Paul Cartledge

Two very different volumes, Sparta and the Commemoration of War and The Killing Ground: A Biography of Thermopylae, grapple with the myth of Sparta.

The city of Thebes was central to the ancient Greeks’ achievements in politics and culture. For many centuries it has been largely – and often deliberately – forgotten.

During the Enlightenment, Alexander the Great was reinvented as an esoteric ideal.

Paul Cartledge argues that all historiography can be seen as fictionalised and relishes the fact that novelists breathe new life into ancient worlds.

As a new translation of the writings of the ‘father of history’ is published, Paul Cartledge looks at the methods of enquiry that make the Greek master such a crucial influence on historians today.

Paul Cartledge visits the archive of History Today to retrieve a critical appraisal of the Greek proto-historian Herodotus by the inimitable Oxford don Russell Meiggs, first published in 1957.

Alexandria’s reputation as the intellectual powerhouse of the Classical world, fusing Greek, Egyptian and Roman culture, lives on, writes Paul Cartledge.

Paul Cartledge goes in search of the elusive personality of the world’s greatest hero.

Paul Cartledge sees ancient Spartan society and its fierce code of honour as something still relevant today.