Classics & Ancient History

In this course, Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (University of Cardiff) presents the Persian Empire through non-Greek sources including Persian art and architecture, sculpture and epigraphy, and parts of the Hebrew Bible. In the first module, we...

In this module, we explore Euripides' Medea, a tragedy in which a Medea kills her own children to get back at Jason, who has left her for another woman. The course begins by looking at the myth of Medea and...

In this course, Professor Edith Hall (King's College, London) explores how the Greeks saw themselves as distinct from their 'barbarian' neighbours, especially in the context of the Greco-Persian wars of the early 5th century BC. In the first...

In this course, Dr Emma Aston (University of Reading) explores Book 7 of Herodotus’ Histories. We begin by thinking about Herodotus as a historian, the aims in his ‘Histories’, and the extent to which the ‘Histories’ represents both a ...

In this course, Professor Judith Mossman (University of Nottingham) explores Euripides’ Medea, a play which depicts a marital breakdown so severe that it leads to one woman taking revenge on her husband by killing their two children. As we move...

In this course, Professor Robin Osborne (University of Cambridge) explores the Histories of Herodotus. In the first module, we discuss what the Histories are actually about, before thinking about the form of the Histories—its overall structure, as...

In this course, Professor Lynette Mitchell (University of Exeter) explores the presentation of Persians and other non-Greeks (‘barbarians’) in Aeschylus’ Persians and Herodotus’ Histories. In the first module, we offer a brief history of the...