| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
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| CLASSIC 5 | LAT/GR ROOTS IN ENG | STAFF | Studies in the formation and use of English words from Greek and Latin derivatives. Particularly for first-year students who wish to augment their vocabulary systematically. No prerequisites. |
| CLASSIC 37B | ROMAN EMPIRE | SANTORO L'HOIR, F. | The course is a survey of some of the highlights of Roman civilization during the early centuries of the Roman empire (end of the first century BCE to the third century CE). In this period, the Roman world was ruled by an emperor who increasingly came to have absolute power. We will look not only at political history, but also at social history, literature, art and architecture, and religion. The course will consider a number of questions, including the political and social consequences of living under an absolute ruler - especially when, as was quite often the case, he was unbalanced. This is the period of "bread and circuses" in which the emperors bought off the lower classes by providing the grain dole and spectacular free entertainment such as chariot races and gladiatorial contests. We will also look at how the emergence of Christianity affected the Roman world, and how complex social systems and entrenched institutions such as slavery evolved over time. The early centuries of the empire were a time of great prosperity in which Roman power reached its zenith; it was a period of relative stability but also, in some respects, a time of decadence, which has been a source of both admiration and loathing for almost all subsequent ages, including our own.
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| CLASSIC 45B | THE HEROES | KARANIKA, A. | This course will concentrate on myths about ancient heroes, such as Hercules, Odysseus, Jason and those featured in the Trojan and Theban Saga. The overall goal is to understand the nature of the heroic, as depicted by ancient writers and artists, and to appreciate the ways in which the ancient Greeks used myths in order to interpret their world. The grade for this course will be based on five exams, each of which will have a combination of multiple-choice questions and short essay questions. |
| CLASSIC 160 | GREEK TRAGEDY IN TRANSLATION | PORTER, J. | This class will introduce students to the three extant tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides) through a selection of their plays in translation and through background readings on the conditions and the art of tragic performance. In addition, we will read Aristophanes, the comic poet, wrote two hilarious plays satirizing the tragic poets, and selections from Plato and Aristotle, who developed theories of literature around tragedy (especially Oedipus the King),
which became the foundation of later criticism. Requirements: two midterms and a final project.
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| CLASSIC 170 | ANCIENT CRIME | POGORZELSKI, R. | This course examines ancient crime and justice. What do crime and justice mean to Greeks and Romans? How are ideas of criminality in ancient Greece and Rome different from those of modern cultures? Readings include rhetoric, philosophy, drama, and historiography as well as modern critical and theoretical works. All readings are in English. |
| CLASSIC 220 | AESCHYLUS: ORESTEIA | PORTER, J. | The seminar will be devoted to a close reading of Agamemnon and, time permitting, Choephori, and of scholarship related to the trilogy. Students are encouraged to read all seven extant plays by Aeschylus in translation before the seminar begins, and should read the entire Oresteia in Greek by the end of winter term. Requirements: in-class presentations and a final paper.
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| CLASSIC 220 | VARRO AND HIS INFLUENCE | SALZMAN, M. | Varro’s vast range of writing and original learning gave him the reputation for being Rome’s greatest scholar. His achievements were critical for the poets and prose writers of the Augustan age, but his influence lasted well into late antiquity. Perhaps his most influential works were his Antiquitates humanarum et divinarum and his Hebdomades. These works survive only as fragments, the former best preserved in Augustine’s Civitas dei and the latter extremely influential for the Letters of Symmachus and the epigrams of Ausonius.
The seminar will examine Varro’s influence on writers and philosophers in the Roman empire, with special attention paid to the Latin fragments of Varro’s Antiquitates humanarum et divinarum as preserved in Augustine’s Civitas dei and to the Hebdomades. The seminar will also consider the theoretical and methodological issues raised by the reconstruction of fragmentary works by ancient authors.
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