was born in the city of Eleusis, near Athens, in 525 BC and died in 456 BC. He was a Greek dramatist, the earliest of the city's great tragic poets. As the predecessor of Sophocles and Euripides, he is the founder of Greek tragedy.
He fought successfully against the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC, at Salamís in 480 BC, and possibly at Plataea in the following year. He made at least two trips, perhaps three, to Sicily, where on his final visit he died at Gela. A monument was later erected there in his memory.
It was a major step for drama when Aeschylus introduced the second actor. He also attempted to involve the chorus directly in the action of the play. Aeschylus is said to have written about 90 plays. His tragedies, first performed about 500 BC, were presented as trilogies, or groups of three, usually bound together by a common theme, and each trilogy was followed by a satyr drama (low comedy involving a mythological hero, with a chorus of satyrs). The titles of 79 of his plays are known, but only 7 have survived.

was born in 480 BC and died in 406 BC. Euripides was the youngest of the three principal fifth-century tragic poets. His work, which was quite popular in his own time, exerted great influence on Roman drama. In more recent times he has influenced English and German drama, and most conspicuously such French dramatists as Pierre Corneille and Jean-Baptiste Racine.
His plays began to be performed in the Attic drama festivals in 454 BC, but it was not until 442 BC that he won first prize. This distinction, despite his prolific talent, fell to him again only four times. Aside from his writings, his chief interests were philosophy and science.
Euripides represented the new moral, social, and political movements that were taking place in Athens towards the end of the 5th century BC. It was a period of enormous intellectual discovery, in which "wisdom" ranked as the highest earthly accomplishment. Anaxagoras had just proven that air was an element, and that the sun was not a divinity but matter. New truths were being established in all departments of knowledge, and Euripides, reacting to them, brought a new kind of consciousness to the writing of tragedy. His interest lay in the thought and experience of the ordinary individual rather than in the experiences of legendary figures of the heroic past.

Euripides' Plays:
Alcestis written 438 B.C.E trans. by Richard Aldington
Andromache written 428-24 B.C.E trans. by E. P. Coleridge
The Bacchantes written 410 B.C.E
The Cyclops written ca. 408 B.C.E trans. by E. P. Coleridge
Electra written 420-410 B.C.E trans. by E. P. Coleridge
Hecuba written 424 B.C.E trans. by E. P. Coleridge
Helen written 412 B.C.E trans. by E. P. Coleridge
Heracleidae written ca. 429 B.C.E trans. by E. P. Coleridge
Heracles written 421-416 B.C.E trans. by E. P. Coleridge
Hippolytus written 428 B.C.E trans. by E. P. Coleridge
Ion written 414-412 B.C.E trans. by Robert Potter
Iphigenia At Aulis written 410 B.C.E
Iphegenia in Tauris written 414-412 B.C.E trans. by Robert Potter
Medea written 431 B.C.E trans. by E. P. Coleridge
Orestes written 408 B.C.E trans. by E. P. Coleridge
The Phoenissae written 411-409 B.C.E trans. by E. P. Coleridge
Rhesus written 450 B.C.E
The Suppliants written 422 B.C.E trans. by E. P. Coleridge
The Trojan Women written 415 B.C.E

was born about 496 BC in Colonus Hippius (now part of Athens), he was to become one of the great playwrights of the golden age. The son of a wealthy merchant, he would enjoy all the comforts of a thriving Greek empire. Sophocles was provided with the best traditional aristocratic education. He studied all of the arts. By the age of sixteen, he was already known for his beauty and grace and was chosen to lead a choir of boys at a celebration of the victory of Salamis in 480 BC. In 468 BC, at the age of 28, he defeated Aeschylus, whose pre-eminence as a tragic poet had long been undisputed, in a dramatic competition.
In 441 BC he was in turn defeated in one of the annual Athenian dramatic competitions by Euripides. From 468 BC, however, Sophocles won first prize about 20 times and many second prizes. His life, which ended in 406 BC at about the age of 90, coincided with the period of Athenian greatness. He was not politically active or militarily inclined, but the Athenians twice elected him to high military office.
Sophocles wrote more than 100 plays of which seven complete tragedies and fragments of 80 or 90 others are preserved. He was the first to add a third actor. He also abolished the trilogic form. Sophocles chose to make each tragedy a complete entity in itself--as a result, he had to pack all of his action into the shorter form, and this clearly offered greater dramatic possibilities. Sophocles also effected a transformation in the spirit and significance of a tragedy; thereafter, although religion and morality were still major dramatic themes, the plights, decisions and fates of individuals became the chief interest of Greek tragedy.

Sophocles' Plays:
Antigone written 442 B.C.E trans. by R. C. Jebb
Electra written 410 B.C.E trans. by R. C. Jebb
Oedipus at Colonus trans. by F. Storr
Oedipus the King trans. by F. Storr
Philoctetes written 409 B.C.E trans. by Thomas Francklin
The Trachiniae written 430 B.C.E trans. by R. C. Jebb

one of the greatest military genius in history, Alexander the Great was born in 356 B.C. in Pella, Macedonia, the son of Philip of Macedon, who was an excellent general and organizer. His mother was Olympias, princess of Epirus.
He conquered much of what was then the civilized world, governed by his divine ambition of the world conquest and creation of universal world monarchy. He was the first great conqueror which has reached, Greece, Egypt , Asia Minor, and Asia till Afghanistan and India. He is famous for having created ethnic fusion between the Macedonians and the Persians. From victory to victory, from triumph to triumph Alexander created empire wich had marked history and brought him eternal glory.

