Greeks And Persians: Course Analysis

Coming into this course, I really did not know anything about ancient warfare or the societies of Greeks and Persians. Prior to this class, the only ideas I had relating to the societies and their warfare originated from movies, like 300, Greek mythology, and from reading the epic poem, “The Odyssey,” during my freshman year of high school. My ideas have changed and expanded, without doubt, after reading the materials and participating in the discussion topics throughout this course. In order to explain what I have learned, I need to explain what I previously thought about Greek and Persian societies, despite it being very limited knowledge. Previous to this course, my thoughts on both Greeks and Persians were that they were dangerous people and quite frankly, the type of people you did not want

I believe that these feelings had both originated and surfaced from watching the film 300. 300 is about a war between Persia and Greece. Sparta is the Greek city state that is in battle with Persia. Sparta’s King Leonidas is leading 300 Spartans, that were chosen, in this war. In the movie, the most iconic scene was when King Leonidas kicks the Persian emissary, or messenger, into the well. I have known that Persia is current day Iran. Other knowledge I have on Greek society is from Greek mythology, like Heracles and Cerberus, and “The Odyssey,” which I learned in this course is written by the same author, Homer, that wrote the poem “Iliad.” The first thing I learned in this course was who the Greek and Persian people were. Greece had been a very advanced country, constructing city-states that had “developed science, mathematics, and representational art in