History/Classics 204: Greek History
Summer 2020 (7 Week II)


HerodotusWorldMap

Map of the world as described by the Greek historian Herodotus (ca 484–425 B.C.)


Instructor:

John Bauschatz

Time/Location: online!
Contact Info:

Office: Cesar Chavez 410
Phone: (520) 621-7422 (office)
email: jbausch1@email.arizona.edu


OVERVIEW

History 204 traces the political, social, literary and cultural history of Greece over roughly 2500 years: from the time of the Minoans (ca 2700 B.C.) to the fall of the Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt (30 B.C.). We will explore our subject primarily through the texts of Greek prose writers and poets, as well as modern historians; but we will also employ archaeological remains, artwork and other types of material culture to obtain a well-rounded view of the ancient Greek world.


COURSE OBJECTIVES

In this course, we will survey a wide range of (primarily) written sources to obtain a broad view of the history of the ancient Greek world. Among these sources are the following:

  • The epic poetry of Homer (Iliad, Odyssey) and Hesiod (Theogony, Works and Days)
  • The political treatises of Aristotle (The Constitution of the Athenians) and Xenophon (The Politeia of the Spartans)
  • Selections from the Greek lyric poets: Archilochus, Tyrtaeus, Alcman, Alcaeus, Sappho, Theognis and Solon
  • The histories of Herodotus and Thucydides
  • The tragedies of Aeschylus (The Persians), Sophocles (Oedipus the King) and Euripides (Medea)
  • The comedies of Aristophanes (The Couds)
  • The dialogues of Plato (Symposium, Apology)
  • The literature of the Hellenistic (selections from Menander, Callimachus, Theocritus and Posidippos) and Roman periods (Plutarch's Life of Alexander)

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

  • Identify the major Greek cultural sites of the ancient Mediterranean.
  • List the eastern Mediterranean civilizations from whom the Greeks borrowed much of their culture and describe these civilizations in detail.
  • List ten or more Greek authors and provide detailed information about their lives and works.
  • Describe the characteristics of Greek poetry and prose and the motivations and agendas of the men and women who wrote it.
  • Describe the religion of the Greeks, drawing not only on mythology, but also on the ample evidence for temples, cults, religious festivals and athletic contests.
  • Compare and contrast the evidence for Greek civilization in the literature with that provided by art, architecture and other material culture.
  • Trace major developments in science, technology, political thought, religion and philosophy over our more than 2500-year period.

READINGS

The required text is as follows:

  • Thomas Martin. Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times. Second edition. Yale UP, 2013. (ISBN-10: 0300160054; ISBN-13: 978-0300160055)

This book is free to read online via the University of Arizona Library. If you would like to buy a hard copy, you may of course do so, but not at the UA Bookstore, since the book has NOT been ordered for this class.

There are also a number of additional readings for this course. These will be hyperlinked to this page or made available for download from the D2L site for HIST 204 as pdf files: see the "Readings" area of the "Content" section. To view/download them, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader (free download available here).


GRADING

Grading for the course will be based on the following breakdown:

  • Reading Worksheets (20%): Each week, you will need to complete a brief comprehension worksheet for one of the readings you are assigned. The worksheets can be found on D2L. Complete these—with responses of 75 words or more per question—and submit them electronically on D2L for grading. **Please note: any quoted material does not count towards the word count minimum! Word count totals are totals for your own words, not the words of another author.**

  • Quizzes (20%): There is a brief (15 minute) D2L quiz to complete on the Martin readings for each week of the course. All of the questions on these reading quizzes are true/false or multiple choice. If you do the Martin readings, take notes on them and review your notes before taking the quizzes, you should have no trouble doing well on them.

  • Discussions (20%): The quality and quantity of your participation in (online) class discussions. There will be an online discussion forum for each week featuring one critical thinking question for you to answer. *In your discussion group, you will need to first start your own thread to respond to the question in a paragraph of 250 words or more. Next, you should read each of the other threads in your group, and respond to (at least) two other students' responses with responses of your own of 125 words or more.* 50% of a given week's discussion grade will come from your initial response, and 50% from your replies. **Please note: any quoted material does not count towards the word count minimum! Word count totals are totals for your own words, not the words of another author.**