Born in 287 B.C., in Syracuse, a Greek seaport colony in Sicily, Archimedes was the son of Phidias, an astronomer. Archimedes was schooled at Euclid's school in Alexandria, Egypt, which was one of the biggest cities of the time.
In pure mathematics he anticipated many of the discoveries of modern science, such as the integral calculus, through his studies of the areas and volumes of curved solid figures and the areas of plane figures. He also proved that the volume of a sphere is two-thirds the volume of a cylinder that circumscribes the sphere.
Archimedes spent the major part of his life in Sicily, in and around Syracuse. He did not hold any public office but devoted his entire lifetime to research and experiment.
Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier after snapping at him ``Don't disturb my circles,'' a reference to a geometric figure he had outlined on the sand.
Several of his works on mathematics and mechanics survive, including Floating Bodies, The Sand Reckoner, Measurement of the Circle, Spirals, and Sphere and Cylinder.

(also called Hercules) is one of the most popular Greek heroes.
He was the son of Zeus (king of the gods) and a mortal mother. He had amazing strength and physical ability, performing difficult tasks and defeating fierce enemies throughout his life.

a victorious athlete tying a victory ribbon (diadem) around his head.
The winners in athletic competitons were admired in Greek society, and many were considered heroes, god-like superhumans, whose statues could work miracles.

Identity of Ajax: Ajax was the son of Telamon, the king of Salamis. He was one of two Trojan War heroes named Ajax who was on the side of the Greeks.

Ajax and the Achaeans: Ajax was one of the suitors of Helen, for which reason he was obliged by the Oath of Tyndareus to join the Greek forces in the Trojan War. Ajax contributed 12 ships from Salamis to the Achaean war effort.

Ajax and Hector: Ajax and Hector fought in single combat. Their fight was ended by the heralds. Hector and Ajax then exchanged gifts, with Hector receiving a belt from Ajax and giving him a sword. It was with the belt of Ajax that Achilles dragged Hector.

Suicide of Ajax: When Achilles was killed, his armor was to be awarded to the next greatest Greek hero. Ajax thought it should go to him. Ajax went mad and tried to kill his comrades when the armor was awarded to Odysseus, instead. Athena intervened by making Ajax think cattle were his former allies. When Ajax realized he had slaughtered the herd, he committed suicide as his only honorable end. Ajax used the sword Hector had given him to kill himself.

Ajax in Hades: Even in his afterlife in the Underworld Ajax was still angry and wouldn't speak with Odysseus.

Achilles was part of the Achaean force Agamemnon took to Troy to win back Helen for Agamemnon's brother Menelaus. Proud and autocratic Agamemnon antagonized Achilles, and so Achilles sat out most of the fighting. Achilles was at length motivated by revenge to join the fray when his friend Patroclus is killed by Hector, the greatest of the Trojans. In a rage, Achilles killed Hector, and then dishonored the body by dragging it around in a chariot for nine days, until the father of Hector, King Priam, appealed to the better nature of Achilles and prevailed upon him to return the corpse to his family in Troy for proper funeral rites.

Achilles was the son of the mortal Peleus and the nymph Thetis. Thetis tried to make her son immortal by dipping him into the River Styx, while holding him by his ankle.

His ankle was therefore the only portion of him capable of sustaining a mortal wound, which he received from a goddess-guided arrow shot by Paris of Troy. The mortality of Achilles is also explained as having been caused by an unsuccessful application of the treatment for immortality -- ambrosia by day and fire by night, which was a technique the goddess Demeter once tried.

Hector, oldest child of Priam and Hecuba, presumed heir to the throne of Troy, and devoted husband of Andromache and father of Astyanax, was the greatest Trojan hero of the Trojan War, the main defender of Troy, and a favorite of Apollo. With Apollo's help Hector killed Patroclus, the best friend of Achilles, who had been standing out of the fray. When Hector killed his friend, Achilles became enraged and so agreed to join the other Greeks in fighting against the Trojans.

Achilles avenged the death of his friend by fighting and then killing Hector, after which, to disgrace the Trojan prince and to let off some of his steaming madness, he dragged Hector's corpse around the grave of Patroclus three times.

Anaxagoras, who was born in Clazomenae, Asia Minor, around 500 B.C., spent most of his life in Athens where he made a place for philosophy and associated with Euripides (writer of tragedies) and Pericles (Athenian statesman). In 430 Anaxagoras was brought to trial for impiety in Athens because his philosophy denied the divinity of all other gods but his principle, nous (mind). He then left Athens to live in Lampsacus (in the Troad) where he died two years later.
Anaxagoras wrote a book On Nature. He believed that the universe was originally an undifferentiated mass until it was worked upon by mind (nous), a spiritual component. (Anaxagoras was the first to attach importance to the concept of mind.) He believed there were no pure stuffs in the universe but that everything shared a part of everything else.

"There is a portion of everything in everything."

Into the chaos in which the seeds of all things were jumbled, mind inserted motion. As it gained speed, a vortex formed and objects separated out.