Hello, my name is Andrew Szegedy-Maszak.  I'm
Professor of Classical Studies at Wesleyan
University in Middletown, Connecticut, and
I'll be your teacher for The Ancient Greeks.
Why study Greek history? It's a completely
reasonable question, and the usual answer focuses
on the inheritance that we have gotten from
the Greeks. They've had an enormous influence
on the development of culture in the West.
Just for example, democracy, philosophy, drama,
both tragedy and comedy, even history itself--in the West, all of these trace their names
and their origins to ancient Greece, and there's
much more besides. A great modern scholar
has said, "The Greeks are good to think with."
That's what we're going to try to do. We will
talk about the major events and trends and
actors, and we're also going to talk about
the sources that we have and the interpretive
methods we can use to put together the stories
that have meaning about this wonderful ancient
society. The Greeks are good to think with.
I look forward very much to thinking about
them with you. Welcome to our class.
