Seminar 1: Herodotus and the Invention of History
This seminar took place on Sunday 5 October 2025
In the first line of his work, Herodotus becomes the first to use the word history, originally meaning ‘enquiry’, to describe a continuous narrative of the past. At this moment, in the second half ot the 5th century BCE, history as we know it is born. Yet Herodotus offers more than a record of wars between Greeks and Persians in the early 5th century BCE. His account travels widely in time and place: from myth to the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis; from Greece to Egypt, Scythia, and even the ‘Tin Islands’. In doing so, he could also lay claim to being the pioneer of anthropology, ethnography, sociology, and travel writing. This opening seminar will look at the very beginning and the very end of ‘The Histories’ as a means of exploring Herodotus’ method and purpose, how he aims to tell not only what happened, but why.
Seminar 2: Sophocles’ Antigone and Obedience to the Law
This seminar took place on Sunday 30 November 2025
The works of only three tragedians have survived, Aeschylus, the author of The Oresteia, Euripides, the author of The Bacchae and Medea, and Sophocles who wrote nearly 100 plays in a long career but only nine survive intact. Perhaps the most famous is Oedipus Tyrannos, in which Oedipus, the king of Thebes, comes to discover that he has murdered his father and married his mother. However, the play which has had the greatest impact on European theatre has been Antigone. Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus. Her brothers have killed each other in combat, one attacking Thebes, the other, Polynices, defending it and Creon, the new ruler of Thebes has decreed that Polynices will remain unburied. Antigone defies that decree and, in doing so, goes to her death. The play thereby addresses an issue fundamental to any society: when, if ever, is it right to disobey the law? The seminar will look at the key passages where Antigone defends her decision and confronts her death.
Seminar 3: Thucydides, Pericles and Athens
This seminar took place on Sunday 11 January 2026
Herodotus of Halicarnassus may be the ‘Father of History’ but Thucydides the Athenian, his younger contemporary, can rightly claim to be the inventor of history as we know it. His subject is the Peloponnesian War, a war between the Athenians and the Spartans (431-404 BCE. He was a general in that war, a general exiled by the Athenians for a military failure, an eye-witness to these events. Central to his method is accuracy and attention to evidence: he wants us not only to understand the past but also to understand our own times. His work is ‘a possession of all time’. He explores the issues that war brings to the fore: the nature of democracy at war; the erosion of morality under pressure; the impact of leaders, good and bad, the fragility of reason, the dangers of rhetoric.
The online seminar will focus on Thucydides’ account of the speech given by Pericles, the greatest of the Athenian leaders, at the public funeral held for the war dead in 430 BC. In that speech, Pericles celebrates the greatness of Athens, a greatness which will be undermined and brought low in the years that follow.
Seminar 4: Plato’s Crito and the Law
Date: Sunday 22 February 2026 (Provisional)
Time: 6:30-8:00pm (GMT) | Online Only
Socrates was not a king or a general or a poet: he never wrote anything. And yet, he is one of the most famous figures of the ancient world, famous, above all, for being put to death by the Athenians in 399 BCE. Most of what we know of him comes from the writings of his friend and pupil, Plato. He makes Socrates the creator of western philosophy as we know it. Socrates sets the questions of philosophy? What is virtue? Why bother to be virtuous? How do we know anything? And Socrates defines and enacts the method of philosophy: it will be done by dialogue, by testing ideas through rigorous questioning.
The most famous of Plato’s dialogues is The Republic but there are three works which centre on Socrates’ trial and death. The first is the Apology, Socrates’ speech at the trial, and the last is Phaedo, Socrates’ last day and death. In between is Crito, set in Socrates’ cell on the day before. Crito is one of Socrates’ oldest friends who comes to prison to convince Socrates to do a runner. Socrates will have none of it and argues that it is his duty to abide by the law of his city. He even summons up ‘The Laws’ to explain why that has to be so and the seminar will focus on that crucial moment.
Socrates has been condemned to death by the Athenians for ‘not believing in the city’s gods’ and ‘corrupting the young’. The sentence will be carried out on the next day and Crito, one of Socrates’ oldest friends, has come to persuade him that he can and should escape. Socrates will have none of it and the online seminar will focus on the end of the dialogue in which Socrates summons The Laws to explain why.
Participants may register for the full series (£75) or individual seminars (£25 each).