SPRING 2012 TUESDAYS
Losing the peace - The victories over Persia also sowed the seed of Greece’s self-destruction. The first phase is the disastrous Peloponnesian War.
10 Jan
The Athenian alliance rapidly turned into an empire, and with it came inevitable opposition. At the same time, the Athenian achievement is celebrated in the work of its first great dramatist, Aeschylus
17 Jan
Crowning glory - The Acropolis, that great complex of buildings designed, built, sculpted and painted through the years of Athens’ greatness and descent into civil war
24 Jan
The origins of theatre, and how it reflected the changes in society at large. On its stage, the giant achievement of Sophocles
31 Jan
The story of the Peloponnesian War is told at first hand by one of Athens’ generals, Thucydides and mourned in the humanity of Euripides’ drama
7 Feb
What kind of a world? - the last vestiges of tragedy give way to the satire of Aristophanes. Then we turn to those philosophers who looked beyond the material world for the truth
14 Feb
What kind of god? Plato seeks universal answers to the nature of the human condition. His answers still dominate European thought
Now, replacing the warring independent city states is the unity of Hellenism - ironically bringing the end of much that we celebrate in the name of Greece.
21 Feb
From the north come Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander whose victory ushers in a new world of art, both grandiose and highly personal
28 Feb
This is the world of Aristotle - hugely influential and encyclopaedic but curiously limited in its ambition - and reflected in the artefacts of his time
6 Mar
Finally, philosophies of resignation: and with them the lovely poetry of escapism that continues to haunt us - the pastoral idylls of Theocritus
Rome - Just as all seems lost we find that it has merely changed. Parallel with Greece another whole world has been developing across the waters - in Italy.
13Mar
Rome will eventually build Greece into its Empire and continue our story, starting with the origins of Rome and the energetic world of the Etruscans
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