Online Course: Ancient Siege

Can’t get enough of bookandswordblog? This spring I will be teaching two short courses for the University of Victoria’s Continuing Education program. One of them is online on Tuesday 4 February from 6 to 8 pm Victoria, BC time. The price is CAD $35.70 (about USD $24). You can find more here.

Ancient sieges were once familiar and alien. Armies struggled to take settlements, soldiers sweated in the grime beneath air made lethal by projectiles, and everyone else had to make terrible choices to survive and protect their friends and family. Our toys, games and videos are full of walls and siege engines. This session will ask how sieges worked in the ancient Mediterranean world, focusing on two dramatic events: the time the Assyrians marched on the Judean city of Lachish, and the time the Macedonian warlord Demetrius decided to take the free city of Rhodes.

A fun thing about teaching is that I can take on big topics like this without worrying about being Wrong on the Internet (and without the work of writing and fact-checking a book to academic standards). A lecture or discussion is not forever or for the whole world, just for one evening with a few dozen or a few hundred people. So I can focus on general ideas, and people who want to learn more can turn to books and articles which take time to pin everything down.

A four-session course on Ancient Persia will be face to face in Victoria, BC on Thursday evenings from 20 March to 20 April 2025. I am experimenting with how to do this and its good to get people out of their homes doing something with their neighbours now and then.

(scheduled 15 January 2025)