National Year 12 Classical Civilisation

1. H408/11 The World of the Hero: Homer

Homer's Iliad or Odyssey (in translation)

Coming soon

2. Culture and the Arts (one option)

H408/21 Greek Theatre · H408/22 Imperial Image · H408/23 Invention of the Barbarian · H408/24 Greek Art

• Greek Theatre: How the Ancient Greeks Made Drama – Theatre as we know it grew in Athens in the 5th century BCE at festivals for the god Dionysus. Plays were performed in open-air theatres with a hillside of seats (theatron), a round dancing floor (orchestra) and a stage building (skene). Up to three masked male actors and a chorus told the story. Tragedy showed great people falling through their own choices; comedy mocked real people and politics. Its words, shapes and ideas still shape theatre today.
• An Empire Across Three Continents: the Roman Empire – The Roman Empire ruled the lands around the Mediterranean Sea: parts of Europe, West Asia and North Africa. Power was shared, often unequally, among the emperor, the senate and the army. Its economy ran on farming, towns, ships, money and trade in olive oil, wine and grain. Society had layers, from rich senators down to a large number of slaves. Roman traders sailed with the monsoon winds to ports in India. From the 4th century, the empire changed: Christianity became the main religion, Constantinople became a new capital, and the western half broke up in 476 CE. Historians call this time of change 'late antiquity'.
• Greek Identity and the Barbarian: Persian Wars and Plays – After the Persian Wars (490 to 479 BC), many Greeks defined themselves by contrast with outsiders, whom they called barbaroi. The idea appears in Herodotus' Histories, Aeschylus' play Persians, Euripides' Medea and in vase painting and sculpture. The sources are Greek voices, so each one must be read by asking who speaks, to whom and why.
• Ancient Greek Art – Ancient Greek art grew over about 900 years in four periods: Geometric, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic. Painted pottery moved from black-figure to red-figure. Sculpture moved from stiff kouros statues to the relaxed contrapposto of the Classical age and the drama of the Hellenistic age. Temples used three column orders (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian) and careful proportion. These ideals of balance and beauty shaped Roman, Renaissance and even Gandhara art.

3. Skills

Using sources and scholarship

• Source Analysis: How Historians Judge Evidence – A source is any trace of the past that gives us evidence: a letter, a coin, a building, a song, a photo or a video. Primary sources come from the time being studied; secondary sources are later accounts, such as books by historians. To analyse a source, ask about its provenance (who made it, when, why and for whom), read its content against what you already know, look for bias, and decide how reliable and how useful it is for your question. Historians check sources against each other (corroboration) and read different scholars' interpretations before writing a reasoned commentary or essay.