Steven Pressfield, author of the Sunday Times bestseller Gates of Fire, brings the conflict between Sparta and Athens to life in this epic story filled with triumph and tragedy."e;Pressfield's talent is awesome...an extraordinary work - an instant classic"e; -- DAVID GEMMELL"e;No one writes better historical fiction than Steven Pressfield"e; -- VINCE FLYNN"e;A masterful book"e; -- ***** Reader review"e;A book to treasure"e; -- ***** Reader review"e;A truly rewarding reading experience"e; -- ***** Reader review********************************ONE MAN. TWO ARMIES. THE FATE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD IN THE BALANCE.Alcibiades: Kinsman of Pericles, prot g of Socrates, immortalised by Plutarch, Plato and Thucydides. An audacious soldier and charismatic leader without equal who would come to dominate the Peloponnesian War, the devastating twenty-seven-year conflict between Athens and Sparta that brought Greece to its knees at the end of the fifth century BC.Undefeated on the battlefield, Alcibiades' popularity - and his political aspirations - fed the resentment of his rivals in Athens who secured his death warrant on a trumped-up charge of treason. Escaping to Sparta, he guided its legendary army from one military triumph to the next. Ultimately though, it was Athens that would claim his fiercest loyalty, their destinies inextricably intertwined.Tides of War paints a dazzling portrait of a remarkable man whose fortunes mirrored the ebb and flow of the tides of war.
Alcibiades ¿ mercurial soldier and charismatic commander without peer on land and sea, a man whom fortune always favoured. Raised as a ward of Pericles, later a protégé of Socrates, and compared to Achilles by the adoring Athenian masses, he was to become the key figure in the Peloponnesian War ¿ the tumultuous 27-year civil war between Athens and Sparta that would devastate Greece in the last quarter of the 5th century BC.
At the outset, for all his Spartan upbringing, Alcibiades remained loyal to Athens. But his popularity ¿ and his arrogance ¿ fuelled the bitter resentment of rivals who secured his death warrant on a charge of treason. Encouraged to flee for his life (and showing masterful pragmatism for which he joined the enemy, the Spartans, and went on to lead their legendary scarlet-cloaked ranks from one military triumph to the next. What became clear to the opposing states was that whoever had Alcibiades at the head of their army would control Greece. It was Aristophanes once wrote that Athenians ¿love, hate and cannot do without him¿ and to the end, their glory and downfall were shared.
Recounted by one Polemides, a seasoned soldier accused of assassinating the great leader, Tides of War is an epic, thrilling retelling of ancient, near-forgotten history. From devastating battles on land and sea to the vicious political infighting and back-stabbing in the city of Athena herself, Steven Pressfield again succeeds in bringing historical precision and human scale to those dark, dangerous times, and paints an extraordinary portrait of this remarkable man whose fortunes were to mirror the ebb and flow of the tides of war¿
