Greek History Ma
A.Y. 2020/2021
Learning objectives
The aim of the course is to provide students with secure advanced knowledge of Greek history in its chronological development as well as of the specific research methods and current approaches and perspectives within the discipline by means of an in-depth treatment of a monographic theme and a critical and methodologically sound approach to ancient sources.
Expected learning outcomes
The expected learning outcomes include:
- advanced knowledge of the development of Greek history and especially of the political, institutional, socio-economic and cultural issues investigated during the course;
- ability to analyse, contextualise and critically interpret ancient sources (literary, epigraphic and archaeological) according to their specific characters and the thematic issues they individually pose;
- ability to use research methods and bibliographical resources developed by modern scholarship with a view to investigating the ancient Greek world;
- ability to communicate effectively using appropriate language and proving capable of critical judgment with regard to the topics and issues taken into consideration.
- advanced knowledge of the development of Greek history and especially of the political, institutional, socio-economic and cultural issues investigated during the course;
- ability to analyse, contextualise and critically interpret ancient sources (literary, epigraphic and archaeological) according to their specific characters and the thematic issues they individually pose;
- ability to use research methods and bibliographical resources developed by modern scholarship with a view to investigating the ancient Greek world;
- ability to communicate effectively using appropriate language and proving capable of critical judgment with regard to the topics and issues taken into consideration.
Lesson period: Second semester
Assessment methods: Esame
Assessment result: voto verbalizzato in trentesimi
Single course
This course cannot be attended as a single course. Please check our list of single courses to find the ones available for enrolment.
Course syllabus and organization
Single session
Responsible
Lesson period
Second semester
Organization of the course during the COVID-19 pandemic
Should the COVID-19 pandemic continue, the course will be mainly held in a remote modality with lectures either live-streamed on the Teams platform or recorded and uploaded on the Ariel website. Detailed information about the calendar of the lectures and the modality in which they will be held and made available will be published on the official course website on the Ariel platform.
Students will find all information concerning links to lectures as well as possible changes to schedules and exam bibliography on the course website on the Ariel platform.
Should it not be possible to organize exam sessions as described in this syllabus, exams will be held online. All relevant information will be provided on the course website on Ariel.
Should the COVID-19 pandemic continue, the course will be mainly held in a remote modality with lectures either live-streamed on the Teams platform or recorded and uploaded on the Ariel website. Detailed information about the calendar of the lectures and the modality in which they will be held and made available will be published on the official course website on the Ariel platform.
Students will find all information concerning links to lectures as well as possible changes to schedules and exam bibliography on the course website on the Ariel platform.
Should it not be possible to organize exam sessions as described in this syllabus, exams will be held online. All relevant information will be provided on the course website on Ariel.
Course syllabus
Course title: Tyrants, legislators and written law in the Greek world between the archaic age and the early hellenistic period
The topics dealt with during the course will be as follows:
Part A
Part A.1 will focus on the specific features and the political, social and historical significance of tyranny in the archaic period, both in the Greek motherland and in the Western colonies. Tyranny, whose centrality in Greek political life hardly needs emphasising, will be examined both on a theoretical level in the light of ancient Greek political thought and modern historiographical reflection and on the basis of a number of case studies, such as Corinth, Mytilene, Miletus and Athens, for which ancient sources are more detailed and substantial.
Part A.2 will focus, in the light of the modern scholarly debate about orality and literacy in ancient Greece, on the specific features and meanings of written law in polis society, from the earliest legislations to the classical period. The ancient sources that will be taken into consideration include Solon's poetic fragments and legislation, the laws of Gortyn, Sophocles' Antigone (on written and unwritten law) and Thucydides' logos epitaphios (on law and democracy) (2.37).
Part B
Part B will broaden the scope of the analysis on democracy and written law and touch on themes and events of political history such as the scrutiny of laws at the end of the fifth century, the Thirty tyrants and their government, the amnesty of 403/2 BC, laws and decrees and the Athenian democracy of the fourth century. Such themes will be investigated also with a comparative approach keeping in the background some examples of tyrannies and laws against tyranny in other poleis of the Greek word, again in the fourth century BC.
The topics dealt with during the course will be as follows:
Part A
Part A.1 will focus on the specific features and the political, social and historical significance of tyranny in the archaic period, both in the Greek motherland and in the Western colonies. Tyranny, whose centrality in Greek political life hardly needs emphasising, will be examined both on a theoretical level in the light of ancient Greek political thought and modern historiographical reflection and on the basis of a number of case studies, such as Corinth, Mytilene, Miletus and Athens, for which ancient sources are more detailed and substantial.
