Most of what is known of the ancient world comes from the accounts of antiquity's own historians. Ancient history is the aggregate of past events from the beginning of writing and recorded human history and extending as far as post-classical history. Historians have two major ways of understanding the ancient world: archaeology and the study of source texts. Primary sources are those sources closest to the origin of the information or idea under study. Some of the more notable ancient writers include Herodotus, Thucydides, Arrian, Plutarch, Polybius, Livy, Josephus, Suetonius, and Tacitus. This three-volume edition presents exactly such primary sources of classical antiquity historians. This volume contents: Thucydides: The History of the Peloponnesian War Herodotus: The Histories by Herodotus Xenophon: Anabasis Xenophon: The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians Polybius: The Histories of Polybius, in 2 vol. Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans by Plutarch Lives: A.H. Clough Strabo: The Geography of Strabo, in 3 vol.