Fall 2010
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The course begins with an overview of the great river valley civilizations of Egypt (Hamitic) and Mesopotamia (Semitic) that flourished from before 3000 B.C., characterized by tyranny, superstition, and stagnation. Next we discuss the Indo-Europeans, also called Aryans.who before 1700 B.C. settled from Ireland to India. Then we treat the derivative cultures of Palestine,
Syria, Anatolia, Cyprus, and Crete. From the so-called Minoans of Crete, whose language still remains undeciphered, the Greeks in the Peloponnesian Peninsula learned about cities, writing, and overseas commerce but differed from them in being less religious, poorer, and more divided
(by the montainous geography and isles of their homeland into many small units) without strong kings or priests.
This first European civilization, Greek-speaking, known as Mycenaean, centered around the citadels in the various small valleys of Southern Greece, conquered Crete, then Troy, and then fell itself just after 1200 B.C. to illiterate Greeks from the north called Dorians. A Greek dark age (1200-800 B.C.) followed, when, after a die-off among the few remaining Greeks writing perished and cities disappeared. Phoenicians dominated overseas trade. After having learned the alphabet and other aspects of civilization from the Phoenicians, the Greeks re-established cities, civilization, and trade after 800 B.C. Enjoying life, these proud fighters created, loved, and argued with exuberance: the first and only literate peoples to exercise nude in gymnasia and to have lovers train youths to think as well as to fight.
During the Greek Renaissance (800 to 500 B.C.), like the Italian Renaissance for which it is named, these Greeks, invigorated by gymnastics and inspired by pederastic pedagogy, expanded overseas to Anatolia, the Black Sea, Italy, Sicily, and even Gaul. They also flowered artistically and intellectually. Their art was humanistic, their science rational, their mathematics exact, their philosophy analytical, and their poetry inspirational. More than one thousand of their city-states, each in its valley or on its island, experimentedevery variety of social and constitutional arrangements. In spite of slavery, misogyny, and xenophobia (traits shared by all the other ancient civilizations), these Greeks of the "archaic" period were the first literate humans to construct reasoned laws and constitutions, which they frequently changed, to secure rights and liberties to subjects, to disregard priests, and to outlaw tyrants.
In 500 B.C, the Persians, the greatest and most advanced of all the Middle Eastern empires, attacked these greatly outnumbered but inspired heros. After having defeated that threat to their freedom, they created the greatest culture ever yet seen until then. They inspired all subsequent progress in Europe and eventually throughout the world. The classical period from the Persian invasion of 490 B.C. to the conquest of Greece by the Macedonians in 338 B.C. saw the greatest progress yet in history. Never have so many owed so much to so few. The
Athenian democracy, the first ever among literate peoples, led the intellectual breakthrough, the

“Golden Age.” Its democracy, however, oppressed its neighbors and persecuted its best citizens.
Consequently, it was condemned by the three greatest philosophers, Socrates, Plato and
Aristotle. Neither Athens nor Syracuse's, which imitated it, lasted even a hundred years. And, in fact, no democracy since then has lasted even 200 years, including our own. Intercity strife and class warfare weakened those glorious city states so that the Macedonian kings Philip and
Alexander could overrun them.
The Hellenistic period (323 to 31 B.C.) saw the Greeks under Macedonian leadership expand their culture to Egypt and the rest of the Middle East and beyond into India. In the teaming multicultural metropolises thus established, the Greeks mingled with and learned from those whom they had conquered. These elite became Hellenistic (meaning Greek-like, rather then Hellenic, meaning pure Greek)—i.e., Greek speakers in the new hybrid, Greek-like civilization. Although republics and democracies gave way to absolute monarchs, the Greek speakers, of whatever ethnicity, whether in Europe, Asia, or Africa, supported culture. Science advanced to a degree not surpassed (except in a few fields by Islamicized Arabic and Persian speakers) until the seventeenth century Europeans created what we call the Scientific
Revolution.
