Suchergebnisse

The chorus of Euripides' Bacchae heralds the arrival of the god Dionysus by promising that "right away, the whole world will dance in a chorus" (αὐτίκα γᾶ πᾶσα χορεύσει, 114). Their exuberant claim reflects the enthusiasm for dance generally expressed in early Greek sources. Indeed, it has been well established that dance – specifically choreia (communal song-dance) – played a significant role in archaic and classical Greek social life and was thus accorded a high level of value and esteem in art and literature. My dissertation argues that this esteemed status does not extend to the performance of solo and individualized dance, and demonstrates that Greek literary discourse betrays a deep ambivalence towards dance (orchēsis) when isolated from the multimedia art of choreia.This project thus approaches Greek dance, which has hitherto been studied almost exclusively in the context of the chorus, from a fresh angle. I establish that singular dancing often signifies disruption, violation, and vulnerability within the social and political order. At the same time, I show that the representation of individualized dance constitutes a distinctive mechanism adopted by poets, playwrights, historians and philosophers to foreground and explore the complex relationship between verbal and somatic expression. As a result, the representation of individualized dance in Greek literature offers insight into the place of dance in Greek thought, while also enabling us to identify the particular biases and agendas at work in the literary description of dance performance.My dissertation develops a distinctive methodology for analyzing the relationship between dance and literature. I begin from a basic conviction, grounded in the scholarship of dance studies, that verbal descriptions and literary representations of dance are not neutral reflections of embodied practices, but rather ideological and interpretive forms that work to frame and define our perception of dance. I argue that choreia, as a synthesis of vocal, instrumental, and kinetic expression, becomes an efficient image for poets, philosophers, and historians seeking to harness dance to the power of language. My work thus demonstrates that orchēsis, as individual kinetic expression and kinesthetic experience, not only signifies social and political disruption, but is also imagined as an expressive mode that may resist or re-figure the forces of language and verbal description.My first chapter argues that individual dancers provide a critically engaged alternative to the prevailing model of communal, choral performance, which tends to be logocentric. This chapter lays out a dominant paradigm of choral dance as constructed in early Greek literature, offers a typology of solo and individualized dance forms, and previews the insights to be gained through the consideration of dance "beyond choreia." Chapter Two addresses the descriptions of both choral and individualized dance in Odyssey 8, demonstrating that singular and virtuosic dance is particularly emblematic of Phaeacian culture and that its description operates as a means by which Odysseus and Alcinous competitively negotiate their relative positions of status and authority within the poem. Chapters Three and Four examine individual male and female dancers respectively in epic, lyric, and drama, identifying a complex network of political and artistic concerns that coalesce around literary representations of each type of performer. I argue that solo male dancers tend to be depicted as disruptive and anti-social political actors (e.g., Pericles in Ion of Chios fr. 109 Leurini, Philocleon in Arist. Wasps 1474ff), while individual and outstanding female dancers are marked by their sexual appeal and consequent vulnerability (e.g., the maiden chorēgoi of Alcman 1 PMG, Cassandra in Eur. Troades 308ff). These chapters also focus on the performance contexts of specific songs and their ability to frame and define closely related instances of dance. My fifth and final chapter explores how Herodotus, Plato, and Xenophon deploy the various models of individual dance discussed in the preceding chapters in the service of their own historical and philosophical projects. While my primary focus throughout is on literary description, I also discuss the visual and material evidence for solo dance, particularly in cases where it contrasts with the textual tradition.The project as a whole makes two major contributions to the study of Greek literature, culture, and performance. First, it brings together the surviving representations of solo and individualized dance and considers them as evidence for the cultural discourse surrounding both orchēsis and choreia. Second, it develops a theoretical framework for articulating the complex relationship between literary descriptions and historical performance, bringing the scholarly insights of dance studies to bear upon the ancient world.

