This volume takes the reader back to the roots of European civilization. For the first time, it presents a collection of the lives of famous rulers from the lands of ancient Greece, Macedonia and Thrace who left an indelible mark on the course of world history, having had key positions on the crossroads between Europe and Asia, both by land and by sea. These strong personalities with their political ambitions, remarkable skills as diplomats and generals and personal dramas were among the founders of states which still exist today.
The volume includes, to mention just a few, the warrior Agamemnon, the wise Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus, Solon and Pericles of Athens, the powerful Thracian kings Sitalus and Kotis I, the Macedonian rulers Philip II and Alexander III who paved the way for a new epoch, and their political successors who fought the last battles against the victorious Roman Empire. The events will be followed in their interconnectedness from the time of the famous Trojan War in the 13th century B.C. to the conquest of the Balkan Peninsula beyond the Danube by the Emperor Trajan in 106 A.D. The readers will not only follow the course of the wars on these most ancient lands but will also meet with a magnificent, colourful ethnic world in which the peaceful co-existence of different cultural traditions was not so rare after all. For the first time in European and world history, this region saw the emergence of monarchy, democracy, oligarchy, tyranny and anarchy, which lived on and developed through the ages. The reader might find in himself and in his time many reflections from ancient personalities and events described in this book.
full-color throughout.
