These two courses are connected conceptually by the topic of war. European Military History addresses questions of military organization and leadership, discipline and training, rules of war and concepts of honor, technology and weaponry, tactics and strategy, intelligence, logistics and support, and other factors critical to the dynamics of war. These themes emerge repeatedly in the study of warfare, from the Bronze Age to the twentieth century.
Tales of Troy examines warfare through great works of literature the great epics (Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid), Greek drama (Trojan Women, Ajax), late classical retellings (Quintus of Smyrna, Dares, Dictys), and early modern treatments (Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida). Tales of Troy is a literature course, but it will deal also with the experience of the warrior, the art and evolution of warfare—the chariot, the bow, the spear, the siege, the Trojan Horse—and the victims of war—women, children, the heroes themselves—and how the modern world still takes its bearings from these ancient roots.