Part A.2 will focus, in the light of the modern scholarly debate about orality and literacy in ancient Greece, on the specific features and meanings of written law in polis society, from the earliest legislations to the classical period. The ancient sources that will be taken into consideration include Solon's poetic fragments and legislation, the laws of Gortyn, Sophocles' Antigone (on written and unwritten law) and Thucydides' logos epitaphios (on law and democracy) (2.37).
Part B
Part B will broaden the scope of the analysis on democracy and written law and touch on themes and events of political history such as the scrutiny of laws at the end of the fifth century, the Thirty tyrants and their government, the amnesty of 403/2 BC, laws and decrees and the Athenian democracy of the fourth century. Such themes will be investigated also with a comparative approach keeping in the background some examples of tyrannies and laws against tyranny in other poleis of the Greek word, again in the fourth century BC.
Prerequisites for admission
The course, an advanced course, is addressed to students who have already taken an introductory course in Greek History.
Teaching methods
Part A will be offered in a lecture format; part B will be more interactive and will be organized in a seminar-like format. The course takes the students through the different topics with an approach based on a detailed analysis and commentary on the relevant sources and a critical discussion of interpretative perspectives developed in modern scholarship. All texts and documents analyzed during the lectures are available, in advance for downloading, on the dedicated course website on the Ariel platform.
Attendance of lectures is recommended but is not compulsory.
Attendance of lectures is recommended but is not compulsory.
Teaching Resources
Part A
A.1
1) Together with the lectures notes and ancient sources examined during the course (uploaded ahead of each lecture on the Ariel website), the following manuals of Greek history are recommended as reference books:
- C. BEARZOT, Manuale di storia greca, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2015 (third edition)
- D. MUSTI, Storia greca, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1989 (and successive reprints);
2) ERODOTO, Storie, Libro V (recommended editions: G. NENCI, Erodoto. Storie, libro V, Milano, Mondadori, 1994 [Lorenzo Valla series] or, alternatively, P.J. RHODES, ed., Herodotus: Histories, Book V, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2019 [Aris & Phillips Classical texts]) [Classics (i.e. Filologia, Letterature e Storia dell'Antichità] students are required to be able to read and translate the Greek original text);
- C. CATENACCI, Il tiranno e l'eroe. Per un'archeologia del potere nella Grecia antica, Milano, Bruno Mondadori Editore, 1996;
- G. GIORGINI, La città e il tiranno. Il concetto di tirannide nella Grecia del VII-IV secolo a.C., Milano, Giuffré, 1993.
A.2
1) One of the following texts:
- G. CAMASSA, Scrittura e mutamento delle leggi nel mondo antico. Dal Vicino Oriente alla Grecia di età arcaica e classica, Roma, L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2011 (available for downloading on the Ariel platform);
- M. FARAGUNA, Tra oralità e scrittura: diritto e forme della comunicazione dai poemi omerici a Teofrasto, in M. FARAGUNA (a cura di), Nomos despotes: leggi e prassi giudiziaria nella società greca antica, «Etica & politica/Ethics & Politics» 9, 2007, 1, pp. 75-111 (pubblicazione elettronica: https://www.openstarts.units.it/dspace/handle/10077/5289)
2) One of the following articles:
- G. ZABREBELSKY, Il diritto di Antigone e la legge di Creonte, in I. DIONIGI (a cura di), La legge sovrana, Milano, BUR, 2006, pp. 21-51;
- E.M. HARRIS, Antigone the Lawyer, or the Ambiguities of Nomos, in E.M. HARRIS-L. RUBINSTEIN (a cura di), The Law and the Courts in Ancient Greece, London 2004, pp. 19-56 (rist. in E.M. HARRIS, Democracy and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens. Essays on Law, Society, and Politics, Cambridge 2006, pp. 41-80).
Part B
1) One of the following books:
- M.I. FINLEY, La democrazia degli antichi e dei moderni, Roma-Bari 2010 (third edition, with an afterword by C. AMPOLO) (original edition: Democracy Ancient and Modern, London, Hogarth, 1985);
- D. MUSTI, «Demokratia». Origini di un'idea, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1995, 3-102, 139-241;
2) M. CANEVARO, Making and Changing Laws in Ancient Athens, in E.M. HARRIS-M. CANEVARO (a cura di), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Law, Oxford 2015 (pubblicazione on-line; l'articolo sarà fornito agli studenti durante il corso).
