pThe book offers the first comprehensive account of the debate on true courage as it was raging in ancient Greece, from the times when the immensely influential Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, were composed, to the period of the equally influential author, Aristotle. The many voices that contribute to this debate include poets, authors of ancient dramas and comedies, historians, politicians and philosophers. The book traces the origin of the earliest ideal of a courageous hero in the epic poems of Homer 8th century BCE, and faithfully records its transformations in later authors, which range from an emphatic denial of the Homeric standards of courage as in comedies of Aristophanes and some Dialogues of Plato to the strong revisionist tendencies of Aristotle, who attempts to restore genuine courage to its traditional place as an exclusively martial, male virtue.pWithout attempting to cover the whole of the Western history, the book is able to explore the most important primary