Kevin Crotty, the J. Donald Childress Professor of Classics, presents the first session from the Alumni College's "The Golden Age of Athens." One of the most astonishingly creative periods in human history occurred in a small city-state, Athens, in the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ. The very smallness of this city-state may have contributed to the intensity of its creativity and the splendor of its achievements in tragedy, comedy, architecture, sculpture, philosophy and history. Western culture has been pervasively indebted to these achievements ever since. And yet, the Athenians remain in many ways enticingly alien. Their religion, their laws, even their brand of democracy, while all central to their achievements, can't help but strike modern students as unfamiliar and curious.
