Two great cities. One fierce rivalry. Countless untold stories.

Athens and Sparta were the two big players in Ancient Greece. United, they helped lead the Greeks in defeating the great Persian invasion. Divided, they spread conflict and destruction throughout the eastern Mediterranean. They were not simply rivals for power, but polar opposites in culture and ideology: Athens was the outward looking, radical democracy with a maritime empire whilst Sparta was militaristic, rigidly disciplined and brutal. Both were experiments in how to run a state, epitomising the extremes of the Greek longing to excel.

This is a story of politics and war, but also of culture. In Athens, philosophers dissected the physical and moral world, writers spun forth comedy and drama, and new ideas filled the city. Athens could be vulgar and cruel, but no other state has ever allowed thousands of citizens to debate its laws freely. Sparta was innovative in other ways, with a society divided into strict class groups and an astonishing focus on military training. Both cities were paradoxes – they were at once remarkably ordered and surprisingly prone to savagery.

Athens and Sparta tells a remarkable story of the drama and extremity of human behaviour. It draws on ancient sources and modern discoveries and boasts a wide-ranging cast of characters ­– statesmen, lawgivers, rabble-rousers, philosophers, artists, courtesans, wives and heroes. The history of these cities truly is a microcosm of the human experience, in all its wonder and horror.