Women of Greece essays

Women of Greece essays If you were a woman how would you rather be treated? If you are the relaxed, dependent type, perhaps you would find the life of the typical Athenian woman agreeable. Athenian women spent most of their lives indoors doing mostly domestic activities. But if you are an independent type of lady, who enjoys exercise, not overly modest, and do not mind sharing your bed with more than one man, then you would probably enjoy the life of a Spartan woman. The basic similarity between the lives of the women in these two city-states was that they had the same overall role: bearing strong children. The soldier-centered state was the most liberal state in regards to the status of women. Women did not go into military training but they were educated in a similar fashion. Their daily life was spent outside doing physical training. The women were required to do physical training just as vigorous as the males of Sparta; contests of running and strength existed for each sex. The motive for these physical activities for the women was so that they would be able to be strong mothers. The state determined if children, male and female, were strong or weak. Weakling children were left in the hills to die of exposure. In Alkmans Partheneia, the women of Sparta were permitted to exercise nude, which supposedly added to their beauty. The contests were where young men could see were intended to incite men to marry. The upbringing of an Athenian woman was quite different. Her status in Greek society was just a small step above slaves. At birth an Athenian girl was not expected to learn how to read, write, or even earn an education. Menander commented on the teaching of reading and writing to women, What a terrible thing to do! Like feeding a vile snake on more poison. They had no legal or political rights. They spent most of their day inside in the womens quarters. Training in household skills was considered the only edu...

Anchisaurus - Facts and Figures

Anchisaurus - Facts and Figures Name: Anchisaurus (Greek for near lizard); pronounced ANN-kih-SORE-us Habitat: Woodlands of eastern North America Historical Period: Early Jurassic (190 million years ago) Size and Weight: About six feet long and 75 pounds Diet: Plants Distinguishing Characteristics: Long, slim body; ridged teeth for shredding leaves About Anchisaurus Anchisaurus is one of those dinosaurs that was discovered ahead of its time. When this small plant-eater was first excavated (from a well in East Windsor, Connecticut, of all places) in 1818, no one knew quite what to make of it; the bones were initially identified as belonging to a human, until the discovery of a nearby tail put an and to that idea! It was only decades later, in 1885, that the famous American paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh conclusively identified Anchisaurus as a dinosaur, though its exact classification couldnt be pinned down until more was known in general about these long-extinct reptiles. And Anchisaurus was certainly strange compared to most dinosaurs discovered up to that time, a human-sized reptile with grasping hands, a bipedal posture, and a swollen belly populated by gastroliths (swallowed stones that aided in the digestion of tough vegetable matter). Today, most paleontologists consider Anchisaurus to have been a prosauropod, the family of svelte, occasionally bipedal plant-eaters of the late Triassic and early Jurassic periods that were distantly ancestral to the giant sauropods, like Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus, that roamed the earth during the later Mesozoic Era. However, its also possible that Anchisaurus represented some kind of transitional form (a so-called basal sauropodomorph), or that prosauropods as a whole were omnivorous, since theres (inconclusive) evidence, based on the shape and arrangement of its teeth, that this dinosaur may occasionally have supplemented its diet with meat. Like many dinosaurs discovered in the early 19th century, Anchisaurus has gone through its fair share of name changes. The fossil specimen was originally named Megadactylus (giant finger) by Edward Hitchcock, then Amphisaurus by Othniel C. Marsh, until he discovered that this name was already preoccupied by another animal genus and settled instead on Anchisaurus (near lizard). Further complicating matters, the dinosaur we know as Ammosaurus may actually have been a species of Anchisaurus, and both of these names are probably synonymous with the now-discarded Yaleosaurus, named after Marshs alma mater. Finally, a sauropodomorph dinosaur discovered in South Africa in the early 19th century, Gyposaurus, may yet wind up being assigned to the Anchisaurus genus.