Riders are not just equestrians: the whole estate was called in Athens - those who had enough money to keep a war horse. These were wealthy people, had small estates outside the city, lived on their income, and wanted Athens to be a peaceful, closed agricultural state. Poet ...

In Athens, Socrates was the most famous philosopher. Then he paid for his philosophy with his life: he was brought to trial and executed precisely because he questioned too much, decomposed (as if) mores and thereby weakened the state. But this was still a long way off: at first he was only brought to ...

This is a tragedy with a happy ending. At drama competitions in Athens, there was a custom: each poet presented a “trilogy”, three tragedies, sometimes even picking up each other on topics (like Aeschylus), and after them, to defuse a gloomy mood, a “satire drama”, where the characters and action were also ...

In Greece, there were many myths about the exploits of individual heroes, but only four were about such exploits that the heroes from different parts of the country united on. The last was the Trojan War; penultimate - the campaign of the Seven against Thebes; before this - the Calydonian hunt for a giant boar, led by the hero Meleager; ...

There were three famous writers of the tragedies in Athens: the eldest - Aeschylus, the middle - Sophocles and the youngest - Euripides. Aeschylus was mighty and majestic, Sophocles is clear and harmonious, Euripides is tense and paradoxical. Once watching, the Athenian audience for a long time could not forget how his Fedra was tormented by a passion for stepson, and ...

The action takes place on the island of Lesbos, well-known to the Greeks, in the Aegean Sea, and not even on the whole island, but in only one village on its outskirts. Two shepherds lived there, one goat-guard, another sheep-breeder, one slave, the other free. Once a goat security guard saw: a goat feeds him tossed up a child - a boy, ...

In Athens they said: "Above all in human life is the law, and the unwritten law is higher than the written." The unwritten law is eternal, it is given by nature, all human society rests on it: it orders to honor the gods, to love relatives, to pity the weak. The written law - in each state, it is established by people, it ...

I. Prometheus and Zeus Chained to the rocks of the Caucasus, the titan Prometheus asks Zeus to free him. But no, the punishment is still not enough: after all, Prometheus not only stole Zeves the fire and gave it to people, but also (worst) created a woman! Therefore, the heavy chains and the eagle daily devouring the Promethean liver, ...

In ancient Athens, King Theseus ruled. Like Hercules, he had two fathers - the earthly king Aegean, and the heavenly god Poseidon. He made his main feat on the island of Crete: he killed the monstrous Minotaur in the maze and freed Athens from tribute to him. The Cretan princess Ariadne was his assistant: she gave him ...

Everyone knows: Greek mythology is, first of all, a lot of names. This is for us; and for the Greeks themselves there were even more. Almost every town or village had its own local deities; and even about those that were common, in each city they spoke in their own way. Who lived all his life in one place and not much ...

"Trahinyanki" means "girls from the city of Trakhina." Trakhin (“rocky”) is a small town in the remote mountainous outskirts of Greece, under Mount Eta, not far from the glorious Thermopyll Gorge. He only knows that he lived in his last years the greatest of Greek heroes - Hercules, son of Zeus. On the ...

The Trojan War was started by the gods in order to end the time of heroes and the present, human, iron age. Who did not die at the walls of Troy, he had to die on the way back. Most of the surviving Greek leaders sailed to their homeland, as they sailed to Troy - a general fleet through the Aegean Sea....

There is a myth about the hero Jason, the leader of the Argonauts. He was the hereditary king of the city of Iolka in Northern Greece, but his elder relative, the imperious Pelius, seized power in the city, and in order to return it, Jason had to accomplish a feat: with his heroes-friends on the ship "Argo" swim to the eastern edge of the earth and there , ...

Menippus tells the Friend about his extraordinary journey, striking the interlocutor with accurate data on the distance from the Earth to the Moon, to the Sun and, finally, to the very sky - the abode of the gods of the Olympians. It turns out that Menippus only returned to Earth today; he was visiting Zeus. A friend doubts: is it really Menippus? ...