Essay Instructions: This is a tutorial presentation essay paper on the Persian Wars. The question is: "On what basis did the various Greek cities decide to resist Persia in 480 BC, or not to resist them? What does this tell us about the ancient Greeks?"
I shall fax the recommended sources and abstract on the tutorial. I will also submit the aims and description of the course.
Needed for order:
The Persian Wars.
One of the defining events of Classical Greek civilisation was the fact that in 480-
479BC they had met the Persians and defeated them. Since the Persian army was more
numerous, and apparently better organised, this was taken to show the innate
superiority of the Greeks over the barbarians. The Greeks had shown qualities to
match the Persians, but what exactly were these qualities? In considering this
question, we should try to avoid the fixed ideas of either the ancient Greeks
themselves or our own modern ones.
The idea that the barbarians were innately inferior was widely accepted in the ancient
world. We might call such attitudes racist. We need to identify the strengths and
weaknesses of both sides, and the differences between various peoples who were
fighting on the same side. Modern fixed ideas can also hinder our understanding. The
once widespread criticism of the Greeks for failing to resist the Persians on a national
basis is no longer popular. It is anachronistic to expect the Greeks to have organised
themselves, as we do, as a nation-state. Finally, historians like to select the winners of
history. The question of who did most for the Greek victory in the Persian War has
been contentious from antiquity down to modern times. We need to understand how it
was that the Greeks ended up the victors in a war where rational calculation suggested
they would lose.
On what bases did the various Greek cities decide to resist Persia in 480BC, or
not to resist them? What does this tell us about the ancient Greeks?
Primary sources:
*Herodotus VII 138-180, VIII 2.
Secondary material:
*Burn, A.R., Persia and the Greeks, 1962, #chapter 17.
Fine, J.V.A., The Ancient Greeks: A Critical History, 1983, chapter 8.
*Green, Peter, The Greco-Persian Wars, 1996, esp #Part 3.
Hignett, C., Xerxes? Invasion of Greece, 1963, Part II i.
Price, Simon, Religion of the Ancient Greeks 1999, chapter 4.
Lazenby, J.F., The Defence of Greece: 490-479 B.C., 1991, chapter 7-9.
Murray, Oswyn, Early Greece, 1980, chapter 16.
Olmstead, A.T., History of the Persian Empire, 1948, chapter 18.
Osborne, Robin, Greece in the Making: 1200-479 BC 1996, 325-343.
Pomeroy, S.B. etc., Ancient Greece: A Political, Social and Cultural History, 1999,
181-199.
Sealey, Raphael, A History of the Greek City States 700-338BC 1976, chapter 8.
COURSE INFORMATION
Aims and Objectives
? To gain knowledge of life and society in one of the major areas of the Ancient World, Greece,
from the beginnings of Greek civilization in the time of Homer to the Persian Wars
? To study Homeric epic in relation to the nature of the society in which these epics were written;
to examine contemporary material which reveals how ancient peoples made sense of their world
and to see how ancient societies were held together by power, persuasion and other means, or, in
some cases, not held together at all.
? To learn to frame historical questions, to consider the relationship between the past and the
present, to analyse texts, both written and visual, to argue logically, to write lucidly and
generally to participate in the understanding and creation of history; to understand the
importance of Ancient Greece for the subsequent history of the Western world.
Description
This course studies the development of Greek civilisation and the Greek city-state (polis) from the time of
Homer to the Persian Wars. It will be based on primary evidence, mostly written, such as Homer and
Herodotus, but also archaeological and visual images of surviving sites. It will consider various differing
modern interpretations of particular topics. We will examine the society depicted in the work of Homer,
and the aristocrats who dominated it. We go on to consider the development of the city state, including the
growth of trade, the foundation of colonies, tyranny and the rise of the hoplite phalanx. In the second part
of the semester we will examine the origins and development of the unusual, military-based society of
Sparta and its constitution and the roles of the various groups (including women) within that state, followed
by the early stages of the development of Athenian democracy and what we know about Athenian society.
We will conclude with the Greek defeat, led by these two cities, of the more powerful Persian empire, and
how this came about.
