REFLECTIONS OF THE BODY
IN THE MIRROR
SUMMARY:
The exposition tries to present a theme -the origins of the meaning and
organisation of the body in the ancient Greek culture- from a multidisciplinary focus.
With this in mind we follow the progress of its conception in plastic arts, education and
medicine.
We find the first reflection in the representation of the human body
painted upon pottery and in sculptures, from archaism to classicism.
Then we pursue the reflection left by education, from the almost
exclusive physical care of the body up to the introduction of the intellectual formation
in the Athens of the Sophists.
Lastly, the mirror of reason (philosophy and science) reflects a more
perfect and organised image of the body in the medicine of the Corpus Hipocraticum.
INTRODUCTION
The definition of the history of science as
an academic discipline is, in a way, yet to be made. All because previous methodological
decisions of hard concretion must be taken. History of Science or History of Sciences?
Internal history or also external history?
Logically, this isn’t the place,
neither to discuss in one way or the other, nor to make an option. What is pursued is to
consolidate interdisciplinarity as one of the values of the historicity of science, at
least in the field of secondary education.
It is evident that such interdisciplinarity
is less feasible in the teaching of history of science at a higher educational level. As
it is also evident that it has its limits and grades. Being, nowadays, a consolidated
desire as a centripetal force that slows down the centrifugal tendencies towards
specialisation, one must assess the possibilities for each level and each concrete
supposition.
In this case and for this level of
formation, a theme has been searched for that could be used as an example or model of the
greatest interdisciplinarity possible. Nothing else can justify the choice or methodology.
It is obvious that giving priority to the
mentioned formative value above thoroughness or depth, we are also opting for horizontal
exposition and excluding verticality. A choice of this nature means a prevalence of the
relationship between matters that consolidate frames or general synopsis instead of
erudite information.
With this purpose a present significant
nucleus theme has been chosen -the body- projecting it towards a historic moment in time
-the Greek culture from archaism to classicism- upon which the largest possible number of
sciences or languages could converge, so that different points of view could fall back on
it and reflect its representations: poetic, plastic, reflexive... The limits are set
between the original lyrical poetry and the Hippocratic medicine (VII to IV centuries BC),
although at some concrete time we resort to galenism with clarifying intentions. Finally,
signify that it isn’t a lecture or an academic exposition but, merely, a way of
explaining, almost a guide.
THE BODY IN THE MIRROR OF PLASTIC ARTS
It has often been said that the Greek
culture is somatocentrical, which, is not really precise. The treatment that is gives to
the body –at least in its archaic period- conceives it not as a group of organs or
physical peculiarities but as values: vitality, beauty or power. The body is the symbol of
what a man is worth. The kalós kai agathos, (good and beautiful) noble attributes,
is expressed plastically by means of youth, energy, grace, height, width of shoulders,
speed of the legs, the strength of the arms, the suppleness of flesh...
The figure of the geometric man,
characteristic of the archaic pottery is simple and schematic and it represents the
Homeric conception of the body, constructed by the sum of singular parts. The artists
reflect the body as articulated: the different limbs are clearly distinguished from one
another and the joints are emphasised represented by delicate strokes, while the muscles
are excessively enhanced. The head is a dot provided with an appendix to indicate the nose
or chin, the trunk is a triangle with a vertex at the waist and the limbs are long
filaments. The figures are pure silhouettes.
FIGURES 1 AND 2: REPRESENTATIONS OF THE BODY ON POTTERY OF THE
ARCHAIC PERIOD.
The original sculpture (Kuroi) is of
the same kind: long and angular body, triangular trunk and rigid posture. The arms usually
appear stuck to the sides and the legs together. The eyes sink into their hollows and the
hair is a compact mass with geometrical lines running through it, falling onto the back.
