This Unit on Alexander the Great and the ‘Hellenistic Age’ will begin with the political situation in Fourth Century Greece and the rise of Macedon. It will focus first on the career of Alexander the Great, and the interpretation of a number of key episodes in his life. The aim will be to build up an overall picture of his motives and achievements, and the consequences of his extraordinary conquests for later history. The focus will then turn to the break up of his ‘Empire’ at his death, and the warfare among his successors which led to the creation of the great rival kingdoms of the Hellenistic period.
    The Unit will be primarily a study in cultural history, set against the background of the political history of the Mediterranean world. It will not be tied to an event-by-event account of the post-Classical Greek world, but will focus also on the history of ideas and institutions. Wider cultural questions will be discussed in relation to institutions, manners and thought (including religion, philosophy and art) of the period. General issues to be treated will include kingship, political ideology, inter-city relationships and leagues, ideas of unity and cosmo-politanism, resistance to Greek political hegemony by the conquered peoples, and syncretism and monism in religion. These and other topics will be studied in relation to Greece itself and in relation to the ‘hellenised’ cities of the Near East. An attempt will be made to define the relationships between Greek culture and those of ‘the East’. For example: can we speak of the ‘cultural hegemony’ of the Greeks, or was the process in fact the reverse? Was Hellenism swallowed up in the ‘morass’ of Near Eastern cultural diversity? Is the process simply one of accommodation, or is a more whole-hearted syncretism involved?

Dr.Chis Forbes,
Department of Ancient History,
Macquarie University,
N.S.W. 2109,
Australia.

His Office Hours for 2nd Semester 2007 are Wednesday 3-4 pm and Thursday 3-4 pm.

The Lectures take place (1) on Wednesday at 4 p.m. in E7B T2 and (2) on Friday at 10 a.m., in E7B T3. Both Lectures are recorded, and may be downloaded from the iLecture system. External students also receive the lectures on CD by mail.

For Internal students, Tutorial times are Thursday 2 p.m. (W5C 335) and Friday at 11 a.m. (E6A 133) and 12 midday (W5A 204). Other tutorials may be organised, depending on class sizes. Attendance at Tutorials is compulsory: if you miss more than two you will need to explain your absence to your tutor in writing. Medical certificates or photocopies of them should be attached where appropriate.

For External students, there are, naturally, no weekly Tutorials (though if you are close to Uni you are very welcome to turn up anyway!). There is, however, exactly the same Tutorial work, on the same timetable, except that you must send in your written Short Papers (see below) within 7 days of receiving the Lectures for the relevant week. The weekly schedule of lectures and tutorial questions can be found later in this Unit Introduction. Detailed questions are to be found below in the Weekly Tutorial Materials section. You should bring your notes for these questions with you to the compulsory On Campus Session, on Saturday September 15th.

Special Library services for Distance students are detailed on the Library's Distance Education Page. The postal address is: Library Distance Education Service, Macquarie University Library, NSW 2109, Australia. The Distance Education Librarian can also be contacted by Email, at libed@library.mq.edu.au, or by phone on (02) 9850 7558, Freephone (within Australia): 1 800 632 743, Fax: (02) 9850 7504.

The early tutorials will be based on Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, which is available in the Penguin translation of A. de Selincourt, and documents from M.M. Austin, The Hellenistic World. Students will need to begin working through Arrian at once. Later tutorials will be largely based on documents from Austin. This book is essential, and is supplemented by documents provided in the Tutorial Materials section, below.
    Tutorial discussion will focus around the detailed examination of particular documents. All but three of these come from either Austin or Arrian. The additional material are be provided in the Unit booklet, and through this site. Students will need to work through the documents in detail before coming to the Tutorial, and in many cases do some wider reading as well. There is little point coming to the Tutorial without doing this reading. Tutorial questions themselves are deliberately general. Our aim will be to explore issues raised by the documents in as much detail as possible.

    If you are interested, further ancient sources can easily be purchased in Penguin translations; both Plutarch's Life of Alexander (in The Age of Alexander, trans. I. Scott-Kilvert) and Quintus Curtius Rufus (trans. J. Yardley) are available.

   Two other books are recommended (but not required). A.B. Bosworth's Conquest and Empire is (in my view) the best modern work on Alexander; if you are particularly interested in Alexander, it is the one to buy. As a general overview of the whole period covered by the Unit, choose either F.W. Walbank, The Hellenistic World, or G. Shipley, The Greek World after Alexander. All these should be available in the Co-op.

