Classical Studies Home  Classics Faculty Major and Minor Requirements Spring 2005 Classes Student Research Study Abroad Why Study Classics? Classics VIPs FAQ         last updated: 8/06/04			Classes Fall 2004 Latin Greek Hebrew Classical Studies     "Carpe Diem" Mosaic Latin Scene from a Roman comedy (Mosaic, 3rd century CE, Museum Sousse, Tunisia, photo: Hans Zimmermann, Goerlitz ) Latin 131-01: Elementary Latin I (1) (Knorr) CLOSED MWF 09:10am-10:10am, ETN 311 Latin 131-02: Elementary Latin I (1) (Muir) CLOSED TTh 03:30pm-5:00pm, ETN 311 (Syllabus) (Answer Sheets) (Mock Final) Introduction to the language and culture of the ancient Romans. The course emphasizes the fast development of basic reading skills. Students will read three hit comedies by T. Maccius Plautus (ca. 254-184 BCE), Aulularia, Bacchides, and Amphitruo, in gradually less simplified versions. Textbooks (also used for LATIN 132 in Spring 2005): • P. V. Jones and K. C. Sidwell, Reading Latin, vol. 1: Text, Cambridge:   Cambridge University Press, 1986, ISBN 0-521-28623-9, $19.00. • P. V. Jones and K. C. Sidwell, Reading Latin, vol. 2: Grammar, Vocabulary and Exercises,   Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, ISBN 0-521-28622-0, $30.00. Back to top C. Caligula (Bust in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek, Copenhagen)   Latin 231: Latin Prose: Suetonius, Life of Caligula (1) (Knorr) MWF 10:20am-11:20am, ETN 311 CLOSED (Syllabus) Close reading of classical Latin authors. Texts by Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Suetonius, Seneca, and/or Apuleius will be translated and discussed. Prerequisites: Latin 132. (catalogue copy) Fall 2004: Caligula, one of the most notorious Roman emperors, continues to inspire the contemporary imagination. The 24-year old became emperor in 37 C.E. To pay for a life of debaucheries, he had countless people killed and their property confiscated. In addition, he demanded to be worshipped as a living god and expressed his utter contempt for the Roman senate by declaring his intent to appoint his favorite horse to a consulship. After four years and several revolts and attempts on his life, Caligula was finally murdered. We will read one of the main sources for Caligula's life, the very entertaining account by the biographer Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (ca. 70-after 122 C.E.). Prerequisites: Latin 132. For your preparation, read: Garrett Fagan's Biography of Caligula in De Imperatoribus Romanis Back to top Latin 391: Advanced Readings in Latin Literature: Petronius, Satyricon and Apuleius, Metamorphoses (1) (Knorr/Bachvarova) T 1:50pm-2:50pm, Th 9:10am-10:10am, ETN 108 (Syllabus) (Schedule) This course allows for intensive study at the third year level of a text or texts in a single genre of Latin literature. The primary focus remains translation, but secondary readings will be incorporated and discussed. Prerequisite: Latin 232 or equivalent, or permission of instructor. (catalogue copy) Fall 2004: The Satyricon ("Satyr Stories") by T. Petronius Arbiter and the Metamorphoses ("Transformations") by Apuleius of Madaura in North Africa belong to the most brilliant and funny works in the Latin language. Petronius' comic anti-hero, the over-educated student Encolpius, roams the small towns in the area of modern Naples in search of love, a free dinner, and a quick sesterce. Lucius, the young merchant of Apuleius' story, falls in love with a Thessalian witch, gets turned into an ass, and suffers many trials until he finds salvation in the cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis.   Back to top Greek   The great relief from Eleusis, site of one of the most important ancient mystery cults: The goddess Demeter (left) and her daughter Persephone (right, with pine-torch) bid farewell to Triptolemos, the king of Eleusis, who has learned from Demeter how to cultivate the soil and grow wheat and will now teach these skills to mankind. (National Museum Athens, 450/445 BCE.) Greek 131 Elementary Ancient Greek I (1) (Bachvarova) MWF03:00pm-04:00pm, ETN 207 An intensive introduction to ancient Greek, the language of philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, historiographers like Herodotus and Thucydides, tragic poets like Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, comic geniuses like Aristophanes and Menander, and the writers of the New Testament. These and other Greek authors stand at the beginning of Western civilization, and their works still reverberate in our contemporary culture. Textbook (used for the entire first year): • Hansen, H. and G. M. Quinn. Greek: An Intensive Course. Fordham University Press:   New York, NY, 1992, ISBN: 0823216632, $37.50. Back to top Socrates (ca. 470-399 BCE) Plato (ca. 427-347 BCE) Xenophon (430/25-after 355 BCE)   Greek 231 Ancient Greek Prose (1): Plato (Bachvarova) MWF 01:50pm-02:50pm, ETN 105 Reading and translation of selected Greek prose texts, including works by Herodotus, Plato, Lysias, and others. Prerequisites: Greek 131 and 132 or equivalent. Fall 2004: In the last decades of the fifth century B.C.E., Socrates started to roam Athens in his search for truth and true wisdom. An adoring crowd of fashionable young men gathered around him, among them Plato, Xenophon, and Alcibiades, and enjoyed the way he exposed the ignorance of their elders. In due course, however, Socrates, who described himself as a "gadfly", was executed for "introducing new gods and corrupting the youth." In this class, we will read excerpts from the works of Plato and Xenophon that illustrate Socrates' character and philosophy. Textbooks: • Plato, Apology of Socrates and Crito, with excerpts from the Phaedo and Symposium