By 31 B.C. all the Greeks had became subjects of the Romans, to whom they taught humanism, rationality, and secularism. The Roman Empire, creating the Pax Romana (31 B.C. to
180 A.D.), sheltered Greek civilization in the East and spread it to North Africa, as the region from Carthage to Morocco is called, and to Western Europe, even to all the Celts except the Irish and Scots, who remained , like the Germans,illiterate barbarians.
Undermined by overpopulation, after which plagues always ensue, over taxation, over bureaucratization, and weakened by Christianity and increasing tyrrany, the Roman Empire declined. In the west where it had received too many unassimilated German immigrants, it fell to
Germanic invaders during the fifth century, the last Western emperor being assassinated n 476.
Under Germanic kings and Catholic priests, it entered a Dark Age. In the East, however, despite
Orthodox Christianity's dislike of science, freedom, and logic, and the attacks of Arabs and Slavs, the Greek classics were preserved at Constantinople to reemerge as the cornerstone of Western education during the Italian Renaissance in the 15 th century.
Today, relativism, Freudianism, Marxism, and fundamentalist religious revivals, as well as over taxation and over bureaucratization, we in the West are threatened. With too much oversensitivity to various groups hostile to Hellenism, which provides the core values of Western civilization, we are veering toward a new decline and fall. Is anyone's opinion as valid as anyone else's? Are all languages equal? Is not one way better than another to think or to do? Are all cultures equally good? Are any religions valid?
About Me
An Episcopal atheist, I am a superannuated Southerner, though I have now lived for fortyone consecutive years in the frozen North among the damn Yankees. I began as a Democrat backing civil rights and opposing the Vietnam War when teaching at LSU. In 1966, it was still the largest university in the South, if you didn't count Texas as truly Southern. In that spring, I dared to chair the first protest against the War in the deep South. Pandemonium ensued in that benighted region, and there upon, because I was an active gay and subject to extreme penalties then in fashion there, I had to leave. I became a refugee from the Ku Klux Klan, the Southern
Baptists, tough Southern sheriffs and cops. Because of Lyndon Johnson's war crimes and damage to the economy, I became a Reagan-supporting Republican. Finally because of George
W. Bush’s crusading and economically disastrous policies, I left the GOP. Now, a capitalist of the variety of Ralph Nader, my close undergraduate friend at Princeton; I denounce both parties. I am a non-conforming gay activist, neither Marxist nor lesbaterian .

Today, I am the senior professor of history and the senior pre-law advisor at UMB. I attended nine universities and have taught in nine. I have published 5 books, a dozen articles, about 100 notes (short articles), and 100 book reviews. Much of my most recent writings, along with many previous previous publications are now on my website: http://www.williamapercy.com
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From me you will gain a different perspective. On this politically-correct campus, I am diversity itself: a semi-expired white male of the old school.
Method
My lectures are general syntheses or explanations of particular points of view – sometimes my very own. I encourage students to ask questions and make comments. It is most helpful if they complete the reading assignment or some suitable alternative before the lecture. In addition, students should seek to enhance their command of geography and chronology by memorizing the three or four crucial places and dates for each topic. For the former purpose a paperback atlas or maps on the Internet will be helpful and so will films and features or the history channels etc.
Grading
Grades consist primarily of an average of the two 75 minute long hour exams (25% each) and the comprehensive 3-hour final (50%). The essay part of these exams will be graded on organization and style as well as on historical theory and command of facts. Students will find it advantageous to read Strunk and White’s Elements of Style (in 78 brief and witty pages). A version of the book can be found online at www.bartleby.com/141/ . I allow some extra credit for rewriting the essays on each of the hour exams in light of my comments, and further research on your part. Notable contributions to classroom discussion will also be weighed; failure to participate in discussions, however, will not detract from a student's grade. The rewritten papers, together with quizzes, and classroom participation will help raise the grade. Lastly, students who attend classes regularly, pay attention to lectures and discussions, and take notes should do well in this course.
