Ancient Greece: Myth, Art, War

Dr Gillian Shepherd surveys vase painters of the 6th and 5th centuries BC, for whom the Trojan War was a very popular subject, including scenes that do not appear in any literary version of the myth.

With Professor Christopher Mackie

Professor Christopher Mackie recaps the culminating events of the Iliad, focusing on Hector's fate and death and the role the goddess Athena plays in his final battle.

With Heather Sebo

Dr Heather Sebo examines Sophocles' Ajax, one of the earliest surviving Greek plays, produced around 440 BC, and its tragic hero's struggle to cope with a changing world.

With Heather Sebo

Dr Heather Sebo traces Euripides' Iphigenia in Aulis, performed late in the Peloponnesian War, following the mythical decisions that send the Greek fleet to Troy.

Professor Chris Mackie investigates Homer's Iliad through Achilles, the greatest warrior in Greek myth, a hero born to a goddess, raised by a centaur and destined to die young.

Professor Chris Mackie discusses monstrous aspects of Achilles' rage, and Hector's doomed quest to save Troy, in which he must choose to face Achilles in heroic battle or be hunted like an animal.

With Heather Sebo

Professor Chris Mackie compares the warrior goddess Athena, who ranges the battlefield in Homer's Iliad, with the mortal women of the epic, contrasting her cunning intelligence and noting how her role differs greatly from theirs.

Professor Chris Mackie examines the final book of the Iliad, where the elderly Trojan king Priam confronts the killer Achilles, tracing the heroic quest and descent into the Underworld before Troy's final days.

Dr Gillian Shepherd surveys Dark Age Greece after the Mycenaean collapse around 1200 BC, from finds at Lefkandi and 9th century burials in Athens to the alphabet borrowed from the Phoenicians in the 8th century BC.

Dr Gillian Shepherd traces Athens from the benevolent rule of the tyrant Peisistratos through the fall of his dynasty to democracy, and on to the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea against the invading Persians.

Dr Gillian Shepherd looks at victory monuments in Athens, Attica and Delphi after Marathon in 490 BC, where myth held that Athena, Herakles, Theseus and Echetlaos joined the Athenians against the Persians.

Dr Gillian Shepherd looks at Athenian democracy in the 5th century BC, tracing how structures and objects found in the Athenian agora evidence its workings after the fall of the Peisistratid tyranny.

Dr Gillian Shepherd outlines the Peloponnesian War of 431 to 404 BC between Athens, Sparta and their allies, centred on the statesman Perikles and the historian Thucydides who recorded the conflict.

Dr Gillian Shepherd examines the extravagant building programme on the Acropolis, most famously the Parthenon, begun after a gap of over 30 years following the Persian sack of 480 BC.

With Dr David Pritchard

Dr David Pritchard examines the paradox that evidence on Attic women in classical Athens was produced by men, largely about elite wives and daughters, and traces a woman's career through education, marriage and household life.

With Dr David Pritchard

Dr David Pritchard of the University of Queensland examines Spartan women as a foil for Athens, alongside Attic women's supposed wantonness and their prominent role in Greek religious practice.

Dr Gillian Shepherd traces the finale of the Sicilian Expedition and the Melian Dialogue into the Great Dionysia, the festival in the Theatre of Dionysos where Aeschylos, Sophocles and Euripides staged drama as part of Athenian politics.

Dr Gillian Shepherd surveys basic Greek sanctuary and temple design before focusing on the sanctuary of Zeus Olympios at Olympia, home to the Olympic games and lavish temples, treasuries and sculpture.

With Heather Sebo

Dr Heather Sebo reads Aristophanes' Lysistrata, staged soon after the Athenian defeat at Syracuse, as a comedy about a sex strike that carries real messages on the futility of war and the position of women in Athens.

Dr Gillian Shepherd traces the black and red figure vases made in Athens between the seventh and fourth centuries BC and exported across the Greek world, reading their scenes of warfare and women for evidence of daily life.