Readers are invited to the work of the outstanding German scholar of antiquity Robert von Poehlmann (1852-1914) “Essay on Greek history and source studies.” In this work, the author examines, against the background of the source base, the vicissitudes of the history of ancient Greek society and state, starting from ancient times and ending with the era of the absorption of Greece by the Roman Empire. A special feature of the book is a detailed analysis of the main sources on the history of ancient Greece, as a result of which R. von Poehlmann develops an original author’s view of the events of the history of ancient Hellas. Table of contents: P. A. Zhebelev. Instead of a preface...... 5Introduction........ 7I. Prehistoric time and the Cretan-Mycenaean era.................................. 23II. The beginnings of historical states on the Aegean Sea .......... 43III. Colonial spread of the Greeks .... 67IV. Development of territories and unions of states until the time of the Peloponnesian League...82V. Development of forms of government in the 7th and 6th centuries. ... 951. The fall of royal power and the aristocracy... 992. The rise of the urban class ......... 1033. Tyranny...... 104VI. The fight against the barbarians.......1361. The Ionian uprising..........1432. The repulsion of the Persians by the forces of European Hellas...... 1473.Western Greeks in the fight against the Carthaginians.......166VII. Athenian maritime power and Athenian democracy.....169VIII. The struggle for hegemony................1951.Peloponnesian War.......1952.The era of the dominance of Sparta...2503.The Rise of Thebes and the Second Athenian Naval League.. .......259IX. Internal decomposition of the Hellenic states and the emergence of late tyranny .....274X. The Age of Hellenism.....3041. Hellas during the time of Philip II.....................3042. The Age of Alexander the Great........ .....3343.System of the Greco-Macedonian states under the successors of Alexander the Great (323-280 BC) ...3644.Epoch of the Epigones (280-217 BC)... ...... 3835. Hellenes of the West .................. 4036. Development of Hellas under the influence of Rome ... 412 LIST OF MAIN SOURCES AND NEW SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE