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The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 BCE
A Norton original in the Reacting to the Past series, The Threshold of Democracy re-creates the intellectual dynamics of one of the most formative periods in western history. In this Reacting to the Past game, the classroom is transformed into Athens in 403 BCE In the wake of Athenian military defeat and rebellion, advocates of democracy have reopened the Assembly, but stability remains elusive. As members of the Assembly, players must contend with divisive issues like citizenship, elections, re-militarization, and dissent. Foremost among the Socrates.
Reacting to the Past is an award-winning series of immersive role-playing games that actively engage students in their own learning. Students assume the roles of historical characters and practice critical thinking, primary source analysis, and argument, both written and spoken.
For more information about the series, visit .
Reacting to the Past is an award-winning series of immersive role-playing games that actively engage students in their own learning. Students assume the roles of historical characters and practice critical thinking, primary source analysis, and argument, both written and spoken.
For more information about the series, visit .
241 pages, Paperback
First published December 15, 2013
14 people are currently reading
70 people want to read
About the author
Josiah Ober
37 books35 followersJosiah Ober is Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis Professor in honor of Constantine Mitsotakis, and Professor of Classics and Political Science, at Stanford University.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 29, 2020
I taught out of this textbook during Fall 2020 (and Fall 2019 and Fall 2018) as part of a first-year experience class in Western Civilization.
Ober and his coauthors Naomi J. Norman and Mark C. Carnes present a role-playing game for students. They adopt characters from 5th Century BCE Athens who are debating with each other about how to move forward after battling with Sparta for 27 years and after Critias and the Thirty Tyrants rules the city-state of Athens with a heavy hand.
The factions are the Solonian Aristocrats, the Periclean Democrates, the Thrasybulian Democrats (more radical than the Pericleans), and the Socratics. There are also characters who are not part of a faction (merchant/metic, athlete, trades people, dramatist, rhetorician and most notably the historian Thucydides). Their votes when aligned with existing factions (or when a student in character does the work to form a coalition) can help carry legislation forward.
The book contains maps, timelines, and information about culture, politics, geography, warfare, economics, politics, and philosophy. Fully half of the book contains core texts, chiefly large portions of Plato's _Republic_. Students are invited to read that and 7 other shorter works in order to learn about the ancient issues.
The core texts were challenging for 21st Century students. I had nonmajors who did not have the background. I had to do a lot to summarize The Republic for them. I ended up creating quizzes and having them select key passages for interpretation.
I think some of the challenges are as follows: 1. They are nonmajors 2. These texts are dependent on a culture that is 2500 years old. 3. Socrates (the main speaker in The Republic) rarely states directly what he means, particularly in the first section about justice. His method of dialectic involves sifting through a lot of nontruths or half truths before distilling down to his ideals. 4. The game is more fun than reading the book, so students elaborated on petty rivalries, emotions, odd biographical details and other trivialities more often than they invested deeply in questions about government, virtue, citizenship, and forging alliances.
As I teach this book again and again, I am assigning fewer passages from the Republic. Less is more. I find that I need to cover material more than once to help these 18 yo non-majors glean important information. The passages from the Republic I highlight are as follows:
* The sophist / rhetorician Thrasymachus pitching his fit about Socrates asking too many questions
* Ring of Gyges and a little more from Glaucon's definition of Justice
* The parade of vocations as part of the argument for specialization (leading up to philosopher-kings as specialists) that help illustrate who else populates the city besides the philosophers and sophists.
[I skip the section on education and censorship. Maybe I'll add this later.]
* Tri-part soul / noble lie of gold, silver, and brass/iron souls
* The four cardinal virtues
* Philosophers' role over truth vs opinion of the rest
* allegory of the ship captain
* sophists and the dangers of democracy / mob (beast) empowering demogogues
* critique of democracy after the description of oligarchy.
The excerpts from the Republic do NOT include the Allegory of the Cave. There is a brief passage included about forms with a footnote about the Allegory of the Cave that I amplify with a Ted-Ed animated video.
