Ancient History

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OFFERED 2025-2026

  • Time & Tuition:
    • 2025-2026 Academic Year
      • Tuesdays, 9:00 – 10:30 am Eastern
      • Seminar with writing tutorial: $90 per month (10 months, August through May)
      • Seminar only: $75 per month (10 months, August through May)
  • Location: Signal Mountain, Tennessee
  • Grades: 9-12 AND 8th-grade strong readers
  • Prerequisite for tutorial portion: Writing III
  • Pairing: You can pair this course with Ancient Literature!
  • Description: Students learn about the significance of the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. In addition to studying the histories, governments, economics, wars, arts, and customs of these two civilizations, the course examines how these cultures influenced Western Civilization – particularly how they shaped the United States and its Constitution.
  • Assessment:
    • All: Students must complete all readings and daily-work/commonplacing as well as oral exams.
    • Writing tutorial only: Each term, students compose one essay, one other written piece, and one project – choosing between an academic/artistic portfolio and a history-related handcraft. (Students in both history and literature courses only create one project per term.) In December and May, tutorial students participate in Defense Day by giving a brief presentation on one of their essays and responding to questions from the audience.
  • FINAL BOOK LIST for 2025-2026: (Hard copies are required; recommended editions/translations are listed below)
    • Plutarch – Lives, Volume 1 (Recommended: Dryden translation/Modern Library, ISBN: 9780375756764) <= Needed for the first week of class
    • Herodotus – Histories (Recommended: Strassler’s Landmark edition, ISBN: 9780375421099)
    • Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War (Recommended: Strassler’s Landmark edition, ISBN: 9780684827902)
    • Plato – Republic (Recommended: Bloom translation/Basic Books, ISBN: 9780465094080)
    • Plutarch – Lives, Volume 2 (Recommended: Dryden translation/Modern Library, ISBN: 9780375756771)
    • Livy – The Rise of Rome (Recommended: Luce translation/Oxford, ISBN: 9780199540044)
    • Polybius – The Rise of the Roman Empire (Recommended: Scott-Kilvert translation /Penguin classics, ASIN: B017YC9XCC)
    • Augustine – City of God (Recommended: Dods translation/Barnes and Noble [ISBN: 9780760779026] OR Modern Library [ISBN: 9780679600879])