Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens Quotes

“Philip had arguably created the first nation-state in Europe, with a population of perhaps a million. He would next create Europe’s first empire.”
― Robin Waterfield, Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens: A History of Ancient Greece

“The rich wanted to be kaloi k’agathoi, the beautiful and the good—so let them use their graces in the service of the democracy”
― Robin Waterfield, Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens: A History of Ancient Greece

“In thanks for their survival, the Rhodians erected a huge bronze statue of Helios—the Sun god, their patron deity—at the entrance to their harbor. With a height of thirty meters (a hundred feet), the Colossus of Rhodes, as it is known, was considered one of the wonders of the world—this was an age that admired gigantism—but it snapped at the knees and fell during an earthquake in 227.”
― Robin Waterfield, Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens: A History of Ancient Greece

“Ptolemy II’s far-famed parade, held in Alexandria perhaps in 278, included eighty thousand soldiers; even Adolf Hitler’s fiftieth birthday in 1939 was celebrated by only fifty thousand”
― Robin Waterfield, Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens: A History of Ancient Greece

“Cassander had now killed the mother, wife, and son of Alexander the Great.”
― Robin Waterfield, Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens: A History of Ancient Greece

“Socrates is guilty of not acknowledging the gods the city acknowledges, and of introducing other new deities. He is also guilty of subverting the young men of the city. The penalty demanded is death.”
― Robin Waterfield, Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens: A History of Ancient Greece

“If a man is guilty of impiety, he is to be tried in the court of the King Archon and made liable to death or confiscation of property. Any citizen who so wishes may bring the prosecution.”
― Robin Waterfield, Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens: A History of Ancient Greece

“Aristotle’s residence in Athens became untenable—he had, after all, been Alexander’s tutor—and he fled into exile, saying, with a reference to Socrates’ trial, that he was doing so “lest Athens sin twice against philosophy.”
― Robin Waterfield, Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens: A History of Ancient Greece

“Six thousand Thebans died in battle, and another thirty thousand were sold into slavery. Alexander established his authority over the Greeks by an act of singular violence, and any chance he had in the future of trusting them was destroyed along with Thebes.”
― Robin Waterfield, Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens: A History of Ancient Greece

“For all their attempts to impose their rule on one another, they succeeded only in losing their ability to rule themselves,” was a late historian’s somber but accurate comment.1 In 338, at the battle of Chaeronea, the Macedonians under Philip II defeated the Greeks and curtailed their cherished freedoms forever.”
― Robin Waterfield, Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens: A History of Ancient Greece

“another of Pericles’ associates (a kinsman by marriage), the Athenian musicologist and political theorist Damon of Oa, was ostracized “for seeming to be too much of an intellectual.”
― Robin Waterfield, Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens: A History of Ancient Greece

“On the strength of these successes, Alcibiades at last returned to Athens in 408. The Athenian people had short memories:”
― Robin Waterfield, Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens: A History of Ancient Greece