  • Short Papers (40% [13.33% each]): Three papers of between 750 and 1000 words in length based on course readings will be assigned. These are meant to be exercises in analytical thinking and should not require any additional research or reading (though you are certainly welcome to do additional work, if you like!). The topics for each paper are posted on D2L. The papers are to be submitted on D2L and will lose one letter grade for each day late (Saturdays and Sundays included). You are allowed to submit drafts of your papers on D2L for some initial feedback. These are due no later than one week in advance of the due date for the paper itself. In addition, you will have the option to revise either the first or second paper for a better grade if you choose. **Please note: any quoted material does not count towards the word count minimum! Word count totals are totals for your own words, not the words of another author.** ***Please also note: you may not submit a revised version of a paper if you never submitted an original.***


OTHER (IMPORTANT!) COURSE POLICIES: READ CAREFULLY

  • Course Content: Course readings will regularly contain brutally violent, sexually graphic and/or otherwise potentially offensive material. I assume that all students enrolled in HIST 204 are mature enough to handle such material and suggest that anyone easily offended by such material not take the course.
  • Office Hours: I will be holding regular office hours via zoom during the summer term: M–Th, 1–2 p.m. I will send out meeting info via D2L. I am also easily reached via email (jbausch1@email.arizona.edu) or phone (520 621-7422). email is best. I will do my best to respond to any concerns you have within a few hours, and certainly within a day.
  • Honors Contracts: Students wishing to earn Honors in HIST 204 must select their own topics for their short papers and have these topics pre-approved by the instructor. If you want to do an honors contract for HIST 204, please be in touch with the Honors College about the required steps to sign up.
  • D2L: As mentioned above, students in HIST 204 will be expected to be familiar with D2L ("Desire2Learn"), the University's online course content management system. Our use of D2L in HIST 204 will be extensive: we will use D2L not only as a repository for course documents (additional readings, course handouts, etc.) and as a place to post grades, but also for discussions, quizzes, paper submission and email updates about the course. If you are unfamiliar with D2L, see the D2L help homepage.
  • PLAGIARISM AND USING QUOTED/CITED MATERIAL: Plagiarism is the presentation of another person's work—or what is substantially another person's work—as one's own, and it is strictly forbidden in higher education. If you copy material from an outside source and paste it into a worksheet response, discussion or paper for CLAS/HIST 204, you have plagiarized. If you copy material from an outside source and paste it into a worksheet response, discussion or paper for CLAS/HIST 204, and then tweak the pasted material a bit, you have still plagiarized. Responses to questions on reading worksheets, discussion posts and short papers need to be in your own words. No credit is given for plagiarized material. Repeated instances of plagiarism may result in disciplinary acton at the university level. On a related note, it's worth mentioning my policy on using quotations from course materials. I'm fine with it! That said, quotations (which must be set off by quotation marks and have a page number citation) should only be used as supporting material for making your own points, and, maybe most importantly, material within quotation marks DOES NOT COUNT TOWARDS WORD COUNT TOTALS for reading worksheets and papers or in discussion posts. As noted above, word count totals are totals for your own words, not the words of another author.
  • Grades: Grades will be entered on D2L within one week of the assignment due date, save for quiz grades, which are generated immediately. ***It is your responsibility to keep track of your grades over the course of the term. You have one week from the date of a posted grade to appeal it. After that, the assumption is that you have seen the grade and are OK with it.*** Grades for assignments turned in after posted due dates—and without documented excuses for the lateness—are only awarded at the discretion of the professor. At the very least, late assignments will lose one letter grade (= 10 points off of the overall grade for the assignment) for every day they are late. Assignments that are five or more days late will receive no grade.
  • Paper Grading: The following rubric will be used to compile your grades on papers in HIST 204 (with thanks to Jennifer Kendall!):

    Category & Description Max Points

    1.) Paper Mechanics

    15 points: The essay adheres to all of the mechanical requirements (formatting, length, margins, proper citations and following any specific instructions for content in the paper assignment).

    10 points: The essay has one or two mechanical errors.

    5 points: The essay has numerous mechanical errors.

    0 points: The essay has numerous mechanical errors and/or is less than the required length.

    15

    B.) Grammar/Spelling/Composition

    15 points: No / almost no spelling, grammar, punctuation or other compositional errors are present. The essay clearly appears to have been proofread and edited.

    10 points: There are a few grammar, spelling, punctuation or other compositional errors but the essay appears to have been proofread and edited.

    5 points: There are many grammar, spelling, punctuation or other compositional errors present.

    0 points: Numerous errors make the essay difficult to read and/or excessively long quotations or paraphrases are used.

