Professor Brunt was Camden Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford until 1982. This book contains a selection of his writings on Greek history and thought, both some previously published as papers in journals and some new.

Subjects covered include Greek political history of the fifth century BC and ancient historiography - including an introduction to Thucydides designed for the more general reader, to which the author has now annexed a new study of Thucydides' funeral speech. Four essays concern the relationship between Greek philosophical thinking and social and political conditions, and of these, three, which constitute about a third of the volume, are new. Two examine the extent to which Plato and his pupils sought, or were able, to make any impact on the contemporary world, and the practicality of the model city in Plato's Laws; the third discusses Aristotle's theory of slavery in relation to the actual Greek institution and to other attempts to justify slavery as well as in the context of Aristotle's own ethical doctrines.