International audience ; The paper examines the preserved literary versions of the speeches delivered by Theban ambassadors between 404 and 362 B.C. The introduction, after providing a list of these speeches, focuses mainly on methodological problems; then an analysis of different kind of arguments and strategies used by Theban ambassadors follows; afterwards the paper provides a survey of the evidence about the oratory of the only two Theban ambassadors whose name is known (Pelopidas and Epaminondas); the last paragraph offers concluding remarks. The analysis of persuasion techniques adopted by Theban envoys suggests that a valid Theban ambassador had to be not only an eloquent speaker, but also a skilled historian and a clever politician. ; Cet article analyse les versions littéraires des discours prononcés par les ambassadeurs de Thèbes entre 404 et 362 av. J.-C. L'introduction, qui vise à fournir une liste de ces discours, porte sur les principaux problèmes de méthode. Puis, on propose une analyse des différents sujets et des stratégies employées par les ambassadeurs de Thèbes ; on présente ensuite les données concernant la rhétorique des seuls ambassadeursde Thèbes dont le nom est connu (Pélopidas et Épaminondas). Le dernier paragraphe propose les remarques finales. L'analyse des techniques de persuasion adoptées par les émissaires thébains explique que l'ambassadeur de Thèbes n'était pas seulement un grand orateur mais aussi un historien qualifié et un homme politique très habile.

Representations of Hades, the Underworld, and the afterlife in ancient Greek literature have traditionally been studied from a religious or mythological perspective. Scholars have often tried to extrapolate historical practices and eschatological beliefs about life after death from accounts of rituals and myths surrounding funerary practices, cult beliefs, necromantic encounters, and descents by heroes to the Underworld. As a result of this focus, scholars have generally overlooked the narrative function of Underworld scenes. In this project, I examine ancient Underworld scenes from Homer to Plato as a type of literary device containing unique rhetorical features and functions. I argue that Underworld scenes are embedded authorial commentaries, which allow communication between author and audience in an exercise of narrative self-reflection. Underworld scenes condense the actions and themes of the main story into an abbreviated space while also situating their parent narratives within a dynamic historical and literary tradition. Through these scenes, authors and artists create networks of texts by including allusions and story patterns, which can activate similar tales of ghostly encounter (nekuia), underworld journeys (katabaseis), punishment for sinners, and rewards for the "blessed." Underworld scenes "open up" dialogues between texts and characters across time and space so they could engage with each other and their tradition. Thus, Homer could imagine Odysseus talking to the ghosts of Achilles and Agamemnon in the Odyssey as a contemplation of heroism, and Plato could imagine Socrates anticipating afterlife conversations about justice with Homer, Ajax and Orpheus in the Apology.Chapter 1 presents the parameters of Underworld scenes and the methodologies that will be used in analyzing these scenes. Chapter 2 examines the structure of Underworld scenes in early Archaic poetry as well as the distinct language and image set which allowed communication between authors and audiences. Chapter 3 shows how Greek epinician and lyric poets used Underworld scenes to assimilate their patrons to heroes who achieved a "blessed" afterlife. Chapter 4 focuses on the use of Underworld scenes on the dramatic stage and in funerary contexts in Classical Athens to portray and offer solutions to contemporary political and social issues. Finally, Chapter 5 explores famous Underworld episodes in Plato's dialogues and examines how Socrates uses Underworld scenes to overwrite traditional sources and redefine the afterlife as a stage of life, like childhood and old age.