Bibliography for non-attending students
Part A
A.1
1) The following manuals of Greek history are recommended as reference books:
- C. BEARZOT, Manuale di storia greca, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2015 (third edition)
- D. MUSTI, Storia greca, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1989 (and successive reprints);
2) ERODOTO, Storie, Libro V (recommended editions: G. NENCI, Erodoto. Storie, libro V, Milano, Mondadori, 1994 [Lorenzo Valla series] or, alternatively, P.J. RHODES, ed., Herodotus: Histories, Book V, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2019 [Aris & Phillips Classical texts]) [Classics (i.e. Filologia, Letterature e Storia dell'Antichità] students are required to be able to read and translate the Greek original text);
3) C. CATENACCI, Il tiranno e l'eroe. Per un'archeologia del potere nella Grecia antica, Milano, Bruno Mondadori Editore, 1996 (and successive reprints);
4) One of the following books:
- O. MURRAY, La Grecia delle origini, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1996 (second edition), pp. 105-128, 155-265 (original edition: Early Greece, London, Fontana Press, 1993, chs. V-VI, VIII-XIII);
- L. BRACCESI, I tiranni di Sicilia, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1998.
A.2
1) G. CAMASSA, Scrittura e mutamento delle leggi nel mondo antico. Dal Vicino Oriente alla Grecia di età arcaica e classica, Roma, L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2011 (available for downloading on the Ariel platform);
2) One of the following articles:
- G. ZABREBELSKY, Il diritto di Antigone e la legge di Creonte, in I. DIONIGI (a cura di), La legge sovrana, Milano, BUR, 2006, pp. 21-51;
- E.M. HARRIS, Antigone the Lawyer, or the Ambiguities of Nomos, in E.M. HARRIS-L. RUBINSTEIN (a cura di), The Law and the Courts in Ancient Greece, London 2004, pp. 19-56 (rist. in ID., Democracy and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens. Essays on Law, Society, and Politics, Cambridge 2006, pp. 41-80);
3) One of the following texts:
- C. BEARZOT, La giustizia nell'antica Grecia, Roma, Carocci, 2008;
- three essays of choice from M. FARAGUNA (a cura di), Nomos despotes: leggi e prassi giudiziaria nella società greca antica, «Etica & politica/Ethics & Politics» 9, 2007, 1, pp. 75-111 (digital publication: https://www.openstarts.units.it/dspace/handle/10077/5289).
Part B
1) One of the following texts:
- M.I. FINLEY, La democrazia degli antichi e dei moderni, Roma-Bari 2010 (3. ed., con postfazione di C. Ampolo; edizione originale Roma-Bari 1973) (original edition: Democracy Ancient and Modern, London, Hogarth, 1985 [second edition]);
- D. MUSTI, «Demokratia». Origini di un'idea, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1995, pp. 3-102, 139-241;
2) P. CARTLEDGE, Il pensiero politico in pratica. Grecia antica (secoli VII a.C.-II d.C.), Roma, Carocci, 2011 (original edition: Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009).
A.1
1) Together with the lectures notes and ancient sources examined during the course (uploaded ahead of each lecture on the Ariel website), the following manuals of Greek history are recommended as reference books:
- C. BEARZOT, Manuale di storia greca, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2015 (third edition)
- D. MUSTI, Storia greca, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1989 (and successive reprints);
2) ERODOTO, Storie, Libro V (recommended editions: G. NENCI, Erodoto. Storie, libro V, Milano, Mondadori, 1994 [Lorenzo Valla series] or, alternatively, P.J. RHODES, ed., Herodotus: Histories, Book V, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2019 [Aris & Phillips Classical texts]) [Classics (i.e. Filologia, Letterature e Storia dell'Antichità] students are required to be able to read and translate the Greek original text);
- C. CATENACCI, Il tiranno e l'eroe. Per un'archeologia del potere nella Grecia antica, Milano, Bruno Mondadori Editore, 1996;
- G. GIORGINI, La città e il tiranno. Il concetto di tirannide nella Grecia del VII-IV secolo a.C., Milano, Giuffré, 1993.
A.2
1) One of the following texts:
- G. CAMASSA, Scrittura e mutamento delle leggi nel mondo antico. Dal Vicino Oriente alla Grecia di età arcaica e classica, Roma, L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2011 (available for downloading on the Ariel platform);
- M. FARAGUNA, Tra oralità e scrittura: diritto e forme della comunicazione dai poemi omerici a Teofrasto, in M. FARAGUNA (a cura di), Nomos despotes: leggi e prassi giudiziaria nella società greca antica, «Etica & politica/Ethics & Politics» 9, 2007, 1, pp. 75-111 (pubblicazione elettronica: https://www.openstarts.units.it/dspace/handle/10077/5289)
2) One of the following articles:
- G. ZABREBELSKY, Il diritto di Antigone e la legge di Creonte, in I. DIONIGI (a cura di), La legge sovrana, Milano, BUR, 2006, pp. 21-51;
- E.M. HARRIS, Antigone the Lawyer, or the Ambiguities of Nomos, in E.M. HARRIS-L. RUBINSTEIN (a cura di), The Law and the Courts in Ancient Greece, London 2004, pp. 19-56 (rist. in E.M. HARRIS, Democracy and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens. Essays on Law, Society, and Politics, Cambridge 2006, pp. 41-80).
