A Victor of Salamis

The year is 480 BCE. Persia's vast army marches toward Greece, and Athens stands at the precipice of legend. Into this world of clashing empires steps Glaucon, a young Athenian of extraordinary beauty and athletic promise, who must navigate not only the brutal competitions of the Isthmian Games but also the treacherous currents of political loyalty and familial discord. Stearns Davis renders ancient Greece with tactile immediacy: the dust of the stadium, the weight of spear and shield, the fierce debates in the agora where Themistocles and Leonidas plot against the coming darkness. Glaucon's personal struggle to win his father's affection becomes inseparable from the larger drama of a city and a civilization preparing for existential war. This is historical fiction that understands the athletic field was merely training for the battlefield, and honor was currency both in the gymnasium and in council.