Week 21
During the spring quarter we are going to watch Greece be transformed from hundreds of feuding city-states into one vast monolithic empire under the leadership of King Philip and his son Alexander of Macedon. This is one of the great political stories of all time, and generations of students of politics and have come to this study to search for reasons that explain why the Athenian democracy floundered as it did. The event that encapsulates the changes and the decline is the decision by an Athenian jury to vote for the execution of Socrates (399). We will begin our quarter with this event, this man, and his teaching. And we will read the four dialogues collected in our Penguin Classics edition of The Last Days of Socrates.
The Michael Scott book is the best, most recent, general survey of this period in a very informal style. (For some it may be too breezy.) It is for the general reader, and therefore it is perfect for all of us who want a quick background on this rather lesser known period in Greek history.
REQUIRED READING
RECOMMENDED READING
