GLOSSARY

acropolis
Literally “the highest point of the city,” a rocky eminence sometimes used as the site of a citadel
during Mycenaean times and later serving as the religious focal point of the polis from the Archaic
Period onward; often used specifically to refer to the acropolis of Athens (figure 47).

aegis
A divine attribute, usually worn by Athena on her chest (figure 76), represented as a Gorgon's head
surrounded by scales or a fringe, which confers special powers on the wearer.

agora
A centrally located open area of a polis where people could gather for political functions or for social
and commercial purposes.

amphora
A large, two-handled jar for storage of wine, olive oil or other liquids (figures 17, 18, 32–4, 36, 45,
and 61).

aristoi
Literally “the best (men),” used to refer to the members of the leading landowning families of a polis
and serving as the first element of the words “aristocrat” and “aristocracy.”

aulos
An oboe-like reed instrument, used as an accompaniment for sacrificial ritual, certain athletic
activities, ELEGIAC poetry, and the advance of HOPLITES into battle (figures 27 and 28).

barbarian
The term used by the Greeks to refer to any non-Greek, whose unintelligible speech was thought to
resemble the nonsense syllables “bar-bar” from which the word was derived.

basileus
(plural basileis) Originally the Mycenaean title referring to a man who held a position in the palace
under the king, perhaps meaning something like “count” or “duke,” a meaning that continued into the
time of Homer and Hesiod; later used to refer to a foreign monarch, a Spartan king, or a Greek
TYRANT.

dactylic hexameter
A metrical form in which each line of verse is made up of six (Greek hex) dactyls (a unit consisting of
one long syllable followed by one or two further syllables), a meter appropriate to epic poetry,
prophecies given by the Delphic oracle, and other poetry of a serious or philosophical character (for
example, the poems of Hesiod).

deme
A local territorial district, either a village or a neighborhood of a larger urban area; also, by
extension, the inhabitants of the district.

elegiac
Referring to a metrical form consisting of couplets, the first line of which is a DACTYLIC
HEXAMETER and the second is a shorter variant of the hexameter, used for funerary epigrams and
for other small-scale poems, often composed for performance in the SYMPOSIUM.

epithet