Socrates was placed on death row while Athens celebrated a religious festival.

Remembered as the inspiration of the famous Olympic road race, but much more important than that.

Julius Caesar came over from France expecting to silence the noisy neighbours, but things did not go according to plan.

‘Goodwill’ was on everyone’s lips, but the Roman Emperor and the God of Israel had very different ideas about it.

A proud British king, taken to Rome as a trophy of Empire, refused to plead for his life.

For a perennial ‘runner-up’, Eratosthenes had a peculiar knack of being first.