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Tyranny in ancient Greece was not a phenomenon limited to any particular period. Tyrants could be found in power throughout Greece, ruling poleis from the 7th century BC right through to the 2nd century BC, when Roman domination effectively put an end to this form of government throughout the Hellenistic world. That said, the heyday of tyranny was undoubtedly the 7th and 6th centuries BC, and it is in this period, known as the Age of Tyrants, that large numbers of tyrannies arose, particularly in the Peloponnese.

Any exploration of the lives of women in classical Athens has to take into consideration the legal framework which governed such matters as marriage, inheritance and basic rights within society, as well as the woman, herself, within the oikos. However, as a starting point, the simple issues relating to the day to day lives of the women in this period provide an initial understanding of how all of these other factors played a part in the overall pattern of life for an Athenian, upper class, woman.

The ancient Greeks were explorers in many ways. They traveled to new places, creating colonies in strange lands far from their original homes. They were survivors. They were honorable thieves. They used their cunning to explore the frontiers of philosophy and they wrested from the chaos of the surrounding wilderness the building blocks of civilization.

Ancient Greece and its mythology has fascinated people for thousands of years, and few elements have intrigued people quite like the Eleusinian Mysteries, which the Greeks believed transformed the initiates and gave them knowledge that eased both the living of life on earth and allayed fears of death, allowing an acceptance of their ultimate fate. The influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries was also far-reaching.

Magic - as opposed to religion, personal or otherwise - is a notoriously difficult concept to pin down. In ancient Greece, "magic was not distinct from religion, rather an unwelcome, improper expression of it." In other words, it's important not to think of it as a different definition of magic but to instead understand how the ancient Greeks believed certain aspects of magic functioned in their world.

Slavery was a universal and totally accepted feature of ancient Greek society, so much so that while the conditions under which slaves lived and worked varied considerably, many ordinary citizens kept at least one slave, often working alongside their owners, while larger commercial enterprises involved huge numbers, many of whom could rise to positions of authority and wealth. It was possible for some slaves to buy their freedom, while others lived and died in conditions of appalling brutality.

This book contains the daily life, culture, training, battles, history, and kings of the Spartan Empire. From the birth of their city to the end, the Spartans endured a history of violence and war. Similar to their stories, the traditional Spartan warrior also lived the daily life of a soldier. From the moment they were born and if they were allowed to live, they were trained and conditioned to be some of the most efficient and lethal killing machines. Dominating the land through some of the most famous battles of all time, the Spartans were a force to be reckoned with.

The Colossus of Rhodes, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Pharos of Alexandria, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis and the Great Pyramids at Giza; of the seven wonders of the ancient world, only the last one is still in existence. Yet, through this recording, it is possible to step back in time and experience the extravagant glory of these incredible feats of human construction.

Troy is unquestionably one of the most famous and legendary cities of antiquity, yet it is also the most mysterious. While ancient cities like Rome and Athens survived, and the destruction of others like Carthage and Pompeii were well documented, the fame of Troy rested entirely on Homer's epic poems, The Iliad & The Odyssey.

Odysseus is, without question, one of the most fascinating figures in classical mythology. Indeed, despite being an ancillary character in The Iliad, he was so beloved by ancient audiences that he warranted his own spin-off, The Odyssey. He was endemic throughout Greek thought and art. Unlike other notable figures of classical antiquity who were forgotten, Odysseus' fame endured through the Medieval and Renaissance eras.

The Peloponnesian War, as the great historian Thucydides wrote in the introduction to his eponymous book, which has become one of the greatest historical treatises of antiquity, was an event of such calamitous magnitude that Greece had never witnessed its like in all of recorded history. Not the Trojan War, not the Dorian Invasion, not even the recent Persian invasions could compare to the scale of the devastation that engulfed all of Greece for almost three decades, causing the deaths of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands.

Leading Athens for upwards of 40 years between the Second Persian War and the Peloponnesian War, Pericles has become an idealized figure over the last millennia, but he was a polarizing figure among his contemporaries. According to some, he was an honest and upstanding politician, while for others he was the lowest kind of demagogue. They thought he was a political opportunist whose ability to wriggle free of criticism was best summed up by the typically pithy comment of his rival Thucydides.

The Oracle of Delphi was one of the greatest religious institutions in Ancient Greece. It played a significant role not only in the formation and collective decisions of Hellenic localities and city-states but also in the personal lives of Greeks known and unknown. The site was dedicated to the god Apollo, and the Greeks believed the god spoke his oracles through his prophetess known as the Pythia.

The Greek god Hades is something of an enigma. On the one hand, people can view him through a lens that was a byproduct of the Christian tradition: as a terrifying lord of death seated upon his ebony throne, an unseen force of power moving through the world. Certainly, many of the ancient Greeks themselves saw the god in this light.

Zeus is a god of apparent paradox: sublimely regal yet ridiculously fickle, a giver of laws but a slave to his own passions, a being of incredible power who is desperate to possess that which he cannot have. As the leader of the Greek pantheon on Mount Olympus, Zeus was the god of kingship (and the associated elements of law, oaths, the state, and the protection of property) and the god of storms, controlling lightning, wind, and thunder.

While they are still well-known, the Olympic Games of Ancient Greece are more relevant today than most people know, and the ways in which athletic sports pervade contemporary culture is comparable only to the spirit of athleticism in Hellenic Greece. Today, a large section of the media industry is devoted exclusively to sports, and in some nations sports even figures as a critical component of their identity.

Over 2,300 years after their deaths, Plato and Aristotle remain the most influential ancient Greek philosophers and arguably the greatest icons of ancient thought. Their legacies expanded rapidly and extensively across the ancient world, helped in part by the fact Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great. Both philosophers were recognized as celebrated intellectual forces during all of antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Greek mythology is a collection of stories handed down from generation to generation throughout Greece. Starting in ancient Greece, these stories were of ancient deities that had a hand in everyday concepts, such as the rising and setting of the sun, the different gods and their responsibilities, and the many tales of heroes and villains. Greek mythology is a very important part of ancient culture. This book is a collection of the very best Greek mythological tales, along with some information about this history of Greek mythology.

Although it is no longer quite as well remembered as it was thousands of years ago, one of the most important cities in the ancient world was Ephesus, a city that dates back nearly 3,000 years and can lay claim to the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Moreover, while Sparta and Athens were often the centers of power in ancient Greece, Ephesus, located in present-day Turkey on the coast of Ionia, was an instrumental part of the Ionian League.

We begin with Book V, Odysseus weeping on Calyspo's Island, and follow his adventures through to his return to Ithaca and Penelope. This version of Homer's Odyssey was created over a 14-year period of performing the great epic. When it came time to record this version for audiobook, I realized there was no text: It lived in memory. So I had to write out a 38-page poem from memory. Then I used that text as a performance script and while reading it found myself constantly editing as my spoken word insisted on changes that sharpened the sound.