In its initial period, modelling takes on a
secondary role, the sculptors just draw incision lines upon those parts of the body that
require slight relief: the epigastric angle, the fibrous partition of the rectus of the
abdomen or the folds that separate the lower abdomen from the thighs. The representation
of the knee is solved with an inverted trapeze (the kneecap) that carries on up to the
thigh with two ridges, in a false representation of the vastus lateralis and medialis.
FIGURE 3: KUROS.
Where the Greek artist acquires his gradual
command of anatomy and the plastic sense of movement is in athleticism. The Strangford
Apollo (about 500 years BC), shows the transition from archaism to classicism. We can
appreciate a much deeper comprehension of the forms of the body. It is not only that the
particular constitution of the limbs corresponds in more reliable way to what eyes see in
nature, but also a penetrating feeling that the body is an organic unit.
FIGURE 4: APOLLO STRANGFORD.
In the transition period between 500 and
470 BC, (also known as the severe period) is where the great progress towards the command
of anatomy is more evident. They are the years in which Myron, Polygnotus and Kalamis
flourish, and in which Phidias and Polyclitus are formed. The naturalism, that with the
presocratic reflection had invaded the Greek culture, becomes little by little idealised
and stylised. The human body begins to be conceived as architecturally, like a building
whose parts should show maximum clarity. Its unitary consideration comes from the symmetry
that establishes a numeric relationship of each with its neighbour and of all with the
group.
We can use the work of Myron as a model for
this aspect. On one hand we have the discus thrower: a body civilised by the strict
training and discipline of the arena. On the other hand the Marsias of the Laterano
Museum, found at the Acropolis of Athens, that represents the moment when Marsias stops
indecisively before picking up the canes. Its anatomic modelling is perfect and faithful
to nature. The pectoral muscles instead of being flat, are authentic muscles that are
inserted in the arm below the prominence of the deltoids. The thorax is not superimposed
to the abdomen but intimately bonded to it by the group of abdominal muscles, intertwined
with the serratus. On the left leg the vastus lateralis and medialis are distinguished
from the front rectus of the thigh with a vision that was still lacking in the discus
thrower.
FIGURE 5: MARSIAS OF MYRON
(LATERANO MUSEUM).
At the end of this period, the
comprehension of anatomy reaches an almost unbeatable level of perfection and the human
body is the authentic object of the artistic concern. What makes these works still not
classics is the absence of expression on the faces, as if these were separated from the
bodies or were something secondary. This is where, genuinely, Phidias, Polyclitus and
classicism innovate, completing all the former process: body and face are a unit,
expression of the dignity and meaning of the human, full comprehension of the unity of the
body.
FIGURE 6: THE MARATHON
EPHEBE. ANONIMOUS.
THE BODY IN THE MIRROR OF EDUCATION
Henry Marrou in his History of Education
in the Antiquity (1971, Akal 1985) calls the period that goes from archaism to
classicism as the transition from the noble warrior to the scribe.
The original education concerns the
aristocratic warriors: handling of weapons, sport, chivalry games, musical arts (song,
lyre, dancing), oratory, worldly knowledge and prudence. That is, at least, what can be
gathered from the use of Homer as a basic text.
But in the seventh century BC the most
radical transformation of the Greek culture takes place: the apparition of the hoplita.
The decision of a combat or battle no longer depends on the singular fights between nobles
as in the Iliad, it is now in the hands of the clashing lines of infantrymen in
closed order. The heavy infantry takes over the leading role. Such a tactical revolution
brought on important consequences of social and moral nature. The heroic knight is
substituted by the citizenship of the polis, and the ideal of a hero, by one of a
life dedicated to the service of that citizenship, that from then on, erects itself into a
model of life for its members. Linked to the democratic transformation, a new moral and
formative project appears: the areté (virtue) is connected to the general well
being.
FIGURE 7: HOPLITAS IN
MILITARY FORMATION. PAINTING UPON POTTERY.
