HONR 1210 - Polis, Republic, and Empires

4 credit hours
In the two millennia defining the ancient Mediterranean World, its people experimented with the rule of the one, the few and the many. Their achievements and failures became the subjects first of myth and then history. This course will first consider the nature of the discipline itself and then will focus on the stories history tells: the peoples and cultures of the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia and the rise and fall of their political institutions. These experiences shaped their world (as ancient writers explain) and anticipated ours (as moderns and we will realize).