HIEU 2031

As everyone has said, this is a great class. This particular offering seemed to have a lot of first years, which I didn't think was typical of the course. The grading by one of the TAs also seemed strange (i.e. some seemed to be graded with more scrutiny than others), but I don't want to go into it because I know how that sounds.

Great class. Great lectures. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone, not just History or Classics majors. Lendon knows so much about the material and really has a passion for it, with an understanding of how to make it enjoyable for us. The map quiz really wasn't that bad, and the grades are clearly defined. A midterm and a final, with a (long) list of terms to know. A lot of material, but its easy to pay attention to his lectures!

Jon Lendon is a phenomenal lecturer. He truly is an amazing professor whose class you will look forward to going to because every lecture is like a performance, and he has mastered his craft. That being said, this class is REALLY hard. The reading is not only really heavy, but dense. The texts can be tough to follow and the assigned portions for each class are just impossible. You can go without ever reading the actual textbook although I imagine it would help a lot if you are unclear on something, but Lendon largely covers all of that reading in the lecture. If you are prepared to really really work hard, this class is for you. The lectures could be worth it for some, but my grades suffered quite a bit more than I wanted them to.

LENDON IS A GOD!!! He makes you WANT to go to lecture. a LOT of reading but so worth it. DO IT!

Professor Lendon is an outstanding lecturer. His lectures make the hours of reading and writing worth it. His lecturing ability is unmatched by other professors. However, if you don't do the readings, you will probably end up withdrawing from the class. If you stay on top of things and study hard an A is attainable

TAKE THIS FREAKING CLASS.

Absolutely phenomenal class, and really not as difficult as it's made out to be. Lendon is probably the best lecturer at UVA - I didn't miss a single class, and only because I really didn't want to. The workload is ~medium. Go to class and pay attention and take notes. As far as the reading goes, he assigns a lot. Most of it is interesting. I did it all before the midterm and started being a LOT less religious about it afterwards - did fine on the first paper so I didn't have to write the 2nd one (he lets you just write 1 of the 2 papers, but write the first one so you can salvage things if you do poorly). Participate in your discussions. The most time intensive thing for me was memorizing the terms before the midterm and the final. I really recommend doing that fully and well. Know your dates, know your names, know how they relate - it really doesn't take that long. Ended up with an A in the class.

I made the grave error of not attending about half of the lectures. As you can read from the reviews below it's necessary and extremely rewarding. I slacked on the readings and identifications before the midterm and test but had a pretty decent understanding of each definition. The grading is not terrible, I still managed a B+ with what I consider pretty bad effort. Definitely 1) don't be intimidated by Lendon or the amount of reading 2) GO TO LECTURE 3) Know the ID's frontward and backwards 4) READ and you will be more than fine in what is one of the better classes at UVa

Take it, no questions asked. You learn a lot, and Lendon is easily the best professor I have ever had. Kevin Woram is great in discussion too and is very willing to help if you are finding the course difficult. Do not listen to London on the first day, he just wants to make sure the right students are taking the class.

Taking this class was probably the best decision of my life. To start, let me talk about Professor Lendon. He is a phenomenal lecturer and honestly one of the most fun people I've ever talked to. I started going to office hours every week just for fun because he's just absolutely fantastic. Every lecture is a story, and often times he'll leave off on a cliffhanger that'll leave you hungry for more. (i.e. "From there, Alcibiades vanished from Athens and reappeared in Sparta, where he was found sleeping with the queen. Next time, ladies and gentlemen.") His last lecture on Alexander the Great was truly beautiful and the way it ended was truly worthy of the applause he got. I know every semester ends with professors receiving applause, however Professor Lendon certainly had the loudest applause out of all of my instructors.

That being said, only take this class if you're prepared to do the work, because it has a lot. We'll get to the exams in a second, but let's begin with how much work is assigned for every week. You'll usually have about 30-60 pages of textbook reading assigned for every lecture. These do not need to be done. In fact, I think at some point he stated himself that the textbook is basically only there if a) you miss lecture and need to review and b) to study for the exam. I never missed a single lecture, but I used it a lot to study for the exam. It's actually a pretty horrible textbook, so it's only really good to study. In terms of other work, you can have up to 150-200 pages a week assigned of primary source material. This could range from Herodotus and Thucydides to the plays of Aristophanes to Plato's Apology to the Iliad (week 1) to the poems of Solon. However, you pretty much only have to read these primary sources for your once a week discussion section, so you have plenty of time to get through it. Because you only need to read for your discussion, the reading is actually pretty manageable.

Here's the grade distribution: Mid-Term—25%, Final—30%, One paper—25%, Discussion Participation—10%, Discussion Quizzes—10%.

Let me go through each of these. For both the mid-term and the final, you will have to do Term IDs, Passage IDs, and handwritten essays. The Term IDs are by far the most difficult. For every week's lectures (of which there are 2) you will be assigned between 15 and 30 terms and you will have to memorize not only the significance of each of them, but also the exact date (i.e. Solon's Archon Year was 594/3 BCE; the Battle of Cyzicus was fought in the year 410 BCE; construction on the Parthenon began in 447 BCE; etc.) for ALL of them (the super early stuff is a little easier because there aren't exact dates for a lot of things, but after the mid-term stuff for the final is HELL). The Passage IDs are a little easier as long as you're keeping up with your readings. The handwritten essays are also extremely easy if you attend and pay attention in discussion and if you've memorized all the terms. The best way to prep for the exams is to focus on memorizing the terms, because not only are those the meat of the grade, those are also a great way to review the overarching stuff since you end up going through the important points multiple times when learning various terms. For instance, how best to understand the Peace of Nicias? By understanding every little detailed event during the Peace of Nicias multiple times because there are basically multiple terms for every event (names, places, events, etc.). This is a hard class.

The paper is assigned based on the work of either Herodotus or Thucydides—you can choose which one to write. It is 7 pages long. You can also choose to write both Herodotus AND Thucydides, and the grade that is higher will be the one that is counted (and if the second one is better, you'll get a little bonus for improving). It's not an easy paper to write, and you need to expand your evidence beyond the assigned reading (which is hard, because there is a LOT of assigned reading on both of them), and so it takes a LOT of time to work through all the volumes of their works to be able to collect all your evidence and finally begin writing (took me two all nighters). This is a hard class.

Other than that, the class is mostly fun, just about 4-5 nights of seemingly insurmountable stress in the whole semester, and other than that you're golden. Discussion participation is easy even if you haven't done the reading, and the discussion quizzes are easy (also I think the lowest one is dropped, which is good because there aren't even that many to begin with). Never miss a lecture, because you don't want to read that god-awful textbook, and always attend discussion because it's mandatory. If you absolutely need to miss one (like for an exam, as I had to once), try to attend a different discussion section.

Overall, the professor is amazing, the textbook is garbage but you don't need it, there is a LOT of primary source reading, the paper can make your life hell but can actually also be incredibly fun (like it was for me, I LOVE Herodotus), the exams are incredibly difficult but only stress you out twice in one semester. If you're willing to put in the work and, come exam season, have the contents of your mind be completely overtaken by the world of Ancient Greece, I would highly recommend taking this course. Also, for TA, you want Lily van Diepen if you can get her. She is the best. I wrote a review for her too.