointed politician Spiros Markezinis as Prime Minister, with a mission undertake a transition to parliamentary democracy. Following the events of the Athens Polytechnic uprising, Papadopoulos and Markezinis were overthrown by a countercoup headed by junta hardliner Brigadier Ioannides on November 25, 1973. A new president, Phaedon Ghizikis, and a new Prime Minister, Adamantios Androutsopoulos, were appointed. Ioannides organised a military coup against President Makarios of Cyprus, which was considered a pretext for the first Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and the resulting crisis between Greece and Turkey. Escalation in Cyprus led to the implosion of the military régime. Ex-premier Konstantinos Karamanlis was invited from Paris as interim prime minister under President Ghizikis. He later gained re-election for two further terms at the head of the conservative Nea Dimokratia party, which he founded. In 1975, following a referendum to confirm the deposition of King Constantine II, a democratic republican constitution came into force. Another previously exiled politician, Andreas Papandreou also returned and founded the socialist PASOK party, which won the elections in 1981 and dominated the country's political course for almost two decades. Since the restoration of democracy, the stability and economic prosperity of Greece have grown. Greece joined the European Union in 1981 and adopted the Euro as its currency in 2001. New infrastructure, funds from the EU and growing revenues from tourism, shipping, services, light industry, and the telecommunications industry have greatly raised the standard of living in Greece. Tensions continue to exist between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus and the delimitation of borders in the Aegean Sea, but relations have thawed considerably following successive earthquakes - first in Turkey and then in Greece - and an outpouring of sympathy and generous assistance by ordinary Greeks and Turks. This is in stark contrast to decades of hostility between these two countries, which saw repeated threats of war. Even though both were members of NATO, at times more than half of the entire Greek military was positioned against Turkey. In recent years, Greece has become one of the chief advocates of Turkey's application to join the European Union. The 2004 Summer Olympic Games were held in Athens, returning to Greece for the first time since their modern inception in 1896. Despite widespread initial concerns over the city's ability to meet construction deadlines as well as over its ability to handle a potential terrorist threat, the Athens Games were widely praised as a success [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3610014.stm].

Politics

Main article: Politics of Greece The 1975 constitution includes extensive specific guarantees of civil liberties. The President of the Republic, elected by an increased majority of the Parliament for a term of five years, is nominally the Head of State. However, it is the prime minister and cabinet that play the central role in the political process, while the president performs very limited governmental functions, in addition to ceremonial duties. Greeks elect the 300 members of the country's unicameral parliament (the Vouli ton Ellinon) by secret ballot for a maximum of four years, but elections can occur at more frequent intervals. Greece uses a complex reinforced proportional representation electoral system which discourages splinter parties and ensures that the party which leads in the national vote will win a majority of seats. A party must receive 3% of the total national vote to gain representation. Greek parliamentary politics hinge upon the principle of the "dedilomeni", the "declared confidence" of Parliament to the Prime Minister and his/her administration. This means that the President of the Republic is bound to appoint as Prime Minister a person who will be approved by a majority of the Parilament's members (i.e. 151 votes). With the current electoral system, it is the leader of the party gaining a plurality of the votes in the Parliamentary elections who gets appointed Prime Minister. An administration may, at any time, seek a "vote of confidence"; conversely, a number of Members of Parilament may ask that a "vote of reproach" be taken. Both are rare occurrences with usually predictable outcomes as voting outside the party line happens very seldom. For a list of Greek political parties, see List of political parties in Greece.

Local government

Main article: Peripheries of Greece Peripheries of Greece Peripheries of Greece Peripheries of Greece Greece consists of 13 administrative regions known as peripheries, which subdivide further into the 51 prefectures (nomoi, singular - nomos):

- Attica:
  - Attica
- Central Greece:
  - Boeotia
  - Euboea
  - Evrytania
  - Phocis
  - Phthiotis
- Central Macedonia
  - Chalcidice
  - Imathia
  - Kilkis
  - Pella
  - Pieria
  - Serres
  - Thessaloniki
- Crete
  - Chania
  - Heraklion
  - Lasithi
  - Rethymno
- East Macedonia and Thrace
  - Drama
  - Evros
  - Kavala
  - Rhodope
  - Xanthi
- Epirus
  - Arta
  - Ioannina
  - Preveza
  - Thesprotia
- Ionian Islands
  - Corfu
  - Kefalonia
  - Lefkada
  - Zakynthos
- North Aegean
  - Chios
  - Lesbos
  - Samos
- Peloponnese
  - Arcadia
  - Argolis
  - Corinthia
  - Laconia
  - Messinia
- South Aegean
  - Cyclades
  - Dodecanese
- Thessaly
  - Karditsa
  - Larissa
  - Magnesia
  - Trikala
- West Greece
  - Achaea
  - Aetolia-Acarnania
  - Elis
- West Macedonia
  - Florina
  - Grevena
  - Kastoria
  - Kozani
Beyond these one autonomous region exists: Mount Athos (Agio Oros - Holy Mountain), a monastic state under Greek sovereignty. The 51 nomoi subdivide into 147 eparchies (singular eparchia), which contain 1,033 municipalities and communities: 900 urban municipalities (demoi) and 133 rural communities (koinotetes). Before 1999, Greece's local government structure featured 5,775 local authorities: 457 demoi and 5,318 koinotetes, subdivided into 12,817 localities (oikosmoi).

