The political leaders, writers, artists, and philosophers of ancient Greece transformed a small group of city-states into a pan-Mediterranean cultural heritage, whose influence can still be observed everywhere today. Who were these people, what do we know about their lives, and how did they interact with each other? In this original approach to Greek history, David Stuttard combines the lives of fifty significant figures from the Greek world into a continuous, chronologically organized narrative, from the first tyrants, Peisistratos and Polycrates, through the early expressions of democracy under Cleisthenes, to the rise of Macedonia under Philip II and Alexander the Great, and the ultimate decline of the Greek world with the rise of Rome. It includes 29 illustrations, 25 of which are in color.