Historian Bettany Hughes goes in search of the truth about the “Golden Age” of Ancient Athens. In this timely and fascinating two-part series, she investigates how a barren rock wedged between the East and West became the first democracy 2,500 years ago.

This first episode charts the epic story of Athens’ victory in one of the greatest sea battles of the ancient world, when the Athenian triremes defeat Xerxes’ mighty Persian fleet at Salamis, and reveals the real story of the building of the greatest monument of this first democracy – the Parthenon – as a symbol of Athenian power.

Channel 4, Saturday 21 July 2007