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Led by Herodotus Simulacrum
The first Greek depth study of OCR GCSE Ancient History (J198/01), taught by Herodotus, the prescribed source. A source-led investigation of how the Greek city-states moved from tyranny to democracy — Athens under the Peisistratids, the tyranny of Polycrates at Samos, the reforms of Cleisthenes, and democracy in action to 483 BC. Built on the central comparison: why democracy took root at Athens but not at Samos.
Led by Herodotus Simulacrum
The question
Before Athens was a democracy it was a tyranny — and Herodotus makes the student see that a Greek tyrannos was not the modern monster the word suggests. The student studies the character of Peisistratid rule (surprisingly mild under Peisistratus himself), then the fall: the assassination of Hipparchus by Harmodius and Aristogeiton over a private quarrel, the souring of Hippias' rule into suspicion, and the Spartan intervention that ended the tyranny. The source-critical heart is the gap between event and memory — why Athens later made civic heroes, "the tyrannicides," of two men who killed for love and grudge, and why a democracy would prefer that myth to the facts.
Outcome
The student can explain what tyranny meant in this period, narrate the fall of the Peisistratids in sequence, and distinguish the real motive of the tyrannicides from the later civic myth — evaluating Herodotus and the Athenian tradition as interested evidence.
Sub-units
Led by Herodotus Simulacrum
The question
Herodotus turns east to Samos and Polycrates, the most magnificent tyrant of the age — master of the sea, builder of the great tunnel of Eupalinos and the temple of Hera. The student narrates his tyranny, his dealings with Egypt and Persia, and his fall by treachery. Then the decisive moment: his successor Maeandrius offered the Samians democracy, and they refused it; Persia imposed Syloson, and Samos stayed unfree. This builds the comparison the whole study is structured around — the same democratic moment came to Samos as to Athens, and Samos let it pass. The student asks why, weighing political, military and external factors.
Outcome
The student can narrate the tyranny of Polycrates, explain the failed democratic moment at Samos, and construct a reasoned comparison of why democracy took root at Athens but not at Samos.
Sub-units
Led by Herodotus Simulacrum
The question
With the tyrants gone, Athens nearly fell to a new strongman — Isagoras, backed by Sparta — before Cleisthenes turned the city toward the demos. The student studies the reforms in detail: isegoria (equality of public speech), the ten new tribes cutting across old regional loyalties, the demes, the reorganised Council of Five Hundred — and grasps the design logic by which cutting across old blocs bound the city together. Then the external threat: Sparta's twice-attempted restoration of Hippias, and the revealing moment when Corinth — itself once ruled by the tyrants Cypselus and Periander — argues Sparta out of it. The student weighs whether Cleisthenes acted from principle or factional advantage.
Outcome
The student can explain the Cleisthenic reforms and their design logic, account for the Spartan restoration attempts and Corinth's opposition, and reach a reasoned judgement on Cleisthenes' motives.
Sub-units
Led by Herodotus Simulacrum
The question
A new democracy must decide how to act in the world, and Athens' first great decision nearly destroyed it. The student watches the new institutions work — the assembly debating, the ten strategoi commanding — through the test case of the Ionian Revolt: the vote to aid the Ionians, the burning of Sardis that brought Darius' wrath, and the withdrawal Herodotus called "the beginning of evils." The student connects the young democracy's foreign policy to the coming Persian Wars, and evaluates Herodotus' own famous verdict as an example of how a historian's judgement colours the evidence.
Outcome
The student can explain how the assembly and the ten strategoi functioned in practice, narrate the Ionian decision and its consequences, and evaluate how a historian's stated verdict shapes a narrative.
Sub-units