Geography

Main article: Geography of Greece Geography of Greece Geography of Greece] Geography of Greece The country consists of a large mainland at the southern end of the Balkans; the Peloponnesus peninsula (separated from the mainland by the canal of the Isthmus of Corinth); and numerous islands (around 3,000), including Crete, Rhodes, Kos, Euboea and the Dodecanese and Cycladic groups of the Aegean Sea as well as the Ionian sea islands. Greece has more than 15,000 kilometres of coastline and a land boundary of 1,160 kilometres. About 80% of Greece consists of mountains or hills, thus making Greece one of the most montainous countries of Europe. Western Greece contains lakes and wetlands. Pindus, the central mountain range, has a maximum elevation of 2,636 m. The Pindus can be considered as a prolongation of the Dinaric Alps. The range continues by means of the Peloponnese, the islands of Kythera and Antikythera to find its final point in the island of Crete. (Actually the islands of the Aegean are peaks of underwater mountains that once consisted an extension of the mainland). The Central and Western Greece area contains high, steep peaks dissected by many canyons and other karstic landscapes, including the Meteora and the Vikos gorge the later being the second largest one on earth after the Grand Canyon in the US. Mount Olympus forms the highest point in Greece at 2,919 m above sea level. Also northern Greece presents another high range, the Rhodope, located in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace; this area is covered with vast and thick century old forests like the famous Dadia. Plains are mainly found in Eastern Thessaly, Central Macedonia and Thrace. Greece's climate is divided into three well defined classes the Mediterranean, Alpine and Temperate, the first one features mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers. Temperatures rarely reach extremes, although snowfalls do occur occasionally even in Athens, Cyclades or Crete during the winter. Alpine is found primarily in Western Greece (Epirus, Central Greece, Thessaly, Western Macedonia as well as central parts of Peloponessus like Achaea, Arkadia and parts of Lakonia where the Alpine range pass by). Finally the temperate climate is found in Central and Eastern Macedonia as well as in Thrace at places like Komotini, Xanthi and northern Evros; with cold, damp winters and hot, dry summers. It's worth to mention that Athens is located in a transition area between the Mediterranean and Alpine climate, thus finding that in its southern suburbs weather is of Mediterranean type while in the Northern suburbs of the Alpine type. About 50% of Greek land is covered by forests with a rich varied vegetation which spans from Alpine coniferous to mediterranean type vegetation. Seals, sea turtles and other rare marine life live in the seas around Greece, while Greece's forests provide a home to Western Europe's last brown bears and lynx as well as other species like Wolf, Roe Deer, Wild Goat, Fox and Wild Boar among others.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Greece Greece has a mixed capitalist economy with the public sector accounting for about half of GDP. Tourism has great importance, providing a large portion of GDP and foreign exchange earnings. Greece also counts as a world leader in shipping (first in terms of ownership of vessels and third by flag registration) [http://www.marad.dot.gov/MARAD_statistics/Country-MFW-7-04.pdf]. Greece figures prominently as a major beneficiary of EU aid, equal to about 2.4% of its GNP. The export of manufactured goods, including telecommunications hardware and software, foodstuffs, and fuels accounts for a large part of the rest of Greek income. The country has a high standard of living, ranking 24th on the 2005 Human Development Index and 22nd on The Economist's 2005 world-wide quality-of-life index[http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf]. The economy has improved steadily over the last few years, as the government tightened fiscal policy in the run-up to Greece's entry into the Eurozone on January 1, 2001. Average per capita income in 2004 was estimated at $22,000 [http://www.worldbank.org/data/databytopic/GNIPC.pdf]. Greece has an expanding services sector and telecommunications industry and has become one of the largest investors in the immediate region. Moreover, Greece now operates as a net importer of labour and foreign workers (mainly from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Pakistan, and Africa). People from these areas now account for 10% of the total population. 2001 Major challenges faced by the country include the reduction of unemployment, privatising of several state enterprises, social security reforms, overhauling the tax system, and minimising bureaucratic inefficiencies. Forecasts predicted economic growth of 4 - 4.5 % in 2004. Reducing the government deficit also remains a major issue, as it is currently running at nearly twice the Eurozone target of 3% of GDP. The new conservative government revealed to Eurostat that the previous figures supplied, which were the basis of Greek entry into the Eurozone, were incorrect. Under a negotiated agreement, the EU gave Greece two years (budgets of 2005 and 2006) to bring the economy in line with the criteria of the European stability pact. The Bank of Greece, now a subsidiary of the European Central Bank, functions as the nation's central bank. This bank is not the same as the "National Bank of Greece", a commercial bank.

Tourism

In the year of 2004, Greece ranked 12th interms of International tourist Arrivals world wide with a figure of 14.180 Million visitors, some of which came for the 2004 Olympic Games. Since the promotion of Greece from the Olympic Games, the Government expects significant growth in the years to come. In 2003, tourists spent an estimated 11 billion Euros contributing 8% to Greeces GDP. Tourism in Greece has multiplied 50 times in the past 40 years and is expected to only get bigger in the next 10 years. The main problem for Greece and its tourism industry is that many people are now going to places such as Turkey or Egypt were they can get a similar summer holiday for alot cheaper. Unfortunatly, the Government dosen't spend much on promoting tourism in Greece, although they have now hired Greek singer, Elena Paparizou, as there official Ambassador as well as having released a new campaign. One suggestion is to focus now on the Winter side of Greece as Greece's tourism industry is really only a 6 month tourism season. If promoted correctly, Greece could almost double its tourist statistics since most of the 14 million tourists are accounted for in only 6 months of a 12 month year.

