Angie Hobbs, David Sedley and James Warren join Melvyn Bragg to discuss Epicureanism, the system of philosophy based on the teachings of Epicurus and founded in Athens in the fourth century BC. Epicurus outlined a comprehensive philosophical system based on the idea that everything in the Universe is constructed from two phenomena: atoms and void. At the centre of his philosophy is the idea that the goal of human life is pleasure, by which he meant not luxury but the avoidance of pain. His followers were suspicious of marriage and politics but placed great emphasis on friendship. Epicureanism became influential in the Roman world, particularly through Lucretius’s great poem De Rerum Natura, which was rediscovered and widely admired in the Renaissance.

Check out this two-part documentary about democracy in Athens. Pretty well done.

Louis Crompton argues that male love and military prowess went hand in hand in classical Greece. (History Today)

Susan Cole looks at how, though formally excluded from the political process, Athena’s sisters nevertheless made their mark. (History Today)

‘City’, the word, comes to us from the Latin (civitas), but the city as an entity was an ancient Greek invention under the name of polis. Almost all our political vocabulary, from ‘political’ on, is rooted therefore in the ancient Greek city, and it was within that very special cultural context that democracy, another Greek political invention, was born.

Historically the polis as a new and original political state-form emerged within the Greek world in the course of the eighth century BC. Several factors made its development and spread possible, including a demographic revolution, an extension of settled agriculture, and an increase in the number of landed proprietors. polis designated a politically independent community, possessing a properly political territory, within the confines of which peasant proprietors for the first time ever – and indeed for the last time before the modern era – gained recognition as full citizens.

François Hartog on how urban living has coincided with the advocacy of popular rule from Plato through to Machiavelli, Rousseau and 20th-century sociologists. (History Today)

Susan Cole looks at how, though formally excluded from the political process, Athena’s sisters nevertheless made their mark. (History Today)

François Hartog on how urban living has coincided with the advocacy of popular rulefrom Plato through to Machiavelli, Rousseau and 20th-century sociologists. (History Today)

Louis Crompton argues that male love and military prowess went hand in hand in classical Greece.

William James Durant (November 5, 1885 – November 7, 1981) was a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife Ariel Durant and published between 1935 and 1975.

Here is volume two, The Life of Greece. It is arguably the best general survey of the era.

Athens in the Age of Pericles

Athenian Political Reform Under Solon, Cleisthenes & Pisistratus

The Persian Wars

Spartan Politics and Culture

Here is Chapter 17 of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. This excerpt cuts to the core of the questions surrounding the Athenian Empire. Clearly, the Athenians are demanding the submission of the Melians. It seems simple: surrender and offer tribute to Athens, or prepare to fight.

Plutarch (46 – 120 CE) was a Charoenean (Boeotian) philosopher,  biographer, and historian. He was a highly respected priest at the Oracle at Delphi. Not to be overlooked, he was an aristocratic statesman who served as a mayor, and later as Archon, of Charoenea. In short, he lived an extraordinary life which he devoted to chronicling extraordinary people and their times.
The excerpt that you will read is from Book III of Moralia, which is a controversial work on many levels. Among the more contentious facets of this piece, as indicated in the Loeb edition introduction, is that we don’t even know if it was penned by Plutarch (welcome to Greek History!).

As a disciple of Plato and as a Stoic, one might infer that Plutarch had a certain respect for Spartan morals and manners, though I suppose that this is an assertion that we can debate in class.
Your assignment is to read this short excerpt from Book III of Moralia, entitled “The Ancient Customs of the Spartans”. Then you must type/write a 500-1000 word (no more, no less) word mini klausur.

Theme: Spartan Customs: An Offense to Human Dignity?

Directions:  Write one unified essay, which assesses Spartan customs and values. The document provided must be integrated into the body of your essay. You may paraphrase or quote the documents, but in all cases you must cite the source. Do not abuse quotations (your essay must be less than 20% quotes). When analyzing the material, be sure to provide specific historical references—utilizing both the documents provided and previous historical knowledge—to support your thesis.

1. Identify and clearly describe five Spartan customs.
2. Carefully analyze the document given which delineates the habits, manners and morals of the Spartans.
3. Based on your assessment of Spartan customs, write a thesis-driven essay which evaluates the following assertion:

“Even when one takes into account the harsh conditions of the Peloponnese during the reign of Spartan hegemony,  Spartan values and customs were terribly uncivilized. Sparta was a brutal society that blatantly disregarded human dignity and undermined human potential.”

If you are not sure how to do so, here is a tip sheet on how to write a klausur.

Let’s be honest, this is just an experiment. It’s a first attempt at a klausur for this class. Do your best, but don’t stress too much.

Alexander is a movie based on the life of Alexander the Great. It is not a remake of the 1956 film which starred Richard Burton. It was directed by Oliver Stone and stars Colin Farrell, who’s kinda cool. The film is loosely based on the book Alexander the Great,  by Oxford Classics professor Robin Lane Fox.

To say the very least, Alexander was not received well by the critics:

• “Though the battles have the blood-and-sinew bravado you expect from Oliver Stone, this three-hour buttnumbathon is hamstrung by a hectoring grandiosity, not new to Stone, and a nod toward caution, which is.”
• “It’s just a wild, glorious, wacky mess that I found really entertaining.”
• “The tragedy of Alexander appears to be that, like his hero, Stone has tried to go too far and has lost his way.”

The 1956 version of Alexander starring Richard Burton seems to earn more praise.

Athenian Constitution by Aristotle

Translated by Sir Frederic G. Kenyon

MIT offers respected translations of scores of classical works, from Aeschines to Xenophon.

The History of the Peloponnesian War was written by Thucydides, an Athenian general who served in the war. It is widely considered a classic and regarded as one of the earliest scholarly works of history. The History was divided into eight books by editors of later antiquity.

Analyses of the History generally fall into one of two camps. On the one hand are those who view the work as an objective and scientific piece of history. The judgement of J. B. Bury reflects this traditional interpretation of the work: “[The History is] severe in its detachment, written from a purely intellectual point of view, unencumbered with platitudes and moral judgements, cold and critical.”A more recent interpretation argues that the History is better understood as a piece of literature than an objective record of the past. This view is embodied in the words of W. R. Connor, who describes Thucydides as “an artist who responds to, selects and skillfully arranges his material, and develops its symbolic and emotional potential.” The former outlook views Thucydides as pathbreaking, modern, and philosophical, ahead of his time; the latter views the historian as closely connected with his historical and cultural context.

Both interpretations are accepted by scholars, sometimes by the same scholar, and seem to capture the contradictory impulses and tensions within the History.

Fordham University offers this rich collection of scores of primary source documents from The Hellenistic world.

Fordham University offers this rich collection of scores of primary source documents from Ancient Greece.