AbstractThe Birth of the Mob: Representations of Crowds in Archaic and Classical Greek LiteraturebyJustin Jon SchwabDoctor of Philosophy in ClassicsUniversity of California, BerkeleyProfessor Leslie Kurke, Chair This dissertation surveys the representation of crowds and related phenomena in Homer, the Attic tragedians, and Aristophanes. The first chapter begins by noting that while recent scholarship has explored the role of the crowd in ancient Roman history and literature, virtually no similar work has been done in archaic and classical Greek studies. Admittedly, Greek poleis were on a much smaller scale than was Rome, and it may be for this reason that classical scholars have assumed "the" crowd is not a feature of ancient Greek society. In order to explain why this absence of study is due to a limited understanding of what crowds are, I survey the development of crowd theory and mass psychology in the modern era. I adopt the model of Elias Canetti's Crowds and Power, which studies crowds as part of a spectrum of group behavior, ranging from small "packs" to imagined crowds at the level of a nation. Under this expanded model, I argue that crowds are universal human phenomena whose representations in archaic and classical Greek literature are fruitful objects of study. The chapter ends with a brief survey of "crowd words" to be examined, including homilos, ochlos, homados and thorubos. The second chapter studies crowds in Homer through a close reading of several words and passages. The two crucial words for this study are homilos and homados, which refer respectively to a crowd and the distinctive noise it makes. I survey the homilos in the Iliad as a background of anonymous figures against which elite figures display their excellence, before arguing that the suitors in the Odyssey are the closest Homer comes to representing a crowd. Individually elite, they nonetheless are reduced to the status of a mob by the fact of their aggregation. The third chapter examines the crowd in tragedy. I argue that the crowd looms as an offstage threat to the elite characters depicted onstage, most obviously in such plays as Sophocles's Ajax and Euripides's Andromache and Orestes, but to some extent in almost every surviving tragedy. In this chapter, the word ochlos (not yet present in Homer) is the key crowd-term, although homilos and other words are also present. The works of Euripides are particularly rife with descriptions of crowds, and my survey illuminates just how central the topic was to his work, in a reflection of the troubled politics of his era. The fourth chapter examines the discourse on the crowd in Aristophanes. I demonstrate that the comedian's work is highly concerned with crowds and other groupings of people. Athens during the Peloponnesian war was crowded, not only due to the siege but in mentality and dramatic representation. To many of Aristophanes's characters, the improper aggregation of bodies is just one symptom of the general disintegration of society and decline of traditional morality. Where in tragedy the crowd must remain offstage, comedy can also bring crowds onto the stage, in such scenes as the opening of the Acharnians. I close with a Postscript presenting two quotes of Plato, from the Republic and the Laws, whose descriptions of crowd behavior and its effect on individuals take on new significance in light of the deep history of the representation of crowds which this dissertation explores.

Discipline: études grecquesLa pagination du document disponible sous forme électronique ne correspond pas exactement à celle de la thèse "papier" présentée. Cela tient aux changements introduits par la version de Word utilisée pour convertir les textes grecs, composés à l'origine manuellement en Ismini, au format Unicode. ; This work is a study of the maxims (γνῶμαι) upon which the Greek literature, from the first poets to philosophers and historians, invites its audience to meditate. The role of those maxims in the elaboration of the moral, political, juridical and philosophical tradition is very important. If, for the Ancients, Homer was the master of the γνώμη, if the "mythical" explanations of the world were also "gnomic", so are the first philosophers, often poets themselves, only known through sententious fragments. The maxims are also central in the Histories of Herodotus, who builds, side by side, an historical argument and a web of poetical explanations. They are one of the keys to the sophists' art of persuasion. Thucydides reinvents them according to different criteria et rejects their poetic origin. As for Aristotle, he imagines a science devoted to them, the "gnomology". The enduring quality of those maxims is remarkable, as well as the role they play in the history of ideas in ancient Greece. Once put into words, the γνῶμαι seem to become set as so many unchanging formulas. But their meaning and significance change as time goes by, ensuring their relevance, even when the beliefs and values which had given birth to them became, if not suppressed, at least discussed, or even disputed. One must consider how those maxims, even though neither the words nor the formulas have changed, may have been used to explain very different realities, so distant sometimes that the latest could appear to make a clean sweep of the past. ; Ce travail est consacré à l'étude des « sentences » (γνῶμαι) que la littérature grecque, depuis les premiers poètes jusqu'aux philosophes et historiens, invite ses auditeurs et, plus ...

