The story of Athens is truly intriguing: how did a tiny community of 200,000 citizens manage to give birth to towering geniuses across the range of human endeavour, create one of the greatest civilisations in history, and lay the foundations of our own political and intellectual heritage? Taking the city itself as his central subject, Anthony Everitt relates the story of this early metropolis, taking in the strengths, flaws and unique brilliance of this ambitious experiment in human civilisation.