    15

    C.) Content

    70 points: The depth of analysis greatly exceeds expectations, details are many and organization is excellent.

    55 points: The depth of analysis is good, as are details and organization, and minimum expectations are exceeded.

    40 points: The essay is basic with an adequate analysis.

    25 points: The essay is poor all around, but there is at least an attempt to follow directions.

    10 points: The essay is poor all around, and there is little to no evidence that the author followed instructions. But at least he/she handed something in!

    70
    Total Possible Points:
    100
  • Final Grades: For the final grade, the following breakdown will be used:

    A+ = 98–100 A = 93–97 A- = 90–92
    B+ = 88–89 B = 83–87 B- = 80–82
    C+ = 78–79 C = 73–77 C- = 70–72
    D+ = 68–69 D = 63–67 D- = 60–62
    F+ = 58–59 F = 53–57 F- = 0–52

    Final grades ending in .5 or higher will be rounded up; those ending in .49 or lower will be rounded down. ***There are NO exceptions to this policy.***

  • If you would like help with your writing, the University’s Writing Skills Improvement Program (http://wsip.arizona.edu) may be a valuable resource. The Program offers professional individual tutoring in writing for students, as well as a number of different types of writing workshops. Register online and improve your prose!

VARIOUS UNIVERSITY POLICIES:

  • Accessibility and Accommodations: My goal in this classroom is that learning experiences be as accessible as possible. If you anticipate or experience physical or academic barriers based on disability, please let me know immediately so that we can discuss options. You are also welcome to contact the Disability Resource Center (520-621-3268) to establish reasonable accommodations. For additional information on the Disability Resource Center and reasonable accommodations, please visit http://drc.arizona.edu.

  • Code of Academic Integrity: Students are encouraged to share intellectual views and discuss freely the principles and applications of course materials. However, graded work/ exercises must be the product of independent effort unless otherwise instructed. Students are expected to adhere to the UA Code of Academic Integrity as described in the UA General Catalog: http://deanofstudents.arizona.edu/academic-integrity/students/academic-integrity.

  • Subject to Change Statement: Information contained in the course syllabus, other than the grade and absence policy, may be subject to change with advance notice, as deemed appropriate by the instructor.

COURSE SCHEDULE

There are seven assigments in HIST 204. Each assignment consists of readings to do, powerpoints to view (and listen to! there is audio), a reading worksheet to complete, a response paper to write, a quiz to take and a discussion to participate in. As noted above, in addition to these seven basic assignments there are three short papers to complete. You will be able to complete each of the papers after completing a set number of basic assignments (specific details on what you will be able to do when can be found in the table below).

Since this is an online course, it is in large part self-paced, but not completely. Whereas you are welcome to work as far ahead as you like, and finish the course super-early, there are also non-negotiable due dates for every assignment in the course, so you can't, say, wait until the last couple of weeks of the term and do everything then.

Here's an outline of what is due when:

  • Friday, 7/10, 11:59 p.m.: Assignment 1; *first discussion thread by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, 7/9*
  • Friday, 7/17, 11:59 p.m.: Assignment 2 and short paper #1 draft (not required); *first discussion thread by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, 7/16*
  • Friday, 7/24, 11:59 p.m.: Assignment 3 and short paper #1; *first discussion thread by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, 7/23*
  • Friday, 7/31, 11:59 p.m.: Assignment 4 and short paper #2 draft (not required); *first discussion thread by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, 7/30*
  • Friday, 8/7, 11:59 p.m.: Assignment 5, short paper #2 and short paper #1 revision (not required); *first discussion thread by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, 8/6*
  • Friday, 8/14, 11:59 p.m.: Assignment 6 and short paper #3 draft (not required); *first discussion thread by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, 8/13*
  • Friday, 8/21, 11:59 p.m.: Assignment 7, short paper #3 and short paper #2 revision (not required); *first discussion thread by 11:59 p.m. on Friday, 8/20*

You will note that all assignments for this course are due on Fridays at 11:59 p.m. You will also note that initial posts for D2L discussions are always due on Thursdays at 11:59 p.m.—**24 HOURS BEFORE EVERYTHING ELSE IS DUE**—to give everyone in each discussion section ample time to read and respond to other students' posts.

What follows is a list of assignments for HIST 204 during the second 7-week summer term. Check this page often, as readings and assignments are subject to change. I will also (of course!) give you all a heads-up over email or on the course D2L page if a major shake-up is imminent.


