Aeschylus (?525–456 BCE): Athenian tragic dramatist, whose works include the Oresteia, Seven Against Thebes and Suppliants
Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE): Macedonian king, who conquered the Persian empire and advanced through much of Central Asia and northern India before dying of a fever at Babylon, leaving his generals to fight over his kingdom; his death marks the beginning of the Hellenistic Age
Antigone: Titular character of the tragedy Antigone by Sophocles (see below), who prioritizes her duty to bury her brother Polyneices over the orders of her uncle Creon, the king of Thebes; having been sentenced to be buried alive, she commits suicide before Creon’s attempt to commute the sentence reaches her
Aristophanes (d. 386 BCE): Athenian comic dramatist, whose works, including the Clouds, Knights and Lysistrata, explore tensions in Athenian democratic practice and society
Aristotle (384–322 BCE): Macedonian philosopher and student of Plato (see below), who established his own school at the Lyceum in Athens and produced many works, among which the Politics and Nicomachean Ethics hold particular importance in political thought
Athens: Greek polis located in Attica, noted for its democratic institutions, its wealth and its philosophical schools; major actor in both the Persian Wars (see below) and the Peloponnesian War (see below)
Augustus Caesar: see Octavian, below
Brutus, Marcus Junius (?85–42 BCE): Roman aristocrat and leader, along with Cassius (see below), of the conspiracy against Julius Caesar (see below); after the assassination, he gathered an army in Greece with the other conspirators and committed suicide after his defeat at the battle of Philippi; an ancestor of the same name ejected the last Roman king from power, thus initiating the republican period of Roman politics
Caesar, Julius (100–44 BCE): Roman general, who conquered Gaul (modern-day France) and fought a civil war against the optimates, the more aristocratic faction of the Senate, led by Pompey; he was victorious in this war, but his ambition alienated the other senators, and he was assassinated on the Ides of March in 44 BCE
Cassius (?80–42 BCE): Roman aristocrat and leader, along with Marcus Junius Brutus (see above), of the conspiracy against Julius Caesar (see above); after the assassination, he gathered an army in Greece with the other conspirators, and committed suicide after his defeat at the battle of Philippi
Chrysippus (280–207 BCE): Stoic philosopher, who became the head of the Stoa, or Stoic school, in 232 BCE; heavily influenced by the thought of Zeno of Citium (see below), he wrote extensively and developed Stoic thought
Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106–43 BCE): Roman orator and politician, who was both a major political figure of the late Roman republic and the author of various philosophical writings, including De Oratore, De Re Publica and De Officiis; a noted supporter of the Senate, he was proscribed and executed during the instability that followed the assassination of Julius Caesar (see above)
Cleisthenes (late 6th c. BCE): Athenian politician, who made popular reforms, including the reorganization of the Athenian people into political units called demes and the creation of ostracism, which helped to establish the institutions of Athenian democracy
Cleon (d. 422 BCE): Athenian politician, who came from a wealthy but non-aristocratic family; he was a strong supporter of the Athenian multitude’s political power and concerns, participated as both a politician and general in the Athenian decisions during the Peloponnesian War (see below), and was criticized for his methods and outlook by Thucydides and Aristophanes
Diogenes the Cynic (Diogenes of Sinope) (?412–324 BCE): Cynic philosopher, who lived much of his life in Athens and strove to live his life according to nature; he thus owned almost no property or possessions, and showed no shame at performing all acts publicly, including those normally considered private
Diogenes of Oenoanda (2nd c. CE): Author of an Epicurean inscription on a portico in Lycia that contains selections from the works of Epicurus (see below) and other Epicurean maxims, as well as the author’s own writings
Ephialtes (5th c. BCE): Athenian politician and reformer, who initiated reforms to increase the power of the people; he was supported by Pericles (see below) and other democratic leaders, but the contentiousness of his policies led to his eventual murder
Epictetus (mid 1st–2nd c. CE): Stoic philosopher and former slave; he was taught by Musonius Rufus (see below) and heavily influenced by the thought of Chrysippus (see above), and his writings, including Discourses and the Manual, influenced in turn the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (see below)
Epicurus (341–270 BCE): Founder of Epicureanism, which generally holds, among other doctrines, that the soul is not immortal, that all matter is composed of an infinite arrangement of atoms and that pleasure, particularly the pleasure of a quiet life with friends, is the proper end of life
Euripides (?484–406 BCE): Athenian tragic dramatist, whose works include Alcestis, Medea and Trojan Women; although he lived most of his life at Athens, he eventually left the city and spent the end of his life writing at the court of the Macedonian king Archelaus
Herodotus (c. 484–430 BCE): Greek historian, originally from Halicarnassus, whose Histories offers a thorough account of the wars between the Greek cities and the Persian empire; in this account, he examines, in part, the differences between the political constitutions of the Greeks and the Persians, frequently contrasting Greek freedom with Persian despotism
Hesiod (8th–7th c. BCE): Early Greek poet, whose surviving works, including the Theogony and Works and Days, offer a rare perspective on early Greek mythology, culture and values
Lycurgus (?11th–7th c. BCE): Legendary founder and lawgiver of Sparta, who is said to have instituted both the Spartan way of life and the mixed Spartan constitution, which included two kings, a council, or gerousia (see above), and an assembly
