Exploring the art, literature and philosophy of the Ancient Mediterranean World, this course will take us from the earliest surviving work of literature, the epic poem of Gilgamesh from ~2100 BCE, through Homeric epic and the major writers, thinkers and artists of Ancient Greece to the flowering of art, poetry and magic throughout the Roman Empire. We’ll encounter tragic heroes, a suffering Job, Socrates, Plato and his student Aristotle, the great Roman poet Virgil and the stoic philospher and emperor Marcus Aurelius. We’ll descend to the underworld at least twice, discover the origin of the phrase carpe diem and witness the Roman invention of concrete. Along the way, we’ll find ourselves asking not simply what the Ancients believed, or under what circumstances and in what social and historical contexts the works of the Ancient Mediterranean World were composed or performed, but also how they continue to shape and influence our modern world. This is the first course in the long-running Honors Humanities Sequence. Prerequisites: Honors eligibility required.