Series 2: The Greek Sun - Episodes 1-18

The Greek Counterattack begins. Athens and her allies form the Delian League. The power struggles of Xanthippus, Pausanias, Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles.

The final episode of the Persian War. The Athenians and the Spartans defeat the Persian invaders. Victory in Europe! Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/elgdVJht7As?si=rYin3NLUWloBn2Rx

The Greek fleet makes a last stand at sea against the Persian armada. The rise of Themistocles and Aristides. Xerxes flees Greece and leaves a

Xerxes comes to power in Persia. A huge army invades Greece. Themistocles rallies the Athenians. The Greek allies stand at Thermopylae. Leonidas and the 300

The Persian War as told in the Histories of Herodotus. Darius the Great invades Greece. Miltiades commands the Athenians and Plataeans on the plain of

The many lands of the ancient Greeks. Mystery religions, Greek sexuality and the hoplite warrior.

From Theseus to Solon and Pisistratus, the complex, chaotic history of Athens unfolds. Prelude to the Persian War.

Plutarch tells the story of Lycurgus and the Spartans. Laconia and Lacedaemon. Leonidas, Gorgo and the helots.

The rise of the Greek-city state or Polis. The city of Thebes and the tragedy of Oedipus. Previews of Greek military, political and philosophical

Life in Greece after the Bronze Age Collapse. Homer and Hesiod. The mystery religions.

Odysseus struggles to return to Ithaca after victory at Troy only to find his own home under siege.

Homer’s great epic poem about the rage of Achilles during the Trojan War.

Gods and men meet at a wedding. War breaks out and disaster follows as the political order of the Aegean Sea fragments in the Bronze

Gods, demi-gods and heroes.

Greek Mythology. Beginning with the creation of the world out of Chaos and down to the rebellion of the Olympian gods against the Titans.

The first truly Greek society arises on the Peloponnesian peninsula and spreads throughout the Aegean Sea.