Course overview
This course functions as an introduction to the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans for students unfamiliar with it. We first learn the basics of that world in its Mediterranean setting and its chronology. We focus on the small city (polis, in Greek) as the container for an intense and developed communal life. Then we turn to the largest and most successful Greek city, Athens, and explore its internal workings as a democracy and its external confrontation with Sparta, with consideration of the wide range of literary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence we possess.
- Greece
- Rome
Course learning outcomes
- Demonstrate an ability to evaluate the usefulness and relevance of different types of historical or textual evidence
- Demonstrate an ability to construct a well-developed argument based on fragmentary historical and archaeological evidence
- Demonstrate familiarity with chronology and geography of ancient Greek and Roman history
- Demonstrate knowledge of the scholarly skills and techniques of presenting your written work
- Demonstrate ability to locate and differentiate authoritative sources and scholarship