Readings: Texts and Online
Disseminating scholarship on the printed page in the twenty-first century is analogous to publishing it on manuscripts during the sixteenth century by which time the printing press was working well. The Internet is now no longer like Cunabula (books printed before 1500)—rare commodities even then. It is in fact now rapidly displacing print on paper. Look at what
Wikipedia is doing to the Encyclopædia Britannica! Two editions of Britannica (the 12 th , which is the greatest, and the next to latest) are now also available on line. Printed dictionaries and bibliographies likewise are becoming obsolete because their online counterparts are so easy to update. Expenses, delays, and storage problems are also forcing scholarly journals to go online.
Why not monographs (which sell too few copies to be cost-effective), syntheses, and textbooks, as well?
Examples of additional online sources that can be used for this course include:
1.
Text of Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times by Thomas R. Martin:
<http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0009>.
2.
Greek primary and secondary sources:
<http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cache/perscoll_Greco-Roman.html>.

3.
Excellent lectures are also available on iPod.
In light of the changing publishing landscape described above, the formerly required texts listed below are now optional:
Burn, A.R., Penguin History of Greece.
Herodotus, Histories.
Plutarch, Plutarch on Sparta.
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War.
Walbank, F.W., The Hellenistic World.
Any edition of the books above is suitable for this course. They can be found, at great discount, online on Amazon, (see used prices for each book), Ebay, and half.ebay.com.
Cornell Series: Online readings in the syllabus adorned with an asterisk (*) are part of the Cornell
Series of history texts edited by Edward Fox, some of which I helped facilitate. They are available on my website at: http://williamapercy.com/wiki/index.php?title=Books_facilitated_by_WAP#Cornell_Series_edited_by_
Edward_W._Fox
Wikipedia or the Encyclopedia Britannica are both extremely useful in obtaining an overview of nearly any subject in the course, and it is beneficial to read the entries for topics in both to for comparison. In addition, all editions (including those from 60 years ago) of The Encyclopedia of World
Historywhether by William L. Langer or Peter N. Stearns, which used to be available online, contain nearly all the facts you will need to know for the tests. Google has made the available the whole 1883 edition of its predecessor work, A Handbook of Universal History, edited by the William Tillinghast, as well as a limited portion of the modern (Stearns) edition available. Search Google Books using these titles and editor names to see what's currently available. The Oxford Classical Dictionary is also highly recommended.
Suggested readings on shelves at Healey Library:
Boardman, J., J. Griffin, and O. Murray, eds. Greece and the Hellenistic World.
Cary, M. A history of the Greek World from 323 to 146 BC.
Green, P. Alexander to Actium: the historic evolution of the Hellenistic Age.
Grimal P. et al. Hellenism and the Rise of Rome.
Hadas, M. Hellenistic Culture: Fusion and Diffusion.
Hammond, N. G. L. A History of Greece.
Percy, W. A. Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece.
Tarn, W. W. and G. T. Griffith. Hellenistic Civilization.
Contact Policy
Although I have provided my e-mail address and home telephone number, please e-mail or call me only if you have an urgent matter to discuss with me (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday 7AM-
1PM). Understand that if you e-mail me, it may take me several days to see your e-mail as I am computer illiterate and must rely on others to access my e-mail. Therefore, call me in case of an emergency. There is, however, no need for you to e-mail or call me to let me know that you will miss or have missed a class. I fully understand that events out of your control will arise from time to time and may cause the occasional absence. So explanations are unnecessary. If you would like to find out what you missed in class while you were absent, ask a classmate.

Class
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Date Lecture Topics
Readings in Print
Readings
Long On-line Short On-line
8
Sept.
Wed.
Introduction, the physical setting, the
Bronze Age; Semites,
Hamites, and Aryans
(Indo-Europeans); the
Near East, Egypt
Burn, sect. 1 Botsford, Hellenic
History, Ch. 1
Orlinsky, Ancient
Israel
13
Sept.
Mon.
14
Sept.
15
Sept.
Minoans, Myceneans, and Dorians. Map Quiz.
The Greek Dark Age –
Phoenicians and Black
Athena.
