America and Antiquity

Catalog description

This course begins with the Constitution of the USA, and the thinking of the founders who wrote it (especially the Federalist Papers). It then shows their debt to ancient Greek and Roman authors (Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Plutarch, and Tacitus, among others). One goal is therefore to appreciate the intellectual history that influenced the founders, but another is to uderstand and assess the philosophical principles they sought to enshrine.