Discipline: études grecquesLa pagination du document disponible sous forme électronique ne correspond pas exactement à celle de la thèse "papier" présentée. Cela tient aux changements introduits par la version de Word utilisée pour convertir les textes grecs, composés à l'origine manuellement en Ismini, au format Unicode. ; This work is a study of the maxims (γνῶμαι) upon which the Greek literature, from the first poets to philosophers and historians, invites its audience to meditate. The role of those maxims in the elaboration of the moral, political, juridical and philosophical tradition is very important. If, for the Ancients, Homer was the master of the γνώμη, if the "mythical" explanations of the world were also "gnomic", so are the first philosophers, often poets themselves, only known through sententious fragments. The maxims are also central in the Histories of Herodotus, who builds, side by side, an historical argument and a web of poetical explanations. They are one of the keys to the sophists' art of persuasion. Thucydides reinvents them according to different criteria et rejects their poetic origin. As for Aristotle, he imagines a science devoted to them, the "gnomology". The enduring quality of those maxims is remarkable, as well as the role they play in the history of ideas in ancient Greece. Once put into words, the γνῶμαι seem to become set as so many unchanging formulas. But their meaning and significance change as time goes by, ensuring their relevance, even when the beliefs and values which had given birth to them became, if not suppressed, at least discussed, or even disputed. One must consider how those maxims, even though neither the words nor the formulas have changed, may have been used to explain very different realities, so distant sometimes that the latest could appear to make a clean sweep of the past. ; Ce travail est consacré à l'étude des « sentences » (γνῶμαι) que la littérature grecque, depuis les premiers poètes jusqu'aux philosophes et historiens, invite ses auditeurs et, plus tard, ses lecteurs à méditer. La place de ces maximes dans l'élaboration de la tradition morale, politique, juridique et philosophique est très importante. Si, pour les Anciens, Homère est le maître de la γνώμη, si les explications « mythiques » du monde sont également « gnomiques », de même, les premiers philosophes, souvent poètes eux-mêmes, ne sont connus que par de sentencieux fragments. Ce sont encore les sentences qui nourrissent les Enquêtes d'Hérodote, l'historien développant, côte à côte, un raisonnement historique et un réseau d'explications poétiques. Ce sont elles dont les sophistes font l'une des clefs de leur art, celui de persuader. Thucydide, lui, les réinvente selon d'autres critères et rejette leur origine poétique. Quant à Aristote, il invente leur science, la « gnomologie ». La pérennité de ces maximes est donc remarquable, tout comme le rôle qu'elles jouent dans l'histoire des idées en Grèce ancienne. Une fois exprimées, les γνῶμαι semblent se figer en autant de « formules ». Mais leur rôle, leur portée ont évolué au fil du temps, assurant à chaque fois leur pertinence, y compris lorsque les croyances et les valeurs qui leur avaient donné naissance se trouvèrent, sinon abolies, du moins discutées, voire contestées. Il convient donc d'apprécier de quelle manière ces sentences, sans que ni les mots ni les formules ne changent, ont pu servir à expliquer des réalités très différentes, si éloignées parfois que les plus récentes pouvaient sembler faire table rase du passé.

In this paper, I argue that Greek poetry is a living tradition characterized by a diversity of voices and styles and that Greek poetry is a vital part of contemporary World Literature. The diversity of voices in contemporary Greek poetry gives it both aesthetic value and political relevance. Greek poetry, as it survives translation into a number of languages, including English, gives us a model for the successful translation of texts in both World literature and Comparative literature. A thematic analysis of some poems is presented in this paper. The aim is not to chronicle the contemporary Greek poetic production but to show how Greek poetic tradition continues to expand beyond national boundaries.

