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 Alexander the Great: The Legendary Warrior
 Alexander the Great is probably the most famous Greek personality ever. His life has yet become a legend and
he is probably the most discussed military man ever. His short life was full of adventures, conquests and experiences. Born in Pella, Macedon, in 356 BC, he became king at the age of 20. After he united the city-states of Greece, he lauched an expedition to the East and managed to conquer the Persian Empire and extend the borders of his kingdom till India.
Alexander died a month before he turned 33, beloved by his soldiers, betrayed by some companions and hated by his enemies. Although his vast empire was divided in parts, his work remained vivid: the new cities he founded grew big and flourished, while the Greek civilization was spread till the far east. Alexander the Great was loved as a god when he was alive
and as a legend after he died.
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Homer: The Epic Poet
 Homer, the famous poet of the Greek antiquity, is known all over the world
for his two epic poems, Iliad and Olyssey. Historians believe that Homer was blind, as shown by his name, which in Greek means "he who can't see". Seven cities claim to be the birthplace of Homer and the most possible is that he was born in Smyrna, modern Izmir, or on Chios, while it is believed that he died in Ios, the homeland of his mother.
Homer probably lived in the 8th century BC. He didn't actually write his poems but narrated them and scholars wrote them down. These poems survived till today, through so many centuries, and they are thought as masterpieces of the world's literature.
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Socrates: The Enigmatic Philosopher
 Socrates, who loved in Athens in the 5th century BC, is considered today as the founder of Western philosophy. His notions of ethics, virtue and truth influenced his contemporains to a great degree and passed through centuries. Although we have no manuscipts of Socrates himself, his life and ideology are vividly presented in the works of Plato and Xenophon, his direct students, while some accounts are also found in Aristotle, student of Plato, and Aristophanes, the famous Athenian comedy writer, among others. The "Socratic irony" and "Socratic method" are notions frequently used today and refer to his pedagogical style, his efforts to derive the truth out of people through a series of questions.
Socrates believed that the real truth is hidden in every man and all he has to do is to discover it. He frequently described himself as a midwife who "gives birth" to the truth of every man and as a stable fly that annoys people with his teachings. Because of his philosophical thinkings, he was sentenced to death by the Athenian politicians, who accussed him that he was corrupting the youth. He died in prison drinking poison, refusing the appeals of his students to escape.
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Aristotle: The Philosopher of Reason
 Aristotle, student of Socrates and Plato, was
the third most famous philosopher of the Greek antiquity. Born in Stagira, Halkidiki, Aristotle studied in the Academy of Plato, which has actually been the first university of the world. There, he spent about 20 years and got influenced by the philosophical notions of Plato. When Plato died, he went to teach the son of king Phillip of Macedon, Alexander the Great. On his return to Athens, he founded Lyceum, a school of philosophy and other sciences.
Although, only one third of Aristotle's work survive today, it can be seen that he studied almost all sciences known in the ancient times: from politcs, rhetoric and poetics to geology, meteorology, anatomy and zoology. His philisophical notions survived for centuries and influenced a lot the Western sciences.
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Leonidas: The King of Sparta
 Leonidas, the legendary king of Sparta, is world famous for his act of self-sacrifice, when he and his 300 Spartan soldiers died in the battle of Thermopylae to protect the rest of Greece from the Persian invasion, in 480 BC. Although they knew for certainty that they would die there, Leonidas and his soldiers confronted the enemy with bravery, teaching people a valuable lesson about virtues and life-ideals. The phrase "Come and get them!", referring to the weapons when the Persians asked the Spartans to surrender, is marked in the history of one of the most famous battles of the ancient world.
Today, the statue of Leonidas lies at the site of Thermopylae to commemorate this special event. The tomb of the king is found in Sparta, his homeland, where he used to be honored as a god till the Roman times. After all, he was a king to honour the ideals of the town: when a man goes to the battle, he either wins or gets killed, in any case he doesn't return disgraced in Sparta!
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