This course examines the workings of Athenian democracy and the criticisms lodged at that particular form of politics by the city's playwrights, orators, and philosophers. D. S. Allen. The literary, epigraphical, and archaeological sources relating to the cults of the infant Dionysos, the Eleusinian Mysteries, Pelops and Sosipolis at Olympia, the Nemean Opheletes, Isthmian Melikertes, Dionysos at Taras, the Athenian Arrhephoria and festivals of Artemis at Brauron and Dionysos at the Anthesteria are analyzed for the light they shed on the figure of the child. In the Roman sphere, Ascanius, Romulus and Remus are considered. Later developments include divine birth stories for kings and emperors and its use in the early Christian Church.
All readings are in English.
The first half of the course will focus on method and the question of what constitutes linguistically sound argumentation. This we will do by evaluating recent work on tense and aspect in Greek and on word order in Latin. For the remainder of the course, participants are encouraged to work on topics of their own choice, on anything from Greek particles to Latin infinitives or vice versa. Students are expected to present reports on secondary literature and, in the second half of the course, on their individual research topics, the latter followed by a written paper. Greek 206 or equivalent.