What equips the hoplita citizen –who
has to be prepared to protect the city at all times- is his superiority and physical
strength, his corporal agility. The only efficient preparation for combat, according to
the Socrates of Jenofonte, is the practise of athleticism and more in general, of
gymnastics as a democratising and popularising element of physical education. The adoption
of a civil way of life transferred the Olympic ideal to the grounds of sport competition,
as shown in all poetry of Pindar.
In order to fulfil this kind of education,
that attracts an increasing number of youths, the personalised education now is not
sufficient, collective formation is indispensable, which is going to promote the
apparition of the school institution.
Physical education occupied the privileged
place in it. Youths must be prepared to take part in athletic competitions according to a
set of rules: speed, discus and javelin throwing, long jump, wrestling and boxing. Complex
and delicate arts that demand the lessons of a competent trainer: the paidotriba or
youth trainer who gives his lessons in a sports ground or palestra.
FIGURE 8: SPORTSGROUND OR
PALESTRA.
This kind of teaching and its
institutionalisation must have happened around the last third of the VII century BC, as it
was then (Olympic games 632) when the great panhellenic games were born.
Sport is joined by music (lyre, dancing and
song) –as an instrument of spiritual and artistic formation aimed at developing
self-control thanks to eurythmics and harmony-, and grammar to learn to read and recite
the great poets.
Thus the ideal of kalós kai agathós
of this period is the sportsman, protagonist, together with the gods, of the Greek
statutory. Sport grants a value much appreciated by the Greeks: physical beauty. The cult
of the body is considered a means of expression and realisation of the personality. Even
Plato says that Socrates, in his dialogue Chármides, said the following sentence:
If he wanted to take his clothes off he would seem like a faceless being, such is his
beauty! Faceless beauties of those athletic figures like the discus thrower.
This prevalence of attention to the body
survives until the advent of the Sophists, half way through the V century. Before
Athens only knew sport trainers, humble schoolteachers and work shop masters. The Sophists
offer on the contrary an intellectual formation and knowledge that covers all the
specialities (polimatía). They were the first to recognise the pedagogical value
of the study curriculums designed by the Pythagorean communities (they were the only ones
that had them), in the way that was later adopted by the medieval quadrivium:
arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. The revolution of their proposal consists in
granting priority to the formation of the intellect opposed to that of the body. From that
moment on, and progressively, sport will get more and more professional, until it ended up
in hands of rough characters from the countryside.
Plato, Aristotle and Isocrates will take
the crucial steps in this direction, channelling education towards philosophy and oratory,
that were to dominate the rest of the antique world. At the same time gymnastics are
modernised introducing, from the Sophists and Hippocrates, the complete command of hygiene
and the prescriptions concerning patterns of life, dietetics and food. It must be taken in
account that the Sophists play a central formative role with regards to popularisation of
medicine. The Hippocratic Corpus contains, together with technical treatises, the
so called iatrophysics, aimed at making the advances of medicine reach the majority
of the population: a decisive factor for a medicine based more on prevention than
treatment: the individuals must learn the basic and elemental principals in order to
maintain, by themselves or with the help of a gymnast, the body in a healthy balance. This
is a complete U-turn: health and not the preparation for the battle is, now, the objective
of the care of the body.
THE BODY IN THE MIRROR OF THE REFLECTION.
Even if there is plenty of evidence that,
from the VI century BC, medicine schools existed in cities like Crotona or Cirene,
previous to the classical ones of Cos and Cnido, it is in the so called Hippocratic
Corpus (V and VI centuries BC) where we find, already, an art or technique (tecné)
sufficiently mature and sure of itself.
The body becomes, from that moment on, a
scientific object. It treatment ceases to be influenced by a magical, poetic or aesthetic
presence, to appear under the light of reason –the new reflexive mirror-. And the
image that that reflexivity sends back to man is no longer a body but an organism. That
this new image is the culmination of a demystifying and rationalising process -parallel to
that of the physis- is obvious. Nature as a whole is physical and human nature is physis
anthropoi: what the universal nature establishes and determines under the human form.
