• The main task is to present to us how we know about these topics, a guide to the main primary sources, the evidence upon which our 'knowledge' is based.
  
• Your presentation will be done from a PDF, which you will send to me the day before your presentation so I can post it for the class.
  
• It is up to you how you format it.
• Put your name and the topic at the top.
  
• The PDF should include the assigned reading mentioned above.
• If either the class reading assignment or the PDF are not handed in on time, your presentation will be considered late (docked 1%/day) and postponed until the class after you get those two things done.
• Telling us about these topics is not your assignment and is not what will be assessed, and taking time to do it, while occasionally necessary, will take away from your time to present what will be assessed.
• These presentations and their topics will be featured on the monthly tests as 'short ID's.'

• Basic research skills:
  
• Drilling down to the basis upon which anything rests is a fundamental skill. Here you are asked to drill down to the basis upon which our knowledge of a historical phenomenon rests.
• Understanding and intelligently applying the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources.
• Finding sources.
• Figuring out how to refer to sources.
• Assessing sources
• nature of the sources
• trustworthiness
• earlier is better
• except when later are more trustworthy for some other reason
• how did the source know about what they inform us about?

• Cyrene's founding
• Thurii's founding
  
• Autochthony and its importance in Athens (and perhaps other city-states)
  
• Draco's Laws
• Solon's Reforms
• Solon's poetry
• the 'laws' of Athens: where did Athenians find one, what they were written on, where can you read/see one now, etc.
  
• Cleisthenes' Reforms
• Ephialtes' Reforms
• Sortition in Ancient Athens
• Metics in Athens
• Cleruchies
• Ostracism in Athens
• Jury duty in Athens
• Who paid for the tragedies in Athens
  
• The Athenian amnesty of 403 BCE
  
• Pericles and political thought
  
• Lycurgus and political thought
  
• Zeno's lost work called Republic
• Aristotle's Lyceum
• Plato's Academy
• Aristotle's collection of 'constitutions' (almost all of which is lost)
  
• Aristotle's 'published' works (as opposed to the works we have that survived)
  
• Plato's 7th letter's political thought content.
• the concept of 'isonomia'
• the institution called 'euthynia' ('correction') of officials
  
• 'atimia' and enfranchisement in Athens
  

2nd presentation topics: I would appreciate it if you suggest ideas of your own, but be aware that not every interesting topic fits this assignment: it must be small enough, accessible enough, relevant enough, etc.

• The 12 Tables in Rome
  
• Transition from Kings to Consuls in Rome: how/why did it happen?
• dating Cicero's philosophical works
• how and why we still have the text of Cicero's De Re Publica
• the Roman cursus honorum
  
• how and why we have the particular works of Aristotle that we do have
• individual characters in Cicero's works (e.g. Laelius, Cato, etc.): what is the nature of and what are the sources we have about them other than Cicero?
  
• the 'laws' of Rome: where did Romans find and read them?
• what would you assign if we have another month to devote to political thought in Rome after Cicero, and why would you assign it?
  
• the 'laws' of Athens: where did Athenians find one, what they were written on, where can you read/see one now, etc.
  
• Ephialtes' Reforms
• Sortition in Ancient Athens
• Ostracism in Athens
• The Athenian amnesty of 403 BCE
  
• Pericles and political thought
  
• Aristotle's 'published' works (as opposed to the works we have that survived)
  
• the concept of 'isonomia'
• the institution called 'euthynia' ('correction') of officials
  
• 'atimia' and enfranchisement in Athens