From Agora to Throne Room

Sparta was an ancient Greek city and the most powerful state of the Peloponnese. The city lay on the northern end of the Laconian plain, on the right bank of the river Eurotas. The site is admirably fitted by nature to guard the only routes by which an army can penetrate Laconia from the land side. At the same time its distance from sea made it invulnerable... [continue reading]

Herodotus (c.484 – 425/413 BCE) was a writer who invented the field of study known today as `history’. He was called `The Father of History’ by the Roman writer and orator Cicero for his famous work The Histories but has also been called “The Father of Lies” by critics who claim these `histories’ are little... [continue reading]

After his father's death in 559 BC, Cyrus the Great became king of Anshan but like his predecessors, Cyrus had to recognize Mede overlordship. In 552 BC Cyrus led his armies against the Medes and captured Ecbatana in 549 BC, effectively conquering the Median Empire and also inheriting Assyria. Cyrus later conquered Lydia and Babylon. Cyrus the Great created... [continue reading]

The city of Athens, Greece, with its famous Acropolis, has come to symbolize the whole of the country in the popular imagination; and not without cause. Athens, which began as a small, Mycenaen community (though still worthy of the massive Cyclopean stonework which characterized the great palaces of the Poloponnese) grew to become a city which, at its height, epitomized... [continue reading]

The word Agora (pronounced 'Ah-go-RAH’) is Greek for 'open place of assembly’ and, early in the history of Greece, designated the area in the city where free-born citizens could gather to hear civic announcements, muster for military campaigns or discuss politics. Later the Agora defined the open-air, often tented, marketplace of a city... [continue reading]