Ancient Greece: Myth, Art, War

This lecture examines the role and status of Athenian drama in Athenian society. Picking up where the last lecture (on the Peloponnesian War) left off, Dr Gillian Shepherd looks at the finale of the Sicilian Expedition, and the event that preceded it: the Melian Dialogue, which purports to recount events which just might have influenced one of the three great 5th century Athenian tragedians, Euripides, when he wrote his play The Trojan Women. This play, as well as others by Euripides and those by Aeschylos and Sophocles, were performed in the Theatre of Dionysos in Athens as part of the Great Dionysia. This was a religious festival in honour of the god Dionysos, but it was also more than that – it was an integral part of Athenian society and politics in the fifth century BC.

Copyright 2013 Gillian Shepherd / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

This lecture examines the role and status of Athenian drama in Athenian society. Picking up where the last lecture (on the Peloponnesian War) left off, Dr Gillian Shepherd looks at the finale of the Sicilian Expedition, and the event that preceded it: the Melian Dialogue, which purports to recount events which just might have influenced one of the three great 5th century Athenian tragedians, Euripides, when he wrote his play The Trojan Women. This play, as well as others by Euripides and those by Aeschylos and Sophocles, were performed in the Theatre of Dionysos in Athens as part of the Great Dionysia. This was a religious festival in honour of the god Dionysos, but it was also more than that – it was an integral part of Athenian society and politics in the fifth century BC.

Copyright 2013 Gillian Shepherd / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

This lecture examines the role and status of Athenian drama in Athenian society. Picking up where the last lecture (on the Peloponnesian War) left off, Dr Gillian Shepherd looks at the finale of the Sicilian Expedition, and the event that preceded it: the Melian Dialogue, which purports to recount events which just might have influenced one of the three great 5th century Athenian tragedians, Euripides, when he wrote his play The Trojan Women. This play, as well as others by Euripides and those by Aeschylos and Sophocles, were performed in the Theatre of Dionysos in Athens as part of the Great Dionysia. This was a religious festival in honour of the god Dionysos, but it was also more than that – it was an integral part of Athenian society and politics in the fifth century BC.

Copyright 2013 Gillian Shepherd / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

This lecture examines the role and status of Athenian drama in Athenian society. Picking up where the last lecture (on the Peloponnesian War) left off, Dr Gillian Shepherd looks at the finale of the Sicilian Expedition, and the event that preceded it: the Melian Dialogue, which purports to recount events which just might have influenced one of the three great 5th century Athenian tragedians, Euripides, when he wrote his play The Trojan Women. This play, as well as others by Euripides and those by Aeschylos and Sophocles, were performed in the Theatre of Dionysos in Athens as part of the Great Dionysia. This was a religious festival in honour of the god Dionysos, but it was also more than that – it was an integral part of Athenian society and politics in the fifth century BC.

Copyright 2013 Gillian Shepherd / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Between 431 and 404 BC a bitter war known as the Peloponnesian War was fought between the two major powers of ancient Greece – Athens and Sparta – and their respective allies. In this lecture, Dr Gillian Shepherd outlines the events of the Peloponnesian War and looks at two figures critical to our understanding of Greek history in the second half of the 5th century BC: Perikles, a leading statesman of Athens; and one of his biggest fans, the 5th century historian Thucydides to whom we are indebted for his account of the intricacies of the Peloponnesian War.

Copyright 2013 Gillian Shepherd / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Between 431 and 404 BC a bitter war known as the Peloponnesian War was fought between the two major powers of ancient Greece – Athens and Sparta – and their respective allies. In this lecture, Dr Gillian Shepherd outlines the events of the Peloponnesian War and looks at two figures critical to our understanding of Greek history in the second half of the 5th century BC: Perikles, a leading statesman of Athens; and one of his biggest fans, the 5th century historian Thucydides to whom we are indebted for his account of the intricacies of the Peloponnesian War.

Copyright 2013 Gillian Shepherd / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Following the fall of the Peisistratid tyranny in Athens, the Athenians instituted a revolutionary new form of government: democracy. In this lecture, Dr Gillian Shepherd looks at the nature of Athenian democracy and how we think it might have functioned in the 5th century BC, including some of the structures and objects found in the Athenian agora which provide evidence for democracy at work.

Copyright 2013 Gillian Shepherd / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Following the fall of the Peisistratid tyranny in Athens, the Athenians instituted a revolutionary new form of government: democracy. In this lecture, Dr Gillian Shepherd looks at the nature of Athenian democracy and how we think it might have functioned in the 5th century BC, including some of the structures and objects found in the Athenian agora which provide evidence for democracy at work.

Copyright 2013 Gillian Shepherd / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Peisistratos, tyrant of Athens, seems to have ruled benevolently and Athens prospered under his regime. In the course of the 6th century BC, important public buildings were erected in both the Agora (town square) of Athens and on the Acropolis. But change was afoot: in this lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd traces the events of the late sixth century and earlier 5th century BC, an action-packed period for Athens. The Peisistratid tyranny fell and was replaced by a new form of government – democracy. Despite the new regime, life was not peaceful: the Athenians united with other Greeks in bloody clashes with the invading Persians, fighting some of the greatest battles in history - Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea.

Copyright 2013 Gillian Shepherd / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Peisistratos, tyrant of Athens, seems to have ruled benevolently and Athens prospered under his regime. In the course of the 6th century BC, important public buildings were erected in both the Agora (town square) of Athens and on the Acropolis. But change was afoot: in this lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd traces the events of the late sixth century and earlier 5th century BC, an action-packed period for Athens. The Peisistratid tyranny fell and was replaced by a new form of government – democracy. Despite the new regime, life was not peaceful: the Athenians united with other Greeks in bloody clashes with the invading Persians, fighting some of the greatest battles in history - Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea.

Copyright 2013 Gillian Shepherd / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.