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Greece Greece has various linguistic and cultural minorities. A non-comprehensive list of these would include Pomaks and various Roma groups. A number of religious minorities exist, including the Muslim minority in western Thrace, which makes up about a third of that region's population. Around one million immigrants live full or part time in Greece today, of which 65% have come from Albania following the fall of communism in Albania. This was a very rapid phenomena and the Greek legal and social culture has had some difficulties adapting. Several prominent Greek sportsmen immigrated to Greece as ethnic Greeks from Albania and Georgia in the 1990s, including legendary weightlifters Pyrros Dimas and Kakhi Kakhiashvili. Smaller numbers of immigrants came from Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania. The exact number remains unknown, since the majority live illegally in Greece.

Religion

Prior to Ottoman rule, Greece was part of the Byzantine Empire. The civil and religious capital of the Empire was moved to Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) by Constantine I. Since Constantine’s time the Orthodox Christian faith has flourished and spread throughout Eastern Europe. Even under Turkish rule and repeated attempts at being proselytised firstly by the Jesuits and then by the Protestants, Orthodox Christianity survived and flourished. The role of the Orthodox Church in maintaining Greek ethnic and cultural identity during the 400 years of Ottoman rule, has strengthened the bond between religion and government. Most Greeks, even many non-practicing Christians, revere and respect the Orthodox Christian faith, attend Church and Major Feast days, and are emotionally attached to Orthodox Christianity as their 'national' religion. The Greek Constitution reflects this relationship by guaranteeing absolute freedom of religion while still defining the "prevailing religion" of Greece as the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ. In practice, the Orthodox Church and the secular state are intimately involved with one another. Joint approval is needed for the building of churches and the Church has even blocked the building of places of worship for other religions in Athens. Priests receive state salaries. The President of the Republic takes an oath on the Bible and Orthodox Christianity is given privileged place in religious studies in primary education. The Church has also been allowed to keep its large portfolio of financial assets exempt from taxation and fiscal auditing. Starting in January 2005, a series of highly publicised corruption scandals involving high rank church officials have led to many calls by secular Greeks for the complete separation of Church and State and greater control of Church assets. The majority of Greeks (95-98%) have at least nominal membership in the Eastern Orthodox Church, although religious observance has declined in recent years. Greek Muslims make up about 1.3% of the population, and live primarily in Thrace. Greece also has some Roman Catholics, mainly in the city of Patras and the Cyclades islands of Syros, Paros,Tinos and Naxos; some Protestants and some Jews, mainly in Thessaloniki (which was once a major Jewish city until the Holocaust). Some groups in Greece have started an attempt to reconstruct Hellenic polytheism, the ancient Greek pagan religion. See also: Greek Orthodox Church. One small part of Greece, Mount Athos, is recognised by the Greek constitution as an autonomous monastic republic, although foreign relations, however, remain the prerogative of the Greek state. Spiritually, Mount Athos is under the Patriarchate of Constantinople and is therefore in communion with all the monasteries on Mount Athos and with the Orthodox Church based in various countries. One monastery has recently broken away and has formed a completely independent schism on the Holy Mountain -- Esphygmenou Monastery. Esphygmenou is composed of 117 Zealot monks who stubbornly oppose the head of the Church and do not commemorate him any more. They believe that they are the last remaining true Christians in the world and that Orthodoxy has been corrupted by having dialogue with other faiths. They also object to the lifting of the anathemas against the Roman Catholic Church in the 1960's by Patriarch Athenagoras. Jews have been present in Greece for the last 2000 years. The earliest reference to a Greek Jew is in an inscription, dated c. 300-250 BCE found in Oropos, a small coastal town between Athens and Boeotia, and refers to him as "Moschos, son of Moschion the Jew" who was in all likelihood, a slave. The first Greek Jewish population became known as the Romaniotes and their language became known as Yevanic (from the Hebrew word for Greece: יון/Yavan). From the 16th century onwards, Salonica, a city in northern Greece, had one of the largest (mostly Sephardic by then) Jewish communities in the world and a solid rabbinical tradition. On the island of Crete, the Jews played an important part in the transport trade. During World War II, when Greece was occupied by Nazi Germany, 86% of the Greek Jews were murdered by the invading Axis and only a minority survived and most of them have emigrated to Israel. Greece's Jewish community today is estimated at 4,500.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Greece Greece has produced a vast number of contributors to philosophy, astronomy, science, and the arts. For a list of famous Greek men and women, see List of Greeks. See also:
- Classics
- Education in Greece
- List of Greek dances
- List of museums in Greece
- Greek National Holidays
- List of research institutes in Greece
- Tourism in Greece
- List of universities in Greece

Miscellaneous topics


- History of Greece
  - Ancient Greece
  - Greek mythology
  - Hellenistic civilization
  - Byzantine Empire
  - Byzantium
- Greek Language
- Communications in Greece
  - List of Greek language television channels
  - List of radio stations in Greece
- Greek newspapers
- Transportation in Greece
  - List of Greek roads
  - Rio-Antirio bridge
- Foreign relations of Greece
- Military of Greece
- Postage stamps and postal history of Greece
- Conscription in Greece
- Popular Greek Entertainment
- Plateia Syntagmatos and Vouli ton Ellinon
- Turkish Greek Civic Dialogue Project
- Greeks
- List of Greeks
- Greek American
- Category:Greek-Americans
- Greek Canadians
- Greek Australian

Sport in Greece


- Summer Olympics of 1896, 1906 & 2004
- Greece national football team (Euro 2004 Cup Winners)
- Greece national basketball team (Eurobasket 1987 & 2005 Cup Winners) The Greek government built a world class sport infrastructure specifically for the 2004 Summer Olympics which is generally regarded as a [http://www.athens2004.com/en/Legacy legacy]to the country. Greece was one of the smallest countries to ever host a modern summer Olympic games. The organisation and conduct of the games were considered highly successful. Unlike other western European countries, basketball has become a popular sport in Greece. This is largely the result of the victory achieved by the Greek national basketball team against the Soviet Union in the European championship final of 1987 held in Athens. Eighteen years later, Greece won its second Europen basketball championship in the 2005 Eurobasket, held in Belgrade.

