The Gates of Athens

by Conn Iggulden Book 1 in the Athenian series.

First published 2020

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4.5(6,570)

In 490 BC, the Athenian general Xanthippus joins the citizen army confronting a Persian landing at Marathon, while political rivalry inside Athens threatens the unity needed for survival. Ten years later Xerxes returns with a far larger invasion, forcing the Greeks into an uneasy coalition. Xanthippus must overcome exile and factional hostility as Athens prepares to abandon its city and Sparta’s Leonidas attempts to delay the Persians at Thermopylae.

The ten-year gap between Marathon and Xerxes’s invasion lets the novel show Athens changing politically as well as militarily. Naval power, ostracism and rivalry between leading citizens determine whether the city can respond to a larger Persian threat. The evacuation of Athens makes survival depend on cooperation between states that have spent much of the preceding decade distrusting one another.