What do we see when the body transforms
into organism, object of scientific reflection? Which is the pristine representation of
it? Let’s simply point out some of its basic features.
1. Anthropos
mikrós Kosmós, -Democritus says-: man is a microcosm the
human organism is a part and a reflection of the macrocosm; the physis of each
particular living being is a manifestation of the physis or nature as a whole; of
that universal nature, beginning and foundation of all reality. Nature is organised in the
cosmos and to the cosmos it belongs, as an essential note, the movement (Kinesis) one
of which ways of being is the generation and the corruption.
The presocratic phisiologoi thought
that the knowledge of that part of the cosmos called phisis anthropoi demands
having a rational idea about its genesis (arjé), inside the universal reality that
represents the cosmogenesis.
The same as animal forms, the human form
would be the result of a configuration of cosmic elements previous to it, that move and
combine themselves by virtue of a constant necessary process of mixing and separation of
forms or configuration and dissolution, life or death. Because of this, all that happens
in the cosmos is useful to understand what happens in the human organism. All medicine is
meteorological (meteorology is the knowledge that deals with celestial things).
The organism is comprised of parts; the
study of these is called anatomy (anatome means incision or dissection).
These parts are limbs and organs, which can be principals -like the heart, lungs and
brain– or subordinated. Each part has its own physis according to its
function.
One of the essential notes of the physis
is its fundamental unitary condition. How is it possible, thus, to conceal diversity and
unity?: the universal physis fulfils itself cosmically in elemental realities
–elements (stoikheion), roots of things, homeomerias, atoms, etc.– of
which are diversely composed the numerous and multiform things that our eyes see on the
earth.
The primary elements of the cosmological
unit are: water, earth, air and fire, or the humid, the dry the cold and the hot. These
four primary elements of all that exists acquire in the human organism the quality of humors.
The technical term used by the Hippocratics is that of khymós and its use is
imprecise and variable in the different works, up to the point that it is complicated to
find precision beyond two constant features:
-It is a combination, of variable
proportions, of the four constituent elements mentioned.
-This combination constitutes both the
liquid and solid parts of the organism.
The humors are, thus, four:
-The blood, which is warm and humid
-The pituitrin, is cold and humid.
-The yellow bile, is warm and dry.
-The black bile, is cold and dry.
FIGURE 9: DIAGRAM OF THE
FOUR ELEMENTS AND THE HUMORS.
The different proportion of one and others
give reason to the differences of race, gender and temperament. Galen sets later, the
famous theory of the influence of one or other humor upon the conformation of the
temperaments (that the habits of the soul are consequence of the humoral complexion of
the body) that remains canonical, at least up to the Renaissance. Its adequate balance
is decisive factor of health and its imbalance of illness and, in last instance, of death.
This is contemplated as the unyielding need of all what cherishes in the Cosmos. In the
Hippocratic treatise On human nature it says: when the human body reaches it
end, the humid goes to the humid, the dry to the dry, the warm to the warm and the cold to
the cold. The physiological process of death consists in dissolution of the body into
its elements and the return of these to the Cosmos. Death and life are in this way two
vicissitudes, only contrasted in appearance, of the universal flux of the physis: to
be born and to die are the same thing, states the Hippocratic author of the book On
regimen.
To the maintenance of harmonic and balanced
unity between the different parts of the human physis, two agents also contributed:
One simple and congenital: the implanted
heat.
Another complex and external: the food,
comprised by:
An aerial or pneumatic part
A liquid part
A solid part.
The implanted or congenital heat lies in
the left ventricular of the heart and in it originates the vital principal by which the human
physis lives. Of the food, the pneuma is of special relevance. It is called air
when it is outside and wind when it is inside. It carries out four functions: it feeds,
propels, refreshes and revitalises. It penetrates the organism through the mouth and nose
and a system of channels, situated between the jaws and the brain, it takes it to the
encephala, where it leaves the liveliest and most active portion to revitalise the
intellect. From here it descends through the oesophagus, to the abdomen, and through the
trachea to the lungs and the heart, cooling them.
