Schedule of Readings and Assignments

For each meeting, please come into class having read and thought about the readings assigned for that class.

Readings listed with the book icon () are from the assigned textbook, Mathisen, Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations, 3d Edition.

Everything listed under each meeting—the textbook readings, Gilgamesh, and Clouds—is fair game for the quizzes we’ll have at the start of some meetings.

August 2023
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September 2023
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October 2023
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November 2023
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December 2023
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Beginnings

1 Introduction and Themes

Tuesday, August 29

  • Before the meeting:

2 The Origins of Civilization

Thursday, August 31

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:
The Bronze Age

3 Mesopotamia

Tuesday, September 5

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

4 Sumer

Thursday, September 7

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

5 Semitic Mesopotamia

Tuesday, September 12

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

6 God-Kings of Egypt

Thursday, September 14

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

7 Egyptian Empires

Tuesday, September 19

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

8 The Bronze Age Aegean

Thursday, September 21

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:
The Iron Age

9 Dawn of the Iron Age

Tuesday, September 26

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

10 How Not to Run an Empire: The Assyrians

Thursday, September 28

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

11 The Success of the Persian Empire

Tuesday, October 3

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

12 Ancient Asia: China, India, and the Steppes

Thursday, October 5

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

Tuesday, October 10

No meeting

13 Midterm Exam

Thursday, October 12

The Greek Idea

14 The Greek Dark Age

Tuesday, October 17

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

15 Archaic Hellas

Thursday, October 19

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

16 Sparta and Athens

Tuesday, October 24

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

17 The Persian Menace

Thursday, October 26

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

Tuesday, October 31

No meeting

18 Wars Between the Greeks

Thursday, November 2

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

19 The Rise of Macedon

Tuesday, November 7

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

20 The Legacy of Alexander

Thursday, November 9

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:
The Might of Rome

21 Early Rome

Tuesday, November 14

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

22 The Roman Republic

Thursday, November 16

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

23 The Acquisition of Empire

Tuesday, November 21

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

Thursday, November 23

No meeting

24 The Republican Crisis

Tuesday, November 28

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

25 Collapse of the Republic

Thursday, November 30

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

26 Crossing the Rubicon

Tuesday, December 5

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following:

27 Augustus, Princeps, Imperator

Thursday, December 7

  • Before the meeting, read all of the following: