About this season
Bettany Hughes searches out the real truth about the birth of democracy in ancient Athens 2500 years ago
Episodes (2)
E1
1. Episode 1
Aired 21 July 2007 • 49 min
The epic story of Athens' victory in one of the greatest sea battles of the ancient world, when the Athenian triremes defeat Xerxes' mighty Persian fleet at Salamis, and the real story of the building of the greatest monument of this first democracy - the Parthenon - as a symbol of Athenian power.
E2
2. Episode 2
Aired 28 July 2007 • 48 min
The extraordinary new ideas of the new democracy, and the powerful and dramatic story of Socrates. Celebrated as one of the authors of the new thinking, he ultimately pushed even democracy beyond its limits and was put to death by his own city.