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Latin is not only the language of the Ancient Romans, but the language of centuries of scholarship, both scientific and religious. Cicero, Ovid, and Julius Caesar spoke Latin; Copernicus and St. Augustine wrote it; Jefferson, Hamilton, and Tolkien read it. As the parent language of 5 modern languages (including Spanish, French, and Italian) and the …

Latin is not only the language of the Ancient Romans, but the language of centuries of scholarship, both scientific and religious. Cicero, Ovid, and Julius Caesar spoke Latin; Copernicus and St. Augustine wrote it; Jefferson, Hamilton, and Tolkien read it. As the parent language of 5 modern languages (including Spanish, French, and Italian) and the …

You’ve probably heard the axiom “Never meet your heroes.” In Ancient Greece, the phrase was closer to “Never meet your heroes, because they will straight up get you killed, if they don’t casually kill you themselves.” Although Ancient Greek gave the world the word “hero,” their definition of the word was pretty far from our …

Have you ever wondered if mystical forces control your life in ways you can barely conceive? Have you ever wondered if those forces might be petty, violent, and prone to irrational fits of jealousy? Have you ever wondered if those forces occasionally get bored, decide to prank some humans by wandering around on earth disguised …

Benjamin Franklin once said “[I]n this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Since our program already had a course on ancient death, we were inspired to add a course about ancient taxes…and all other things money related in Ancient Greece and Rome. And there’s a lot of things money …

Have you ever gotten the impression that the ancient world was composed entirely of idealized white sculptures and/or people who looked like idealized white sculptures? The ancient world was a real world, with the same rich tapestry of humanity we see today. People occupied every part of the social and human spectrum: poor to rich, …

Have you ever wondered how ancient societies understood the natural world around them? The people of Ancient Greece and Rome conceptualized nature as a mixture of gods and science, peace and terror, prosperity and challenge. Rural farmers, sailing merchants, conquering armies, and urban dwellers all saw nature differently. They expressed their relationship to nature through …

Have you ever wondered what the lives of women were like in the ancient world? Mythology is full of extraordinary women, and, statistically, 50% of every human who lived in ancient times was a woman. Yet finding ancient women can be difficult, given that they were excluded from many of the activities, big and small, …

Have you ever wondered how ancient societies understood the world around them, especially the worst parts? Today we can predict, prevent, and process disasters through scientific technology. Past peoples did not have such luxury, but they still had to make sense of disasters, natural and manmade. CLAS-B 312 serves as an introduction to disasters in …

Have you ever wondered if concepts like “female” or “male,” “woman” or “man” have been consistent across cultures? Or whether past peoples thought about sexual identity, morality, and orientation in the same way that you do? Maybe you’ve heard rumors that Ancient Greece and Rome were basically wild orgies, societies that contributed to their own …