In order to complete the Unit, you must both (a) achieve a grade of 50% overall, and (b) submit each of the three pieces of assessable work.

All written assessment tasks (Annotated Bibliography and Precis, First Essay and Second Essay) are to be submitted via Turnitin, using the links to be found in the appropriate week's panel of the Unit iLearn page (as detailed for each assignment, above).

Late assignments will normally be penalised at the rate of 2% per day, unless prior arrangements have been made with your Tutor. If your assignment is going to be late, please contact your Tutor in advance! In case of major disruption to your study schedule, see the Disruption to Study Policy in the section of this Unit Guide on Policies and Procedures.

Here are some suggested essay topics: variations, or others altogether, can be negotiated.

What kinds of changes, philosophical, religious and social, led to the development of ruler cult in the late Classical and early Hellenistic period? What factors maintained and/or altered it over the next three centuries?

To what extent does the development of the “mystery cults” in the Hellenistic period illustrate the generalisation that this period saw a decline of civic religion in favour of “private cults”?

In what ways did the roles of oracles develop and change from the Classical period into the Hellenistic and Roman period? What kinds of factors drove these changes? What factors remained relatively constant?

What forms did the cult of Tyche take in the Hellenistic period? How can we best explain the growth in importance of these forms of cult?

What factors led to the growth of the new “international” cults of the Hellenistic period? Illustrate your case using at least two major cults as examples.

Can we distinguish “religion” from “magic” in the Classical and Hellenistic periods? What concepts and terminology did the ancients use to distinguish what they saw as legitimate and non-legitimate beliefs and practices?

In what ways were the varying forms of Judaism (or: In what ways was Pauline Christianity) typical and atypical of Hellenistic religion?

In what differing ways do Platonist, Stoic and Epicurean philosophers respond to traditional religious practice in the Hellenistic and early Imperial Roman period?

For lecture times and classrooms please consult the MQ Timetable website: http://www.timetables.mq.edu.au. This website will display up-to-date information on your classes and classroom locations.

The Unit will take the form of one two-hour seminar per week. This will normally be made up of two parts. The first hour will normally be a lecture from Dr. Forbes on the topic detailed in the Unit Schedule (below). The second hour will vary.

Both hours of the two-hour seminar will be recorded and made available via Echo360. Weekly study guides and bibliographies will be made available on the Unit iLearn page as PDF files. Any visual aids used during the lectures will also be made available in PDF format on the Unit iLearn page.

Access to a computer and the Internet are required. Basic computer skills (e.g., internet browsing, use of the Library's online resources and skills in word processing) are also a requirement. You will need a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader, since (as noted above) most Unit documents are provided in PDF format. This software is freely available on the Internet. Please consult the Course Convenor for any further, more specific requirements.

Face-to-face classes will be held for Internal students; for External students there will be recordings (as above) and regular postings on iLearn. External students who can come to Internal classes are welcome to do so; just let me know you're coming!

For introductory reading see the top of the next section.

Preliminaries:

There is no one text-book for the Unit, because I have never found one which really covers the ground we set out to cover. Perhaps the best thing I can do is give you some starting-points which go in opposite directions, to show you the range of views we are dealing with, and then give you a list of particular topics you might like to follow up on.

First you may need a basic narrative to set you up in the Hellenistic period generally. Either Graham Shipley's The Greek World after Alexander, 323-30 BC, London, 2000, chapter 2, pp. 33-58, or David Braund, "After Alexander: the Emergence of the Hellenistic World", in A. Erskine, ed., A Companion to the Hellenistic World, Malden, 2003, pp. 19-34, will get you going. 

Next I should explain my "starting points which go in opposite directions" comment. There are widely differing approaches to the Hellenistic period in general. Rather then tell you who is right and who wrong (which would simply be telling you my biases) I would like you to read some of two very different approaches. The first I would recommend comes from Peter Green's major work, Alexander to Actium: the historical evolution of the Hellenistic Age. I suggest you read chapter 23, "Ruler Cults, Traditional Religion and the Ambivalence of Tyche", and chapter 33, "Foreign and Mystery Cults, Oracles, Astrology, Magic". The second view can be found in Shipley's The Greek World after Alexander, 323-30 BC. Here you should read Chapter 5, "Religion and Philosophy".

For more detail you could also read D. Potter, "Hellenistic Religion", in A. Erskine, ed., A Companion to the Hellenistic World, Malden, 2003, pp. 407-430, or J.D. Mikalson, "Greek Religion: Continuity and Change in the Hellenistic Period", in G.R. Bugh, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World, Cambridge, 2006, pp. 208-222.

Finally, you will need to look at the Unit Schedule below for the range of topics we plan to cover, and the section on assessment, above, for some of the suggested essay topics. You might like to begin thinking about what interests you. Then, before semester, I will make available a starting Bibliography organised by topics which will give you more detailed places to go for your research. In the first lecture session of Semester I will explain our approach in more detail.

Weekly Schedule (as at February 1st, 2016)

N/A.

This unit examines continuity and change in Greek religion in the period after the conquests of Alexander the Great. Themes to be investigated include: ancient and modern concepts of "religion", the social shape of religious practice, the social function/s of religion, the "internationalisation" of religion, continuity and change in belief and practice, and the relationship between cult and personal belief. Topics to be discussed will include: Oracles; ruler cult; 'Euhemerism'; private cults; official civic cults; Magic and subversive religion; the cult of Tyche; Sarapis, Isis and the new international cults; Hellenistic Mysteries; Forms of Judaism as Hellenistic religions; Pauline Christianity; Plutarch and the alignment of religion and philosophy.