If you want all of your children to study Ancient history together, this course fits into our 4-year History Cycle (matching grade school, middle school, and high school courses).

None. Recommended but not required: Foundations of Christian Historiography and Dawn of History.

Course Outline:

Class 1: Precursors: The Cretans, Ionians, Minoans, and Myceneans in Greece of the Dark Ages

Class 2: The Emergence of Democracy: As the Greeks emerge from their Dark Ages, regional tyrants and kings are overthrown and replaced by democratic governments

Class 3: Principles of Greek Law: The experiments of Solon, Draco, Lycurgus, and other Greek law-givers as they attempt to create a society both just and strong.

Class 4: The Persian War: The burgeoning Greek city states are put to the test as the mighty Persian Empire seeks to expand its power into Europe.

Class 5: The Golden Age: Greek literature, architecture and art in the Golden Age of Pericles.

Class 6: The Peloponnesian War: A generation of Athenian dominance comes to an end as the Athenians engage in a suicidal and futile war with Sparta that is fought all across the Greek world and leads to the fall of Athens.

Class 7: Greek Philosophy: Survey of Greek philosophy from the pre-Scoratics like Thales through the revolution of Socrates and Plato to the Peripatetics of Aristotle, Cynics of Antisthenes, Stoics of Zeno, and the devotees of Pythagoras.

Class 8: Postwar Chaos: Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes all struggle for dominance in the chaotic years following the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War.

Class 9: Internecine Strife: Greek democracy fails as the leagues and alliances of the City States fall upon one another following the collapse of the power of Thebes.

Class 10: Mighty Alexander: Life and conquests and this most remarkable of all men, who brought the Greek culture to Asia and founded an Empire stretching from Greece and Egypt to India and Afghanistan.

Class 11: The Hellenistic Age: Examination of the triumphs and glories of the Hellenistic age, cultural and architectural, especially around the intellectual center of the East, Alexandria.

Class 12: Dissolution and Collapse: How the rivalries and wars of the Hellenistic states of the East led to the fall of the Greek kingdoms and their absorption by the expanding Roman Empire.

The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton, ISBN-10: ‎0393310779; ISBN-13: ‎978-0393310771 (https://amzn.to/3inhV64), in addition to primary documents provided online FREE by Mr. Campbell

Weekly readings and quizzes with a Final Exam. Quizzes and the final are auto-graded by the computer for immediate results. Estimated commitment: two to three hours per week.