Ancient Greece

At the close of the third century B.C., Rome and the Seleucid Empire confronted one another in the neutral ground of disputatious Greece. By E. Badian.

Among the ruins of ancient Pylos— which, together with all the other major strongholds of Mycenaean power, was destroyed at the end of the Hellenic Bronze Age—a library of clay tablets has come to light, depicting a threatened society “in the throes of total moblization.” By L.R. Palmer.

In Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian War, P.A. Brunt sees why and how the Greeks failed to encompass peace and unity.

L.R. Palmer describes what we can learn of social stratification in ancient Greece from its epics.

The early life of the “Father of History” was dominated by the clash between East and West—Persia and Greece. Russell Meiggs finds that his story of the Great War is part tragic drama, part folk-tale and part travel-book, but is informed throughout by the desire to verify and by rational curiosity.

In the second part of his series, Charles Seltman focuses on the life of Pythagoras in Italy and how he became one of the greatest thinkers and most remarkable men in history.

Cyme, near the modern Smyrna, was one of the ports that served the Phrygians during the centuries from 1000-700 B.C., when they dominated Asia Minor. Freya Stark studies the civilization of this ancient people, from whom the Greeks derived one of the three modes of classical music.

Charles Seltman shows how Egyptian memories of Crete and its inhabitants may have given rise to the Platonic legend of the lost island of Atlantis.

In legend, Marathon is one of the decisive battles of the world; in fact, Stuart E.P. Atherley suggests, it marked the repulse of a comparatively small “colonial” expedition from Persia.

Charles Seltman