See also


- Hellenic National Intelligence Service
- National Statistical Service of Greece

External links


- [http://www.balkanforums.com Greece and the Balkans] Discussion Forum
- [http://www.go4less.gr/main.php?lang=EN Internet Travel Service to Greece and Smartest Accommodation Search Engine]
- [http://www.hri.org HR-Net (Hellenic Resources Network)/ comprehensive Greek news site]
- [http://www.statistics.gr/ Official Greek Statistics Site]
- [http://www.ask4greece.org Ask for Greece/ A volunteer community for Q&As about Greece]
- [http://www.gnto.gr/?langID=2/ Official Tourist Site]
- [http://www.greece-museums.com Greece Museums/ Museum directory of Greece]
- [http://www.athensvirtualtour.com/ Take a short virtual tour of Athens]
- [http://webcam.deili.info/en,1,8 Greece Webcam]
- [http://www.ert.gr/radio/liveradioTritovraxea.asp Radio Greece live]
- [http://greece.ianandwendy.com Photos of Greece from a backpacker's trip]
- [http://www.superbgreece.com Greece travel information]
- [http://www.phigita.net/ Greek Blogs and News]
- [http://dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/Greece/ Open Directory Project: Greece]
- [http://www.olympion.de/greek-embassies-worldwide.html A list of Greek Embassies Worldwide]
- [http://ozhanozturk.com/content/view/374/1/ History of Ottoman Greece]

Other official sites


- [http://www.presidency.gr/en/index.htm President of the Hellenic Republic]
- [http://www.greece.gr/index.htm Greece Now Government sponsored e-zine on Greek life]
- [http://www.primeminister.gr/gr/lang/en/primeminister.asp Prime Minister of Greece]
- [http://www.parliament.gr/english/default.asp Hellenic Parliament] Category:European Union member states roa-rup:Gârţii zh-min-nan:Hi-lia̍p ko:그리스 ms:Yunani ja:ギリシャ simple:Greece th:ประเทศกรีซ fiu-vro:Kriika

Ithaca

For other places named Ithaca, see Ithaca (disambiguation). Ithaca, or Ithaka (Ithaki in modern Greek, Greek alphabet: Ιθάκη; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is an island in the Ionian Sea, in Greece with an area of 96 km² and 5,000 inhabitants. It is an independent municipality of the prefecture of Kefalonia, and lies off the North East coast of Kefalonia. The capital, Vathy, has one of the world's largest natural harbours. As of 2002, Ithaca became a popular destination for holiday tourists on day visits from the other Ionian Islands, especially after Charles, Prince of Wales and the late Diana, Princess of Wales spent part of their honeymoon there.

History

The island has been inhabited since the 2nd millennium BC. It was the capital of Cephalonia during the Mycenaean period. The Romans occupied the island in the 2nd century BC, and later it became part of the Byzantine Empire. The Normans ruled Ithaca in the 12th and 13th century, and after a short Turkish rule it fell into Venetian hands. Ithaca was then occupied by France at the end of the 18th century and in 1809 it was conquered by the British. In 1864 Greeks liberated it. Much of the island's architecture was destroyed in an earthquake in 1953. In the 1970s, Kalamos split from the province and became part of the prefecture of Lefkada and the province of Ithaca became a non-provincial municipality.

Ithaca: home of Odysseus?

The modern island named Ithaca is usually assume to have been the legendary home of Odysseus from Homer's Odyssey. According to some scholars, it may even have been the home of Homer himself. The Odyssey is an epic poem written by Homer about Odysseus's voyage and return. Homer describes Ithaca thus: :"Around are many islands, close to each other, Doulichion and Samos and wooded Zakynthos. Ithaca itself lies low, furthest out to sea, facing the western sunset. The rest stand apart, and face both dawn and sun." Homer makes 26 descriptions of specific places on Ithaca, but these do not match the modern Ithaca. For instance, the modern Ithaca faces east and is mountainous. Several explanations have been suggested for why this might be so. Firstly, it has been suggested that Kefalonia and Ithaca may have once been joined, because Homer describes Ithaca as if it is much larger than it now is and on the west side. Geographical data also suggests the islands may have once been connected, although research is still being done to prove this. Secondly, it has been suggested, that Paliki -- now the western peninsula of Kephalonia but geologically diagnosed as probably a separate island during the late Bronze Age, location -- matches each of Homer's 26 descriptions. This was suggested in the book "Odysseus Unbound - The Search for Homer's Ithaca" written by Robert Bittlestone, a British writer and amateur archeologist,James Diggle, Professor of Greek and Latin at Cambridge University, and John Underhill, a geologist at Edinburgh University. Their research has been published by Cambridge University Press, and The Times reported on September 30, 2005 that "the research has convinced leading academics worldwide."

Geography

There is also a strait situated in the western part of the island called the Strait of Ithaca. The capes in the island include Exogi, the westernmost but not in land, Melissa to the north, Mavronos and Agios Ilias to the east, Schinous, Sarakiniko and Agios Ioannis, the easternmost to the east and Agiou Andreou, the southernmost in the south. Bays include Afales Bay to the northwest, Frikes and Kioni Bays to the northeast and Ormos Gulf and Sarakiniko Bay to the southeast. The tallest mountain is Neriton (908 m), the second tallest is Nerovoulo elevating 552 m.

