Great Figures of Antiquity

Great Figures of Antiquity presents rulers,commanders,philosophers and politicians whose decisions and ideas shaped Ancient Greece,Rome,Carthage and the Hellenistic East. Their biographies connect wars,political systems,cities,religion and culture into a single historical picture. The sections are arranged in a broadly chronological order: from the Greco-Persian Wars and classical Athens to the Hellenistic world,the Punic Wars,the late Republic and the Roman Empire.

I. Greco-Persian Wars and Classical Greece

• Leonidas I - Themistocles - Pericles - Sparta - Athens - Xerxes' Campaign This group covers the fifth century BC: resistance to the Persian invasion,the rise of the Athenian fleet,the height of Athens and tension between Athens and Sparta.

II. Athenian Philosophy

• Socrates - Plato - Aristotle - Athenian Democracy The philosophical group belongs to Athens of the late fifth and fourth centuries BC: the trial of Socrates,Plato's Academy,Aristotle's Lyceum and debates about knowledge,virtue and the polis.

III. Macedon and the Hellenistic World

• Philip II - Alexander the Great - Cleopatra VII - Campaigns of Alexander the Great - Hellenistic Egypt This section runs from the rise of Macedon and Alexander's campaigns to the last major Hellenistic kingdom drawn into Roman politics.

IV. Punic Wars and the Late Republic

• Hannibal Barca - Scipio Africanus - Gaius Marius - Sulla - Spartacus - Marcus Licinius Crassus - Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus - Cicero - Gaius Julius Caesar - Mark Antony This section shows the transition from Rome's wars with Carthage to the crisis of republican politics,civil wars,slave revolts and rivalry among great commanders.

V. Roman Empire

• Octavian Augustus - Nero - Ulpius Nerva Trajan - Aelius Trajan Hadrian - Marcus Aurelius - Diocletian - Constantine The imperial group moves from the foundation of the principate to the early dynasties,the Antonine age,the crises of the third century and late-antique reforms.

Related topics

• Ancient Greece - Hellas - Rome - Roman Republic - Roman Empire - Roman Republican Military Campaigns - Christianity and Paganism in the Roman Empire

Literature

1. Herodotus. Histories. 2. Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. 3. Polybius. The Histories. 4. Livy. History of Rome. 5. Plutarch. Parallel Lives. 6. Tacitus. Annals; Histories. 7. Cassius Dio. Roman History.

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