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Peloponnesian War

(Encyclopedia)Peloponnesian War pĕlˈəpənēˈzhən [key], 431–404 b.c., decisive struggle in ancient Greece between Athens and Sparta. It ruined Athens, at least for a time. The rivalry between Athens' maritim...

Agathon

(Encyclopedia)Agathon ăgˈəthŏn [key], c.450–c.400 b.c., Athenian tragedian. Plato's Symposium has as its scene the celebration of Agathon's first dramatic victory. Less than 40 lines of his work survive. ...

Cleon

(Encyclopedia)Cleon klēˈən [key], d. 422 b.c., Athenian political leader. The son of a tanner, he had little education; nevertheless, he was a gifted speaker. He began his political career with a series of relen...

Aesop

(Encyclopedia)Aesop ēˈsəp, ēˈsŏp [key], legendary Greek fabulist. According to Herodotus, he was a slave who lived in Samos in the 6th cent. b.c. and eventually was freed by his master. Other accounts associa...

Eupolis

(Encyclopedia)Eupolis yo͞oˈpəlĭs [key], fl. 430–411 b.c., Athenian comic poet. He seems to have collaborated with Aristophanes, whom he also attacked; another of his victims was Alcibiades. His plays, satiric...

Tyrtaeus

(Encyclopedia)Tyrtaeus tərtēˈəs [key], fl. 7th cent. b.c. at Sparta, Greek elegiac poet. Fragments of his martial elegies in Dorian Greek, which were written to spur Spartan soldiers to victory, are extant. An ...

Aristophanes

(Encyclopedia)Aristophanes ărˌĭstŏfˈənēz [key], c.448 b.c.–c.388 b.c., Greek playwright, Athenian comic poet, greatest of the ancient writers of comedy. His plays, the only full extant samples of the Greek...

Crates

(Encyclopedia)Crates krāˈtēz [key], fl. 449 b.c., Athenian comic dramatist. He is said to have introduced into comedy themes other than those of personal satire, and he was one of the first to show the comic pos...

Constitution of Athens

(Encyclopedia)Constitution of Athens, treatise by Aristotle or a member of his school, written in the late 4th cent. b.c. It was lost until discovered on Egyptian papyrus in 1890. It is a history of the Athenian go...

Nicias

(Encyclopedia)Nicias nīˈsēəs, nĭshˈēəs [key], d. 413 b.c., Athenian political leader and general. After Pericles' death he emerged as the primary rival of Cleon and his war party. He was a moderate democrat...