TTC Ancient Greek Civilization torrent

LECTURES


1. Greece and the Western World
2. Minoan Crete
3. Schliemann and Mycenae
4. The Long Twilight
5. The Age of Heroes
6. From Sicily to Syria—The Growth of Trade and Colonization
7. Delphi and Olympia
8. The Spartans
9. Revolution
10. Tyranny
11. The Origins of Democracy
12. Beyond Greece—The Persian Empire
13. The Persian Wars
14. The Athenian Empire
15. The Art of Democracy
16. Sacrifice and Greek Religion
17. Theater and the Competition of Art
18. Sex and Gender
19. The Peloponnesian War, Part I
20. The Peloponnesian War, Part II
21. Socrates on Trial
22. Slavery and Freedom
23. Athens in Decline?
24. Philip, Alexander, and Greece in Transition


Course Summary

The Greeks enjoy a special place in the construction of western culture and identity. Much of what we esteem in our own culture derives from them: democracy, epic poetry, lyric poetry, tragedy, history writing, philosophy, aesthetic taste, all of these and many other features of cultural life enter the West from Greece. The oracle of Apollo at Delphi had inscribed over the temple, "Know Thyself." For us, that also means knowing the Greeks.

In these lectures we will cover the period from the late Bronze Age, c. 1500 B.C., down to the time of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great, in the late fourth century B.C., concentrating on the two hundred year interval from 600 to 400 B.C. The lectures will proceed chronologically and draw on the rich literary and archaeological sources of Greek history, from Homer’s majestic Odyssey to Schliemann’s excavations and Troy and Mycenae, from Aeschylus’ Oresteia to the wealthy Greek colonies of Sicily. Lectures introduce the audience to the world of classical Athens, described in the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides and the dialogues of Plato.

The lectures explore the similarities and differences between Greek culture and our own. In a variety of areas, such as in religion and gender, the Greeks seem alien, approaching the world in ways utterly different from our ways. In other facets of social life, on the other hand, such as in politics and war, we find a culture perhaps not very unlike our own. We will examine each of these aspects of Greek culture in an attempt to understand better how Greek culture developed as it did, and why it still resonates for us today.