Son Of Sparta

As a Spartan youth, Leon wants nothing more than to succeed. He wants to compete, beat his rivals and qualify for the mysterious Crypteia; he wants to be an Equal and be in the 300; he wants to fight for Sparta. But Leon meets a girl, a Helot slave, and through her he discovers the brutality of the Spartan way for those who refuse to follow it. And he becomes caught up in something greater, the war between his homeland and the democratic city of Athens - and a quest for a talisman sought by both sides: the so-called thighbone of legendary Theseus. Then Leon must make a decision: which side, if any, is he on?

"Siger paints travelogue-worthy pictures of a breathtakingly beautiful--if politically corrupt--Greece." --Publishers Weekly STARRED review Did the warriors of ancient Sparta simply vanish without a trace along with their city, or did they find sanctuary at the tip of the mountainous Peloponnese? That stark, unforgiving region's roots today run deep with a history of pirates, highwaymen, and neighbors ferociously repelling any foreigner foolishly bent on occupying this part of Greece. Less well-recorded are the Mani's families' strict code of honor and their history of endless vendettas with neighbors and with their own relatives. No wonder their farms look like fortresses. When Special Crimes Division Detective Yiannis Kouros is summoned from Athens to the Mani by his uncle, Kouros fears his loyalty to his boss, Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis, is about be to be tested by family pressure on the detective to act in some new vendetta, for this uncle once headed the Mani's most significant criminal enterprise. Instead, Kouros learns the family is about to become rich through the sale of its property--until the uncle is killed, and thus the deal. Acting swiftly to head off a new cycle of violence, Kouros satisfactorily solves the murder. Or so it seems until, back in Athens, Kaldis' probe into deeply entrenched government corruption leads straight back to the Mani. Both cops now confront a host of unexpected twists, unanticipated players, unanswered questions--and people yet to die.

Strife, now more than ever plagues her. She knows only one cure for her illness and that is through her strength of arms. But alas, her men are masters of war. In 404 BC, after twenty-seven years of civil war, Sparta defeats Athens and reigns supreme in the Greek world. However, her victory is not without consequence. Conflict forces King Agis of Sparta to lead his army north to war with the Eleans, while Lysander, a Spartan hero of the Peloponnesian War is left at home to contemplate his next military pursuit. Meanwhile in Athens, the Thirty Tyrants that Sparta instated to govern their inferiors are banished, which gives way to democracy. This leads Xenophon, an Athenian pupil of Socrates, to decide if he should march with the Ten Thousand, while Socrates continues to defy his growing number of political adversaries. Across the sea in Persia, King Darius is deathly ill, causing his sons Cyrus and Artaxerxes to vie for the throne. If Artaxerxes succeeds his father, Sparta will face the imminent threat of another Persian invasion. Thus, the fate of Greece and freedom depends once again on the Spartans. A narrative of honor and deceit, love and betrayal, kings and slaves, great minds and ordinary citizens, Sparta chronicles the intersecting lives of the ancients, as well as their extraordinary achievements while thriving under the rule of history’s most formidable military society.

Xenophon has for long, and understandably, enjoyed a privileged position as a reliable source on Sparta. Commander of a grand military expedition of Sparta's devising, and a dependent of Sparta's influential king Agesilaos, Xenophon knew Sparta from the inside, and - as himself an Athenian in exile - was well placed to comment on Sparta's difference. The simplicity of his Greek style has a perfume of honesty. And yet... Recent research has with increasing force called into doubt Xenophon's motives and truthfulness - especially as regards Sparta. Analysis of his Hellenica reveals much evasion and euphemism about Sparta's failings - complicated by occasional outbursts against the iniquity of Spartan imperialism. His euphemistic Constitution of the Lakedaimonians (itself containing such an outburst), and his near-hagiography of the dead Agesilaos, have variously evoked trust and suspicion in historians. This book, by a distinguished team of specialists in Spartan history, is the first of a short series from CPW, approaching Spartan reality by way of close analysis of our main contemporary Greek sources: their access, their biases, the literary structure and the genre of their works.

