Mediterranean Culture Wars: Archaic Greek History, c. 1200 to 479 BC

Catalog description

From the end of the Bronze Age to the end of the Persian Wars is a period of considerable change in the Mediterranean and beyond. The Greek polis challenges the powers of the ancient Near East. Over seven centuries we meet Greek writing, Homeric epic, and the first historian (Herodotus). But the Greek world lay on the edges of the Ancient Near East and this course tries to offer a more balanced approach than the typically Hellenocentric perspective of the standard textbooks. CLAS 1210 addresses cultural, political, social, and economic histories. Literary, epigraphical and archaeological cultures provide the evidence. There are no written exams for this course. No previous knowledge of the ancient world is required.