Book description
'Go tell the Spartans, Passerby, That here, obedient to their laws, we
lie' Thus did the poet Simonides remember the three hundred elite
Spartan warriors who, led by their king, Leonidas, faced the vast,
inrushing Persian army at the 'hot gates' of Thermopylae and fought to
the death for an ideal dearer to them than life itself - the ideal of
freedom. Paul Cartledge's offers a compelling re-examination of this
crucial moment in history, a epic clash of civilizations that helped
shape the identity of Classical Greece and our own cultural heritage.
'Our greatest living expert on Sparta tells the story of that fearsome
city's finest hour. The result is a book that wonderfully demonstrates
the capacity of profound scholarship to thrill, to move and to inspire'
Tom Holland, author of Rubicon and Persian Fire 'The world's leading
authority on ancient Sparta' Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph
Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History at the University of
Cambridge, is the author of The Spartans and Alexander the Great, both
critically acclaimed and out in Pan paperback. He has written and
edited many articles, including Spartan Reflections, and has acted as
academic consultant on The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization for the
BBC and The Spartans for Channel 4.
