The age of Athens
Jack Ellis
6 points * 3 hours per week * First semester * Clayton
One of the most influential social revolutions in Western history was that which happened in Athens in the fifth century BCE. The principles, real and imagined, of its new democracy and the image of its most famous leader Perikles continue, two and a half millenia later, to inspire political ideals and reform. The surviving products of that remarkable time - the literature, art, architecture, historiography and thought - as well as its institutions and practices are still capable of evoking admiration and imitation in our own time, as they did in later antiquity and during the Renaissance. The subject examines the character and operation of the democracy as it was the later fifth and the fourth centuries BCE and, by means of a wide range of contemporary documents, explores the nature of society in which it flourished.
Assessment
Written (2500 words): 55% * Examinations (2 hours): 45%
Prescribed texts
Selected texts Dept Greek, Roman and Egyptian Studies, Monash U
Artistophanes The Birds and other plays Penguin