The concentration in Ancient Studies is a site for two different types of intellectual projects: the comparison of two or more ancient cultures along some general thematic problem or theme that they share (e.g., the effects of urbanization); or the study of cultural interrelation or interaction between one or more ancient cultures in the same historical period (e.g., the competition and collaboration of Greek and Persian cultures in western Anatolia in the fifth century B.C.E.). The category "ancient cultures" is defined with different chronological parameters in different areas: in Africa, the Mediterranean basin, Mesopotamia, and South Asia, "ancient" means pre-Islamic; in East Asia, "ancient" means pre-Song Dynasty; and in South and Central America, "ancient" means pre-Columbian.

The concentration requires twelve courses on two or more different ancient cultures and a B.A. paper. Of the twelve courses, three must be in an ancient language and one must be the Ancient Studies Seminar (Ancient Studies 271). This seminar is offered annually on a changing thematic topic of relevance to most of the ancient cultures studied in the program. Examples include "The Introduction of Writing and Literacy," "The Power of Images," and "Imperial Systems: Center and Periphery."

3		quarters of an ancient language beyond the College language competency requirement (this language need not, however, be the same as the language used to meet that requirement
1		Ancient Studies Seminar (AncSt 271)
8		courses cross listed in Ancient Studies in the history, law, philosophy, language, literature, religion, art, or archaeology of two or more different ancient cultures, with no more than five courses in the same culture
1		1 B.A. Seminar (AncSt 298)
-		B.A. paper
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B.A. Paper. Candidates for the Bachelor of Arts degree in the Ancient Studies concentration are required to write a substantial B.A. paper. The purpose of the B.A. paper is to enable concentrators to improve their research and writing skills and to give them an opportunity to focus their knowledge of the field upon an issue of their own choosing. By May 15 of the third year, concentrators must submit to the Director of Ancient Studies a short statement proposing an area of research. This statement must be approved by a member of the Ancient Studies core faculty (see following section) who agrees to be the supervisor of the B.A. paper. At the same time, concentrators should meet with the preceptor of the B.A. seminar to plan a program of research.

During autumn of the fourth year, concentrators are required to register for the B.A. seminar. During the seminar they discuss research problems and compose preliminary drafts of their papers. They are expected to exchange criticism and ideas in regular seminar meetings with the preceptor and with other students writing papers, as well as to take account of comments from their faculty readers. The grade for the B.A. seminar is identical to the grade for the B.A. paper and, therefore, is not reported until the B.A. paper has been submitted in the spring quarter. The grade for the B.A. paper depends on participation in the seminar as well as on the quality of the paper.

The deadline for submitting the B.A. paper in final form is the fifth Friday of the spring quarter. This deadline represents the final, formal submission, and students should defend substantial drafts much earlier. Copies of the paper are to be submitted both to the faculty supervisor and to the seminar preceptor. Students who fail to meet the deadline may not be able to graduate in that quarter and will not be eligible for honors consideration.

Honors. Honors will be awarded automatically to any student with a 3.5 or better cumulative grade point average in the concentration, and a grade of A on the B.A. paper.

Advising. Each student will have a program adviser who is a member of the core faculty (see following section). The program adviser will, in many cases, become the supervisor for the B.A. paper. By spring quarter of their second year, each student is expected to have designed a program of study and to have submitted it to his or her program adviser and the Director of Ancient Studies. There are no specific requirements about the distribution of the eight main courses, beyond limiting them to courses cross listed as Ancient Studies courses, and beyond the stipulation that two or more different cultures must be studied and that there be no more than five courses in the same culture. Individual program advisers and the Director of Ancient Studies will see to it that each student is exposed to as many as possible of the methodologies or areas of evidence that are generally summarized above as "history, law, philosophy, language, literature, religion, art, or archaeology." Courses in ancient languages beyond the program requirement can be used to meet both course and distribution requirements. General education sequences cannot, however, be used to meet course requirements in this area, but they can (upon appeal to the Director of Ancient Studies) be used to meet the distribution requirement that two or more ancient cultures be studied.

212. History and Theory of Drama I (=AncSt 212, ClCiv 212/312, ComLit 205/305, Eng 138/310, GS Hum 242/342). PQ: May be taken in sequence with Eng 139/311 or individually. This course is a survey of major trends and theatrical accomplishments in Western drama from the ancient Greeks through the Renaissance: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, medieval religious drama, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson, along with some consideration of dramatic theory by Aristotle, Horace, Sir Philip Sidney, and Dryden. The course features optional but highly recommended end-of-week workshops in which individual scenes are read aloud dramatically and discussed. The goal is not to develop acting skill but, rather, to discover what is at work in the scene, and to write up that process in a somewhat informal report. Students have the option of writing essays or putting on short scenes in cooperation with some other members of the class. D. Bevington, N. Rudall. Autumn.

229. The Economy of the Roman Empire (=AncSt 229, ClCiv 229/329, ECL 329, Econ 220, Hist 210/310). The course begins with a brief introduction to Roman imperial history, and then considers the following topics: agrarian production, the economic consequences of urbanization, the types of labor including slaves, the legal institutions for business and investment, and the economic consequences of the demographic structure. Class format includes lecture and discussion of ancient texts. R. Saller. Spring.