Ober and his coauthors Naomi J. Norman and Mark C. Carnes present a role-playing game for students. They adopt characters from 5th Century BCE Athens who are debating with each other about how to move forward after battling with Sparta for 27 years and after Critias and the Thirty Tyrants rules the city-state of Athens with a heavy hand.
The factions are the Solonian Aristocrats, the Periclean Democrates, the Thrasybulian Democrats (more radical than the Pericleans), and the Socratics. There are also characters who are not part of a faction (merchant/metic, athlete, trades people, dramatist, rhetorician and most notably the historian Thucydides). Their votes when aligned with existing factions (or when a student in character does the work to form a coalition) can help carry legislation forward.
The book contains maps, timelines, and information about culture, politics, geography, warfare, economics, politics, and philosophy. Fully half of the book contains core texts, chiefly large portions of Plato's _Republic_. Students are invited to read that and 7 other shorter works in order to learn about the ancient issues.
The core texts were challenging for 21st Century students. I had nonmajors who did not have the background. I had to do a lot to summarize The Republic for them. I ended up creating quizzes and having them select key passages for interpretation.
I think some of the challenges are as follows: 1. They are nonmajors 2. These texts are dependent on a culture that is 2500 years old. 3. Socrates (the main speaker in The Republic) rarely states directly what he means, particularly in the first section about justice. His method of dialectic involves sifting through a lot of nontruths or half truths before distilling down to his ideals. 4. The game is more fun than reading the book, so students elaborated on petty rivalries, emotions, odd biographical details and other trivialities more often than they invested deeply in questions about government, virtue, citizenship, and forging alliances.
As I teach this book again and again, I am assigning fewer passages from the Republic. Less is more. I find that I need to cover material more than once to help these 18 yo non-majors glean important information. The passages from the Republic I highlight are as follows:
* The sophist / rhetorician Thrasymachus pitching his fit about Socrates asking too many questions
* Ring of Gyges and a little more from Glaucon's definition of Justice
* The parade of vocations as part of the argument for specialization (leading up to philosopher-kings as specialists) that help illustrate who else populates the city besides the philosophers and sophists.
[I skip the section on education and censorship. Maybe I'll add this later.]
* Tri-part soul / noble lie of gold, silver, and brass/iron souls
* The four cardinal virtues
* Philosophers' role over truth vs opinion of the rest
* allegory of the ship captain
* sophists and the dangers of democracy / mob (beast) empowering demogogues
* critique of democracy after the description of oligarchy.
The excerpts from the Republic do NOT include the Allegory of the Cave. There is a brief passage included about forms with a footnote about the Allegory of the Cave that I amplify with a Ted-Ed animated video.
March 14, 2018
Had to read this for a class on the Ancient World, where we're Role Playing as characters from Ancient Greece.
This is a relatively easy read, considering it just explains the rules of the game, but also explains the history of Athens leading up to the start of the game. It was an easy, yet somewhat boring read for me.
This is a relatively easy read, considering it just explains the rules of the game, but also explains the history of Athens leading up to the start of the game. It was an easy, yet somewhat boring read for me.
November 8, 2023
lost about 3 years of my life working on this roleplaying game—this was not real.
Read
September 25, 2024History roleplay... where do I begin
December 13, 2024
I won the game btw
October 7, 2025
I, in fact, did not win the game.
November 3, 2016
This is a well-designed game/simulation with wonderful resources and sets the students up for an excellent learning experience. I had a lot of fun doing this and just wish I'd had more time to take full advantage of all the resources, but boy the Athenian Assembly issues of citizenship and voting rights and foreign policy were sure relevant to today.
I recommended this to all my friends who are teachers or homeschoolers even if their kids aren't old enough yet, so you can add it to your curriculum. I'd love to see Marie's Abner and Jane with their homeschool group do this game one day -- maybe I could be the gamemaster, sigh, wouldn't that be nice?
I recommended this to all my friends who are teachers or homeschoolers even if their kids aren't old enough yet, so you can add it to your curriculum. I'd love to see Marie's Abner and Jane with their homeschool group do this game one day -- maybe I could be the gamemaster, sigh, wouldn't that be nice?
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews