In lectures inspired and informed by the monumental works of Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Plutarch, Professor J. Rufus Fears examines a gallery of fascinating characters who shaped the story of Greece from the Trojan War through the rise of Rome.
Famous Greeks
Examine a gallery of historical characters who shaped the story of Greece from the Trojan War through the rise of Rome in this course taught by a renowned classicist.
Rated 5 out of
5
by
El Castigador from
What a Delight
Been studying history for over 30 years and took many courses on this platform. In college I was exposed to different teaching styles, and on my own read countless books and magazines on related subjects like archeology, linguistics, philosophy, and economics.
I found professor Fears to be a master and commander, great presenter as if a thespian, but with great knowledge of what he tells. At times I was God smacked, at the edge of my seat by what he was saying. The amount of detail was amazing, and he taught me some things I did not know as he went into the minutiae at times on certain figures. This was wonderful as I did not know we knew that much about them, as others have not covered this kind of detail. Now other times he missed something probably due to time.
He does say he disagrees with the consensus analysis on certain texts and then gives his opinion. I find the man very intelligent, and what is wrong with going against consensus. He does strongly encourage you to read Homer, so the critics can go pound sand. If anyone has a problem with his interpretation read Homer yourself. He was the best history professor I have come across in my time. May the next generation have such a great historian.
Date published: 2024-09-22
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Hiker1973 from
He is indeed a Master Storyteller
I have watched several courses taught by Professor Fears. I am always grateful for someone who just doesn't sit and read the course to us. Professor Fears does not do this. I always learn quite a bit and rarely bored with his storytelling.
Date published: 2024-06-27
Rated 5 out of
5
by
JYamser from
Made driving to work a treat.
Professor Fears could make a laundry receipt fascinating. His lectures are entertaining and contain humor that prevents ever forgetting the content. Admittedly a classical Greek groupie, I enjoyed his lectures most of all of my many Teaching Company courses.
Date published: 2024-05-17
Rated 5 out of
5
by
neilrieck from
Highly recommended
Due to "conservative initiated" austerity measures (hubris?), my public education never included Greek history or Greek culture which means that everything I learned here was new and valuable. I think I'll wait a few weeks then go back and watch it for a second time because physicist Richard Feynman once said "that every valuable publication should be consumed twice"
Date published: 2024-04-20
Rated 1 out of
5
by
mark bad lecture from
This Professor needs to be taken off the site
This lecture series really needs to be taken off the website. The Professor is spouting legend and myth as facts. He is novelising the characters as if he were standing there. This is not erudition this campfire tales being told to grade school kids.
Date published: 2023-12-07
Rated 1 out of
5
by
Miles81 from
Stunted Academia
I wish the Teaching Company would look past the degree and actually at how the material is presented. This course is really geared at ninth graders at best. E.g. The professor's description of Petroculus' death is rudimentary and some what misleading. I understand the Professor is condensing the story but I would not recommend his analysis to any student interested in the subject.
Date published: 2023-11-29
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Eleutherios from
Pathos Ariston poiein
There are 3 excellent professors in TGC about ancient Greece. This is one of them. He is definitely the no.1 in presentation and engagement, because of his passion for the subject.
He is also excellent in analysis, for example, the only one that gave a realistic explanation why the Athenian democracy killed Socrates.
Thank you !
Date published: 2023-07-17
Rated 1 out of
5
by
kait from
Wholly un-academic and outrageous
This course consists of Prof Fears' creative retelling of stories about ancient Greek figures and discourse on what he believes are their moral lessons. He doesn't share the names of the works he is drawing from and retelling or give direct quotes though, and his retellings insert modern sayings and asides for dramatic effect that obviously weren't from the text, so at best the student could leave this course with a foggy familiarity with some famous Greek stories and figures (historical/mythical/literary). I don't really see any actual academic value from this course at all.
Sandwiching the stories is Prof's discourse on the "moral" lessons he believes are inherent in these stories. They're pretty outrageous. Most of them are a variation of "Avoid hubris", "Have ambition, and also avoid hubris", and "The one with the greatest military success avoided hubris, so should you". A few standout details: In multiple lectures, he brings up "history's three greatest democratic statesmen", Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Pericles. He consistently refers to the opinion of "Our Founding Fathers".
I would generally recommend skipping this course. I think it's ready for the archives.
