• Ionian Rebellion: What was the Ionian rebelliion ?  What Greek mainland states helped the Ionians?  Why was the revolt important for the Greek mainland?
• Marathon:  What happened at Marathon? Why Marathon?  Why was this battle important for the Athenians?
• The Campaign of Xerxes: What preparations did Xerxes make for his invasion?  What was the position of Delphi on the war?  What was the Greek strategy?  What happened at Thermopylae and at Artemisium? What happened at Salamis?  What part did Themistocles play in all this? What happened at Plataea? After Plataea?

• The Delian League: Why was the league formed? Why called Delian? Who was in it? How was it organized? What was its aim? Oath? What did it do?
• Athens and the Delian League: Ways the League changed into an empire? When was the treasury moved to Athens and why? What effect did the Peace in 449 with Persia have? What did Pericles propose after the Peace? Sparta's repsonse and Pericles' reaction?
• Athens and Sparta: What happened in 462 to strain the relations between Athens and Sparta? Effects of the "first" Peloponnesian War and the 30 years peace?
• Athenian Democracy: What were the key changes made by Pericles? What is a liturgy and why is it important at Athens at this time?
• Oikos and Polis: What are the characteristics of the Athenian economy? How did naming of children work at Athens? Marriage: Who decided? Typical age at first marriage? Aim of marriage?  Fidelity? What was the dowry? Epikleros & Anchisteus: what do they refer to & how does the system work? Women in Athens: What did Athenian women do? Where did they stay? When did they go out?
• The Peloponessian War: What started the war? What was Perikles policy in regard to the war? For more, see questions on Thucydides.
  
• Fifth Century Architecture: What are some of the key features of the Parthenon and the Erechtheion?

• Herodotus: 
• Material: Intro & Gyges, Marathan, Thermopylae, Croesus (both stories).
  
• Questions: What are the main points of the stories we have studied? Role of humans causing events to happen? Where do the gods fit in these stories? How is Herodotus the 'father of history'? What focus does his intro to his history reveal?

• Tragedy: What are the origins of tragedy? How is tragedy religious? Mythical? "Form"-al? What are the production circumstances? Details about the festival? Significance of prizes? What is the purpose of the masks? Who and how many acted in the plays?
• Sophocles' Antigone:What is the role of the chorus in Sophocles plays? What are the key images and themes in Antigone? For other questions concerning the play, see class discussion.

• Comedy: What are the origins of Greek comedy? What are the typical features of a Greek Old Comedy?
• Aristophanes Lysistrata: What is the fantastic idea of the play? What view of women and men does the play present? What kind of person is Lysistrata? How is she like a Sophoclean hero or an Homeric hero? What is her motivation? Examples of how the play is an inversion of the norms?

• Thucydides (c.460-400 B.C.)
• Introduction: Why does he consider this war to be the greatest? View on previous wars? View on Homer (and other poets)? Role of gods? Role of human nature? Interest in facts and motives? Rational for speeches?
  
• Funeral Oration. What are the values of Athens as Thucydides describes them in the funeral oration supposedly delivered in 431/30 B.C.?  Contrast with Sparta? Role of the gods? Position of women?
• Plague: Where started? Approach to description? Effects on human nature? Role of gods? Interpretation of the oracle?
  
• Melian Dialogue: What are the arguments that both the Athenians and Melians use? What importance do the Athenians place on expediency (i.e., acting based on self-interest regardless of morality) and what importance do they place justice? Where do the gods fit in all of this? How do the values the Athenians espouse in their interaction with the Melians in 416 compare to those Pericles articulates in his funeral oration?
  

Possible Essay Questions (now available)