Ancient Western Civilization

This course examines the great civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome.  The first half traces the arc of Greek democracy and culture through the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars; the second picks up with the rise and fall of Roman power, from the mythic and historical accounts of Rome’s early days all the way to St. Augustine’s reflections in The City of God on Rome’s fall and the conflict between Christians and pagans in Roman society.

The influence of the personalities, events, and ideas of this era is difficult to overstate, and the study of ancient Greece and Rome is vital to any genuine understanding of the movement and progress of History in the West.  This course will enable the student to:

• Observe the timelessness of human relations & the similarities of man’s responses to the conditions in which he finds himself across time periods
• Discover the similarities & differences between ancient Greek & Christian ideas of virtue
• Trace the cause & effect of political developments in the ancient world &, by extension, the modern world
• Identify the periods of ancient history & major characters of the period
• Become familiar with the geography of the ancient world & the seeds of modern geopolitical conflicts
• Relate modern historical situations & documents to their ancient antecedents

Students taking this course for Kolbe Core (K) credit will have four papers, a mid-term, and final exam each semester.  Additionally, core students should expect to have daily reading and minor weekly written assignments or quizzes.

Assignment due-dates and grades are established by the parent.  Optionally, a student may be enrolled in the Self-Paced Plus© grading assistance program to receive grading assistance from a Kolbe Academy faculty or staff member on designated assignments in the course.  In this case, parents will still submit final grades to Kolbe for the course, but may choose to incorporate the graded assignments into the student’s overall grade or use the Kolbe-graded assignments to assist in arriving at the student’s final grade.

• The Histories, Herodotus, translated by Aubrey De Sélincourt
• The History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner
• Makers of Rome, Plutarch, translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert
• The History of Rome from Its Foundations: The Early History of Rome, Livy, translated by Aubrey De Sélincourt
• The History of Rome from Its Foundations: The War with Hannibal, Livy, translated by Aubrey De Sélincourt
• The Annals of Imperial Rome, Tacitus, translated by Michael Grant
• MLA Handbook Eighth Edition
• Christ the King, Lord of History, Tan Books (Optional)

Optional Materials

Digital copies are provided in the Parent Group of the Self-Paced course.  Physical copies are available for purchase in the Kolbe Bookstore.

• Ancient Western Civilization Course Plan & Tests
• The Histories Study Guide, Kolbe Academy Publishing
• The History of the Peloponnesian War Study Guide, Kolbe Academy Publishing
• Plutarch’s Roman Lives Study Guide, Kolbe Academy Publishing
• Early History of Rome Study Guide, Kolbe Academy Publishing
• The War with Hannibal Study Guide, Kolbe Academy Publishing
• The Annals of Imperial Rome Study Guide, Kolbe Academy Publishing
• Weekly Quiz Book for Greek History Study Guide, Kolbe Academy Publishing
• Classics Conference: The Complete Set  (Audio files and study materials are already included directly in the Self-Paced course.  If you would like a hard copy to keep and re-use, you may purchase the flash drive and study materials from the Kolbe Bookstore.)

Self-Paced Plus courses include the following:

• Grading by a highly qualified teacher for selected assignments (listed below) in the course.
• Access to teacher through the course’s discussion board.
• Option to report grade given by the teacher, or to report a grade assigned by parent.
• The pacing is still established by the parent in conjunction with the student’s goals and academic calendar. 
• Assignments will be graded within 1-2 weeks of the submission date, excluding holiday breaks.  (For the quickest grading, students should turn assignments in incrementally throughout the year.  If a student turns in multiple assignments to be graded at once, expect a response time of 1-2 weeks per assignment submitted.)

Self-Paced Plus Assignment List:

*We developed a rubric to assist in grading the paper assignments.  Each paper assignment will have the rubric available for the student in the course.