Classical Athens

Catalog description

This course focuses on the people of the Greek city of Athens during an extraordinarily creative period of history–the century and a half from 480 BC to 323 BC–when the Athenians undertook the world’s first democratic experiment. We examine textual sources (literature, philosophy, history, speeches and public documents) and archaeological sources (architecture, sculpture, painting) for the light which they shed on the ancient Athenians’ political, intellectual, and artistic problems, concerns, and achievements. The course also focuses on how the Athenians defined democracy, the rights and privileges of citizenship, the advantages and moral ambiguity of power, questions which face all thinking humans in a democracy.