Epic Greek History

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After the death of Cyrus in 530 BCE, the Persian Empire continued to expand. His successor Cambyses II subdued Egypt and neighboring territories. Darius I, whose claim to the throne may have rested on a massive...

No historical event loomed larger in the minds of the ancient Greeks than their successful defense against the vast military might of the Persian Empire. Who were these Persians, and how did they come to dominate the...

Cleomenes I of Sparta has been called the most powerful Greek of the 6th century BCE. His reign included a major military victory over Argos, repeated attempts to meddle in Athenian politics, and a legendary feud with...

<p>After the expulsion of the tyrant Hippias, two prominent citizens were foremost in the competition for power. Isagoras was a conservative aristocrat who favored a narrow oligarchy. Cleisthenes, although a member of...

<p>The tyrant Polycrates of Samos impressed classical authors by building the first naval empire in the Aegean since the legendary king Minos of Crete. He dominated island cities, employed his navy for piracy, dedicated...

<p>While Athens was transforming itself under the lawgiver Solon and the tyrant Pisistratus, Sparta was busy extending its influence in the Peloponnese. What began as an attempt to conquer and enslave the Arcadian city...

<p>The Athenian tyrant Pisistratus centralized the Attic worship of Dionysus with an elaborate new festival. The Great Dionysia went on to become the city’s main dramatic festival, where later giants like Aeschylus...

<p>Despite the best efforts of the lawgiver Solon, political upheaval continued in Athens. A strongman named Pisistratus, after twice seizing power and losing it, ultimately established an autocratic regime that lasted...

<p>While the Athenians were setting up a new constitution under Solon, the Milesians across the Aegean were busy inventing philosophy. Perhaps not philosophy as we usually think of it, but a search for rational...

<p>At the start of the 6th century BCE, Athens had only recently escaped a tyranny. Draco's published law code made the law accessible to more people but did nothing to alleviate the crushing debt that afflicted the...

<p>Modern labels like “straight” and “gay” don’t map neatly onto ancient Greek culture. While same-sex relationships were considered normal and even expected, there were still taboos and rules of proper behavior. In...

<p>Imagine a state where no citizen works for a living; where children are kept hungry to encourage them to steal; where the most powerful military force in the known world is reluctant to fight far from the city for...

<p>No one was writing history in Greece during the 7th and 6th centuries BCE. But that doesn't mean we have no voices speaking to us from that time. Fragments of works by early Greek poets can provide real-time...

<p>In modern English, a “tyrant” is someone who rules oppressively. To the ancient Greeks, the word tyrannoscould just refer to a king, but more specifically it meant an autocrat who had come to power by overthrowing an...