In a healthy organism, every thing is
submitted to the rule of the correct proportion (metron). From where, the
convenience of a proportioned diet, in quantity and quality, according to age, the season
of the year and the kind of work. The final destiny of all food is its decomposition into
humors, through a process called diakrisis.
Air and food are the paths that are chosen
by the external environment to penetrate into the organism, and, therefore the same, as
they are the main sources of health, they are also of illness.
2. Alopathy
(or allopathic medicine)
One of the texts with biggest projection of
the entire Greek culture is from the Milesian Anaximander, and it says: However,
where there is generation of things, destruction is also produced, depending on necessity,
one and others take the blame and the amendment of injustice, according to time
distribution.
This epigram on the universal and necessary
legality of the physis was projected on the Hippocratic consideration of describing
as exact, the good order of the human physis or health, (the physis does exactly
and harmonically what has to be done) and illness as the morbid alteration of the good
adjustment of the elements that integrate it. Alcmeón of Crotona, reformulated it as the
correct balance (isonomía) between the elements and humors that conform each
nature: the warm and the cold, the humid and the dry, the sweet and the sour, etc. To be
healthy is a state of good proportions, called eukrasía or good combination.
Such physiological balance demands that the
different dynameis are properly tempered between themselves, so that none dominates
the other. The regimen of life is responsible for this.
3. Regimen
of life
We understand as regimen of life the group
of habits of the body that constitute man’s activity. It is likely that it was a
Pythagorean invention that was later stripped of its religious and ascetic elements, until
it was widely spread as dietetics in the Greece of the V century BC.
The diet is integrated by five main
components:
Food (food and drink)
Exercise (gymnastics, walks, rest and bathing)
Professional activity.
Peculiarities of the country (geography, climate)
The customs (nomoi) of the city.
Determined by the age, the gender, the
particular habits of each person and the complexion of the body.
Dietetics is not as much as for aiding the
treatment of the ill as a way of preserving health or improving its natural condition. In
this way it became the main theme of the iastrophysical treatises or sophistic spreading
among the population.
4. Organs
and circulation.
Here we will follow the basic structure
built by Galen (II century AD), much more systematic and refined than that of the Hippocratic
Corpus, and because of this, more didactic. The roman doctor culminates the bases set
by the Hippocratic medicine.
The starting point are the four
cosmological elements -water, air, earth and fire- and the four humors or elemental
substances that, combining and transforming themselves, give rise to the organic
processes. The humors originate, immediately, in the food. It is the digestive apparatus
that starts the transformation of food into humors. The various combinations of these
provide the organism with:
a. The different organic liquids, in its
composition one of them prevail over the rest.
b. The parts called similars, which
are: the fibre, the flesh, the fat, the bone the cartilage, the ligaments, the nerve and
the bone marrow. Each of these, have the physical properties –heat, humidity,
consistency, etc.– that stem from their respective humoral complexion and adequately
serve the function of the organ or organic region that they belong to.
The organs act vitally, sustained by the
most basic and dynamic of the constitutive principles of animal organism: the innate or
native heat. This has its main headquarters in the heart and it is the primary agent of
the substantial transformations that constitute the vital process. By means of the blood,
it operates in the whole body and keeps it alive. The refrigeration provided by the
inhaled air keeps the intensity of that heat inside its exact limits.
The pneuma, puff or breath (term that
medieval galenists translated as spiritus), is a traditional concept of Greek
physiology up to the point of constituting a kind of specific knowledge: pneumatology.
The pneuma is not immaterial but an extremely subtle matter, capable of moving
quickly through the nerves and the arterial wall.
