21 Primary Sources: Ancient Persia and Greece
Primary Sources
Persia
Cyrus (b.580-r.560/59-529 BCE,)
Cylinder Recording Conquest of Babylon (mid 6th Cent. BCE)
The Decree of Return for the Jews, 539 BCE
Herodotus, Histories
On the Customs of the Persians
Queen Tomyris of the Massagetai and the Defeat of the Persians under Cyrus
The Satrap System under Darius the Great
Greek Reports of Babylonia, Chaldea, and Assyria
Accounts of Persian “Despotism” and Law c. 430-300 BCE
Menok I Khrat (Zoroastrian text), The Crossing of the Cinvat Bridge and the Roads to Heaven and Hell
Appian, et al: Mithridates & The Roman Conquests in the East, 90-61 BCE
Greece
Greek Politics and War
The Gortyn Code, selections
Cyrene, primary sources on founding of the colony
Herodotus, Histories, excerpt on the Battle of Marathon
Solon, selected fragments from political poems
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Tyrants, primary sources documents
Xenophon, Hellenica,
Xenophon on the Spartan Constitution
Justin, on the beginning of the reign of Philip II of Macedon
Greek Culture, Society, and Philosophy
The Lot of the Hellenic Woman c. 700-300 BCE
Aristophanes, excerpt from Clouds, making fun of Socrates
Aristophanes, Lysistrata (excerpts)[site includes ads]
Sappho, Poems
Diogenes Laertius, Life of Hipparchia
Euripides, The Bacchae, excerpt on Dionysius and the Bacchae
Plato, The Republic, Allegory of the Cave
Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus
