CLASS 2676 - [Periclean Athens]

(crosslisted)
(also HIST 2580) (HB) (HA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits.

Next offered 2014-2015.

Staff.

The first five weeks will provide a synoptic view of Athens’ historical and cultural achievement in the middle of the fifth century bc—the traditional pinnacle of “The Glory that was Greece.” Readings will be taken from Greek historians, philosophers, poets and documentary texts. The next seven to eight weeks will follow the course of the Peloponnesian War to its end; readings from Thucydides will be interwoven with contemporaneous texts composed by the dramatists (Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes) and the sophists (supplemented with readings from Plato). The remaining classes will consider the fate of Socrates. The basic aim of the course is to approach an understanding of how and why a vital and creative society came unglued. There will be weekly discussion sections and at least two debates.