5th century BC
Showing 161 works across all media from the 5th century BC
Parthenon Sculptures (Elgin Marbles)
The goddesses of the east pediment wear drapery so wet it clings. Elgin took the marbles to London in 1801 and Greece wants them back.
The Three Theban Plays
No drama has matched the moment Oedipus understands. He investigates the crime poisoning his city and the trail turns toward him. His daughter later defies the state to bury her brother.
The Oresteia
Agamemnon comes home from Troy to a wife who has spent ten years planning her welcome, and the killing runs down the generations until Athena stops it by seating the first jury.
Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be defeated.
History of the Peloponnesian War
Exiled after losing a city, Thucydides wrote the war that ruined Athens, explaining it by fear and self-interest, not the gods. At Melos his Athenians say the strong do what they can.
The Histories
History begins with Herodotus asking why Greeks and Persians fought, and reaching Thermopylae by way of Egyptian mummies and gold-digging ants. He reports the rumors too, and lets you judge.
The Upanishads
You are that, an Indian sage tells his son: the self inside you and the power holding up the universe are one thing. Elsewhere a boy corners Death and demands answers.
The Art of War
Win without fighting, Sun Tzu writes, and he means it literally. Twenty-five centuries ago this Chinese general reduced war to deception, terrain, and knowing the enemy as thoroughly as you know yourself.
Lysistrata and Other Plays
Twenty years into a war they never voted for, the women of Greece refuse their husbands until the men make peace. Aristophanes also hoists Socrates over the stage in a basket.