During the fifth century BC, Athens was a city-state to be reckoned with. Together with Sparta, it was one of the two great ...

Athens and Sparta represented for classical thinkers distinct and opposing regimes. Democratic Athens took pride in its freedom, openness, and accomplishments in the arts and philosophy. Oligarchic ...

On the eve of the Peloponnesian War in 432 BC, the wise king of Sparta, Archidamus, was summoned to address a clash between the Corinthians and Athenians. Corinth, an ally of Sparta, warned that ...

Bagnall (The Punic Wars, 2005), a former British army chief of the general staff, completed this rigorous study of ancient Greece's 27-year civil war just before his death in 2002. A seminal event in ...

In Ancient Greece, Athens was known for its philosophers, scientists, and theorists of democracy. Sparta was known for its military prowess, its bravery and its ability to defend itself against ...

Myke Cole - Co-author, The Killing Ground: A Biography of Thermopylae Ancient Sparta has been held up for the last two and a half millennia as the unmatched warrior city-state, where every male was ...

Many self-professed champions of freedom throughout the centuries have looked to ancient Sparta as an inspiration. The doomed stand of 300 Spartan warriors against the Persian Empire at Thermopylae in ...

Joel Christensen is Professor and Chair in the Department of Classical Studies at Brandeis University.This article originally appeared in Th e Conversation. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 ...

A“myth of the past” is necessary to justify “contemporary preoccupations,” writes Oswyn Murray, an emeritus fellow at Oxford. This is a profound realization, and it leads the author to a rousing ...

Joel Christensen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...