Persons


- htttp://www.arsenis.info Σπυρος Αρσένης 20 years Mayor of ithaca - Spiros Arsenis
- Lorentzos Mavilis (1860 - November 28, 1912 in the Ioannina area)

Communities


- Aetos
- Agios Ioannis
- Anogi
- Exogi
- Frikes
- Kioni
- Lefki
- Perachori
- Platithria
- Stavros
- Vathy

Other

Ithaca has schools, lyceums, a few gymnasia, banks, a post office, a sporting centre and squares (plateies).

Municipality

The municipality includes islands other than Ithaca including one near Cape Melissa, Atokos to the northeast and several islands in the east including Drakonero, Echinades, Oxeia and Petallades to the east near Aitoloacarnania.

Further reading

Bittlestone, Robert: Odysseus Unbound: The Search for Homer’s Ithaca. Cambridge University Press, 2005. the one above suggest that Homer's Ithaca is a penisnula of Cephalonia (Lixouri)! Acoording to "Assamptions" as the authors responded to a press question in London Sept '05

External links


- http://www.ithaki.gr (also in Greek)
- http://www.odysseus-unbound.org
- [http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?tb=1&city=Ithaca&country=GR Mapquest - Ithaca], street map not yet available
- Coordinates:
- [http://www.ithaki.net www.ithaki.net Ithaki Metasearch](Powerful search engine named in honour of Ithaka)
- http://www.arsenis.info
- http://www.ithacagreece.com Category:Islands of Greece
- Category:Cities and towns in Greece

Homer

] :For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). Homer (Greek μηρος Hómēros) was a legendary early Greek poet and rhapsode traditionally credited with authorship of the major Greek epics Ιλιάς Iliad and Οδύσσεια Odyssey. The comic mini-epic Βατραχομυομαχία Batrachomyomachia ("The Frog-Mouse War"), the corpus of Homeric Hymns, and various other lost or fragmentary works such as Margites have been attributed to him, but this is now believed to be unlikely. A few ancient authors credited him with the entire Epic Cycle, which included further poems on the Trojan War as well as the Theban poems about Oedipus and his sons. Tradition held that Homer was blind, and various Ionian cities are claimed to be his birthplace, but otherwise his biography is a blank slate. There is considerable scholarly debate about whether Homer was actually a real person, or the name given to one or more oral poets who sang traditional epic material. It has repeatedly been questioned whether the same poet was responsible for both the Iliad and the Odyssey; the Batrachomyomachia, Homeric hymns and cyclic epics are generally agreed to be later than these two epic poems.

Ancient Accounts of Homer

Of the date of Homer probably no record, real or pretended, ever existed. Herodotus (2.53) maintains that Hesiod and Homer lived not more than 400 years before his own time, consequently not much before 850 BC. From the controversial tone in which he expresses himself it is evident that others had made Homer more ancient; and accordingly the dates given by later authorities, though very various, generally fall within the 10th and 11th centuries BC, but none of these statements has any claim to the character of external evidence. The extant lives of Homer (edited in Westermanns Vitarum Scriptores Graeci minores) are eight in number, including the piece called the Contest of Hesiod and Homer. The longest is written in the Ionic dialect, and bears the name of Herodotus, but is certainly spurious. In all probability it belongs to the time which was fruitful beyond all others in literary forgeries, viz, the 2nd century of our era. The other lives are certainly not more ancient. Their chief value consists in the curious short poems or fragments of verse which they have preserved, the so-called Epigrams, which used to be printed at the end of editions of Homer. These are easily recognized as Popular Rhymes, a form of folklore to be met with in most countries, treasured by the people as a kind of proverbs. In the Homeric epigrams the interest turns sometimes on the characteristics of particular localities Smyrna and Cyme (Epigr. 4), Erythrae (Epigr. 6, 7), Mt Ida (Epigr. 10), Neon Teichos (Epigr. 1); others relate to certain trades or occupations: potters (Epigr. 14), sailors, fishermen, goat herds, etc. Some may be fragments of longer poems, but evidently they are not the work of any one poet. The fact that they were all ascribed to Homer merely means that they belong to a period in the history of the Ionian and Aeolian colonies when Homer was a name which drew to itself all ancient and popular verse. Again, comparing the epigrams with the legends and anecdotes told in the Lives of Homer, we can hardly doubt that they were the chief source from which these Lives were derived. Thus in Epigr. 4 we find a blind poet, a native of Aeolian Smyrna, through which flows the water of the sacred Meles. Here is doubtless the source of the chief incident of the Herodotean Life, the birth of Homer Son of the Meles. The epithet Aeolian implies high antiquity, inasmuch as according to Herodotus Smyrna became Ionian about 688 BC. Naturally the Ionians had their own version of the story, a version which made Homer come out with the first Athenian colonists. The same line of argument may be extended to the Hymns, and even to some of the lost works of the post-Homeric or so-called Cyclic poets. Thus: 1. The hymn to the Delian Apollo ends with an address of the poet to his audience. When any stranger comes and asks who is the sweetest singer, they are to answer with one voice, "the blind man that dwells in rocky Chios; his songs deserve the prize for all time to come." Thucydides, who quotes this passage to show the ancient character of the Delian festival, seems to have no doubt of the Homeric authorship of the hymn. Hence we may most naturally account for the belief that Homer was a Chian. 2. The Siargitesa humorous poem which kept its ground as the reputed work of Homer down to the time of Aristotle began with the words, "There came to Colophon an old man, a divine singer, servant of the Muses and Apollo." Hence doubtless the claim of Colophon to be the native city of Homer a claim supported in the early times of Homeric learning by the Colophonian poet and grammarian Antimachus. 3. The poem called the Cypria was said to have been given by Homer to Stasinus of Cyprus as a daughter's dowry. The connexion with Cyprus appears further in the predominance given in the poem to Aphrodite. 4. The Little Iliad and the Phocais, according to the Herodotean life, were composed by Homer when he lived at Phocaea with a certain Thestorides, who carried them off to Chios and thert gained fame by reciting them as his own. The name Thestorides occurs in Epigr. 5. 5. A similar story was told about the poem called the Taking of Oechalia, the subject of which was one of the exploits of Heracles. It passed under the name of Creophylus, a friend or (as some said) a son-in-law of Homer; but it was generally believed to have been in fact the work of the poet himself. 6. Finally the Thebaid always counted as the work of Homer. As to the Epigoni, which carried on the Theban story, some doubt seems to have been felt. These indications render it probable that the stories connecting Homer with different cities and islands grew up after his poems had become known and famous, especially in the new and flourishing colonies of Aeolis and Ionia. The contention for Homer, in short, began at a time when his real history was lost, and he had become a sort of mythical figure, an eponymous hero, or personification of a great school of poetry. An interesting confirmation of this view from the negative side is furnished by the city which ranked as chief among the Asiatic colonies of Greece, viz. Miletus. No legend claims for Miletus even a visit from Homer, or a share in the authorship of any Homeric poem. Yet Arctinus of Miletus was said to have been a disciple of Homer, and was certainly one of the earliest and most considerable of the Cyclic poets. His Aethiopis was composed as a sequel to the Iliad; and the structure and general character of his poems show that he took the Iliad as his model. Yet in his case we find no trace of the disputed authorship which is so common with other Cyclic poems. How has this come about? Why have the works of Arctinus escaped the attraction which drew to the name of Homer such epics as the Cypria, the Little Iliad, the Thebaid, the Epigoni, the Taking of Oechalia and the Phocais. The most obvious account of the matter is that Arctinus was never so far forgotten that his poems became the subject of dispute. We seem through him to obtain a glimpse of an early post-Homeric age in Ionia, when the immediate disciples and successors of Homer were distinct figures in a trustworthy tradition when they had not yet merged their individuality in the legendary Homer of the Epic Cycle.

