Review

From The Ithaca Times
1/04/06

By Pamela Goddard

Exactly one year ago, we reviewed EMPIRE OF ASHES, Nicholas Nicastro's historical novel about Alexander the Great. Since then, Nicastro has reached back another 100 years and polished a tale about two Spartan brothers whose destinies are forged on the rocky spear-shaped island of Sphacteria.
     Nicastro is a writer and filmmaker with advanced degrees in psychology and archaeology from Cornell University. This Ithaca author has turned his hand to everything from the naval battles of the American Revolutionary War to the rearing of Spartan warriors. In every case, Nicastro demonstrates great imagination and scholarship.
     In his new book, THE ISLE OF STONE, Nicastro illuminates the years 464 to 425 B.C. in the midst of the 27-year-long Peloponnesian War, a conflict of unprecedented scope and destructiveness. The entrapment of Spartan soldiers on the narrow island was a stunning humiliation for warriors who had not been defeated in 200 years. The pivotal siege of Sphacteria is a backdrop for the complex story of Epitadas and Antalcidas, the sons of Damatria, and reflects the traditions and constrictions of Spartan life. These warriors rise off the page, strong and sweaty, utterly real to their own time.
     Ancient Sparta was a man's world. Even the women wanted to be like men—oiling their bodies, working out at the gym, shortening their skirts and cutting their hair like a new recruit for their wedding day. THE ISLE OF STONE begins with the brutal rape of Damatria and the conception of her older son, Antalcidas. While she does all she can to assure that her second son will rise to be a great hero of Sparta, Antalcidas must survive every difficulty the world of ancient Sparta can throw at him to reach his own glory.
     Based on solid historical and archeological evidence, Nicastro puts flesh on the bones of exotic ancient names. He shows how the single-minded heroics of the Spartan "Equals" was formed by the stories they were told and the ethics they were given in the midst of brutal pain and suffering. This was a time and place where every person, no matter how young or old, was trained to a single purpose—
battle and the protection of their insular culture. Strength was elevated above all else.
     The "Rearing" was a seemingly barbaric practice of sending young boys out to fend for themselves, surviving in grubby packs "as freely as some wild thing sprung straight from the soil." Endius, their "boy-herd," congratulates those who have survived their first year of this training by teaching them the Spartan Code, posing the question, "For what purpose is the Spartan system?"
     Endius instructs, "There are two right answers. I'll tell you one of them: freedom. The Spartan citizen is as free as any mortal can be of enslaving passions. To teach you these truths, all children of citizens must suffer the Rearing... Remember this when you are hungry, or cold, or if you are lucky, facedown on the field of battle: you suffer because it makes you free."
     Later, when Antalcidas undergoes a training ritual including a flogging so brutal that he would bear the scars the rest of his life, Endius appears at his side to explain his pain and excitement as the other purpose of Spartan Rearing. "The purpose is joy," says the boy-herd. "Let the foreigners and fools call it cruelty. Today you join the ranks of men who know better."
     Reading one of Nicastro's books has the same fascination as staring at a terrible car crash. The scenes he constructs force us to grapple with the disturbing roots of our own cultural assumptions. Each of these characters spins into a series of bloody events far beyond individual control. Nicastro lays naked the complex web of collective motivations that shape the events of history.
     THE ISLE OF STONE shows Nicastro's intimate understanding of this distant time and deeply foreign culture. By giving human faces to the dry bones of ancient battles, he goes a long way towards making ancient motivations somehow explicable. Once again, Nicastro proves his talent for capturing the attitude of historical times while spinning a passionate drama.

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ISBN 0451217128

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