Macquarie University students have a responsibility to be familiar with the Student Code of Conduct, and particularly with the Academic Honesty policy. (Links to both will be found under "Policies and Procedures" below.) Note particularly that any work found to be plagiarised will normally receive 0%. The issue of plagiarism will be specifically discussed in the first tutorial, but it is the responsibility of the student to be aware of University and Departmental policy on academic honesty.

Technology:

Lectures will be given live and also made available on Echo360. Visual materials used in lectures will be made available as PDF files on iLearn. Brief bibliographies, lists of people, places and technical terms will be made available for each lecture as PDF files on iLearn.

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.

Tutorials will be held for Internal students; for External students there will be regular postings on iLearn and discussion on the Online Forum.

Lectures and Tutorials:

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. At the time of printing the details were as follows:

Lecture times: Tuesday 9am, W5C220; Wednesday 10am, E7B100.

Tutorial times: Tuesday, 10am, in X5B039; Tuesday, 11am, in W5A 105; Wednesday, 11am, in E7B 100. Enrolment numbers may lead to some modifications of these times.

Changes since the last offering of this Unit:

The Unit was last offered in Semester 2, 2015.There have been no significant changes.

Books you will need.

The three prescribed books for the Unit are

(1) Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, the Penguin translation of A. de Selincourt;

(2) M.M. Austin, The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest, 2nd edition, Cambridge, 2006,

(3) G. Shipley, The Greek World after Alexander, Routledge, 2000.

The early tutorials will be based on Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, and documents from M.M. Austin, The Hellenistic World. Students will need to begin working through Arrian at once. Later tutorials will be largely based on documents from Austin. This book is essential, and is supplemented by documents provided in the Tutorial Materials section, below.

Tutorial discussion will focus around the detailed examination of particular documents. All but three of these come from either Austin or Arrian. The others will be provided in the main Unit booklet. Students will need to work through the documents in detail before coming to the Tutorial, and in many cases do some wider reading as well. There is little point coming to the Tutorial without doing this reading. Our aim will be to explore issues raised by the documents in as much detail as possible.

If you are interested, further ancient sources can easily be purchased in Penguin translations; both Plutarch's Life of Alexander (in The Age of Alexander, trans. I. Scott-Kilvert) and Quintus Curtius Rufus, The History of Alexander (trans. J. Yardley) are available.

The other book recommended (but not required) is A.B. Bosworth's Conquest and Empire, (in my view) the best modern work on Alexander; if you are particularly interested in Alexander, it is the one to buy. All these should be available in the Co-op.

Other Material:

A PDF file of introductory material, Unit requirements, Weekly schedule, Tutorial questions and a full Unit Bibliography will be made available on iLearn. There is no need to print it out; in most cases only 2-3 pages per week will be needed in class.

Week 1, beginning Monday February 27th.

Lecture 1: Alexander the Great: his career and achievements.

Lecture 2: Alexander's motives: propaganda, mythology, wanderlust and logistics.

Tutorial:   Course structure and requirements. General discussion.

Week 2, beginning Monday March 6th.

Lecture 3: Guest Lecture (Prof I. Worthington):

Lecture 4: Guest Lecture (Prof I. Worthington):

Tutorial:    Austin 3 (Austin² 4) and Arrian I.11 (compare briefly Arrian 7.8-9). Why did Alexander set out to invade Persian territory?

Week 3, beginning Monday March 13th.

Lecture 5: Alexander's Death, his Will and ‘Last Plans’.

Lecture 6: The succession crisis and the Diadochoi.

Tutorial:    Austin 3, 5, 6: Alexander's treatment of the cities.

Week 4, beginning Monday March 20th.

Lecture 7: The rise of Monarchy.

Lecture 8: Monarchy and Religion: the ruler cult.

Tutorial:   Austin 12: the Persian habit of prostration (proskynesis).

Week 5, beginning Monday March 27th.

Lecture 9:   The new institutions of the Hellenistic kings and the decline of democracy

Lecture 10: The Seleucid Kings

Tutorial:      Austin 17: The Marriages at Susa.

Week 6, beginning Monday April 3rd.

Lecture 11: The Ptolemies

Lecture 12: The Antigonids

Tutorial:     Austin 18: The ‘mutiny’ and banquet at Opis.

Week 7, beginning Monday April 10th.

Lecture 13: The Hellenistic Polis (1).

Lecture 14: The Hellenistic Polis (2)

Tutorial:    Numismatics tutorial exercise: the Coins of Alexander’s Successors.

BREAK

Week 8, beginning Monday May 1st.

Lecture 15: Hellenistic Art.

Lecture 16: Hellenistic Philosophy.

Tutorial:     There is no tutorial this week.

Week 9, beginning Tuesday May 8th.

N.B. Major Essays due.

Lecture 17: The Hellenisation Process (1).

Lecture 18: The Hellenisation Process (2).

Tutorial:     Austin 144, 145, 146: Health and miraculous cures.

Week 10, beginning Monday May 15th.

Lecture 19: Anti-Hellenic Reaction in Egypt.

Lecture 20: Rome and the Greek States (1).

Tutorial:     Austin 208, 209: Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’.

Week 11, beginning Monday May 22nd.

Lecture 21: Anti-Hellenic Reaction in Palestine.

Lecture 22: Rome and the Greek States (2).

Tutorial:     Egyptian nationalism: The ‘Potter's Oracle’ (provided).

Week 12, beginning Monday May 29th.

Lecture 23: Rome and the Greek states (3).

Lecture 24: Judaism, Hellenistic and other.

Tutorial:     Hellenised Judaism (Documents provided).

Week 13, beginning Monday June 5th.

Lecture 24: Hellenistic Religion.

Lecture 25: Hellenistic Religion, continued. Unit Summary.

Tutorial:     Austin 84: Flamininus and the ‘Freedom of the Greeks’.

The Examination Period begins on Monday June 12th. The date of the examination has not yet been set.

The last time the Unit was offered, in Semester 2, 2015, there was no External On Campus session offered. This year the On Campus Session is offered; indeed, it is compulsory for External Students.

Extensions:

All deadlines are firm unless an extension has been requested before the due date. A penalty for lateness will apply unless a doctor's certificate is supplied. No written work (except the final short paper) will be accepted for assessment after the end of Week 13. 2% of credit will be deducted per day (including weekends) for assignments handed in late without an extension. If an assessment task is more than two (2) weeks late, and there is no Disruption of Studies, students will need the permission of the Unit convenor before submitting that task. 5% of credit may be deducted for assignments that exceed the word length by 10% or more. Assignments handed in early will not be marked and returned before the due date.

Extensions for assignments can only be granted for medical reasons or on compassionate grounds. Without documentation (medical or counselling certificates) or prior staff approval, a penalty of 2% a day, including weekends, will be applied. If required, applications for extensions should be made before the assignment's due date. (For students who have suffered serious and unavoidable disruption to their studies, see further under Disruption to Studies Policy.)

Always retain a copy of completed tasks in case of loss.

Completing the Unit

In order to complete the unit satisfactorily students must submit all assessment tasks and gain a mark of 50% or more overall.

Students will need to listen to the lectures and reflect on them, do the set weekly reading(s), and participate in either the Tutorials or the online discussion in a manner which demonstrates they have done these things. They must submit all items of assessment, and hand in work which is formatted in accordance with Department of Ancient History guidelines, spell-checked, written in good English, and demonstrating both an understanding of the material in the lectures and readings, and independent reflection on the subject of the assessment.