Chapter 7 "The Art of Reconstruction"
1. What is "one of the hardest aspects of the original appearance of ancient temples for us now to come to terms with"? (70)
2. How did the external sculpture of the temple at Bassae proclaim that it was Apollo's? How -- and why -- was Zeus probably also represented in the exterior sculpture?
3. What helps our guesswork in reconstructing the sculpture decorating the temple at Bassae? What
evidence do we depend on, in addition to the fragments of the sculptures themselves?
4. What was the inside of a Greek temple used for? What did it look like?
5. When the bronze statue of Apollo was taken away from the temple, it was probably replaced by an
acrolithic statue. What advantage would this kind of statue have over a bronze one? What does "acrolithic"
mean, and how is it etymologically related to "acropolis" and "acrophobia"?
6. What are four of the "startling features" of the Bassae temple's architecture? (74) What "characteristic
of much of classical culture" do these abnormalities show, and how is this related to Greek and Roman
poetry? (75)
7. Why do the authors compare the temple at Bassae with "banks, court-houses, museums, and official
residences of any of the cities of the modern world"? (77)
8. How does the Amazon/Centaur frieze "set gender roles and the sanctity of the marital ordering of
society together under divine protection"? (80)
9. How have modern critics denigrated the aesthetic effect of the Bassae frieze? What can be said in
defense of their design and appearance?
Chapter 8 "The Greatest Show on Earth"
10. How does Charles Segal see the Temple of Apollo at Bassae as summing up the tensions "between
classical harmony and transgressive violence"? (85)
11. Who gave classical tragedies "a strong role in educational syllabuses"? Why did they do so?
12. What evidence do Beard and Henderson give to support their claim "In drama, the democratic city was
on display"? (89)
13. Why has "reverence for fifth-century Athenian culture...consistently struggled to play down its
connection with democracy"? (89) [Be sure to mention Thucydides and Plato.]
14. What ancient models do Beard and Henderson see in the "opposition between parties carrying, for
example, 'Democratic' and 'Republican' banners"? (92)
15. Upon which Roman did George Washington model himself? What trait in him did he admire? What
did Thomas Jefferson see were the similarities between ancient Greek political parties, and those of his
own day? What does 'aristoi' mean, and what English word comes from it? (95)
16. What are two differences between Greek and Roman theatrical productions? What two major
spectacles (absent among the Greeks) were the Romans known for?
Chapter 9 "Imagine That"
17. What was the ancient Greek image of Arcadia? Who was Pan? What did "Pan-pipes" have to do with
Arcadia?
18. How is the god Pan related to the English word "panic," and what is the origin of the "Marathon" race?
19. What is "Arcadian" about Vergil's Eclogues?
20. In what way has the notion of Arcadia become "a seductive fantasy, and a fantasy of seduction"?
(100-101)
21. What kinds of "erotics embodied in ancient texts and art" (101) can form the basis of the study of the
Classics?
22. How did Virgil's Eclogues influence the poets Sannazaro and Sidney? How does their work add to that
of Virgil?
23. How does Virgil's Aeneid bring together the mythical Hercules and Aeneas with the historical
Augustus? Further, how does the Aeneid include Arcadia in its story of the founding of Rome, and what
does this tell us about Virgil's notion of the relation ship between "Arcadia" and Rome?
24. How are the Classics, "and particularly the teaching of the Latin and Greek languages, deeply
embedded in modern images of education, schooling, and culture as a whole"? (109) How was this
justified?
Chapter 10 "'Et in Arcadia Ego'"
25. Who coined the phrase ET IN ARCADIA EGO, and what does it mean?
26. How did Goethe inspire an interest in Greece among Europeans of his day? How did he use the phrase
ET IN ARCADIA EGO? Whom did he influence, to do what?
27. What is a "toff," and how does Evelyn Waugh's novel show that the phrase ET IN ARCADIA EGO
mocks these men?
28. What are some different ways the phrase ET IN ARCADIA EGO can be interpreted in the paintings of
Poussin and Reynolds? How do they invite us to experience "the difficulty of reading"? (118)
29. What is the point of ending this book with stories of the classical educations of Blunt, MacNeice, and
Panofsky?
