Unit GREEK HISTORY
- Course
- Humanities
- Study-unit Code
- GP003421
- Curriculum
- Moderno
- Teacher
- Massimo Nafissi
- Teachers
-
- Massimo Nafissi
- Hours
- 54 ore - Massimo Nafissi
- CFU
- 6
- Course Regulation
- Coorte 2025
- Offered
- 2026/27
- Learning activities
- Caratterizzante
- Area
- Storia, archeologia e storia dell'arte
- Sector
- L-ANT/02
- Type of study-unit
- Opzionale (Optional)
- Type of learning activities
- Attività formativa monodisciplinare
- Language of instruction
- Italian
- Contents
- 1. Greek History, from the Bronze Age to the Battle of Actium.
2. Thucydides’ Pentekontaetia.
3. Readings for non-attending students.
Item 2 of the syllabus applies only to students taking the 9 ECTS version of the course. - Reference texts
- 1. Handbook: M. Bettalli (ed.), Storia Greca, 3rd. ed., Carocci, Roma, 2021. A historical atlas that pays sufficient attention to the geographical space in which Greek history developed in its different phases.
2. Thucydides’ Pentekontaetia. Reading and guided commentary based on the lectures. Students will be required to have a thorough knowledge of the entire text in Italian, which will be made available in PDF format on the Unistudium platform. A short supporting bibliography will be provided during the course.
On Thucydides in general: S. Ferrucci, Tucidide, in M. Bettalli (ed.), Introduzione alla storiografia greca, new edn, Carocci, Rome 2009, pp. 67–96.
3. Substitute readings for non-attending students.
Students taking the course for 6 or 9 ECTS credits who attend fewer than 60% of the lectures required for the corresponding version of the course are required to read one of the following monographs:
- M.H. Hansen, La democrazia ateniese nel IV secolo a.C. (trad. it. A. Maffi), LED, Milano 2003, pp. 133-388;
- M. Giangiulio, Democrazie greche, Carocci, Roma 2015;
- M. Giangiulio (a cura di), Introduzione alla storia greca, Il Mulino, Bologna 2021, 15-262;
- M. Lupi, Sparta. Storia e rappresentazioni di una città greca. Carocci, Roma, 2017.
Working students who are unable to attend classes (for the relevant definition, see: https://www.unipg.it/didattica/didattica-telematica-sincrona) are encouraged to contact the instructor.
Students with disabilities and/or Specific Learning Disorders (SLD) and/or ADHD or ADD who have uploaded a regular certification into SOL can apply for the compensatory tools provided by current regulation (e.g., textbooks in accessible digital format; study materials in accessible formats: presentations, handouts, and exercises, provided if necessary in advance of lessons, see www.unipg.it/disabilita-e-dsa). For further information, please contact the Department Referent (Dr. Alessandra Di Pilla: alessandra.dipilla@unipg.it). - Educational objectives
- The course introduces students to Greek history and culture in the broadest sense. As a first-year course, it is also one of the first occasions on which students are confronted with the teaching of history at university level. They are confronted with complex political, cultural and social phenomena in their interrelationships, and at the same time are called upon to understand phenomena, structures and dynamics in their cultural specificity.
Knowledge:
• Knowledge of the general lines of Greek history, from the Bronze Age to the battle of Actium. Clear knowledge of the succession of events and of the different phases of the historical development and of the geographical frameworks in which they take place.
• Basic knowledge of the political and social institutions and the culture of the Greek world, in their local and temporal diversities, with particular reference to Athens and Sparta.
• Students of the 9 CFU course. Knowledge of Thucydides’ work and its value as a source for the reconstruction of the past, with particular reference to his account of the Pentekontaetia.
Skills: The course contributes to the development of communication skills, the application of one's knowledge and the refinement of learning practices:
• Using a language appropriate for the description of historical phenomena of the ancient world, as well as possessing general and specific concepts necessary to describe these phenomena.
