We know a lot less about Ancient Greece than I had previously thought until I was fully engaged in this course. I was amazed when my professor said that we only have a small percentage of the written works of Herodotus, Thucydides, and countless other ancient Greek writers, playwrights, poets, and historians. I will occasionally get lost in my thoughts in class, pondering how something might have been, or imagining what life would have been like during the Classical Age in Athens. This course has enlightened me to how much work historians, archaeologists, and others put in to try and unlock more mysteries of the Ancient Greek world, and I have found a new subject to look into.

As a biology major, I did not think that I would get very much out of taking a Greek history class, however I was wrong. The class provided a refreshing change of pace from classes such as botany or cell biology. There is a science behind building an accurate understanding of the ancient Greek world. Many written histories have to be put together methodically in order to even scrape the surface of what actually happened. I felt amazed when I was informed that many of the events that happened in Ancient Greece were not recorded until hundreds of years later. On top of that, the works that have been discovered are now thousands of years old! The amount of filtration is unknown, so historical events that were recorded could have been easily altered. I don’t fully understand how we are able to create a picture of what actually happened, but I do realize that experts on Ancient Greece have to speculate to the best of their ability of smaller details of historical events such as battles, leaders, causes of death, etc.  The speculation of the missing details is what mostly sparks my imagination and causes me to wonder what the common soldier or citizen was thinking at the time or how “civilized” the Ancient Greek civilization was, especially in Athens when it was a democracy. I would like to experience the difference between living in Ancient Athens when it was democratic vs. our form of government in the twenty-first century.

I’m not much of a writer, but I enjoyed writing my first essay for the class. My topic was Olympia, where the Olympic Games were held in Ancient Greece. I happily researched the topic, because I am an athlete and I really enjoy participating, and spectating sports. I discovered that the original Olympic Games were dedicated to different Greek gods, and Olympia was also a place for religious festival. In class, we learned about the upper class in Athens, and how they allotted time for exercise and recreation. I had no idea people exercised for the sake of recreation thousands of years ago, so I was baffled. I had figured that exercise was just a recent activity that people acquired in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I think it is really interesting that there were spectators that watched the Olympic events back in Ancient Greece, because we still do the same with all of our sporting events in modern day. Also, we still have the Olympic Games every four years, where many countries compete against one another, similar to the Greek city-states competing against each other. The entertainment aspect of the games is also one of my favorite things about the concept of the Ancient Greek Olympics, because I imagine that it brought all the people from different city-states together in friendly competition, where there was minimal violence.

My second essay was by far the most difficult essay to write. The topic was to write about an object of Ancient Greece, so I wrote about the aulos, which is a musical instrument. I am musically inclined, and I play guitar, so I thought it would be an excellent topic that would be relatively simple to write about. However, I struggled to find enough sources in order to write about the instrument. The information that I was able to find was interesting, and I was excited to discover that the Ancient Greeks in Athens enjoyed music. That is relevant to our culture as well, because our culture is very musically inclined. I really wanted to learn more about the aulos, however I continued to struggle finding sources. My main flaw with writing the second essay is that I did not go ask my professor for assistance. If I was able to redo the essay, I would have sought out my professor for places to find sources on the aulos, so that I would have enough information to adequately complete the assignment.

My third essay was my favorite essay to write. The topic I chose was King Leonidas, king of Sparta and famous for his stand at Thermopylae with the three hundred Spartans. I chose to write about Leonidas because of his heroic acts, and his unusual upbringing. King Leonidas was not the first born son, so he was not expected to become king. Therefore, he had to go through the rigorous warrior training; the same that all the other normal Spartan males had to go through. I have lots of respect for Leonidas, because he completed the training, and his training was evident throughout his kingship. There are a lot of fabricated ideas about the Spartans, however, I feel that the acts of Leonidas and his three hundred soldiers was the essence of what the Spartans aspired to be, which is selfless warriors. I am on track to commission into the United States Army, so I would like to aspire to be like Leonidas in the fact that I’ll be able to perform to the best of my ability when it is required most.

Although my three essay topics have many differences, I can relate all of them to my personal life, and my personal interests. I enjoy entertainment, whether it’s music or sporting events. I also enjoy participating in both, and I play sports and musical instruments regularly. I also am a student at the Virginia Military Institute, which promotes a lifestyle that has values similar to the values that King Leonidas portrayed when he took a stand. Those values are honor, integrity, and courage. I would argue that King Leonidas and his soldiers displayed all three traits, and I hope to be able to display all of those traits once I graduate VMI.