Robert Garland Audio & Video

The past truly comes alive as you take a series of imaginative leaps into the world of history's anonymous citizens....

In the 1st century B.C., Rome's matchless armies consolidated control over the entire Mediterranean world, and Greece lay vanquished along with scores of other formerly independent lands—yet the Roman poet Horace saw something special in Greece when he wrote "Greece, the captive, made her savage victor captive."

The ancient Greeks, more than any other early culture, have given us the template for Western civilization, as seen in their superlative achievements in the fields of architecture, political theory, philosophy, science, and art - not the least of which are their inventions of democracy and drama.

Macedonia, 336 B.C.E. - King Philip II is murdered under mysterious circumstances amid a cloud of intrigue.

Most classical authors and modern historians depict the ancient Greek world as essentially stable and even static, once the so-called colonization movement came to an end.

Roughly 2,500 years ago, the Athenian people established a radical democracy in which power derived from the votes of everyday citizens.