Details
Code 22891
Level of study Third/Final year
Credit value 20
Semester Scheduled 2012-13, 1 & 2
Pre-requisite modules none
Other pre-requisites none
Module description
Spartan society is an enigma in the ancient Greek world. Its society excited the imagination of contemporaries from other Greek states and has continued to serve as both a positive and a negative social and political model up until the present day.
On this module you will engage with our evidence for Spartan society and will examine both well known and sometimes ignored aspects of that society. The module will challenge preconceptions about Spartan society in both our ancient evidence and in the modern world.
Key features:
You will study all available evidence to reconstruct ancient Sparta including both literary and archaeological material. A key aspect of the assessment of the source material will be an assessment of the `Spartan mirage’, the distortion of Spartan society produced by our sources largely being the product of outsiders.
You will examine Sparta’s military ethos, the role of the Spartan education system (agoge); the roles of women in Spartan society; the peculiarities of Spartan religion
You will examine the role of the image of Sparta in modern culture.
You will analyse and deconstruct the varied ways in which Sparta has been appropriated by ancient and modern writers, and the impact this has had upon academic study of Sparta.
Teaching and learning methods
Lectures incorporating class discussion