Reviews

"Nicastro is an author who clearly relishes his subject. Each sentence bursts with juicy, nurturing historical detail and considered thought about the hopes, aspirations, ideals and troubles of those who lived in the distant past. We follow the triumphs and travails of Sophocles as he struggles to create his art and also be what Athens wants him to be—a brilliant general. Athens as a great civilization is constructed in front of our eyes. Nicastro brings to life both the back-streets of the city and the sea-battle-lanes of its Empire. The towering giants of Western history; Sophocles, Euripides, Pericles—and his consort Aspasia—are, through his vivid imagination, given a voice. This book allows the reader to inhabit the Golden Age of Athens, and to taste its grit as well as its glory."
—Bettany Hughes, PBS and BBC, author of Helen of Troy: The Story Behind the Most Beautiful Woman in the World

"Nicastro has great skill in making an ancient and alien time seem immediate and understandable. The men and women in this book are rich in their complexity, their manipulations and their neediness, their ambitions and confused helplessness....Based on careful historical research, Nicastro has crafted a novel which rings true, as true and as timeless as the plays of Sophocles."
—Pamela Goddard, Tompkins Weekly

ISBN: 9781933523262

synopsis
chapter one
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