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5.00 credits
22.5 h
Q1
This biannual learning unit is being organized in 2025-2026
Language
French
Content
By examining literary and epigraphic sources, as well as the main hypotheses put forward by modernists, this course offers a diachronic overview of modes of governance and social organization in classical and archaic Athens.
The starting point will be the institutions of Demosthenes' time (chap. 1). We will then attempt to put them back into perspective by moving progressively backwards into the city's past. The remainder of the first part will study institutional and religious life in the Attic demes (chap. 2), the rewriting of "ancestral" laws at the end of the Peloponnesian War (chap. 3), before returning to the Clisthenian reforms and the problems - notably of chronology - that remain in their regard (chap. 4).
The second part is devoted to archaic Athens. It will focus on the role of tyrants (chap. 1) and legislators (Dracon, Solon; chap. 2) in the formation of the city, as well as the problems posed by the "synoecism" that is supposed to have given rise to the Athenian city at the time of Theseus (chap. 3).
The starting point will be the institutions of Demosthenes' time (chap. 1). We will then attempt to put them back into perspective by moving progressively backwards into the city's past. The remainder of the first part will study institutional and religious life in the Attic demes (chap. 2), the rewriting of "ancestral" laws at the end of the Peloponnesian War (chap. 3), before returning to the Clisthenian reforms and the problems - notably of chronology - that remain in their regard (chap. 4).
The second part is devoted to archaic Athens. It will focus on the role of tyrants (chap. 1) and legislators (Dracon, Solon; chap. 2) in the formation of the city, as well as the problems posed by the "synoecism" that is supposed to have given rise to the Athenian city at the time of Theseus (chap. 3).
Teaching methods
Lecture with readings and analysis of ancient documents (in translation)
Evaluation methods
Written exam (2h)
Online resources
Syllabus and slideshows
Faculty or entity
Programmes / formations proposant cette unité d'enseignement (UE)
Title of the programme
Sigle
Credits
Prerequisites
Learning outcomes
Master [120] in Ancient Languages and Literatures: Oriental Studies
Master [120] in History
Master [60] in History
Master [60] in Ancient Languages and Literatures : Oriental Studies
Master [120] in Ancient Languages and Literatures: Classics
Master [120] of Education, Section 4 : History