Classics of Ancient Greek History (Five-Volume Set)

The History of the Peloponnesian War. From 431 to 404 BC, hundreds of city-states were drawn into an unprecedented "war of the Greek world," whose flames spread across nearly the entire Mediterranean civilization of the time. The two great military alliances, the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta and the Athenian Empire, were respectively dominant on land and at sea. They deployed all manner of stratagems and fought a long war of attrition. Just as both sides were gravely weakened, with their treasuries depleted and armies exhausted, the watchful Persians took the opportunity to intervene, ultimately helping the Spartans defeat the Athenians and destroy the once-mighty Athenian maritime empire. The war profoundly shook the politics of the Greek states, devastated their economies, and exerted a major, lasting influence on Greek thought and culture, as well as the international situation across the Mediterranean world.

Thucydides, a historian who witnessed the war firsthand, recorded its major events with an objective, composed manner, vivid and forceful historical prose, and concise, flowing language, covering the conflict through 411 BC. He portrayed the grand scale of land and sea battles and the brutal intensity of factional struggles, while also aptly describing the subtle shifts in people's thoughts and feelings during the war. This work is a cultural gem from the height of classical Greek civilization. For thousands of years, it has drawn countless readers to appreciate, savor, and ponder it...

The Histories. Herodotus's Histories is the first great historical work of the ancient West. Its main subject is the "investigation" of the history and culture of all the peoples of the known world at the time, and later scholars divided it into nine books. Using the relations between Greeks and foreigners as its central thread, the author describes the geography, peoples, economic life, political systems, history, customs, religious beliefs, and notable sites of Lydia, Media, Babylon, Egypt, Persia, India, Scythia, Libya, and the Greek regions around the Aegean. He then focuses on the ancient "world war," the Greco-Persian Wars, recounting the conflict from its outbreak through the Battle of Marathon and the naval Battle of Salamis, to its conclusion at the battles of Plataea and Mycale.

Herodotus was a master storyteller, skilled at handling all kinds of sources. His work is wide-ranging and abundant in content, with concise, elegant prose rich in charm. It vividly depicts the relations and lives of the many ancient countries, regions, and peoples, and preserves a wealth of valuable material on history, geography, anthropology, ethnology, mythology, religion, geology, and biology. It is like a comprehensive gazetteer and encyclopedia of the ancient world.

Hellenica, by the ancient Greek historian Xenophon, is a chronological history of a specific period, covering nearly half a century of Greek history from the autumn of 411 BC to the summer of 362 BC. Its first two books continue Thucydides' unfinished History of the Peloponnesian War, while the remaining five recount major historical events including the formation of the anti-Spartan alliance, the Corinthian War, the rise of Thebes, the King's Peace, and the Battle of Mantinea. The work reflects the Greek world shifting from order to disorder, as well as the emergence and early development of the crisis in the city-state system. Hellenica is Xenophon's longest and most important