In this subject students are introduced to the diversity of the ancient Greek achievement, which has exercised a fundamental and continuing influence upon later European literature and culture. The subject commences with a detailed treatment of Homer's Iliad and the myth of the Trojan war. This is one of the dominant myths in the Greek tradition and is narrated in some detail in epic poetry, in drama, and in art and architecture. We explore how myths are 'read' in their historical context, especially in the contexts of the Persian and Peloponnesian wars of the 5th Century BC. A variety of sources are treated to enable students to build up a picture of Greek society as a whole.
After a curious gap of over 30 years, the Athenians finally started to rebuild on the Acropolis following the Persian sack of 480 BC. In this lecture ...
The Battle of Marathon in 490 BC – when against all odds the Athenians (with a bit of help from the Plataeans) defeated the Persians was too good a PR...
Sanctuaries were the context for many of the most impressive buildings and sculptures produced by the ancient Greeks. In this lecture Dr Gillian Sheph...
Mythological scenes are common in Greek art. The Trojan War was a very popular subject for Greek artists, especially vase painters of the 6th and 5th ...
Pottery is the single biggest category of evidence we have from the classical world – there is nothing we have more of. Much of it is fragmentary coar...
Set in the aftermath of the Trojan War, Euripides’ Trojan Women is a lament for the fallen city and the fate of its women, destined for slavery. In th...
Staged not long after the disastrous defeat of the Athenians at Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War, the seriousness of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata wou...
Staged not long after the disastrous defeat of the Athenians at Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War, the seriousness of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata wou...
Sophocles’ Ajax is one of our earliest surviving Greek plays, produced in c. 440 BC. In this lecture Dr Heather Sebo examines Sophocles’ treatment of ...
Performed in Athens in the last years of the Peloponnesian War and when Athens had a democracy, Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis is appropriately a play ...