Athenian Artistic Performances Were They a Form of Propaganda Essay

The glory that was Greece reached its height in 5th deoxycytidine monophosphate BCE in Athens, under the leadership of Pericles. He opened Athenian state to the ordinary citizen, was responsible for the construction of magnificent temples and statues on the Acropolis and he, in feeling created the Athenian empire. The definition of propaganda is the planned use of any form of state-supported or mass-produced communication designed to affect the minds of a presumption group for a specific purpose, whether military, economic or political (Linearger, p. 39, 1954).This has con nonations of artifice and while people assume it is a recent phenomenon, its roots go back much further. The question is however, was propaganda rife in 5th ampere-second BCE Athens and if so, was it the driving force whether explicitly or not john many of the public displays? A funeral oration or epitaphios logos is an ordained actors line delivered at a funeral. The epitaphios is regarded as a virtuall y bizarre Athenian concept, although early elements of such speeches exist in the Epic poetry of Homer and in Lyric poetry of Pindar in addition modern parallels have been drawn between Lincolns Gettysburg address and Pericles.When Pericles gave the epitaphios for Athenian soldiers who had been killed in the first year of the Peloponnesian War. He took the opportunity to not only plaudit the deceased, but Athens itself, in an oration which has been two praised as enshrining the archetypal democratic system and condemned as barefaced propaganda. In Thucydides book History of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles Funeral Oration is a powerful rhetorical piece. In addition it is important evidence for the study of the Athenian palpate of identity and the way they represented themselves and others.It eloquently discusses the ancient democratic ensample and the picture it portrays serves as a prototype for democratic states today (Abbott, 1970). Thucydides condition a man would be chose n to make an appropriate speech i. e. it matched formulaic prescriptions of the epitaphios, which according to Edinger, consisted of a number of recognised topics praise of the dead, praise of the ancestors, praise of the city, consolation of the families of the dead.