The first period of Albanian rule in Northern Epirus, from 1912 to 1945, witnessed a continuation of the oral tradition enriched by the experience of the unceasing struggle for liberation. It should be stressed that what we now call "literature of the ethnic Greek minority of Albania" is in fact nothing but an integral part of Greek literature. It is the literary output of the Greek inhabitants of the area who, despite the adverse political developments that left them outside the borders of the Greek state, maintained their creativity and their Greek identity. From 1945 onwards, with the establishment of the People's Republic of Albania, any attempt to assess the literature of the Greek minority in Northern Epirus stumbles upon the political and national dichotomy of the land and its people. Firstly, the writers who identified themselves with the Communist ideals were following the principles of Socialist Realism. Secondly, those who followed a path of silent resistance and struggled for the preservation of the Greek language reverted to allegory and cryptic writing.

Animals play an important role in the communication of wisdom. In songs, proverbs, aphorisms, riddles and other oral modes of communication, animals sometimes play the roles of human beings. Homeric similes, Hesiodic and Aesopic fables, and numerous oral figures of speech in Greek lyric poetry often incorporate animals in their figurative language. Likewise, Kalanga folktales, proverbs, and other didactic modes attest to the importance of animals within this culture as vehicles to teach moral lessons. This tendency is visible among many cultures across the world. As such, the broad concerns of this thesis are to compare the way Archaic Greek and Kalanga wisdom literatures resort to animal imagery in the dissemination of moral lessons. The study evaluates the way animals are deployed as metaphors to signify and express human actions and human attitudes in oral thought. In a narrow sense, I study the deployment of animals insofar as they shed light upon the human attributes of cleverness and stupidity; the use of animals' characters in political commentary; as well as in the economic and erotic didactics in Archaic Greek and Kalanga oral wisdom literatures. Judging from the frequency of their appearance, it seems that animals are one of the preferred ways through which people offer insights into themselves. Commenting on the human habit of integrating animals into one's religious and moral views, Peter Lum says 'The animal world seems to the mind of primitive man to be only a very short step from the human.' This dissertation seeks to arrive at answers to a number of questions through a comparative study of selections from the two traditions. What are the premises and presuppositions behind the deployment of each animal in such literature? What are the bases for building a human character on an animal? How do we compare and contrast the human and animal natures? And, what makes an animal assume a specific role, and not another, in folklore? What ecological and ethical concerns can be observed in this type of literature? Most importantly, what similarities are there between Greek and Kalanga oral modes of expression? By revealing similarities in animal imagery between two diverse wisdom traditions, this work explores what may be described as a natural, cross-cultural basic component of didactic poetry: a common denominator that gets to the root of archaic wisdom. Furthermore, as a poetic element seemingly rooted in the realities of agrarian society, such symbolism leads us to consider whether the moral authority it represents is purely poetic or whether it actually holds cultural capital. This exercise entails using the dynamics of a living tradition to understand more about one we access through texts and commentaries.

Includes index: v. 2, pages 405-416. ; Mode of access: Internet.

A systematic comparison of the aims and content of the secondary Literature curriculum in England and Greece shows that neither of the two countries is moving towards an idea of a united Europe, or towards an intercultural conception about the literary canon. The aims of the subject of Literature reflect certain priorities. Existing differences between the officially stated aims in both countries are related to the different place Literature holds in each culture and to different educational practices. These same differences also reflect the degree of emphasis placed on various aesthetic, political and educational factors and stem from the different social and political situations in the two countries. These factors, in turn, decide the place of Literature in the national culture and, hence, in the curriculum. This paper argues that those that set the curriculum should have their attention drawn to the possibility of Literature being taught in the framework of promoting a new European identity. This should be based on the awareness and recognition of the fact that the contribution of all European sub-cultures actually enriches and offers a great deal to the national cultures and thus establishes the new European citizenship. (DIPF/Orig.)

v.1 Leben des Thukydides.-Ein Wort ueber Tiberius.-Spicilegia conjecturarum.-Recensione der Grammatik von Aug. Matthias.--v.2 Bruchstuecke aus dem Leben eines Schulmannes.-Modernste historische Kritik.-Miscellen.-Ruppiner liberalismus.-Ansprache an Herrn von Vincke.-Xenophon's Geburtjahr.-- v.3 Annotationes ad Demosthenis Philippicam I.-De authentia & integritate Anabaseos Xenophonteae.-Gegen Guizot.-Plagiatorisches.-Politische pamphleten. ; Mode of access: Internet.

