Just across the water, off the coast of the island of Salamis, the Athenian navy and its allies congregated. Salamis was perhaps the only place off Greece where the Persians could not make use of ...

Thus, they were well aware that the Venetian navy underpinned that city’s republican institutions, much as the Athenian navy had protected rather than threatened the city’s democracy ...

By the 450s, Athens' successor cities and regions were essentially part of an empire. In the Delian League, Athens had the strongest navy which made it without question the strongest city state. As a ...

Once the Spartan force at Thermopylae had been defeated, his route by land to Athens was virtually undefended. Attica was seized by panic. The Athenians sought the wisdom of the Oracle of Delphi.

Unlike Athens to the north, Sparta was famed for its austerity—its “spartan” character—was, and is, proverbial. A state run by an inflexible military regime, whose people existed almost ...