Date published: 2023-05-20
Overview
About
Dr. J. Rufus Fears was David Ross Boyd Professor of Classics at the University of Oklahoma, where he held the G. T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty. He also served as David and Ann Brown Distinguished Fellow of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Before joining the faculty at the University of Oklahoma, Professor Fears was Professor of History and Distinguished Faculty Research Lecturer at Indiana University, and Professor of Classical Studies at Boston University. An acclaimed teacher and scholar with more than 25 awards for teaching excellence, Professor Fears was chosen Professor of the Year on three occasions by students at the University of Oklahoma. His other accolades included the Medal for Excellence in College and University Teaching from the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence, the University Continuing Education Association (UCEA) Great Plains Region Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the UCEA's National Award for Teaching Excellence. Professor Fears's books and monographs include The Cult of Jupiter and Roman Imperial Ideology and The Theology of Victory at Rome. He edited a three-volume edition of Selected Writings of Lord Acton. His discussions of the Great Books have appeared in newspapers across the country and have aired on national television and radio programs. Professor Fears passed away in October 2012.
01: Theseus
Theseus, legendary founder of Athens, traveled to the far corners of the Greek world doing great deeds, and at home he created the prototypes of Athens's key institutions. Athenians' beliefs about Theseus, like Americans about George Washington, set a standard for judging leaders.
32 min
02: Achilles and Agamemnon
No book on leadership could offer a better example than the conflict before the walls of Troy between Achilles and Agamemnon (c. 1250 B.C.). As Greek commander-in-chief, Agamemnon is in over his head. Excelling in the virtues he lacks is Achilles, "best of the Achaeans." Homer's genius will transform their power struggle into a timeless lesson in the moral dimension of politics.
31 min
03: Hector
It is part of the genius of Homer to make the Trojan prince Hector, the Greeks' chief foe, into the noblest hero of The Iliad. Patriot, soldier, devoted husband and father, Hector embodies the virtues most admired by the Greeks and their tragic vision of life....
31 min
04: Odysseus
Unlike the doomed Hector, Agamemnon, and Achilles, the wily Odysseus is the consummate survivor. For 10 years after the fall of Troy, angry gods make him wander the Mediterranean. In the end, his prudence and courage restore him to his home. Homer makes Odysseus's story into a metaphor for the human experience, and gives us a look at the late Bronze Age.
31 min
05: Lycurgus
The legendary Spartan Lycurgus (c. 776 B.C.) represents a characteristic early Greek figure: the lawgiver who saves his country from civil war and establishes its characteristic political, social, and religious institutions. No such institutions in antiquity were as famous or significant as those of Sparta.
30 min
06: Solon
Athenian democracy owes much to Solon (638-559 B.C.), a truly wise man who used his mind to serve his country. Many figures of archaic Greek history are hardly more than names to us, but this is not true of Solon. His poetry survives and offers us unique insights into the values and motives of this statesman whom our own Founders so admired.
31 min
07: Croesus
Why do great nations rise and fall? So asks the first true historian, Herodotus. A profound moral teacher concerned with the pitfalls of hybris (arrogance) and moral blindness, he begins his work on the Greek-Persian wars with the story of a monarch who belonged to neither people. How does the tale of King Croesus of Lydia (r. c. 560-546 B.C.) lead us to reflect on enduring issues of public morali...
31 min
08: Xerxes
Both Plutarch and Herodotus would agree that Persia's King Xerxes (519-465 B.C.) belongs in any course on famous Greeks. Xerxes is central to Herodotus's Histories: He was responsible for the fall of his country. By studying the folly of Xerxes, Herodotus hopes the Greeks can avoid the same errors....
31 min
09: Leonidas
It is a hot August morning in 480 B.C. Xerxes is closing in on Greece with 500,000 men. Facing him is Leonidas, king of the Spartans, with a small force of 7,000 built around a band of 300 Spartans. The stand they are preparing to make at the narrow pass called Thermopylae will become one of the most stirring in the annals of war. It will change world history and secure the place of Leonidas among...
30 min
10: Themistocles
The aftermath of Thermopylae was as critical for Athens-and for freedom in the ancient world-as May and June 1940 were for Britain and the cause of freedom in the modern world. In that dark hour, the British found a leader to rally them for the great test. In the same way, the Athenian democracy would find in Themistocles (527-460 B.C.) a man equal to the moment.
31 min
11: Pausanias
Thucydides sees Sparta's King Pausanias (510-476 B.C.) as equal to Themistocles in intrepidity. By leading his allied force to an epic victory over a vastly larger Persian army at Plataea (479 B.C.), Pausanias ends the threat of Persian invasion and proves himself one of history's great captains. How do the Greeks manage to achieve this unlikely triumph?
