Although the cultures of the ancient Near East provided the world with civilization, the Greeks instituted structure and definitions that place them as the founders of Western Civilization. The Greeks innovation and thought processes went in a multitude of directions. Nearly all the foundations of our modern arts, sciences and...

Other than mathematicians, no field is forced to deal with anything like the deluge of radical theories, typically from amateurs or academics outside the field, that face those who study the ancient world. Those who study ancient Greece, for example, had to deal with the British Prime Minister William Gladstone’s...