This dissertation contends that we must account for the values we have inherited from the Greco-Roman tradition, and for the (anti-)colonial histories of the Americas, when we practice and teach reading in the United States today. This comparative study of ancient Greek literature from the Second Sophistic (c. 60-230 CE) and post-1960s U.S. Latina/o literature examines the intersection of ethics, reading, and language politics to reconsider our own conceptions of literacy, literary reading, and education in the present. Both literary traditions exhibit a heightened attention to the educational models and language hierarchies that shape readers into social and political subjects. In the Second Sophistic, Greek writers actively produced a "classical" heritage, as well as their own sociopolitical identities, through literary and linguistic training in an elite Greek dialect; this cultural education was entangled with legacies of Greek and Roman imperialism and conquest. Similarly, contemporary U.S. Latina/o writers grapple with the colonial and the revolutionary legacies of alphabetic literacy in the Americas, especially the relationship between literate education (in a dominant, colonial language) and sociopolitical belonging. Latina/o writers contest the equation of (proper) English with U.S. sociopolitical inclusion to summon a more inclusive, multilingual reading public. Beginning with the second- or third-century CE work of Athenaeus, and moving to the work of Julia Alvarez in the early twenty-first century, the first two chapters argue for the ethical significance of reading practices that diverge from normative educational models of linguistic and literary mastery. The final two chapters emphasize how the embodied dimensions of reading intersect with language politics. The literary production of Lucian in the second century and of Norma Elia Cantú in the late twentieth century highlight the material dimensions of language and literacy instruction, such as forms of bodily discipline that train readers' gestures and tongues. Ultimately, this study argues that how we conceive of, practice, and teach reading are of ethical importance; it seeks an inclusive understanding of reading that accounts for a plurality of perspectives, multiple literacies and linguistic heritages, and the diverse embodied practices of readers.

