Quotes from Roderick Beaton

Pericles was among its victims. It was the first pandemic in recorded history. Thucydides, who himself became infected

Even Bohemond, the son of Robert Guiscard, who had fought against Byzantium before

and would again, found it expedient to comply.

The Turkish commanders agreed to surrender in return for a guarantee of safety, signed by Alexios himself

Many of the most characteristic Macedonian names are transparently formed from Greek words.

Philip ('Horse-Loving'), Cleopatra ('Father's Fame'), Ptolemy ('Warlike

the highest levels of Macedonian society were thoroughly Greek-speaking by the mid-fourth century BCE.

something the Byzantines had never managed to do.

In the years 416 and 415 BCE, Athens had recovered sufficiently to embark on two of the most notorious episodes of the war

episodes of the war

Of the Melian population the Athenians executed all the grown men

Macedonian centres of population began to look like Greek cities.

into their hands and enslaved the children and women.

it has been estimated that the Iliad would have taken three full days to perform before an audience

The fate of Melos was by no means the only atrocity recorded by Thucydides

Modern historians regularly use the word empire to describe this extension of Athenian power during the fifth century

Now an empty shell, after its heart was blown out by a Venetian cannonball in 1687

Alternatively, it may be that a form of early Indo-European arrived with the first farmers

Socrates had been born in Athens in 469 BCE. His career would span the entire second half of the century

Greek slowly emerged—distinct from others of the Indo-European group and incorporating elements

There is something almost sacred about the bond that unites these troops

the distant origin of the Greek language may reach all the way back to the beginning of the period that we call the Neolithic

What language the people here speak, or what name they give to the place, will not be recorded for posterity.

For Socrates, the goal of all human beings was arete.