Who or what is referred to do by the term "ancient Greek"? A person from the Archaic period? The war hero celebrated by Homer? Or the fourth century BC "political animal" described by Aristotle? This work explores what it meant to be Greek during the classical period of Greek civilization. It offers portraits of typical Greek personages from regions such as Athens, Sparta, Arcadia, Thessaly, Epirus, the city-states of Asia Minor and the colonies of the Black Sea, southern Italy and Sicily. Looking at the citizen, the religious believer, the soldier, the servant, the peasant and others, the text analyzes what - in relationships with the divine, with nature, with others and with the self - made the Greek "different" in ways of acting, thinking and feeling.

Translated by: Charles Lambert, Teresa Lavender Fagan