The Rise of the Greeks

(Cross-listed as CLS 142) Examination of the formation and development of the characteristic institutions, practices and values of Greek civilization during the Archaic Period, approximately 800 to 500 B.C., beginning with the emergence of the Greeks from the centuries-long isolation of the Dark Age and the resumption of contact and commerce with other peoples of the Mediterranean and Middle East. Exposure to original sources, including Homer, Hesiod, lyric poetry, Herodotus and Aristotle, and attention to the fragmentary nature of the evidence for this period-archaeological, literary and historical-and some useful interpretative approaches. Topics to include agriculture, colonization, origins of the polis, tyranny, hoplite warfare, the social and political evolution of Sparta and Athens, religion, orality and writing, lyric poetry, presocratic philosophy, and the origins of historical writing. Hirsch