Peter Adamson offers an accessible, humorous tour through a period of eight hundred years when some of the most influential of all schools of thought were formed. He introduces us to Cynics and Skeptics, Epicureans and Stoics, emperors and slaves, and traces the development of early Christian philosophy and of ancient science. A volume that is both a perfect introductory work and will also help to plug some of the gaps that most of us have in our knowledge of the long span of ancient philosophical history.