Once again this year we will be running a WebCT Online Forum, an electronic ‘Bulletin Board’ where issues related to the Unit can be discussed. To gain access to this system you will need a computer capable of running one of Netscape 6.2 or 7.x, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.1, 5.2 or 6.0, AOL 7.0, 8.0 or 9.0, Mozilla 1.5, 1.6 or 1.7, Firefox, or Safari 1.2. (Note: Netscape 6.0 and 6.1, and Internet Explorer 5.5 SP1 are not supported and you should not use them to access these courses.) You will have been given a temporary password with your enrolment, and you must register with the system and change that password in the first two weeks of teaching. Note that participation in the Online Forum is worth 10% of your marks: see below.

    The Forum will provide two basic facilities: the ‘Bulletin Board’, where issues can be publicly discussed and ideas or references can be shared, and Email, so that you can send one another private notes. I will will post extra material on the Forum, and take part in the public discussions, and can also be reached by Email either via this system or normal Internet mail. Please note that your contributions to the Forum are part of the assessable work in the Unit.

The direct URL of the Forum is:

http://online.mq.edu.au/SCRIPT/AHST222/scripts/serve_home

Your Username will be one of two types. It will either be your standard Macquarie Student username, or a username especially created by the lecturer.

 A standard Macquarie student username has the following form: it should be "gffff123", where "g" is the first letter of your given name, "ffff" are the first four letters of your family name, and "123" are three digits. Note that "gffff" is lowercase. This username should have been mailed to you after you enrolled. The letter you received will also have informed you of your initial password. If you have not received this letter, contact the Student Helpdesk.

If the lecturer has created your username and password you will have to contact them if you do not know what it is or if you have trouble with your password.

For security reasons, you should change your password when you first log in. This is the normal practice on most multi-user computer systems. If your username is your standard Macquarie student username and you do not change your password within two weeks your account will be disabled. You can have it re-activated by contacting the Student Helpdesk.

You can change your password by clicking on the password icon

Note that both your username and your password are CaSe SeNsItIvE. 

    Once you are logged into the Unit Forum, do make sure to read through the "Using WebCT: Technical Information", which will fill you in on many basic features of the system.

    Further details will be announced in the first week of term; they will also be available online at the Unit Web site: go to http://www.anchist.mq.edu.au/222/222frames.htm and then follow the menu. We hope that this Online Forum will be of particular value to external students.
    You may want to print off this section so you have it available as you go through the procedure.

Assessment for the Unit is made up of three pieces of written work, Online Forum participation, and an examination. There are two Short Papers (1,000 words each, 25% total) and one Major Essay (2,500 - 3,000 words, 30%). Your contributions to the Online Forum are worth 10%. The three hour examination is worth 35%.

The Short Paper topics are given in the Weekly Tutorial materials, and also form the basis for Tutorial discussion. You must hand in at least one Short Paper from Weeks 2-6, and at least one from Weeks 7-13. These assignments are to be handed in before the tutorial after the one in which they are discussed: i.e. within a week of the relevant Tutorial discussion.

The short papers are exercises in careful and critical reading of documentary sources. Their aim is to develop skills of analysis and deduction, and the ability to write a lucid short answer to a precise question. They are not primarily exercises in the collection of the opinions of others, even if those others are great scholars. The assignments will be marked primarily on your understanding of the sources themselves.

Please note that essay form is required for all work submitted. Point form or extended notes are not good enough. Footnotes should be given, and should conform to the rules laid out in “Essay Presentation & Conventions: Style Guide&rdquo, which is available from the Ancient History Office on the Fifth Floor of W6A (Room 540), and in the Departmental website, at http://www.anchist.mq.edu.au/pdfs/EssayPres.pdf.
   ALL assignments are to be handed in via the Assignment boxes on Floor 1 of W6A or through the COE. NO RESPONSIBILITY will be taken for assignments submitted in any other way. Late assignments will be penalised at the rate of 2% per day, unless prior arrangements have been made with your tutor. If your assignment is going to be late, please contact your tutor in advance!

Major Essay.

The essays, of approximately 2,500 (200 Level) or 3,000 (300 Level) words, are due on Tuesday October 2nd, the first day back after the break. Wider reading is required for the essays. Essay formalities should follow the guidelines laid out in “Essay Presentation & Conventions: Style Guide”, which is (again) available from the Ancient History Office on the Fifth Floor of W6A (Room 540). A list of topics with basic bibliographies will be distributed shortly.

