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Ancient Greek Hobby

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Cole Silva
Botany: Ancient Greek Hobby, Ancient Egyptian Habit

When one thinks of plants in a contemporary American context, nothing too particular comes to mind. There are certainly very nice gardens in the United States and all over the world, and there are still farmers, but a lot less since corporate farms came into existence. For the most part, plants are just another ordinary concept that many people don’t think twice about. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, and it didn’t use to be like this for many people in the Ancient Near East and Ancient Mediterranean worlds. Ancient Greece, on one hand, had plants and gardens mostly for aesthetic pleasure and were not reliant on the cultivation of plants and herbs. On the other hand, Ancient …show more content…
Whenever specific plants were referred to, there was often a sexual meaning tied to it. Sappho, in particular, was a frequent and established poet who frequently wrote erotic poems. She was based on the island of Lesbos and often wrote about young women, which is where we get the contemporary term “lesbian” (Giesecke 2014). One passage in particular that demonstrates this eroticism talks about a woman who has left her social circle to move to Lydia, and who is deeply missed: “Now she stands out among the Lydian women like a rosy-fingered moon after sunset, surpassing all stars; and its light spreads out over the salty sea and the flowery fields alike. The dew is shed in beauty, and roses bloom…” (Campbell). According to Heirman, roses represent female desire and the transition from the description “rosy-fingered moon” to “dew is shed in beauty, and roses bloom” is clearly an indication of eroticism (Heirman). Roses have held an intimate connotation for as long as many can remember, and this combined with a description of dew points to an evident sexuality in the poem. Due to maximum length of this research paper, there’s not enough room to go in-depth with further examples. However, it’s evident that poetry was not essential to Ancient Greek society. Looking back on this time as historians, much can be gathered from descriptions given in poetry. One could even argue that Ancient Greek poetry is more pertinent to contemporary society than Ancient Greek society. But for now, this argument will go no further than to claim that poetry was another nonessential aspect of Ancient Greek society where botany was

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