From the palaces of Bronze Age Crete to a modern nation forged in revolution: the complete story of Greece in one illustrated volume.
Before there were nations, there was Hellas: a scatter of fiercely independent city-states that shared a language, a pantheon of gods, and almost nothing else, yet somehow produced democracy, tragedy, philosophy, and an idea of the examined life that the world never let go of.
HELLAS follows that thread through the Minoans and Mycenaeans, the Dark Age, the rise of the city-states, the Persian Wars, the flowering and unraveling of Athenian democracy, the conquests of Alexander and the long Hellenistic afterglow. It carries on through Roman Greece, the eleven centuries of Byzantium, the fall of Constantinople, four centuries under Ottoman rule, the War of Independence, and a turbulent twentieth century that tested the nation nearly to breaking.
You will meet Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Justinian and the klephts of the mountains, along with the queens, priestesses and ordinary people history nearly forgot. Later Parts turn to daily life, cities and monuments, colonies, coinage, warfare, royal marriages, famous places and the mythology that shaped how the Greeks understood fate.
Every chapter ends with The Historian's Verdict, a clear look at what the evidence proves, what it suggests and what remains unknown. Three Cultural Interludes, five appendices (rulers, timeline, sources, glossary and a cast of characters) and 135 illustrations complete the volume.
If you enjoyed SPQR, HELLAS continues the series.