"Greek Historiography, Roman Society, Christian Empire: the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea" addresses a major shift in Roman social, political, and religious history at the pivotal turn of the fourth century AD. When Christianity was legalized in 313, the Christian church of the eastern Roman Empire, where the pagan Licinius ruled as emperor until the Christian Constantine defeated him in 324, remained in an insecure position. The Greek-speaking eastern Roman elite of this period only admitted outsiders to their circles who displayed a civilized manner of life inculcated in the elite Greek educational curriculum (paideia), the kind of life embodied by Greek philosophers. It was, I argue, to depict this newly legalized Christianity as the models of the philosophical life that Eusebius of Caesarea wrote the first history of the church in the 310s AD. Whereas Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History is usually studied for its intra-Christian discourse, this study considers the History as a Greek text aimed at Roman elites. I demonstrate that the History's reconfiguration of Greek historiographical genres constructed Christianity as a civilized and educated institution whose leaders were worthy to educate and advise the Roman ruling classes.The first three chapters present a reading of the Ecclesiastical History within the rich variety of Greek historiographical genres. The first chapter applies genre theory to show that Eusebius' History was a combination of the Greek genres of national history and philosophical biography. This combination of genres presented the church as a nation of philosophers ready to assume the standard role of philosophers in the Roman Empire, of teaching Roman elites a civilized manner of life and of advising Roman emperors. The second chapter scrutinizes the character of Eusebius' Christianity by studying eighty mini-biographies embedded into the History that echo Diogenes Laertius', Philostratus', and Porphyry's philosophical biographies. By highlighting Christians' homogeneous and universal intellectual prowess, these profiles represent the church as reliable educators and advisors. The third chapter argues that, in a riposte to the grand genre of Greek war history that valorized other nations' pasts, Eusebius transformed persecution and martyrdom from an orderly legal procedure into a violent struggle told in the manner of the great Greek historian Thucydides. As the church's enemy in the struggle martyrdom was Satan and not the Roman persecutors of Christianity, Eusebius could call martyrdoms "wars contested for peace in the soul," critiquing Greek war history with Greek philosophical discourse. His church emerges victorious by remaining steadfastly loyal to God, surpasses the warriors in Greek literature by its virtuous conduct of the wars, and, by scapegoating the demons, absolves the Roman Empire of any systemic flaw that would discourage Christians from supporting it.The next three chapters complement my analysis of the Ecclesiastical History's genres by locating Eusebius' Christianity in the social structures of the early fourth-century Roman Empire. The fourth chapter introduces Eusebius' experience of living under Rome through a thick description of the archaeological remains of his home city, Caesarea Maritima. Caesarea was unmistakably a Roman creation, as the governor of Palestine resided there and the city's topography featured numerous monuments to Roman power, including monuments to philosophers who were respected in the city. The peaceful, prosperous and well-connected life that a wealthy man such as Eusebius could live there solidified Eusebius' loyalty to the Roman Empire. The fifth chapter shows how Eusebius integrated the church into the Empire: he delineated networks of bishops and intellectuals that stretched across the Empire from Mesopotamia to Gaul and Carthage. The geographically diffused church displays a variety of mechanisms for maintaining long-distance cohesion, and the cohesive and homogeneous philosophical church bound together by these ties attracts favor from Roman leaders throughout the History. Through these encounters Eusebius patterned the church's relationship with the Empire after that of Greek philosophers: philosophers typically stayed in contact with emperors and governors while maintaining a critical distance from imperial power, so as to provide impartial advice for imperial officials. Eusebius placed Christians into the beneficial imagined relationship that philosophers had held with the Empire, from which they would strengthen imperial governance. The sixth chapter contextualizes the History in Eusebius' larger literary oeuvre. He published the History when he was writing his long magnum opus, the Gospel Preparation and Gospel Demonstration, a comprehensive exposition and defense of Christian doctrine. Eusebius' simultaneous publication of the Preparation-Demonstration with the History emulated the combination of expository works with biographical narratives in Greek philosophical curricula. Eusebius' forging of a comprehensive program for training Christians to think and act as philosophers positioned the church to displace Greek philosophical schools as the premier intellectual institution of the Empire. From this position, the church could then reinforce the Empire's mission to civilize the inhabited world.The History articulated a central role for Eusebius' church in Rome's imperial regime. Where the most prominent role of Greek philosophers was to educate imperial elites and advise Roman emperors, Eusebius' assertion of Christians' intellectual prowess claimed the church's superiority as a philosophical institution. Eusebius published his vision at a fortuitous moment, for when the Christian emperor Constantine conquered the eastern Roman Empire in 324, the History had already advertised church leaders' competence in the philosophical profession. By telling the church's history within the Greek historiographical tradition stretching back to Herodotus and Thucydides, therefore, Eusebius' History became a catalyst for the church's integration into the power structures of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.

The ancient works of Greek civilization had almost been wiped out of human consciousness until Renaissance revisited it. In early 1800s, when Greece was revolting against Turks after 400 years of slavery, Europe discovered the old Greek tragedies and works of Greek philosophers which had been oppressed by political power bearers. In the 19th century many free spirits like Lord Byron (who died in Greece during the war) were intrigued by these works and began to reinterpret and analyse them to locate universals truths relating to philosophy, ecology, psychology, natural sciences, etc in them.Ever since Renaissance (when Shakespeare made abundant use of Greek Myths in his plays) the craze and interest in Greek mythology has not slowed down. From Homer to John Milton to John Keats to Thomas Hardy, all old and contemporary writers have looked towards Greek Myths for substance for their writing and have used them in all possible genres of literature. This paper attempts to trace the influence of Greek Mythology on English literature and contemporary culture, to point towards the literary works of various centuries which intensively used Greek myths and those English films which depict the same. An effort has been made at finding out the reason behind this continuing popularity of ancient myths and to analyse such a tremendously powerful phenomenon.