Conn Iggulden, the New York Times bestselling author of the Emperor, Conqueror, and Wars of the Roses series, returns to the ancient world with a ferociously violent epic.401 BC. In the ancient world, one army was feared above all others. The Persian king Artaxerxes rules an empire stretching from the Aegean to northern India. As many as fifty million people are his subjects. His rule is absolute. Though the sons of Sparta are eager to play the game of thrones . . .Yet battles can be won—or lost—with a single blow. Princes fall. And when the dust of civil war settles, the Spar- tans are left stranded in the heart of an enemy’s empire, without support, without food, and without water.Far from home, surrounded by foes, it falls to the young soldier Xenophon to lead the survivors against Artaxerxes’s legendary Persian warriors.

The smaller of twins, born long after two elder brothers, Leonidas was considered an afterthought from birth -- even by his mother. Lucky not to be killed for being undersized, he was not raised as a prince like his eldest brother, Cleomenes, who was heir to the throne, but instead had to endure the harsh upbringing of ordinary Spartan youth. Barefoot, always a little hungry, and subject to harsh discipline, Leonidas had to prove himself worthy of Spartan citizenship. Struggling to survive without disgrace, he never expected that one day he would be king or chosen to command the combined Greek forces fighting a Persian invasion. But these were formative years that would one day make him the most famous Spartan of them all: the hero of Thermopylae. This is the first book in a trilogy of biographical novels about Leonidas of Sparta. This first book describes his childhood in the infamous Spartan agoge. The second will focus on his years as an ordinary citizen, and the third will describe his reign and death. About the Author Helena P. Schrader holds a PhD in history from the University of Hamburg, which she earned with her groundbreaking biography of General Friedrich Olbricht, the mastermind behind the Valkyrie plot against Hitler. She has published four nonfiction works on modern history and has been published in academic journals including Sparta: Journal of Ancient Spartan and Greek History. Helena has done extensive research on ancient and archaic Sparta. She has combined her research with common sense and a deep understanding of human nature to create a refreshingly unorthodox portrayal of Spartan society in this biographical trilogy of Leonidas, as well as in her three previously published novels, The Olympic Charioteer, Are They Singing in Sparta? and Spartan Slave, Spartan Queen. Visit her website at www.helena-schrader.com or learn more about Sparta from her website Sparta Reconsidered at www.elysiumgates.com/ helena.

In the twilight of ancient mythology, when the gods still walked the earth and humanity danced on the thin edge between barbarism and civilisation, stood the city of Sparta. Located in the heart of the Peloponnesian peninsula, it was a city of warriors and philosophers, of craftsmen and peasants. A place of contrasts, where iron and fire combined with wisdom and ingenuity to create a unique world. This is a story of Sparta and its heroes. A story of battles and intrigue, of love and sacrifice. A story of heroism and betrayal, of gods and mortals. But above all, this is a story of how courage, wisdom and fortitude can overcome the greatest challenges. Welcome to Sparta, the city where heroes are born and legends come to life.

At the age of seven, Leon left home to begin military training. His mother is heartbroken by how this has changed him. He is now a Son of Sparta, caring only for honor and glory in the war with Persia . . . and the highest honor is to die in battle.

In this new edition, Paul Cartledge and Antony Spawforth have taken account of recent finds and scholarship to revise and update their authoritative overview of later Spartan history, and of the social, political, economic and cultural changes in the Spartan community. This original and compelling account is especially significant in challenging the conventional misperception of Spartan 'decline' after the loss of her status as a great power on the battlefield in 371 BC. The book's focus on a frequently overlooked period makes it important not only for those interested specifically in Sparta, but also for all those concerned with Hellenistic Greece, and with the life of Greece and other Greek-speaking provinces under non-Roman rule.