Burn, sect. 2 Botsford, Ch. 2
Add/Drop ends
Burn, sect. 3 Botsford, Ch. 3
Smith 1-14
Rostovtzeff 3-15
Orlinsky, Ch. 4, 5,
6, 7
Smith 15-42
Rostovtzeff 16-48
Rostovtzeff 49-71 20
Sept.
22
Sept.
27
Sept.
29
Sept.
Rise of the city-state .
Short ID quiz.
Sparta
Colonization.
Short Essay Quiz.
The Greek Renaissance
4 Oct. Lydians, Medes, &
Persians
6 Oct. Darius
Plutarch,
Lycurgus
Xenophon,
Spartan Society
Burn, sect. 4
Burn, sect. 5 & 6
Botsford, Ch. 4
Botsford, Ch. 5
Botsford, Ch. 6
Botsford, Ch. 8
Rostovtzeff 72-80
Rostovtzeff 81-98
13
Oct.
18
Oct.
20
Oct.
25
Oct.
Persian Wars
Xerxes
Archaic Athens to 480
Herodotus I, II;
Burn sect. 7
Herodotus III and
IV
Burn, sect. 8;
Herodotus V, VI
Burn, sect. 9
Botsford, Ch. 9
Botsford, Ch. 10
Botsford, Ch. 11
Herodotus VII,VIII Botsford, Ch. 12
FIRST EXAM
Botsford, Ch. 7
Rostovtzeff 121-135
Smith 43-80
Rostovtzeff 81-97
27
Oct.
Athens: from alliance to empire
Thucydides I;
Burn, sect. 10
Botsford, Ch. 13 Rostovtzeff 136-150
1 Nov.
3 Nov.
Athens at its height;
Pericles, Democracy
The Peloponnesian War,
Phase I
Burn, sect. 11;
Thucydides II, 1-
78
Thucydides III 1-
85, IV 1-41; Burn, section 12
Thucydides V 84-
116, (VI-VIII);
Botsford, Ch. 14
Botsford, Ch.
15&16
8 Nov. The Peloponnesian War,
Phase II
10
Nov..
12
Nov.
Botsford, Ch.
17&18
The Fourth Century to
338
Burn, sect. 13
Burn, sect. 14 Botsford, Ch. 19,
20 & 21
PASS/FAIL/COURSE WITHDRAWAL DEADLINE
Rostovtzeff 152-
161
15
Nov.
SECOND EXAM
Greek History syllabus Page
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20
21
22
23
24
25
17
Nov. Philip and Alexander the
Great
Burn, sect. 15;
Plutarch,
Alexander;
Walbank Ch. 1 &
2
Walbank, Ch. 3,
4, 5
Botsford, Ch. 22 &
23Rostovtzeff 229-
241
Rostovtzeff 203-
215
Smith 103-129
23
Nov.
24
Nov.
25-28
Nov.
The Diadochi:
Antigonids, Selecuids, and Ptolemies
The Hellenistic Age:
Athens, Sparta,
Pergamum, the Leagues
THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY (Or rather a chance to catch up on the readings)
29
Nov.
Hellenistic Society &
Economy
1 Dec. Hellenistic Culture
6 Dec. Neighbors of the
Hellenistic states and their religions
Walbank, Ch. 6,7
8
Walbank, Ch. 9
Walbank, Ch. 10
Walbank, 11, 12
Botsford, Ch. 24,
25, 26
Botsford, Ch. 27,
28
Botsford, Ch. 29 &
30
Starr*
Rostovtzeff 229-
241
Rostovtzeff 242-
257
Rostovtzeff 258-
277
Rostovtzeff 278-
300
26
27
8 Dec. The Roman Conquests
13 Greeks under the
Dec. Romans to
Christianization, the
Arab Conquests, and the
15 Dec.
Walbank, 13
Katz, The Decline of Rome
Starr, The Rise of Rome*
Katz, The Decline of Rome*
Ottoman Empire
STUDY PERIOD (One day! If you've waited this long to study seriously, you're in trouble.)
16-22 Dec. FINALS PERIOD (Thursday - Wednesday)
Greek History syllabus Page
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