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Euripides was the last of the great triumvirate of Greek tragedians. He wrote radical reinterpretations of the ancient myths in which humans bore their suffering without reference to the gods or fates. His most famous plays, The Bacchae and Medea , are about mothers murdering their children.

A painting made directly into wet plaster, creating art that is one with walls.

The horizontal band running below the pediment of a temple, carved with floral, geometric or other decorative motifs.

In recent years, the Greek wine industry has been gaining international acclaim, finally bringing serious cultivation techniques to its sun-drenched soils and indigenous grapes. Gaia is one of the best new vineyards, producing deep velvety wines from Nemea’s Aghiorghitiko red grapes.

Geometric art emerged from a dark age with vases painted with angular designs, and abstract, triangular-rectilinear human forms. The greatest of these is the giant 8th-century BC funerary vase in the National Archaeological Museum, where you can also see the first “Greek key” pattern.

Greece’s first Nobel Laureate was born in Smyrna, which was later claimed by Turkey, and his lyrical poetry is inspired by history and feelings of exile. His work also relates Greece’s Classical past to its raw present, as in Mythistorema , a series of poems that draw from The Odyssey .

The 6th and 5th centuries BC saw the city-state develop into a colonial power. Under Perikles (495–429 BC) Athens enjoyed its greatest period of building, when the Parthenon, Erechtheion and Temple of Nike were erected. Cultural and intellectual life flourished until Sparta’s defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC).

This was the secret weapon of the Byzantine Empire, used against enemy ships. Greek Fire was a highly flammable, jelly-like substance, which was blasted through bronze tubes mounted on the prows of Byzantine galleys, and could not be extinguished by water. It was first employed to repel an Arab fleet attacking Constantinople in 673, and then successfully used in combat until the Empire’s fall in 1453. To this day scientists are unsure of its exact formula but think that it probably consisted of liquid petroleum, sulphur, naphtha and quicklime.

Hadrian built this luxurious Corinthian-columned building in AD 132. Most of the space was actually a showy marble courtyard, with gardens and a pool. There were also lecture rooms, music rooms and a theatre. The library itself was on the east side, where you can see marble slots for manuscript scrolls. (see Hadrian’s Library)

Classical sculpture grew ripe and decadent, in part influenced by the new Hellenistic cities in the Orient, part of Alexander the Great’s empire. The sculptor Lysippos defined the new phase with sensuous subjects such as Aphrodite, Pan and Dionysus in exaggerated, twisting movement.