Ancient Greece

c. 1,600–146 BCE

Ancient Greece stretches from the early Aegean cultures of the Bronze Age to Rome’s conquest of Greece in 146 BC. It includes Minoan Crete, Mycenaean palace society, the Greek Dark Ages, the rise of the polis, the Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian War, Macedonian expansion, and the Hellenistic kingdoms. The period shaped philosophy, drama, warfare, politics, myth, art, and ideas of citizenship across the Mediterranean world.

Its importance comes from the tension between local city-state identity and wider Greek culture. Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Corinth, Macedon, and the island and coastal cities all offer different versions of Greek life. The period moves between mythic memory, hoplite warfare, naval power, democracy, oligarchy, empire, slavery, colonisation, intellectual life, and conquest.

Ancient Greece is a major setting for historical novels because it gives writers both mythic scale and sharply political human conflict. Mary Renault’s Greek novels, Christian Cameron’s Long War books, Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire, Madeline Miller’s mythic retellings, Natalie Haynes’s Trojan works, and Conn Iggulden’s Athenian series all approach the Greek world from different angles. A book list for this period can move from Troy and Sparta to Athens, Persia, Macedon, Alexander, and the successor kingdoms.

Related people for Ancient Greece

Achilles Aeneas Aeschylus526 BCE–457 BCE Agamemnon Alcibiades Alexander of Lyncestisc. 5th century BCE–331 BCE Alexander the Great357 BCE–324 BCE Andromache Antigonus I Monophthalmus383 BCE–302 BCE Antipater398 BCE–320 BCE Antipater of Sidonc. 3rd century BCE–c. 2nd century BCE Apollonius of Rhodes296 BCE–216 BCE Ariadne Aristides541 BCE–468 BCE Aristophanes446 BCE–386 BCE Aristotle385 BCE–323 BCE Arrianc. 85–90 AD – c. 160 Atossa550–475 BCE Augustus64 BCE–14 Bagoasc. 5th century BCE–c. 4th century BCE Boudica30–61 Briseis Cassander356 BCE–297 BCE Cassandra Cimonc. 510–450 BCE Circe Cleopatra70 BCE–31 BCE Cyrus the Younger Darius Ic. 550–486 BCE Darius III381 BCE–331 BCE Demosthenes Diodorus Siculus Dion of Syracuse410 BCE–355 BCE Dionysius II of Syracuse398 BCE–344 BCE Dionysus Electra Euripidesc. 480s BCE–c. 400s BCE Eurydice II of Macedon337 BCE–318 BCE Galatea Hector Hecuba Helen of Troy Hephaestion357 BCE–325 BCE Hephaestus Herodotus485 BCE–426 BCE Hesiodborn 777 BCE Hipparchusc. 7th century BCE–515 BCE Homerc. 10th century BCE–c. 9th century BCE Icarus Io Jason Julius Caesar101 BCE–45 BCE Leonidas Idied 481 BCE Lysanderd. 395 BCE Mardoniusc. 7th century BCE–480 BCE Medea1987–2006 Menelaus Miltiades555 BCE–490 BCE Nero37–68 Nestor Nicias Odysseus Olympias376 BCE–317 BCE Orestes Ovid44 BCE–17 Paris Parmenion401 BCE–330 BCE Patroclus Pausanias Penelope Perdiccas366 BCE–322 BCE Periclesc. 495–429 BCE Phidias Philip III of Macedon360 BCE–318 BCE Philip II of Macedonc. 382–336 BCE Philip V of Macedon238–179 BCE Platoc. 420s BCE–c. 340s BCE Plautus1779–1860 Plutarch Polycrates575 BCE–523 BCE Polynices Priam Prometheus Ptolemy I Soterc. 360s BCE–c. 280s BCE Pygmalion Pythagorasc. 6th century BCE–c. 490s BCE Roxana348 BCE–311 BCE Sapphoc. 7th century BCE–571 BCE Simonides of Ceos557 BCE–469 BCE Socrates471 BCE–400 BCE Solon Sophocles497 BCE–407 BCE Telemachus Terence Themistoclesc. 524–c. 459 BCE Theseus1945–2026 Thetis Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin1766–1841 Thrasybulusc. 440s BCE–390 BCE Thucydidesc. 460s BCE–396 BCE Titus Quinctius Flamininus230 BCE–175 BCE Tomyris Virgil71 BCE–20 BCE Xanthippus526 BCE–476 BCE Xenophon431 BCE–355 BCE Xerxes I520 BCE–466 BCE Zeus

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