Generic Skills:

Programs in Humanities seek to foster "generic skills". There are shared and discipline-specific skills acquired through the study of the Humanities. The shared skills particularly relevant to this Unit include:

• The capacity for independent thought and judgment
• Advanced communications skills, including the ability to present sustained, cogent and persuasive arguments
• Analytical ability, and the capacity to evaluate and solve problems
• A capacity to analyse and critically examine a range of discourse types
• The ability to absorb the intellectual and imaginative concepts of others, and to communicate the resultant synthesis
• The ability to work cooperatively with others through the presentation of ideas and negotiation of solutions, and to respect others' reasoned views
• The ability to understand, interrogate and apply a variety of theoretical positions and weigh the importance of alternative perspectives
• A critical understanding of a culture and practices other than one's own
• Development of intercultural awareness and an appropriate outlook for working in multicultural environments
• Library and bibliographic research skills

Week 1, beginning Monday July 30th.
Dr. Forbes absent; iLectures pre-recorded and available.
Lecture 1: Alexander the Great: his career and achievements.
Lecture 2: Alexander's motives: propaganda, mythology, wanderlust and logistics.
Tutorial: No Tutorials in the first week.

Week 2, beginning Monday August 6th.
Lecture 3: Three major interpretations of Alexander.
Lecture 4: Alexander the God?
Tutorial: Austin 3 (Austin² 4) and Arrian I.11 (compare briefly Arrian 7.8-9). Why did Alexander set out to invade Persian territory?

Week 3, beginning Monday August 13th.
Lecture 5: Alexander's Death, his Will and ‘Last Plans’.
Lecture 6: The succession crisis and the Diadochoi.
Tutorial: Austin 2, 4 and 5 (Austin² 3, 5, 6): Alexander's treatment of the cities.

Week 4, beginning Monday August 20th.
Lecture 7: The rise of Monarchy.
Lecture 8: Monarchy and Religion: the ruler cult.
Tutorial: Austin 11 (Austin² 12): the Persian habit of prostration (proskynesis).

Week 5, beginning Monday August 27th.
Lecture 9: The new institutions of the Hellenistic kings and the decline of democracy.
Lecture 10: The Seleucid Kings.
Tutorial: Austin 14 (Austin² 17): The Marriages at Susa.

Week 6, beginning Monday September 3rd.
Lecture 11: The Ptolemies.
Lecture 12: The Antigonids.
Tutorial: Austin 15 (Austin² 18): The mutiny and banquet at Opis.

Week 7, beginning Monday September 10th.
Lecture 13: The Hellenistic Polis (1).
Lecture 14: The Hellenistic Polis (2).
Tutorial: Documents on Kingship (Documents provided, and Austin 56(a) and 199) (Austin² 70 and 233).

BREAK
External On Campus Session, Saturday September 15th.

Week 8, beginning Monday October 1st.
N.B. Major Essays due Tuesday October 2nd.
Lecture 15: Hellenistic Art.
Lecture 16: Hellenistic Philosophy and Political Protest.
Tutorial: Austin 124, 125, 126 (Austin² 144, 145, 146): Health and miraculous cures.

Week 9, beginning Monday October 8th.
Lecture 17: The Hellenisation Process (1).
Lecture 18: The Hellenisation Process (2).
Tutorial: Austin 162, 163 (Austin² 208, 209): Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’.

Week 10, beginning Monday October 15th.
Lecture 19: Anti-Hellenic Reaction in Egypt.
Lecture 20: Anti-Hellenic Reaction in Palestine.
Tutorial: Hellenistic Judaism (Documents provided).

Week 11, beginning Monday October 22nd.
Lecture 21: Rome and the Greek States (1).
Lecture 22: Rome and the Greek States (2).
Tutorial: Austin 68 (Austin² 84): Flamininus and the ‘Freedom of the Greeks’.

Week 12, beginning Monday October 29th.
Lecture 23: Rome and the Greek states (3).
Lecture 24: Judaism, Hellenistic and other.
Tutorial: Egyptian nationalism: The ‘Potter's Oracle’ (provided).

Week 13, beginning Monday November 5th.
Lecture 25: Hellenistic Religion.
Lecture 26: Unit Summary.
Tutorial: Austin 61, 161 (Austin² 76, 205): Two Treaties.

The Examination Period begins on Wednesday November 14th. The date of the examination has not yet been set.