Marcus Aurelius (121–80 CE): Roman emperor, who was the successor to Antoninus Pius and the last of the subsequently named ‘Five Good Emperors’; heavily influenced by his tutors and the works of Epictetus (see above), he lived both by Stoic and by Platonic precepts and produced his own philosophical Meditations
Musonius Rufus (?30–101 CE): Stoic philosopher and Roman equestrian, who was a teacher of Epictetus (see above); his writings survive largely as brief sayings and dialogues
Nero (37–68 CE): Roman emperor and noted patron of the arts, whose reign began well, but descended into vice and disorder; his notorious behaviour, including the assassination of his mother and the ordering of his adviser Seneca (see below) to commit suicide, led the Senate eventually to resist him, leading to his own suicide
Octavian (63 BCE–14 CE): Heir of Julius Caesar (see above) and first emperor of Rome; following his victories in civil wars, first against the assassins of Julius Caesar and then against Mark Antony, the Senate named him princeps and gave him the title Augustus
Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE): War primarily between alliances led by Athens (see above) and Sparta (see below) respectively; Athenian military superiority on the sea and Spartan military superiority on land created a long stalemate, which eventually concluded with an Athenian defeat
Pericles (495–429 BCE): Athenian politician, who led Athens both before and during its early involvement in the Peloponnesian War (see above); his democratic support gave him a near-dominant position in Athenian politics – although this did not prevent him from being tried for embezzlement – and he remained influential until his death from the plague that struck Athens in the early 420s BCE
Persian Wars (490, 480–479 BCE): Refers to the two failed attempts of the Persian empire, led by the emperors Darius and Xerxes, to conquer mainland Greece; many of the Greek poleis, most notably Sparta (see below) and Athens (see above), allied to successfully repel these invasions
Plato (424–348 BCE): Athenian philosopher, student of Socrates (see below) and founder of the Academy, whose writings take the form of dialogues, many of which include Socrates as a main speaker; among the most politically significant of these are the Apology of Socrates, Crito, Gorgias, Republic, Statesman and Laws
Plutarch (?50–120 CE): Greek philosopher and biographer, whose writings include moral treatises, rhetorical works and, most famously, his Parallel Lives, a series of biographies that frequently pairs Roman and Greek historical figures
Polybius (?200–118 BCE): Greek politician and historian, sent from the Achaean League to Rome as a hostage; he became a close friend of Scipio Aemilianus (see below) and wrote his Histories in order to explain Rome’s swift rise to power
Rome: Capital of the Roman republic and subsequent Roman empire, located in central Italy, and noted for martial and dutiful culture; through its military power and inclusive institution of citizenship, it maintained political control of the lands around the Mediterranean Sea for several centuries
Scipio Aemilianus (?185–129 BCE): Roman politician and general, who captured Carthage in 146 BCE and was a dominant conservative presence in the Roman politics of his period; he was a student and close friend of Polybius (see above), and he appears posthumously as an ideal Roman statesman in the philosophical writings of Cicero (see above)
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (?1–65 CE): Stoic philosopher, who served first as tutor, then as adviser to the Roman emperor Nero, until ordered by the emperor to commit suicide; his writings include both dramas and various ethical treatises outlining Stoic thought
Socrates (469–399 BCE): Athenian philosopher, who frequently challenged his fellow Athenians on their moral beliefs and was tried and condemned to death by the Athenian democracy; his thought survives primarily in the writings of his followers Plato (see above) and Xenophon (see below)
Solon (c. 630–c. 560 BCE): Athenian politician, lawgiver and poet, who made several political reforms, including debt-forgiveness and a reorganization of political offices, which have led many to regard him as a founder of the Athenian democracy, or at least of its precursor institutions
Sophocles (?496–406 BCE): Athenian tragic dramatist, whose plays include Oedipus Turannos, Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus; he was additionally an active participant in Athenian political life, serving in multiple public offices
Sparta: Greek polis located in the Peloponnesus, famous in antiquity for its austere, martial culture, its mixed constitution and its exploitation of local populations as helot serfs; long-time rival of Athens (see above), which it fought during the Peloponnesian War (see above)
Tacitus, Publius Cornelius (?55–118 CE): Roman historian, who acerbically catalogued the history of the early Roman empire in his Histories and Annals, and who denounced both the vices of the earlier emperors and the servility of the Senate in the face of these vices
Thucydides (?460–400 BCE): Athenian politician and historian, who served as an Athenian general during the Peloponnesian War (see above) and authoritatively documented this war in his History, in which he examines both the causes of the war and the conduct of the belligerent parties
Xenophon (430–354 BCE): Athenian soldier and follower of Socrates (see above), who spent much time away from the city, first as a mercenary commander in Persia and then in or near Sparta; among his many writings are the Anabasis, an account of his expedition in Persia, and Memorabilia, Apology and Symposium, which recount the conversations and speeches of Socrates
Zeno of Citium (The Stoic) (355–263 BCE): Founder of Stoicism, a philosophical school that generally holds, among other doctrines, that one should strive to live by nature, that virtue is the only good and that one should consider oneself a fellow citizen of the entire world community