Ancient

This course will provide a survey of the Greek world from the collapse of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations to the death of Socrates in 399 BC.  We will study the geography and economy of the Mediterranean region; the rise of communities, especially the polis, or city-state; early Greek culture, including art, architecture, poetry, and athletics; religion; warfare; the development of distinct political forms (tyranny, democracy, oligarchy); early philosophy; issues of ethnicity; and major events such as the Persian Wars, the rise of the Athenian empire, the Peloponnesian

This course offers an introductory survey of the history of the ancient Mediterranean world, from the rise of city states in Mesopotamia c. 3000 BC to the transformation of the Roman Empire in the 5th and 6th centuries AD. The emphasis will be on the major developments in the political and social history of the ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, with special attention to those institutions, practices, ideas, and objects that have had an enduring influence on the development of western civilization.

What role did the establishment of laws play in the development of the polis in the Archaic period? What was the political impact of the Greeks' practice of writing down laws? How did the process and substance of legislation change over time in relation to shifting internal and external political circumstances? How did the substantive laws of the Greek poleis affect social, economic, and political behavior? How did the politically fragmented Greek world face the problem of settling disputes between states, and between individual citizens of different states?

The course deals with the origins of Christianity and the first eleven centuries of its expansion into a major institutional, social, and intellectual force shaping Western Europe. The central themes are the mechanisms and conditions shaping this expansion rather than a chronological account to present this process as a model of "institutionalization" (or not!) of religious movements.

At the end of the Peloponnesian War, some of Athens' enemies proposed that the great city, now starved into defeat, should be razed to the ground and turned into pastureland for sheep. So dramatic a reversal, so severe a punishment, was unthinkable to most Greeks even in the heated moment of their unexpected victory, and the proposal was not approved. It remains, however, indicative of a major turning-point in Greek history and will serve as our point of departure.

This course surveys the political, social, and cultural history of the Roman Empire from the death of Julius Caesar to the fourth-century emperor Constantine the Great, the great promoter of Christianity.