Quotes from Roderick Beaton

The war lasted ten years, so the story goes.

as witness the story of Oedipus, hounded by the gods for marrying his mother, even in ignorance.

Alexander had given orders for this contingent to be surrounded and 'butchered to a man'.

Alexandrian courtiers took the incestuous royal marriage of Ptolemy Philadelphus ('Sibling-Loving') in their stride.

Heraclius entered Jerusalem on 21 March 630, at the head of a solemn procession

The city is known to the Hittites as Millawanda and will later enter Greek history under the name Miletus.

The water supply was poor and food scarce unless you could afford exorbitant prices.

couple of hundred miles to the north and slightly to the west, the strait known as the Dardanelles

True, the same visitor concedes, in the city you will also 'see the most beautiful sights on earth'

or Hellespont, is beginning to catch the growing light.

the stadium at Olympia was enlarged in the fifth century BCE, it could accommodate a crowd of forty thousand

To make an example of them, Alexander had them sent back to Macedonia in chains

a sense Heraclius was the last emperor to rule over the people who still called themselves 'Romans'.

One ethnos that never did adopt the polis system was Macedonia.

of member-states from enlisting in foreign armies.

a new centre of power and wealth has been making its mark farther north, and closer to the Aegean

THE EYES OF THE UNIVERSE' 630–1018

This is the kingdom of the Hittites.

More Greeks actually fought on the Persian side against him than under his banner.

were in charge and known as the Antigonids.

This meant there was nothing the Spartans could do to prevent their enemies from being supplied by sea.

a consequence of overcrowding inside the city during the summer heat that plague broke out in 430 BCE.

Constantinople was now the largest and richest city in Europe

The Greek inhabitants are very rich in gold and precious stones