This is a multi-session seminar and must be taken as a series.
This course covers the history and literature of fifth-century Greece, arguably the most creative period in all human history. It focuses on Athens, the world’s first democracy and birthplace of many of our modern liberal arts. The story begins with the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE, when the Athenians first defeated the powerful Persian invaders. We next trace how the Athenians later built their own empire and clashed with their militaristic Greek rivals in Sparta during the ruinous Peloponnesian War, and end with the symbolic fall of Athens’ Golden Age, symbolized by the death of Socrates in 399 BCE. With political struggles as the backdrop, we also examine how Greek culture developed and changed forever the way humanity thought about itself. The course focuses on primary literary sources, including not only contemporary historians but tragic and comic playwrights and philosophical dialogues as well.
Cost: $195