Together with these three
principles-humors, innate heat and pneuma- two are the main organs:
a. The liver, or the centre of the physical
dynamics, in charge of the vegetative functions.
b. The heart, headquarters of the vital
dynamics, that is in charge of preserving life.
The vegetative functions comprise the
transformation of food into substances proper of each organ. It is a process integrated by
three phases or digestions: one takes place in the alimentary canal, another in the liver
and heart, and the third in the anatomical part where the nutrition is absorbed. And in
each of the three phases, the digestion (pepsis) undergoes three consecutive
operations:
-The transformation into nutritious
substance of the useful part of the food for nutrition.
-The separation and storage of the useless
part.
-The expulsion of the latter.
The stomach attracts the bolus, submits it
to a first digestion, beginning the transformation of food into quilo, and sends it
through the pylorus to the duodenum.
In the small intestine (jejunum and ileum)
the quilification or quilosis is completed and two kinds of waste are
adequately separated from the quilo:
-The watery waste, which is attracted
towards the kidneys by the veins that join them to the alimentary canal.
-The faecal waste expelled outside through
the cecum and the colon.
The liver is conceived as the place where
the quilo is transformed into blood, process that culminates the first digestion.
In this transformation process, water and yellow bile are also extracted.
The dark and thick blood that forms in the
liver is the object of a first cleansing in the spleen, which is specifically destined for
the formation of the black bile from starchy and ferrous substances that still contain the
blood produced by the liver. The black bile is distributed from the spleen and partially
eliminated by the alimentary canal.
Now cleansed the venous blood leaves the
liver in two directions:
-By the suprahepatic veins towards the
right side of the heart.
-By a hypothetical venous system towards
the rest of the body.
The second digestion improves with
the transformation of the venous into arterial blood, through the activity of the heart
and lungs, central organs of the vital power.
The heart (Kardias), beginning and
main headquarters of the innate heat and vital spirit, whose main function is the
transformation of venous into arterial blood; this is, remove the useless materials and
provide it with vital spirit, to distribute it, through the arteries, all over the body.
It is a minoide body, although it is not muscular, without nerves, and with two ventricles
in its interior:
-The left or pneumatic
-The right or sanguine
And two auricles, with the venous and
arterial orifices that correspond to its function. The right ventricle communicates with
the left one by a system of channels that go through the interventricular septum.
In its diastolic activity, the right heart
attracts the hepatic blood offered by the vena cava and the left heart attracts the air
that breathing has taken to the lungs and the majority of the blood contained in the right
ventricle.
In its systolic activity the right
ventricle sends venous blood to the lung in order to nurture it and, through the pores of
the septum interventricular to the left ventricle. In which the venous blood pneumatises-
thanks to the innate heat the inhaled air is transformed into vital spirit- and, now as
arterial blood, is sent through the aorta artery to all the body propelled by the systole
ventricle. That is why the vein that takes blood to the lung is called arterial and venous
artery the one that takes the air from the lung to the left heart.
But the systole of the left ventricle does
not limit itself to propel the arterial blood towards the body; it sends, at the same
time, towards the lung the tenuous residues that result from the transformation of venous
to arterial blood (smoke and soot), to expel them outside. In consequence the
venous artery never contains blood; in the inhalation it takes air from the lung to the
left heart and in the expiration it leads the smoke or soot to the outside.
Two are, thus, the vascular system:
-The venous, with the liver as the centre.
-The arterial, emanated from the heart.
The blood moves centrifugally in both, to
be consumed as food in the peripheral parts. The veins do not pulsate, the blood moves
along them attracted by the organs it has to feed. On the contrary the arteries do
pulsate. Which is the mechanism of the arterial pulse?:
a. The arteries contain blood.
b. The arterial walls can move actively,
because they have pulsation power.
c. This power is updated thanks to the
stimulant action of the pneuma vital that the heart sends along the arterial walls.
