A wide-ranging look at essential features of Greek and of Roman culture and society. Considerable emphasis will be given to the classical views of the human condition.

An examination of the nature and function of myth in Classical Antiquity. The course shows how the narrative and symbolic structure of myths orders individual and communal experience. The myths that have influenced Western civilization receive special emphasis.

Introduction to the archaeology of Greece in the Bronze Age by surveying the results of the important excavations. The form and function of the evidence uncovered will illuminate the social, political, economic and cultural life of Bronze Age Greece. (Offered in even-numbered years.)

A study of educational theory and practice: the Classical Greek achievement (Isocrates, Plato, Aristotle), the Roman adaptation (Cicero, Quintilian) and the general acceptance of the mature 3-stage educational system by Christian intellectuals (Origen, Augustine). (Offered in odd-numbered years.)

Greek history in the 5th century; the development of Athenian democracy; the Peloponnesian War and the decline of Athenian dominance. Special attention is paid to the literature and thought of the period. (Offered in odd-numbered years.)

An examination of the collapse of the Roman Republic and the development of the Imperial government under Augustus. The paradox of the external power and inner instability of Rome. (Offered in even-numbered years.)

The rise and fall of the Hellenistic states from the death of Alexander the Great until the Roman conquest, with political emphasis on the development of the monarchies and cultural emphasis on the Hellenization of the East. (Offered in odd-numbered years.)

The nature and significance of the epic hero. Epic as code and as critique of tradition. Oral poetry, and critical problems raised by it. The central texts are The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Virgils Aeneid; other poems are also studied. (Offered in even-numbered years.)

The nature of tragedy, and the existential and moral questions raised by the plays of Aischylos, Sophokles, and Euripides. Comedy, fantasy, and society in Aristophanes. (Offered in even-numbered years.)

An examination of the varieties of religious experience and of religious activity in Greece and Rome, before the establishment of Christianity. Particular attention is paid both to the relations of religion to state and to the relations of the individual to gods. (Offered in odd-numbered years.)

The study of Greek culture as it was transmitted and transformed during the ascendancy of Constantinople as the imperial capital city. Particular attention will be paid to developments in art and literature. (Offered in odd-numbered years.)

The history of sport in Greece and Rome from Homer to the Caesars, with emphasis on its relationship to religion, education, literature, and community life. (Offered in even-numbered years.)

The historical and formal roots of fiction in the classical prose romances. Special attention is paid to the influence of myth, religion, historiography and ethical biography. Among texts studied are Daphnis and Chloe, Satyricon, and Aithiopika. (Offered in even-numbered years.)

This course is intended to complement courses in specified studies in classics. It engages the student in research and in critical writing, and permits the examination, in depth, of a topic of importance to the discipline and of interest to the student.

A seminar course complementing courses of specific study in classics. It seeks to define the nature of the discipline, its values and its procedures. Attention will be paid to recent methodological and ideological trends in the discipline.