This edition of early Greek writings on social and political issues includes works by more than thirty authors.

This edition of early Greek writings on social and political issues includes works by more than thirty authors. There is a particular emphasis on the sophists, with the inclusion of all of their significant surviving texts, and the works of Alcidamas, Antisthenes and the a --E Old Oligarcha -- are also represented. In addition there are excerpts from early poets such as Homer, Hesiod and Solon, the three great tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, medical writers and presocratic philosophers. Besides political theory, areas represented include early anthropology, sociology, ethics and rhetoric, and the wide range of issues discussed includes human nature, the origin of human society, the origin of law, the nature of justice, the forms of good government, the distribution of wealth, and the distribution of power among genders and social classes.

Preface
Introduction
Principal dates
Bibliographical note
Glossary
Table of equivalents
Part I. Early Poetry: 1
Homer
2. Hesiod
3. Archilochus
4. Tyrtaeus
5. Solon
6. Theognis
7. Hymn to Hephaestus
8. Simonides
9. Xenophanes
10. Pindar
Part II. Tragedy: 11. Aeschylus
12. Sophocles
13. Euripides
14. Other tragic fragments
Part III. History and Folklore: 15. Herodotus
16. Thucydides
17. The old Oligarch
18. Aesop
Part IV. Philosophy and Science: 19. Heraclitus
20. Democritus
21. Medical writers from the Hippocratic corpus
22. Antisthenes
Part V. Sophists
23. Protagoras
24. Gorgias
25. Prodicus
26. Hippias
27. Antiphon
28. Thrasymachus
29. Evenus
30. Critias
31. Lycophron
32. Alcidamas
33. Anonymus Iamblichi
34. Dissoi Logoi
35. From unknown authors
Index.