Mission statement

Some works do not belong to those who began them. They belong to those who recognize their weight and accept the obligation to carry them forward.

The collection The Greeks is such a work. It is not merely a series of books. It is a living archive of thought, language, and imagination stretching across more than a millennium of human history. Within it reside the foundations of philosophy, science, medicine, politics, poetry, drama, and ethics – not as abstractions, but as voices that still speak. To hold this collection is to hold a vast inheritance, one that no generation is entitled to squander.

What has already been achieved is extraordinary. With 817 volumes, The Greeks has brought into modern Greek a body of work that, in its full breadth, had never before been published in any language, making it the largest and most significant publishing undertaking in Greece – and, we allow ourselves to say without arrogance but with a sense of historical responsibility, in the world. Major texts that had remained inaccessible to the wider Greek public -such as Aristotle’s Organon- were finally given a living voice.

Rare and demanding works, from Proclus works to the Minor Geographers or the Anonymus Londinensis papyrus, were rescued from obscurity and placed beside the better-known pillars of the tradition. Plato’s Republic alone has entered tens of thousands of Greek homes through this series, becoming part of everyday intellectual life rather than a remote academic artifact.

The full collection has found its way into 172 private and public libraries around the world in the last ten years. This number is not large, but it is significant: acquiring the complete series is a serious decision, an act of guardianship. We have seen people moved by the idea that they are not merely buying books, but becoming custodians of a treasure – and The Greeks has made that possible.

This is what we received. And it defines our responsibility. At KAKTOS, we do not see ourselves as owners of this legacy. We see ourselves as its stewards. The responsibility we have inherited is not simply to preserve these texts, but to keep them readable, accessible, and alive – to ensure that they continue to meet new readers with the force, clarity, and beauty that made them endure in the first place.

That responsibility no longer belongs to Greece alone. Greek thought shaped the intellectual architecture of the world, and its survival today depends on being read beyond borders, languages, and academic silos. Our mission is therefore international by necessity. We work to bring The Greeks to readers everywhere, while also preparing the ground for new translations, new formats, and new ways of encountering these works. Technology is not a threat to classical culture; it is one of its most powerful allies. Used wisely, it allows a library once confined to shelves to become a global commons of learning.

The collection itself is not finished. From the beginning, The Greeks was conceived as a corpus of approximately 1,300 volumes. The pre-Christian world has now been fully covered; much of the Roman period and part of the Byzantine tradition have also been secured. What remains lies largely in the centuries after Christ – a vast and complex intellectual terrain that still awaits systematic inclusion. In 2025, with the publication of two additional volumes from Dio’s Roman History, this long arc resumed. It is a small but real restart, and a clear sign of our determination to complete the arc we have inherited.

Yet no cultural legacy survives unless it reaches the young.

For this reason, a central pillar of our work today is the Ancient Greeks for Kids collection. These volumes are not simplified myths loosely inspired by antiquity. They are faithful adaptations of the original texts, openly acknowledging their ancient authors and drawing directly from the works contained in The Greeks. Our ambition is clear: to create children’s books drawn from every major work in the collection, so that the first encounter with Plato, Homer, Hippocrates, or Aristotle can begin early – not as an academic exercise, but as a natural part of growing up.

We believe that a child who meets these voices young will never truly lose them.

This is the horizon toward which we are working: a classical library that spans generations, languages, and technologies, yet remains anchored in the integrity of the original texts. It is a long and demanding path. But it is one worthy of the inheritance we have been given.

We know that others, quietly and seriously, recognize the same responsibility. To them, we extend a simple welcome: this is work for those who value depth over speed, continuity over fashion, and substance over spectacle. The future of classical thought will be built by those willing to serve it.