The Homeric Question

Arctinus of Miletus Scholars generally agree that the Iliad and Odyssey underwent a process of standardization and refinement out of older material beginning in the 8th century BC. An important role in this standardization appears to have been played by the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus, who reformed the recitation of Homeric poetry at the Panathenaic festival. Many classicists hold that this reform must have involved the production of a canonical written text. Other scholars, however, maintain their belief in the reality of an actual Homer. So little is known or even guessed of his actual life, that a common joke has it that the poems "were not written by Homer, but by another man of the same name," and the classical scholar Richmond Lattimore, author of well regarded poetic translations to English of both epics, once wrote a paper entitled "Homer: Who Was She?" Samuel Butler was more specific, theorizing a young Sicilian woman as author of the Odyssey (but not the Iliad), an idea further speculated on by Robert Graves in his novel Homer's Daughter. In Greek his name is Homēros, which is Greek for "hostage". There is a theory that his name was back-extracted from the name of a society of poets called the Homeridae, which literally means "sons of hostages", i.e., descendants of prisoners of war. As these men were not sent to war because their loyalty on the battlefield was suspect, they would not get killed in battles. Thus they were entrusted with remembering the area's stock of epic poetry, to remember past events, in the times before literacy came to the area. Most Classicists would agree that, whether there was ever such a composer as "Homer" or not, the Homeric poems are the product of an oral tradition, a generations-old technique that was the collective inheritance of many singer-poets, aoidoi. An analysis of the structure and vocabulary of the Iliad and Odyssey shows that the poems consist of regular, repeating phrases; even entire verses repeat. Could the Iliad and Odyssey have been oral-formulaic poems, composed on the spot by the poet using a collection of memorized traditional verses and phases? Milman Parry and Albert Lord pointed out that such elaborate oral tradition, foreign to today's literate cultures, is typical of epic poetry in an exclusively oral culture. The crucial words are "oral" and "traditional." Parry started with "traditional." The repetitive chunks of language, he said, were inherited by the singer-poet from his predecessors, and they were useful to the poet in composition. He called these chunks of repetitive language "formulas." Exactly when these poems would have taken on a fixed written form is subject to debate. The traditional solution is the "transcription hypothesis", wherein a non-literate "Homer" dictates his poem to a literate scribe in the 6th century BC or earlier. More radical Homerists, such as Gregory Nagy, contend that a canonical text of the Homeric poems as "scripture" did not exist until the Hellenistic period (3rd to 1st century BC).

Historical Aspects of the Poems

1st century BC, Italy.]] See main article Troy. Another significant question regards the tales' possible historical basis. The commentaries on the Iliad and the Odyssey written in the Hellenistic period began exploring the textual inconsistencies of the poems. Modern classicists continue the tradition. The excavations of Heinrich Schliemann in the late 19th century began to convince scholars there was a historical basis for the Trojan War. Research (pioneered by the aforementioned Parry and Lord) into oral epics in Serbo-Croatian and Turkic languages began to convince scholars that long poems could be preserved with consistency by oral cultures until someone bothered to write them down. The decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris and others, convinced scholars of a linguistic continuity between 13th century BC Mycenaean writings and the poems attributed to Homer.