The lungs have two lobes on the left side
and three on the right side that are for:
a. Protecting the heart that is surrounded
by the lung lobes, like the fingers of the hand
b. Providing it with the air that the left
ventricle transforms into vital spirit.
c. Contributing to the formation,
maintenance and tempering of the innate heat.
The third digestion or assimilation in the
peripheral parts consists in the transformation of blood in the substances proper to each
of them. Two types of blood reach here:
-The purest and pneumatized, coming from
the arteries.
-The less pure and not pneumatized coming
from the veins.
FIGURE 10: SYNOPSIS OF THE
CIRCULATORY BLOOD SYSTEM.
It is necessary, so, that, before the
assimilation both are combined and the venous blood is arterialised. Such terminal blood
is the one, which ends up transforming itself into parénkhyma, proper of each
part. This is the function of the third digestion that leaves as residues: the sweat,
cutaneous sebum, hair and nails.
The organs of the abdominal and thoracic
cavities permit that the exterior environment, in the form of food and air, contribute to
preserve life; the dynamic link organism-environment goes here in direction from the
latter to the former. On the contrary that link moves from the organ towards the
environment thanks to the brain situated in the cranial cavity and the mechanisms that,
from it reach the rest of the body: the spinal cord and the nerves.
These are the functions of the brain
according to Galen:
-Produce the pneuma psykhikón and,
in consequence be the beginning of the life of sensitiveness, self-movement and thought.
-Contribute to the humoral balance and the
thermoregulation of the organism.
The brain is the beginning of sensation and
movement of the pneuma that, from it, passes to the spinal cord and to the nerves
that emanate from it, in order to grant this sensitiveness and movement to the parts of
the body capable of it. Galen knows and describes the brain and its main parts and
conceives the spinal cord as a prolongation of the brain. The nerves are soft or sensitive
and hard or motor or of an intermediate condition. The ganglions act as places where the
nervous activity intensifies.
The abdominal and thoracic viscera
preserves life; the brain and nerves allow us to perceive the world and act upon it,
through our limbs, because man is –according to Galen-, a homo faber, a being
capable of transforming biological life into social and creative activity.
Poetry, art, education and medicine are,
therefore, the first mirrors with which, through their reflexivity, the Greek culture gave
the human body conscience and identity. After them, we have improved and innovated their
knowledge, but the model of relationship with it was set with nearly definite features.
DIDACTICAL
ACTIVITIES
1.- Where we first come upon explicit references about
the human body in the antique Greek culture is in the lyrical poetry. Comment the meaning
/ feeling of the body that can be gathered from the following texts:
Like the generation of the leaves
such is that of men; the leaves, one by one, it is the wind that scatters them on the
ground and the green forest who brings them to life when the spring season arrives. The
same happens with mankind: one generation is born at the same time as another disappears. |
These verses of Homer
are used as a starting point for all the great poets. This is what Semónides of Amorgos
says (towards 630 BC)
Few mortals, in effect, let
these verses into their ears |
and leave them in their chest.
So hope remains inside each person |
that it roots into the hearts of
the young |
Whilst a mortal keeps the very
desirable flower of youth |
he has a light spirit and makes
many mistakes |
because he does not suspect that
he has to grow old and die |
nor, being healthy, worry about
tiredness. |
Stupid those who have such a
state of mind and do not know |
how short the time of youth is
and the life |
of mankind. But you learn this
and till the end of your life |
dare to enjoy the good things
that life has in store for you |
Mimnermus of Colofón
(around 630 BC)
Us, like the leaves that grow in the
floral season |
of spring, barely when sunrays
appear, |
like them, for a short time we
enjoy the flowers |
of youth, without knowing though
the Gods neither the evil nor the good. |
But beside the dark Keres appear |
one covered in the terrible old
age |
and the other in death. The
fruit of youth lasts one instant, |
while the sun spills over the
earth. |
It is more, as soon as that
moment has passed, |
it is better to be dead than
alive (2.2D) |
Theognis of Megara (around
the VI to V century BC)
Of all things the best is not to
have been born |
nor see as a human the fleeting
sunrays, |
and, once born, cross as soon as
possible the gates of Hades, |
and lie under a thick layer of
earth. (425-439) |
Anacreontea of Teos (about
530 BC)
I am greying at the temples |
and have a white head. |
The gracious youth has passed
by, |
and my teeth are old; |
of sweet living the time |
I have left is not much. |
That is why I often cry, |
I am afraid of the Tartar. |
Because the abyss of Hades is
terrible |
and bitter the way
down...(13.44D) |
Simonides of Ceos (between
556 and 467 BC)
Of the humans the power is small |
and useless the intentions and
troubles. |
In the brief life there is
sadness after sadness, |
and the unavoidable death is
always waiting. (2.90) |
Pindar of Tebas (522-448 BC)
Beings of one day! What is one?,
What isn’t one? |
Man is the dream of a shadow.