30 min
12: Pericles
Along with Lincoln and Churchill, Pericles (490-429 B.C.) is one of history's three greatest democratic statesmen. Why does he decide to lead his country into the great war with Sparta? This lecture and the three that follow paint a portrait of Pericles and his age that is quite different from the one found in most histories.
30 min
13: Anaxagoras, Phidias, and Aspasia
Pericles is an intellectual as well as a political leader. His Athens is a place of unprecedented creativity, resulting in works of art, philosophy, and literature that are still admired, debated, and studied today. The names of Anaxagoras, Phidias, and Aspasia (5th century B.C.) represent the leading intellectual, artistic, and cultural currents of this golden age.
30 min
14: Sophocles
Tragedy is the definitive cultural statement of the Athenian democracy. Aristotle calls Sophocles (495-406 B.C.) the supreme tragedian. Active in politics and as a general, Sophocles leaves us three plays, Antigone, Oedipus Rex, and Oedipus at Colonus, that can be read as parables about Pericles's rule, the mysteries of wisdom and suffering, and the moral dimensions of politics....
30 min
15: Thucydides
Pursuing history as a field of study begins in 5th-century B.C. Athens with the idea that learning from the past is the best way to guide present decisions. Herodotus comes first, but Thucydides (471-400 B.C.) is the greater historian. His powerful and pathbreaking History of the Peloponnesian War is "the eternal manual of statesmen," as timely and vivid today as when it was written....
31 min
16: Alcibiades
Brilliant, willful, dynamic, and fatally seductive, Alcibiades (450-404 B.C.), the nephew of Pericles, is one of the most fascinating and disturbing characters in all of Greek history. Gifted like his uncle but without his integrity, he is a product of Athenian democracy whose career highlights some of its worst failings and excesses.
31 min
17: Nicias
A dogged foe of Alcibiades, the conservative aristocrat Nicias (465-414 B.C.) becomes one of three commanders of the Sicilian expedition, along with his hated rival. Ultimately, supreme command devolves on Nicias. Despite his reputation for virtue, he is lazy, inept, and fears responsibility. But he is worth studying; examples of bad leadership are often the most instructive.
31 min
18: Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War
Even after the disaster in Sicily, the Athenians refuse to give up, resorting to bold military and political strategies. They even bring back Alcibiades, who had worn out his welcome in Sparta, and whose military genius and political skill restores Athens to a commanding position. But Sparta, too, has a formidable leader in Lysander.
30 min
19: Lysander and Socrates
The exile of Alcibiades by the Athenians gives Lysander his chance to prove himself. He brings victory to Sparta, but smaller men pull him down. The destruction of the great by the mediocre is also the story behind the trial of Socrates. His closeness to Alcibiades is the real reason that his fellow Athenians hate him.
30 min
20: The Trial of Socrates
In his funeral oration, Pericles celebrates the Athenian democracy for its tolerance. The Athenians treasure freedom of speech as essential to true democracy. Yet this same Athenian democracy puts to death its greatest thinker and teacher, Socrates. Why?
30 min
21: Xenophon, Plato and Philip
After Socrates' death, his pupils Xenophon and Plato come to believe that Athens has a perverse form of government. But a polis such as Athens is no longer the center of action, for to the north a new power is rising that will change the world. Macedonia and its superbly capable and ambitious king, Philip II, are the cutting edge of history....
31 min
22: Alexander the Great
Plutarch makes Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) and Julius Caesar the centerpieces of his Lives. Alexander's generalship and political vision transform the world. Not only one of the greatest military leaders in history, he outlines a vision of brotherhood that remains an inspiring ideal today....
31 min
23: Pyrrhus
The Romans are Alexander's true heirs. The life of King Pyrrhus of Epirus (318-272 B.C.) shows why Rome rather than Greece wins world mastery. His proverbially costly "victories" over the Romans offer an object lesson in how even a gifted leader may fail if he does not "pick his battles" well.
31 min
24: Cleopatra
The last and most serious challenge of Greece to Rome comes from Cleopatra (69-30 B.C.). Charming in turn with Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, she nearly defeats Octavian. This lecture goes behind Roman propaganda to reveal her as one of the supreme figures of ancient history, a stateswoman whose vision of a Hellenic eastern empire foreshadows Byzantium.
32 min