References

Literature

Commentaries


- Scholia Veneta on the Iliad , ed. Villoison (Venice, 1788);
- 'Scholia in Homeri Iliades ed. Bekker Berlin, 1825-1826).
- The Scholia on the Odyssey, ed. Buttmann (Berlin, 1821), Dindorf (Oxford, 1855)
- Commentary of Eustathius, first printed at Rome in 1542;
- Heynes. Iliad (Leipzig, 1802)
- Nitzsch, Odyssey (books i.-xii., Hanover)
- Negelbach Anmerkungen zur Ilias (Autenrieth, Nuremberg, 1864).

Homeric Question


- Wolf, Prolegomena (Halle, 1795)
- W. Muller, Homerische Vorschule (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1836)
- G. Hermann, De interpolationibus Homeri (1832), De iteratis apud Homerum (1840)
- Lachmann, Betrachtungen über Homers Ilias (2nd ed. Berlin, 1865).

Homeric dialect


- H. L. Ahrens, Griechische Formenlehre (Gottingen, 1852)
- A. Fick, Die homerische Odyssee in der ursprünglichen Sprachform wiederhergestelt (Gottingen, 1883), Die homerische Ilias (ibid., 1886)
- W. Schulze, Quaestiones epicae (Goterslohe, 1892).
- B. Delbrück, Syntactische Forschungen (Halle, 1871-1879)
- Hartel, Homerische Studien (i-vi., Vienna)
- Thumb, Zur Geschichte des griech. Digamma, Indogermanische Forschungen (1898)

Editions


- The editio princeps of Homer, published at Florence in 1488, by Demetrius Chaicondylas
- Aldine editions of 1504 and 1517
- Wolf (Halle, 1794-1795; Leipzig, 1804 1807)
- Spitzner (Gotha, 1832-1836)
- Bekker (Berlin, 1843; Bonn, I858)
- La Roche (Odyssey, 1867-1868; Iliad, 1873-1876, both at Leipzig)
- Ludwich (Odyssey, Leipzig, 1889-1891; Iliad, 2 vols., 1901 and 907)
- W. Leaf (Iliad, London, 1886-1888; 2nd ed. 1900 1902);
- Merry and Ridciell (Odyssey i.-xii., 2nd ed., Oxford, 1886);
- Monro (Odyssey xiii-xxiv. with appendices, Oxford, 1901);
- Monro and Allen (Iliad), and Allen (Odyssey, 1908, Oxford).

English Translations


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External links


- [http://www.gpc.edu/~shale/humanities/literature/world_literature/homer.html Collection of Homer-related links]
- [http://www.geocities.com/protoillyrian/homer Homer of Cumaean origin] Category:Ancient Greek poets Category:Blind people
- ko:호메로스 ms:Homer ja:ホメロス simple:Homer th:โฮเมอร์

Odyssey

- by Charles Gleyre]] The Odyssey (Greek Οδύσσεια) is the second of the two great Greek epic poems ascribed to Homer, the first of which is the Iliad. The 11,300 line poem follows Odysseus, king of Ithaca, on his voyage home after a heroic turn in the Trojan War. It also tells the story of Odysseus' wife Penelope who struggles to remain faithful, and his son Telemachus who sets out to find his father. In contrast to the Iliad, with its extended sequences of battle and violence, all three are ultimately successful through use of cleverness, and the support of the goddess Athena. This cleverness is most often manifested by Odysseus' use of disguise and, later, recognition. His disguises take forms both physical (altering his appearance) and verbal (telling the Cyclops Polyphemus that his name is "Nobody" then escaping after blinding the Cyclops because Polyphemus cries foul at the hands of "nobody"). The poem is considered one of the foundational texts of the Western canon and continues to be read in both Homeric Greek and translations around the world. While today's Odyssey is usually a printed text, the original poem was an oral composition sung by a trained bard, in an amalgamated Ancient Greek dialect, using a regular metrical pattern called dactylic hexameter. Each line of the original Greek was composed of six feet; each foot a dactyl or a spondee. Among the most impressive elements of the text are its strikingly modern non-linear plot, and its elevation of the status of women and the lower classes. In the English language as well as many others, the word odyssey has come to refer to an epic voyage. Today's Odyssey consists of twenty-four books, or chapters. The first four books, known as the Telemachy, trace Telemachus' efforts to maintain control of the palace in the face of suitors who would have his inheritance, and his mother Penelope's hand in marriage. Failing that, he sets off to find his father. In book 5, we find Odysseus near the end of his journey, a not entirely unwilling captive of the beautiful nymph Calypso, with whom he's spent 7 of his 10 lost years. Released from her wiles by the intercession of his patroness Athena and her father Zeus, he departs. His raft is destroyed by his nemesis Poseidon, who is angry because Odysseus blinded his son, Polyphemos. When Odysseus washes up on Scheria, home to the Phaeacians, the naked stranger is treated with traditional Greek hospitality even before he reveals his name. Odysseus satisfies the Phaeacians' curiosity, telling them - and us - of all his adventures since departing from Troy. This renowned, extended "flashback" leads him back to where he stands, his tale told. The shipbuilding Phaeacians finally loan him a ship to return to Ithaca, where, home at last, he regains his throne, reunites with his son, metes out justice to the suitors, and reunites with his faithful wife Penelope.

Plot summary

Book 1

"Tell me, o muse, of that ingenious hero who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy." With the invocation of the muse Homer begins his epic, though the hero himself is still offstage. We are treated to a glimpse of life among the supreme gods on Mount Olympus. Urged on by Athena, the goddess of wisdom and battle-tactics, they decide that Odysseus has been marooned too long on the island of the nymph Calypso. Athena also decides to pay a visit to Telemachus who is Odysseus's son.

