Assignment problem: You will get only one of the following three essay questions on the Mid-term Exam, but you must prepare all three of them! It may look difficult but you do not tell or narrate the stories (myths) discussed in this class, you only discuss why the stories were important for the Mesopotamian, Greek, or Roman people in giving them their values (but you don't actually retell the stories or myths -- but you should definitely refer to events in the stories/myths).
Topic: In the first paragraph describe how Achilles in the Iliad (written down by Homer around the 700's BCE about a war way back in the 1100's BCE), despite being an almost invincible demigod, had flaws in both his body and in his behavior (in how he conducted himself in war). How was this flawed prince still a representation of at least a striving for "excellence" (arete) for the Greeks? Yet how was Achilles also an example of hubris, or excessive pride (and its accompanying punishment by the gods or fate)? In your second paragraph, describe how the lifestyle and culture of places like the polis of Athens changed (becoming completely different from the 1100's BCE bronze age chariot-warrior-kings life described in The Iliad) by the time of the 600's to 300's BCE? What things would unite and be common to all Greek poleis (despite later "Greek fighting Greek" in the Peloponnesian War which would weaken Greece and would later allow the great conqueror Alexander of Macedonia to conquer all the Greeks)?