Profiles

The legendary poet credited with the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundation stones of Greek literature and education.

“Sing, goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus.”

The most celebrated female poet of antiquity, whose intense and personal poems of love survive only in fragments but still speak powerfully today.

“I tell you, someone will remember us in time to come.”

A philosopher and mystic who founded a community at Croton devoted to the idea that numbers lie at the heart of reality.

“All things are numbers.”

The Spartan king who led a small Greek force against the vast Persian army of Xerxes at Thermopylae and died fighting to the last.

“Come and take them.”

The far-sighted Athenian who built the fleet that saved Greece and masterminded the victory over Persia at Salamis.

“Strike, but hear me.”

The most successful tragedian of Classical Athens, author of Oedipus the King and Antigone, who won more first prizes than any rival.

“Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man.”

The leading statesman of Athens in its Golden Age, who championed democracy, rebuilt the Acropolis and led the city into the Peloponnesian War.

“Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people.”

Called the Father of History by Cicero, Herodotus travelled widely and wrote the Histories, a sweeping account of the Persian Wars and the peoples of the known world.

“So that human achievements may not be forgotten in time, and great and marvellous deeds may not be without their glory.”

Considered the founder of Western philosophy, Socrates wrote nothing himself, but spent his life questioning his fellow Athenians in the agora and was executed for his beliefs.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

An Athenian general turned historian, whose rigorous account of the Peloponnesian War set a new standard for history based on evidence.

“I have written my work not as an essay to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.”

Known as the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates taught that diseases have natural causes and founded a famous school of medicine on the island of Kos.

“Life is short, the art long.”

Student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, Plato founded the Academy and wrote dialogues that still shape how we think about justice, knowledge and the soul.

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”

Plato’s greatest student and tutor to Alexander the Great, Aristotle wrote on almost every field of knowledge, from logic and biology to ethics, politics and poetry.

“All men by nature desire to know.”

King of Macedon at twenty, Alexander conquered the Persian Empire and marched as far as India without losing a battle, opening the Hellenistic age.

“I would rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent than in the extent of my power.”

The greatest mathematician of antiquity and an ingenious engineer, who estimated pi, explained the lever and buoyancy, and defended Syracuse against Rome.

“Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth.”

A brilliant teacher of mathematics, astronomy and philosophy in Roman Alexandria, whose murder by a Christian mob made her a lasting symbol of free thought.

“She far surpassed all the philosophers of her own time.”