230. Women in Antiquity (=AncSt 230, Class 230/330, GendSt 230). We study the portrayal of women in ancient Greek literature, their literary roles as compared to their actual social status, and gender roles in ancient Mediterranean cosmologies. Readings are from epic and lyric poetry, drama, history, oratory, and philosophy, in addition to ancient historical documents and medical texts, as well as from contemporary sociological and anthropological studies that help to analyze the origins of Western attitudes toward women. L. Slatkin. Autumn.

231/331. Human Rights and Natural Law in Greek and Roman Philosophy (=AncSt 231, ClCiv 231/331, ECL 305). We read a variety of texts, from the Greek sophists to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, that explore the rights and duties of human individuals in a social context. In addition to Plato and Aristotle, we focus on the Stoics, who had a pivotal role in developing the concepts of natural law and cosmopolitanism. We ask whether the Greeks or Romans did, indeed, have a notion of human rights. Among the topics that are considered are slavery, the status of women and children, the distribution of wealth, the divine right of rulers, and the limits of freedom. E. Asmis. Winter.

235. Literature and Politics in Ancient Rome (=AncSt 235, ClCiv 235, Class 335). A study of the symbiotic relationship between literary self-expression and political conditions in late Republican and early Imperial Rome. Authors covered include Horace, Vergil, Ovid, Seneca, and Lucan. We do extensive reading in the Latin originals as well as cover modern interpretive material. Primary texts in English. S. Bartsch. Winter.

236. The Spartan Mirage (=AncSt 236, ClCiv 236/336, Hist 203/303). From Herodotos to Hitler, ancient Sparta has continued to fascinate. Yet the image we possess of the most important state of the Peloponnese is largely the projection of outside observers for whom the objectification of Sparta could serve either as a model for emulation or as a paradigm of "otherness." This course examines the extant evidence for Sparta, from its origins through to its repackaging in Roman time, as well as the way Sparta has been imagined from antiquity to the present day. The class thus serves as a case study in discussing the writing of history and in attempting to gauge the viability of a non-Athenocentric Greek history. J. Hall. Winter.

238. Augustine's City of God (=AncSt 238, ClCiv 238/338, ECL 338). The object of the course is to study, book by book, the argument Augustine unfolds about Rome and classical culture in City of God. Discussion of the text is supplemented by lectures and secondary readings concerning the establishment of Christianity, the condition of the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, and Augustine's career as a bishop and Christian controversialist. Texts in English. P. White. Spring.

240. Precolonial Encounters in the Greek World (=AncStd 240, ClCiv 240). During the eleventh century to the eighth century B.C., the extent of the Mediterranean was sailed by explorers and merchants coming from Greece, the Near East, the north coast of Africa, and the Tyrrhenian islands. This course reviews the nature and evidence of these contacts, which preceded the foundation of the Greek colonies in southern Italy and Sicily. The island of Pithekoussai (Ischia) in the Bay of Naples, where different ethnic groups appear to have cohabited, provides a specific case study based on the most recent archaeological evidence from this controversial site. Staff. Winter.

243. Greek Archaeology (=AncSt 243, ClCiv 243). The course is intended to provide a general introduction to the methodology and the most important issues and concerns of Greek material culture and art, from the Protogeometric to the Hellenistic period (eleventh to first centuries B.C.). It features surveys of Greek topography, architecture, sculpture, and pottery, as well as an introduction to excavation and survey techniques. Staff. Autumn.

244. Roman Archaeology (=AncSt 244, ClCiv 244). The course presents the archaeology and art of the city of Rome, from the Iron Age to Late Antiquity (ninth century B.C. to fourth century A.D.). The most important monuments and excavations of the city itself are covered, while reference is made to comparable evidence from the rest of the Roman world. Staff. Winter.

247. Livy's Second Punic War (=AncSt 247, ClCiv 247). Close readings of Book 21 to 30, with emphasis on how Livy uses narrative technique to construct an imperial ideology suitable to his contemporary audiences; Barthes' Mythologies is studied concurrently. Texts in English. W. R. Johnson. Spring.

250. History of Philosophy I: Ancient Philosophy (=AncSt 250, Philos 250). PQ: Completion of the general education requirement in humanities. This course studies the central figures of early Greek philosophy with a focus on Plato and Aristotle, as well as including Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Socrates. I. Mueller. Autumn.

251. Introduction to Hebrew Bible. A survey of the major books of the Hebrew Bible in their historical context, with consideration of the manner of composition and the abiding significance of the message. J. Collins. Autumn.

252. The Wisdom of Ben Sira. This course provides an exegesis of the book of Ben Sira using Hebrew fragments and Greek and other ancient versions. Attention is paid to the major themes of the book in the context of the Jewish wisdom tradition, and to the value of the book as a witness to social conditions in Jerusalem about 200 B.C.E. J. Collins. Autumn.