• Ability to express - when necessary - the complex, problematic, and hypothetical character of historic reconstructions.
• Ability to reflect upon historical phenomena and processes, within the limits posed by a non-analytical knowledge of the same.
• Acquire sensitivity to an approach that does not regard historiographical narratives as passive accounts of events, but as expressions of historical thought and narrative constructions, as well as elaborations of pre-existing traditions and oral or written accounts. - Prerequisites
- No special requirements.
- Teaching methods
- Lectures. Reading sources and documents in Italian translation.
Students who wish to ascertain whether they are eligible to attend classes through synchronous online teaching may consult the following webpage: https://www.unipg.it/didattica/didattica-telematica-sincrona. - Other information
- Attendance checked by roll call. Supplementary readings are imposed to students who attend less than 60% of lessons.
Students with disabilities and/or Specific Learning Disorders (SLD) and/or ADHD or ADD: for any information on the University’s dedicated services, please consult the webpage www.unipg.it/disabilita-e-dsa and contact the Department Referent (prof. Alessandra Di Pilla: alessandra.dipilla@unipg.it). - Learning verification modality
- A mid-term assessment may be offered.
The final examination consists of an oral interview at the end of the course.
All students are tested on their basic knowledge of all periods of Greek history (Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic, usually with one question on each).
Where applicable, an additional question may concern point 2 (9 CFU) and point 3 of the program (non-attending students).
- Evidence of competence: ability to express oneself orally, in particular with regard to the concepts necessary for the description of social, political and cultural institutions and phenomena and of historical development; ability to express complex concepts and hypotheses and to organise information in a hierarchical, logical and synthetic manner; for students of Classical Literature, the ability to translate from Greek, to contextualise and comment the texts proposed during the course.
The assessment will take into account the breadth and depth of knowledge, the ability to express oneself at a conceptual and argumentative level, the logical rigour and personal character of the exposition, the knowledge the passages examined and the ability to contextualise and comment on them.
The test typically takes 30'-40 '
Students with disabilities and/or DSA, who have been duly recognised by the SOL and have obtained access to the University's services, may, for the purpose of taking exams, make use of the compensatory aids, assistive devices and inclusive technologies provided for by the regulations, to be requested and agreed with the teacher well in advance of the exams. For further information, please visit https://www.unipg.it/disabilita-e-dsa and contact the Departmental Officer for Disability and DSA (Prof. Alessandra Di Pilla: alessandra.dipilla@unipg.it). - Extended program
- 1. An introduction to Greek history, from the Bronze Age to the Battle of Actium. Chronological and geographical framework, political and social institutions, political and cultural history.
The Minoan and Mycenaean civilisations;
The Dark Ages or Early Iron Age;
The 'Renaissance' of the 8th century BC;
the Greeks at sea: mobility and 'colonisation';
the archaic polis, the tyrranids and the culture and lifestyles of the archaic elites;
Sparta;
Athens in the Archaic period;
Greeks and Persians;
Greece between the Persian Wars and the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War;
Athenian democracy;
The Peloponnesian War;
The West and the Western Tyrants;
The Spartan hegemony;
The Second Athenian Naval League, Sparta and the Theban hegemony;
Philip II;
Sicily and Magna Graecia in the 4th century;
Alexander the Great;
Diadochi and epigones;
The Hellenistic kingdoms;
Greece in the 3rd century BC;
The West in the Hellenistic Age;
The Roman conquest of the Hellenistic world.
2. Personal reading (in translation) of one of the books from Herodotus' Histories and one from Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. An adequate information on Herodotus, Thucydides and their works is also required.
3. 3. Problems in Spartan history. Reading and essential commentary, based on the lessons, of key passages for understanding Sparta (Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Aristotle, Politics, Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus).The selected passages will concern key issues in the tradition of Sparta, the history and political culture of the city: among others, the great rhetra, the legend of Lycurgus, political institutions, the problem of land ownership, the krypteia, and education.. - Obiettivi Agenda 2030 per lo sviluppo sostenibile