Part B
1) One of the following books:
- M.I. FINLEY, La democrazia degli antichi e dei moderni, Roma-Bari 2010 (third edition, with an afterword by C. AMPOLO) (original edition: Democracy Ancient and Modern, London, Hogarth, 1985);
- D. MUSTI, «Demokratia». Origini di un'idea, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1995, 3-102, 139-241;
2) M. CANEVARO, Making and Changing Laws in Ancient Athens, in E.M. HARRIS-M. CANEVARO (a cura di), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Law, Oxford 2015 (pubblicazione on-line; l'articolo sarà fornito agli studenti durante il corso).
Bibliography for non-attending students
Part A
A.1
1) The following manuals of Greek history are recommended as reference books:
- C. BEARZOT, Manuale di storia greca, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2015 (third edition)
- D. MUSTI, Storia greca, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1989 (and successive reprints);
2) ERODOTO, Storie, Libro V (recommended editions: G. NENCI, Erodoto. Storie, libro V, Milano, Mondadori, 1994 [Lorenzo Valla series] or, alternatively, P.J. RHODES, ed., Herodotus: Histories, Book V, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2019 [Aris & Phillips Classical texts]) [Classics (i.e. Filologia, Letterature e Storia dell'Antichità] students are required to be able to read and translate the Greek original text);
3) C. CATENACCI, Il tiranno e l'eroe. Per un'archeologia del potere nella Grecia antica, Milano, Bruno Mondadori Editore, 1996 (and successive reprints);
4) One of the following books:
- O. MURRAY, La Grecia delle origini, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1996 (second edition), pp. 105-128, 155-265 (original edition: Early Greece, London, Fontana Press, 1993, chs. V-VI, VIII-XIII);
- L. BRACCESI, I tiranni di Sicilia, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1998.
A.2
1) G. CAMASSA, Scrittura e mutamento delle leggi nel mondo antico. Dal Vicino Oriente alla Grecia di età arcaica e classica, Roma, L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2011 (available for downloading on the Ariel platform);
2) One of the following articles:
- G. ZABREBELSKY, Il diritto di Antigone e la legge di Creonte, in I. DIONIGI (a cura di), La legge sovrana, Milano, BUR, 2006, pp. 21-51;
- E.M. HARRIS, Antigone the Lawyer, or the Ambiguities of Nomos, in E.M. HARRIS-L. RUBINSTEIN (a cura di), The Law and the Courts in Ancient Greece, London 2004, pp. 19-56 (rist. in ID., Democracy and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens. Essays on Law, Society, and Politics, Cambridge 2006, pp. 41-80);
3) One of the following texts:
- C. BEARZOT, La giustizia nell'antica Grecia, Roma, Carocci, 2008;
- three essays of choice from M. FARAGUNA (a cura di), Nomos despotes: leggi e prassi giudiziaria nella società greca antica, «Etica & politica/Ethics & Politics» 9, 2007, 1, pp. 75-111 (digital publication: https://www.openstarts.units.it/dspace/handle/10077/5289).
Part B
1) One of the following texts:
- M.I. FINLEY, La democrazia degli antichi e dei moderni, Roma-Bari 2010 (3. ed., con postfazione di C. Ampolo; edizione originale Roma-Bari 1973) (original edition: Democracy Ancient and Modern, London, Hogarth, 1985 [second edition]);
- D. MUSTI, «Demokratia». Origini di un'idea, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1995, pp. 3-102, 139-241;
2) P. CARTLEDGE, Il pensiero politico in pratica. Grecia antica (secoli VII a.C.-II d.C.), Roma, Carocci, 2011 (original edition: Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Assessment methods and Criteria
The exam is oral and aims at ascertaining knowledge of the topics dealt with during the course, also by means of a critical discussion of ancient sources and modern scholarship.
Assessment criteria are the following: ability to organize knowledge through discourse; ability to reason critically with regard to the topics considered; critical awareness of the problems of method posed by the study of ancient society and by the use of ancient sources; ability to present topics and express oneself with the specialist language appropriate to the discipline.
Marks are out of 30.
Assessment criteria are the following: ability to organize knowledge through discourse; ability to reason critically with regard to the topics considered; critical awareness of the problems of method posed by the study of ancient society and by the use of ancient sources; ability to present topics and express oneself with the specialist language appropriate to the discipline.
Marks are out of 30.
Unita' didattica A
L-ANT/02 - GREEK HISTORY - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Unita' didattica B
L-ANT/02 - GREEK HISTORY - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Unita' didattica C
L-ANT/02 - GREEK HISTORY - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Professor(s)