Dionysius enjoyed culture as well as cruelty. He wrote poems, which were recited at the Olympic Games and one of many tragedies which he entered…

Damocles’ sword. Twice in Greek history the Spartans appear as heroes — when they fought under Leonidas in the pass of Thermopylae and when they…

The other author who tells us about Socrates is Xenophon. We owe him much. In addition to writing down what he remembered of conversations with…

Socrates’ death occurred in the year 399 an Athenian court condemned Socrates for opposing the official religion of the state, a practice which in fact…

Oligarchy — “rule by the few” was a form of government which Athens had not experienced since the 6th century, though it was common in…

Decelea near the border of Attica and Boeotia was fortified by the Spartans (413). The first piece of good advice which Alcibiades gave the Spartans…

In the year when the expedition sailed to Sicily (415) Euripides put on a play, the Trojan Women, in which the wives of the defeated…

Greeks had first settled round the coasts of Sicily during the colonising period and in 480 they had united to defeat a Carthaginian attempt to…

Alcibiades was the nephew of Pericles. As well as being rich and handsome, he was amusing, clever, insolent and unreliable. He was about twenty when…