The Flowers of Adonis

by Rosemary Sutcliff

First published 1969

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4.2(155)

Athens, during the Peloponnesian War. Alcibiades moves through the city as brilliant aristocrat, soldier, political performer and object of suspicion. His charm and ambition make him central to Athenian plans for the great expedition against Syracuse, while his enemies use scandal and religious accusation to force him into exile.

The Sicilian campaign becomes a catastrophe under divided leadership, and Alcibiades repeatedly changes allegiance while claiming that his deepest loyalty remains with Athens. Sutcliff presents him through the people drawn into his orbit as well as through public events. The novel examines the dangerous attraction of a leader whose gifts are inseparable from vanity, and a democracy capable of both extraordinary confidence and destructive instability.