Edward Augustus Freeman (1823-1892) was an English historian, architectural artist, and Liberal politician, a one-time candidate for Parliament. He held the position of Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, where he tutored Arthur Evans, the British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age; later he and Evans were activists in the Balkan uprising of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1874-1878) against the Ottoman Empire.
Freeman's life was marked by a prodigious literary output. His published scholarly works include the six large volumes of Norman Conquest, his unfinished History of Sicily, and his William Rufus (1882). He wrote several others on the early Middle Ages, and produced works on Aratus, Sulla, Nicias, William the Conqueror, Thomas of Canterbury, Frederick II and many more.
Today we offer our readers one of Freeman's most interesting works: The Chief Periods of European History, a collection of lectures read at the Trinity College, University of Oxford, in 1885, with an essay on Greek Cities Under Roman Rule. It was published in London by MacMillan and Co. in 1886.