(Pítica VIII) |
Even Plato was attributed
this epigram:
Everything is drawn by life. The
long time knows how to alter |
the name, the form, the being
and the destiny. (3.31D) |
2.- Study the pictorial figures of the
Greek pottery and analyse the different kinds of Kuroi, following the indications
of the texts.
3.- Study the characteristic features of the sculptures of
Myron, Phidias and Polyclitus and find in which parts of the body are the main differences
between the three sculptures.
4.- So that you can have an idea as how were the fights
between the warriors, before the appearance of the Hoplitas, read the fifth song of The
Iliad of Homer and describe the battle.
5.- In the text the polis or the Greek city-states
are mentioned, write a composition with their main features.
6.- Investigate what the ancient Olympic Games were about,
and compare them with the modern ones. Who promoted the latter and when?
7.- Deepen your knowledge and your ideas about the Sophist
movement.
8.- Investigate what the platonic Academy consisted
in.
9.-- The notions of the body as a microcosm was normal not
only in ancient times but also in the Renaissance, look up the plastic representations
upon this idea in the art of this period.
10.- Study the role played by the four material elements in
the presocratic Greek thinking.
11.- Study the relation between the humors and the stars
according to astrology.
12.- Express your idea in modern terms about the relation
that exists between the health of the body and the environment in which it develops.
Compare the proposals made by the Hipocratical medicine about regime of life with ours.
13.- Evidently the comprehension that ancient medicine had
about the circulatory system is wrong, why? ; Which is the right view? And who discovered
it?
14.- Make a comparative table of the role played by the
digestive apparatus, the liver and the kidneys in ancient medicine and in modern medicine.
BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Alsina, J. – Los orígenes helenísticos de la
medicina occidental. Madrid, ed. Labor, 1982.
- Blanco Freijeiro, A.- Arte Griego. Madrid, ed.
C.S.I.C, 1990.
- Boardman, Jhon.- El arte griego. Madrid, ed.
Destino, 1991.
- Gombrich,E.- Historia del arte. Madrid, ed.
Alianza forma, 1979.
- Joly, R.- Hippocrate. Medicine Grecque. París,
ed. Gallimard, 1964.
- Laín,P. (dir.)- Historia universal de la medicina,
vol. II La medicina clásica. Barcelona, 1972.
- Laín, P. – La medicina hipocrática. Madrid,
ed. Alianza, 1987.
- Marrou,H.- Historia de la educación en la
Antigüedad. Madrid, ed. Akal, 1985.
- Planeta (ed.).- Historia Universal del Arte, vol.
II La antigüedad clásica. Barcelona, 1986.
- Roberts, M.- El arte griego. Madrid, ed. Alianza
Forma, 1983.
- Snell, B.- Las fuentes del pensamiento europeo. Madrid,
ed. Razón y Fe, 1965.
- Tratados Hipocráticos, vols I a VII. Introducción a
cargo de C. García Gual. Madrid, ed. Gredos. 1983-93.
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