Introduction to Ancient Greek History (Open Yale Courses)

Kagan traces Greek civilization from small farming settlements into Bronze Age cities of power on Minoan Crete and in Mycenaean Greece, linked to the monarchies of the Near East, ending in collapse.

Kagan credits the tyranny of the Peisistratids with seeding self-government, which Cleisthenes used to push Athens toward democracy by restructuring the tribes and empowering the assembly, then explains ostracism's role.

Kagan weighs the tyrannies of the Greek polis, crediting them with economic, commercial and artistic advances even as they ruled absolutely, and argues they broke the aristocracy's grip and raised the hoplite farmer.

Kagan traces Sparta's distinct military culture to the subjugation of Messenia, whose people farmed while Spartans trained for war, then examines the education of the Spartan citizen and the Spartan constitution.

Kagan follows Athens through Cylon's failed coup and the Law of Draco to Solon's moderate reforms as sole archon, and on to the tyranny of Peisistratus, who still upheld Solon's laws.

Kagan takes up the Homeric question, arguing Homer's poems blend memories from the Mycenaean world through the Dark Ages and can be read for historical evidence, then outlines the heroic ethic.

Kagan finishes the Spartan constitution, arguing Sparta had a mixed constitution and gained great power through alliances with its neighbors, then turns to Athens and its own constitution, ending with the hoplite class and Cylon's failed bid for tyranny.

Kagan traces the rise of Greek colonies mainly to the need for new farmland, describes where the Greeks settled, and ties the founding of each colony to the dynamics of a polis.

Kagan describes the hoplite phalanx, the Greeks' new style of warfare, detailing the soldier's panoply and fighting method, and argues the formation was almost invincible on the battlefield.

Kagan sketches the Greek heroic code, where arete and honor are worth dying for, as Achilles shows, and traces how that world produced the rise of the polis.

Kagan traces the polis emerging from the Dark Ages, present already by the poet Hesiod's time as a community of justice, law and shared values, credited to the rise of the hoplite farmer.

Kagan traces the rise of the Persian empire into conflict with Ionian Greeks in Asia Minor, sparking the Persian Wars, and closes with the battle of Marathon, where the Athenians defeated the Persians.

Kagan follows the fear of Persian revenge after the Greek victory of 479 BC, as island poleis turned to Athens to lead the league that became the Delian League, while Sparta held back.

Kagan describes Athens sending peace signals such as the Panhellenic venture to found Thurii, until Corinth and Corcyra clash over Epidamnus and Athens, risking Sparta's anger, settles on a defensive alliance with Corcyra.

Kagan argues the Peloponnesian War was not inevitable, crediting Pericles with a policy of deterrence aimed at peace, and calls Thucydides a revisionist historian pursuing the case that Athens was a democracy in name only.

Kagan traces Thebes, Argos, Corinth and Athens joining to check Sparta in the Corinthian War, a stalemate after which Persia, fearing Athenian naval power, allied with Sparta to bring about the King's Peace, breaking every alliance except the Peloponnesian League.

Kagan traces the lead-up to the Peloponnesian War, arguing that rising Athenian power challenged Spartan dominance without making war inevitable, and credits the arbitration clause of the Thirty Years Peace as the key to avoiding it.

Kagan examines the Athenian judicial system built to limit tampering while maximizing citizen participation, then turns to the role of women in Athens through two kinds of sources, and finally to slaves.

Kagan follows Sparta's turn to domination after the Peloponnesian War, as Lysander installs pro-Spartan oligarchic governments, until Thrasybulus resists at Phyle and, with other poleis, restores democracy to Athens.

Kagan traces Thebes rising under Epaminondas and Pelopidas until it routs the Spartans in a standard hoplite battle at Leuctra, and argues years of war then opened the door to Philip of Macedon.

Kagan describes the Delian League's transformation into the Athenian empire, which let Athens rival Sparta in power, credits Cimon with driving that shift, and opens his comparison of Athenian and American democracy.

Kagan evaluates Pericles as a general, calling his strategy defensive because Athens avoided a land battle behind its walls and navy, and rational in expecting Sparta to quit, yet faulting it for lacking an offensive plan.

Kagan follows Philip unifying Macedon, defeating barbarian armies and building a professional national army, then using diplomacy and Greek infighting to advance until Athens and Demosthenes face him at Chaeronea, a battle Philip wins.

Donald Kagan opens by arguing that, to the Greeks, man was capable of the greatest achievements and the worst crimes, a tragic and powerful yet limited figure whose tension has shaped the West.