Book 2

Meanwhile, the mansion of Odysseus is infested with suitors for the hand of his wife Penelope. Everyone assumes Odysseus is dead. Encouraged by Athena who arrives in the form of Mentes, Telemachus calls an assembly to ask for help. He breaks down and cries and is pushed off the platform by Athena. Antinous mocks Telemachus. He issues an ultimatum to Telemachus: "Either you force your mother to marry a suitor, or we ruin your house." Telemachus refuses to comply. Zeus sends an omen of the suitors' doom. Two eagles swoop down, tearing each other's throats and necks with their talons. The suitors mock Halitherses, who makes the prophecy. Afterwards, Telemachus, accompanied by Athena, sets sail for Pylos to seek news of his father.

Book 3

Telemachus travels to Pylos to consult Nestor, accompanied by Athena, who is disguised as Mentor, a man from Ithaca. When they arrive at the shore of Pylos, they find Nestor and the men of Pylos performing sacrifices to Poseidon. Nestor tells what he knows of the Greeks' return from Troy: "It started out badly because of Athena's anger. Half the army, your father included, stayed behind at Troy to try to appease her. The rest of us made it home safely--all except Menelaus, who was blown off course to Egypt, where he remained for seven years. Seek advice from Menelaus. I'll lend you a chariot to travel to his kingdom." Athena flies away in the form of an eagle. The very next morning, Nestor performs a sacrifice to Athena and Telemachus is borne away, accompanied by Nestor's son.

Book 4

Menelaus tells what he learned of Odysseus while stranded in Egypt after the war. He was advised by a goddess to disguise himself and three members of his crew in seal pelts and then pounce on the Old Man of the Sea. If they could hold him down while he transformed himself into various animals and shapes, he would send them on their homeward way and give news of their companions. Menelaus did as instructed and was informed that Odysseus was presently being held against his will by the nymph Calypso.

Book 5

Zeus, the King of the Gods, sends his messenger Hermes skimming over the waves on magic sandals to Calypso's island. Calypso promises Odysseus immortality, but he refuses. At last all fails. Though the nymph isn't happy about it, she agrees to let Odysseus go. But the raft on which he sets sail is destroyed by his enemy, the god Poseidon, who lashes the sea into a storm with his trident. Odysseus barely escapes with his life and washes ashore days later, half-drowned. He staggers into an olive thicket and falls asleep.

Book 6

Odysseus wakes up to the sound of maidens laughing. Princess Nausicaa of the Phaeacians has come down to the riverside to wash some clothes because Athena came to her in a dream and instructed her to do so. Now she and her handmaids are frolicking after the chore. Odysseus approaches as a supplicant, and Nausicaa is kind enough to instruct him how to get the king's help in returning to his home.

Book 7

Odysseus stops on the palace threshold, utterly dazzled. The very walls are covered in shining bronze and trimmed with lapis lazuli. The blacksmith god Hephaestus has even provided two brazen hounds to guard the queen. Odysseus puts his case to her as a supplicant. The king knows better than to refuse hospitality to a decent petitioner. He invites Odysseus to the banquet which is in progress and promises him safe passage home after the king and his guests have been suitably entertained.

Book 8

The next day is declared a holiday in honor of the guest, whose name the king still does not know. An athletic competition is held, with foot races, wrestling and the discus. Odysseus is invited to join in but he declines the invitation, prompting someone to suggest that he lacks the skills. Angered, he takes up a discus and throws it with such violence that everyone drops to the ground. That night at a banquet, as the court bard entertains with songs of the Trojan War, Odysseus is heard sobbing. "Enough!" shouts the king. "Our friend finds this song displeasing. Won't you tell us your name, stranger, and where you hail from?"

Book 9

"My name is Odysseus of Ithaca, and here is my tale since setting out from Troy. We sacked a city called Ísmaros first off, but then reinforcements arrived and we lost many comrades. Next we visited the Lotus Eaters, and three of my crew tasted this strange plant. They lost all desire to return home and had to be carried off by force. On another island we investigated a cave full of goat pens. The herdsman turned out to be as big as a barn, with a single glaring eye in his forehead. This Cyclops promptly ate two of my men for dinner. We were trapped in the cave by a boulder in the doorway that only the Cyclops could budge, so we couldn't kill him while he slept. Instead we sharpened a pole and used it to gouge out his eye. We escaped his groping by clinging to the undersides of his goats."

Book 10

"Next we met the Keeper of the Winds, who sent us on our way with a steady breeze. He'd given me a leather bag, which my crew mistook for booty. They opened it and released a hurricane that blew us back to where we'd started. We ended up among the Laestrygonians, giants who bombarded our fleet with boulders and gobbled down our shipmates. The few survivors put in at the island of the enchantress Circe. My men were entertained by her and then, with a wave of her wand, turned into swine. Hermes the god gave me an herb, called moly, that protected me. Circe told me that to get home I must travel to the land of Death."

Book 12

"At sea once more we had to pass the Sirens, whose sweet singing lures sailors to their doom. I had stopped up the ears of my crew with wax, and I alone listened while lashed to the mast, powerless to steer toward shipwreck. Next came Charybdis, who swallows the sea in a whirlpool, then spits it up again. Avoiding this we skirted the cliff where Scylla exacts her toll. Each of her six slavering maws grabbed a sailor and wolfed him down. Finally we were becalmed on the island of the Sun. My men disregarded all warnings and sacrificed his cattle, so back at sea Zeus sent a thunderbolt that smashed the ship. I alone survived, washing up on the island of Calypso."

Book 13

When Odysseus had finished his tale, the king ordered him sped to Ithaca. The sailors put him down on the beach asleep. Athena cast a protective mist about him that kept him from recognizi