Reference no: EM132817959
Essays:
Select ONE essay on Alexander and ONE essay on the Hellenistic Age from the lists below. The choice is yours as long as you submit each one by its due time and date!
You will see that the running order of questions broadly aligns with the lecture and tutorial topics, so you should use the appropriate lecture and tutorial readings as the basis of your research for your essay answer.
Put your name and question number at the top of p. 1 of your essay otherwise we will assume you are answering the first question one each list and will mark accordingly.
In BOTH your answers, you must consult, cite, and quote from relevant books and essays (in edited books) to your topics in the unit readings AND at least 3 modern books and/or journal articles that are not in the unit readings but which you found through your own research.
For the Alexander essay, you must ALSO cite and quote from the relevant ancient sources in Heckel and Yardley, Alexander the Great. Historical Sources in Translation to support and expand on your points.
Each essay should be 1,000 words maximum (for text and notes), double-spaced, size 12 font throughout, with a bibliography on a separate page at the end (the bibliography is NOT included in the word limit): see the essay marking rubric. Notes should be kept to a minimum and used for things like references to ancient sources and modern scholars' works, quotations from ancient sources (where relevant), and sources of any and all quotations within your text.
Do NOT write over the maximum limit: 1,000 words does not mean you can write 5% or 10% more. If you appear to have written more than 1,000 words we will estimate where that limit in your answer falls and NOT read beyond that point. This will affect your answer and hence mark. As a minimum you need to be as close to that 1,000 limit as you can be (e.g. 950 is too short but 990 would be OK).
If you do not follow these guidelines, your essay is likely to be failed.
We do not have one preferred referencing system, for content of your work is what gets the marks, not how you set out references, foot notes, etc. However, the university does have a guide to referencing systems for assignments, which can be found at:
ESSAY ONE: Alexander the Great:
1. Discuss the strategy and leadership skills of Alexander at the battles of Issus and Gaugamela.
2. 'To us, Alexander's claim to divinity may seem like megalomania, even madness. But in the context of the traditions and beliefs of his own age, it could be seen by many, and it certainly was by Alexander himself, as reasonable and justified, by virtue of his divine birth, his superhuman aretê and achievements, and the approbation of his father Zeus': E. Fredricksmeyer, 'Alexander's Religion and Divinity', in the Brill Companion to Alexander the Great, at p. 278. Discuss the validity of this claim as it affects Alexander's pretensions to personal divinity.
3. Was the mutiny at the Hyphasis river inevitable, and how does it affect our evaluation of Alexander as king and general?
4. Can we say that Philip's greatest legacy for Alexander was the army, and that without it Alexander would not have achieved what he did to become 'great'?
ESSAY TWO: The Hellenistic Age:
1. Describe and explain Antigonos Gonatas' success in establishing control of Macedonia and Greece between 282 and 267.
2. Describe and account for the successes Mithridates I achieved in increasing the power and the territory of the Parthian kingdom between 171 and 132. Was Mithridates the real destroyer of the Seleucid empire?
3. Give an account of the involvement of Attalus I and the Pergamene kingdom in the First Macedonian War (211-205). Was support of Rome good politics for Attalus, or was he backing the wrong side?
4. Describe and explain what measures Ptolemy VI Philometor, Cleopatra II and Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II (respectively) took to defend the Ptolemaic realm against Antiochus IV's invasion in the Sixth Syrian War.
Attachment:- Essay discription.rar