History 216 - War and Imperialism

Ancient Greeks and Romans viewed warfare as an abiding part of the human condition. The literature and artwork of the ancient world are filled with images of the two faces of war: it conferred great glory on the combatants but at the cost of tremendous horror and suffering. In this course we will examine warfare from archaic Greece and the rise of the city-state (ca. 800 B.C.E.) to the fall of the Roman Empire in the west (ca. 476 C.E.). We will consider such topics as the culture and ethics of war and imperialism, logistics and strategies of warfare, as well as armor, weaponry and battlefield tactics.