Series 2: The Greek Sun

Introduction to Socrates and Plato and the tetralogies of dialogues. First Principles. Post-war Athens. Analysis of Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro.

Alcibiades finally comes to power. Lysander leads Sparta to victory. The long walls of Athens come tumbling down.

The mystery religions of Ancient Greece: Eleusis, Orphism and Christianity. From the Kykeon of Demeter to the Eucharist of Jesus.

The proud Athenians invade Sicily only to suffer inglorious defeat and annihilation. Nicias and Demosthenes executed. Alcibiades in exile.

One quarter of our food keeps us alive. The rest keeps doctors alive. Medical science in Classical Era Greece. The works of Hippocrates.

The Spartans surrender at Pylos. The rise and fall of Brasidas and Cleon. The Peace of Nicias.

All is the One. All is a perfect sphere of being, and we are all part of this One, as is all matter and all

Everywhere treachery, bloodshed, fury and destruction.

The playwrights Sophocles and Euripides. Focus of tragedy on the Trojan War and Heracles. The role of women in Greek tragedy. A review of Medea,

It begins at Epidamnus but only after conflicts at Potidaea and Plataea are all the cities of Greece brought into general warfare. The Plague of

Greek drama. Aeschylus and some of his plays: Agamemnon, The Persians and Prometheus Bound.

The Greek Counterattack begins. Athens and her allies form the Delian League. The power struggles of Xanthippus, Pausanias, Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles.

The final episode of the Persian War. The Athenians and the Spartans defeat the Persian invaders. Victory in Europe! Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/elgdVJht7As?si=rYin3NLUWloBn2Rx

The Greek fleet makes a last stand at sea against the Persian armada. The rise of Themistocles and Aristides. Xerxes flees Greece and leaves a

Xerxes comes to power in Persia. A huge army invades Greece. Themistocles rallies the Athenians. The Greek allies stand at Thermopylae. Leonidas and the 300

The Persian War as told in the Histories of Herodotus. Darius the Great invades Greece. Miltiades commands the Athenians and Plataeans on the plain of

The many lands of the ancient Greeks. Mystery religions, Greek sexuality and the hoplite warrior.

From Theseus to Solon and Pisistratus, the complex, chaotic history of Athens unfolds. Prelude to the Persian War.

Plutarch tells the story of Lycurgus and the Spartans. Laconia and Lacedaemon. Leonidas, Gorgo and the helots.

The rise of the Greek-city state or Polis. The city of Thebes and the tragedy of Oedipus. Previews of Greek military, political and philosophical

Life in Greece after the Bronze Age Collapse. Homer and Hesiod. The mystery religions.

Odysseus struggles to return to Ithaca after victory at Troy only to find his own home under siege.

Homer’s great epic poem about the rage of Achilles during the Trojan War.

Gods and men meet at a wedding. War breaks out and disaster follows as the political order of the Aegean Sea fragments in the Bronze