Socrates was short, ugly and brave. He served as a hoplite in the Peloponnesian war and on one occasion saved the life of a rich…

Not everyone approved of this policy. The country people, whose farms were being devastated every year by the invading Spartans, were ready for peace. So…

Cruelty showed itself only two years after Pericles was dead. In 428, after the usual spring invasion by the Spartans and before the Olympic games,…

Before Pericles dies, the morale in Athens was low. For the second year in succession the Spartans had been allowed to lay waste to the…

In Hippocrates’ time, if death was the end, what could be done to stave it off? Deprived of what we would now call the comforts…

Athenian deaths were now a shadow of the past. When Aeschylus, in his play, the Persians, thanked the gods for the victory of Salamis, he…

The Peloponnesian War began because Pericles was running our of time. In the first place Athens insisted on backing Corcyra in a quarrel with Corinth…

In spite of the fact that they had fought as allies against Persia, Sparta and Athens did not like each other any better when the…

When Herodotus read his history in public, it is said that a youth called Thucydides was so moved that he burst into tears. Herodotus congratulated…