253. Hellenistic Judaism. Survey of the literature of the Jewish diaspora in Egypt in the period 300 B.C.E. to 118 C.E. We focus on the understanding of Jewish identity in the Diaspora context. Texts in English. Greek reading group optional. J. Collins. Winter.

256. Sanskrit Literature in Translation: Writing and Rewriting the Epics (=AncSt 256, SoAsia 256). The great Indian epics, the Mahabharata and Ramayana, fundamentally shaped the Sanskrit tradition both as a literary and as a moral formation. This course introduces the student to the two works themselves, and explores some of the key attempts in later literature to rethink both their style and their substance. S. Pollock. Spring.

259. South Asia before the Buddha (=AncSt 259, Anthro 259/394). This is a study of the archaeology of South Asia that covers the period from the beginning of the Holocene (ca. 10,000 years ago) to the Early Historic (to ca. A.D. 500) or the time of Early Buddhism. Over much of this period, archaeological data constitute the only source of information about the past; for all of this period archaeology can inform on those people and aspects of the past that are largely ignored in documentary sources. We discuss the multiple transitions to agriculture across the subcontinent, the development and disappearance of urbanism in the Indus Valley, the establishment of the first empires, and the shifting mosaic of cultural and economic practices that constitutes early South Asia. K. Morrison. Spring.

262. Greek and Roman Lyric Poetry (=AncSt 262, ClCiv 262). This course surveys the development in Greek and Roman literature of what was to become a major genre (eventually the major genre) of European poetry. Topics of discussion include questions of poetic persona, the idea of "personal poetry," the relation of lyric to other genres such as epic, and the reception of ancient lyric poetry by later ages (for example the "Sappho cult" and the "Catullus mystique"). Authors read include Sappho, Alcaeus, Archilochus, Pindar, Anacreon, Horace, and Catullus. We also read some assessments of ancient lyric by modern critics and scholars, as well as some imitations by modern poets. Texts in English. D. Wray. Spring.

269. Commerce and Culture: The Indian Ocean Trade in Archaeological Perspective (=AncSt 269, Anthro 369). The Indian Ocean has been host to extensive networks of exchange and cultural interaction for at least the last 2,000 years. These far-flung connections both grew out of and partly transformed local societies and economies; we thus need to address these networks of "commerce and culture" to understand such processes as urbanism, the emergence of money, markets, and commercial production and the development and expansion of structures of state power and their interpenetration with local and regional economies. In this course we focus primarily on the South Asian subcontinent, but we also consider its relationships with the Mediterranean, East Africa, the Arabian peninsula, and island Southeast Asia. K. Morrison. Winter.

271. Ancient Studies Seminar: The Power of Images in Ancient Cultures (=AncSt 271, ClCiv 271). This year the seminar focuses on the power of images in ancient cultures, examining the various ways in which images were used in ancient societies to represent, project or manipulate political or divine power. Each week, with the help of a visiting lecturer, we discuss a different culture. Visitors include T. Cummins (Pre-Columbian), W. Doniger (India), R. Ritner (Egyptian), I. Romeo (Roman), E. Teeter (Egyptian), K. Wilson (Mesopotamian), and others. C. Faraone. Winter.

286. Ancient Mediterranean Myths (=AncMed 386, AncSt 286, ClCiv 286, RelHum 280). A comparative study of representative archaic Near and Middle Eastern myths with careful attention to problems of reading and interpretation, and with the overall question as to whether the ancient Mediterranean world can be imagined as a single cultural system. J. Z. Smith. Autumn.

287/387. Greek Religion (=AncSt 287/387, ClCiv 287/387, ECL 387, GS Hum 294/394). This course surveys the history of Greek religion from Homer to the early Hellenistic period and includes inquiries into religious practices (such as animal sacrifice, divination, purification, and burial rites) and beliefs about fundamental issues such as the proper relationship between the human and the divine, the creation of the cosmos, and the nature of human existence after death. Sources include literary texts and inscriptions (all in translation) as well as archaeological materials, especially Greek vase-painting. C. Faraone, J. Redfield, B. Lincoln. Winter.

288. Hellenistic Religions (=AncMed 388, AncSt 288, ClCiv 288, RelHum 282). A comparative study of representative types of Late Antique religions, highlighting issues of religious persistence and change. J. Z. Smith. Autumn.

297. Reading Course. PQ: Consent of faculty sponsor and director of undergraduate studies. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.

298. B.A. Seminar. This seminar is designed to teach students research and writing skills necessary for writing their B.A. paper. In addition to lectures on classical bibliography, research tools, and electronic databases, students discuss research problems and compose preliminary drafts of their B.A. papers. They are expected to exchange criticism and ideas in regular seminar meetings with the preceptor and with other students writing papers, as well as to take account of comments from their faculty readers. The grade for the B.A. seminar is identical to the grade for the B.A. paper and, therefore, is not reported until the B.A. paper has been submitted in the spring quarter. The grade for the B.A. paper depends on participation in the seminar, as well as on the quality of the paper. Staff. Autumn.