and               from Xenophon's Memorabilia, ed. by Louis Dyer, rev. by Thomas Day Seymour,               Gorgias Press, 2002, ISBN: 1593330073, $ 24.00. • Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Grammar, revised by Gordon M. Messing, Harvard U Press, 1990,               ISBN: 0674362500, $42.00. • H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford U Press, 1963,               ISBN: 0199102066, $ 45.00. Cool links: The Last Days of Socrates (lots of background material, incl. an annotated view of 5th cent. Athens) The Ancient City of Athens (pictures of ancient monuments in Athens today) Athenian Litigation (links to websites and scholarly articles) Back to top Hebrew   Ark of the Covenant HEBR 131 Elementary Classical Hebrew I (1) (McCreery) MWF 08:00a-09:00a, ETN 105 An introduction to the original language of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Using the inductive method, students will be introduced to the morphology and syntax of ancient Hebrew by translating selected passages from the Hebrew Bible. HEBR 231 Intermediate Classical Hebrew I (1) (McCreery) TBA An introduction to the original language of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Using the inductive method, students will be introduced to the morphology and syntax of ancient Hebrew by translating selected passages from the Hebrew Bible. Back to top Classes in the Classical Studies Program Alexander the Great (detail from mosaic in the National Museum in Naples) HIST 313 Greece and the Hellenistic World (.5) (Lucas) CLOSED MWF 12:40pm-01:40pm, ETN 311 Course meets 9/1-10/20 The course will deal with Homeric Greece, early Sparta and Athens, the rise of tyrannies and their fall to democratic forces at the time of the Peloponnesian War. Further, the course will deal briefly with the cultural ascendancy of Athens as reflected in its philosophy and theater and the growing disillusionment in the decline of the 4th and 3rd centuries. Lastly, it will cover the diffusion of Greek culture in the East following the conquests of Alexander the Great. Back to top HIST 314 Ancient Rome (.5) (Lucas) MWF 12:40pm-01:40pm, ETN 311 Course meets 10/25-12/10 Primitive Italy and the founding of Rome; its expansion, the Punic Wars, social discontent and the Gracchi; the civil wars and the decline of the Republic; Julius Caesar and Octavian; the Julio-Claudian dynasty; the Flavians; philosophies of resignation, religions of hope. Back to top from left to right: Thales (?), Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle PHIL 230 History of Philosophy: Ancient and Medieval (1) (Lou Goble) MWF 11:30am-12:30pm, ETN 211 Ancient and medieval philosophy from Thales through St. Thomas. The important ideas of leading philosophers and the movements they influenced. Emphasis is on metaphysics and the problems of knowledge. (from the WU course catalog) Fall 2004: In this course, we explore the origins of western philosophy. We begin at the very beginning, with the philosophers known as the Pre-Socratics, who preceded Socrates and Plato. We will then spend several weeks studying Plato's philosophy, followed by some weeks devoted to Aristotle's. We conclude with a brief look at the philosophical movements that came after Aristotle, in the Hellenistic period and in Classical Rome as well as in the European Middle Ages. The emphasis of the course, however, is on the philosophical work of Plato and Aristotle. With both we will work primarily on problems in metaphysics (the one and the many, being, becoming, change), epistemology (knowledge, belief, appearance), and ethics (the good, justice). We will be interested in the questions the philosophers asked, and how they answered them, and we will be especially interested in their methods of doing philosophy. This course will require writing three or four formal papers and various informal exercises. PHIL 110 (Philosophical Problems), or the equivalent, is a prerequisite for this course. This class is required for all Philosophy majors. (Lou Goble's course announcement for Fall 2004) Back to top REL 113 (TH) Introduction to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible (1) (McCreery) MWF 10:20am-11:20am, ETN 110 CLOSED An introduction to the history and literature of ancient Israel and to modern methods used in studying the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. The course has three basic aims: to reconstruct the history of ancient Israel on the basis of archaeological and form-critical methods, to survey the spectrum of literary forms in the Old Testament, and to identify the major theological themes and symbols used to express Israel's faith. Back to top REL 221 Hellenistic Mystery Religions (0.5) (McGaughy) MWF 9:10am-10:10am, ETN 110 (First Half of the Semester Only) A survey of the religions of personal salvation which engulfed the Mediterranean world during the Hellenistic Age (ca. 330-30 BCE), including the worship of the Magna Mater in Asia Minor, the Egyptian cult of Isis and Serapis, the Syrian worship of Bel (Ba'al), Persian Mithraism and Babylonian Astrology. Special attention will be given to the theodicy problem, the rise of redeemer figures and religious syncretism. Back to top REL 237 (W, 4th Sem Lang Req: Hebrew) Introduction to Syro-Palestinian Archaeology (1) (McCreery) W 06:00pm-09:00pm, ETN 110 An introduction to the history and current directions of archaeological research in the Holy Land, concentrating on modern Jordan, Israel, and Syria. Particular emphasis will be placed on the relationship between archaeological research and biblical studies. This course is a prerequisite for REL 337 Archaeological Methodology. Writing-Centered. Back to top