Assignment Subject/Details
1

Greece before Greeks; Egypt and the Ancient Near East

VIEW (D2L): PowerPoints on Mediterranean geography, ancient Babylon and ancient Egypt
READ (D2L): Samuel Greengus, "Legal and Social Institutions of Ancient Mesopotamia" (pp469–484 of J.M. Sasson, ed., Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. 1 [New York, 1995]); David Lorton, "Legal and Social Institutions of Pharaonic Egypt" (pp345–362 of J.M. Sasson, ed., Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. 1 [New York, 1995]) and complete reading worksheet #1 and D2L discussion #1
READ (textbook): Martin, Ancient Greece, chapters 1–3 (pp1–64) and take D2L quiz #1
VIEW (D2L): PowerPoints on the Minoans and Mycenaeans and the Greek Dark Ages

2

Archaic Greece; the Worlds of Homer and Hesiod

READ (textbook): Martin, Ancient Greece, chapter 4 (pp65–90) and take D2L quiz #2
VIEW (D2L): PowerPoints on Troy, Greece in the 8th century B.C., the world of Homer, epic poetry and Hesiod
READ (D2L): Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days and complete reading worksheet #2
READ (online): Iliad, book 1 and Odyssey, book 9 and complete D2L discussion #2

***Short paper #1 drafts (not required) are due with assignment #2***

3

Greece in the Seventh and Sixth Centuries

READ (textbook): Martin, Ancient Greece, chapter 5 (pp91–120) and take D2L quiz #3
VIEW (D2L): PowerPoints on Greece in the Seventh Century, Greek Lyric Poetry, Greek Philosophy, Sparta and Xenophon and Athens and Aristotle
READ (D2L): Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians XLII–LXIX (pp183–207); Xenophon, Politeia of the Spartans and complete reading worksheet #3
READ (online): sample lyric poetry: Archilochus (P.Colon. 7511): see pp6–7; Tyrtaeus (Fragment 12); Alcman (Partheneion); Alcaeus, Fr. 38a ("Weekend Plans with Alcaeus"); Sappho ("He's equal with the gods, that man"); Theognis (15: lines 667–682, right at the top of the linked page); and Solon (Fragment 36 West) and complete D2L discussion #3

***Short paper #1 is due with assignment #3***

4

The Persian Wars; Classical Greece (1)

READ (textbook): Martin, Ancient Greece, chapters 6–7 (pp121–185) and take D2L quiz #4
VIEW (D2L): PowerPoints on the Persian Wars, Classical Athens and Greek tragedy
READ (D2L): Herodotus, book 1 and complete reading worksheet #4
READ (online):
Aeschylus, Persians and complete D2L discussion #4

***Short paper #2 drafts (not required) are due with assignment #4***

5

Classical Greece (2); the Peloponnesian Wars

READ (textbook): Martin, Ancient Greece, chapter 8 (pp186–220) and take D2L quiz #5
VIEW (D2L): PowerPoints on the Peloponnesian Wars, women in ancient Greece and Greek sexuality
READ (D2L): Thucydides, book 1 and complete reading worksheet #5
READ (online): Sophocles, Oedipus the King; Euripides, Medea
and complete D2L discussion #5

***Short paper #2 is due with assignment #5***
***Short paper #1 revisions (not required) are due with assignment #5***

6

Greece in the Fourth Century

READ (textbook): Martin, Ancient Greece, chapter 9 (pp221–252) and take D2L quiz #6
VIEW (D2L): PowerPoints on Greek comedy, crime and punishment and Greece in the 4th century B.C.
READ (online): Aristophanes, Clouds and complete reading worksheet #6
READ (online): Plato, Symposium and Apology of Socrates and complete D2L discussion #6

***Short paper #3 drafts (not required) are due with assignment #6***

7

Alexander the Great; the Hellenistic Period

READ (textbook): Martin, Ancient Greece, chapter 10 and Epilogue (pp253–282) and take D2L quiz #7
VIEW (D2L): PowerPoint on Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Period
READ (D2L): Plutarch, Life of Alexander and complete reading worksheet #7
READ (online): Menander, The Grouch; sample Hellenistic poetry: Callimachus, Hymn 1 (to Zeus); Theocritus, Idyll 11 (the Cyclops) and Idyll 17 (to Ptolemy); Posiddipus, epigrams from statues and gravestones
and complete D2L discussion #7

***Short paper #3 is due with assignment #7***
***Short paper #2 revisions (not required) are due with assignment #7***

U of A | Bauschatz