History of Greece

Investigation of the circumstances that led to history's first democracy, the buildings on the Acropolis and the development of Greek literature from Homer to Sophocles and Plato; the invention of the Western way of war; the evolution of the Greek poleis and the confrontation with the emerging nation-state of Macedonia; the epochal wars of the Greek states with Persia and the disastrous conflict of Athens and Sparta in the Peloponnesian War; and Alexander's conquest of the world from the Mediterranean Sea to the rivers of India in a little over ten years. Readings include Homer's Odyssey, selected lives of Plutarch, and Thucydides.