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.
Bust of Pericles
Bust of Hannibal. National Museum of Naples
Emperor Aurelius,2nd century AD
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.
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.