CLAS 307 City of Athens from Antiquity
Although the Athenian democracy was founded in 507 BCE, the city¿s ancient pre-eminence was only secured by its leadership in the Persian Wars. Athens emerged from the conflicts into a period of energy and creativity such as the world has rarely, if ever, witnessed since. Drama, rhetoric, philosophy, architecture, sculpture, and political thought flourished in classical Athens, and even the war with Sparta that ended the short-lived Athenian Empire could not extinguish the city¿s ambitious spirit or limit its internal success. Although its democracy lost its independence near the end of the fourth century BCE, Athens¿ intellectual reputation and sentimental significance remained largely undimmed until the foundation of Constantinople in the fourth century CE created a new center of gravity for newly Christianized ways of thinking and, soon thereafter, for the Byzantine Empire. Athens, which had derived its meaning from a now-abandoned pagan past, played little role either in the rich cultural life and complex politics of Byzantium or in the Turkish period that succeeded the Ottoman conquest of 1453, and so our seminar will look to other locations to discover the evolution of Greek urban life in the centuries before the Greek War for Independence (1821-1832). Following this conflict, Athens, now a small town whose glorious ancient history had been invoked both by Greek freedom-fighters and by their supporters from other nations, was named the new capital of a united Greece, and its modern story began. As we approach the present day, our seminar will explore not only the Greek experience before and during both World Wars, but also the upheavals that came after them as the Greeks tried to define their place in the Aegean basin, their role in world politics, and their identity as a modern people.
Cross Listed Courses
CLAS 307 &
HSLS 205