There Be Dragons: Greek Encounters With the Unknown in History and Legend

3 units

How did ancient Greeks imagine their world, both in terms of geography and ethnography? What did they know -- or think they knew -- about foreign cultures and faraway lands such as India, Persia, Africa, and the distant north? How have their representations of foreigners influenced European conceptions of the self and others, even into our own time? This course examines these questions by focusing primarily on two foundational authors: first, Herodotus, the father of history, who provides a wealth of information about ancient geography and the customs and lifestyles of non-Greek peoples; and second, Apollonius of Rhodes, whose epic poem The Argonautica tells the legendary tale of Jason and the Argonauts' search for the Golden Fleece. We will read extensive passages of these books in ancient Greek and, we will read and discuss additional passages in English translation, along with modern scholarship and atlases with historical and modern maps.