The Last of the Wine

Alexias, the son of an Athenian aristocrat, comes of age during the final years of the Peloponnesian War. His love for the older athlete Lysis draws him into the circle of Socrates, where philosophical argument coexists with military service, family expectation and the instability of democratic Athens.

Defeat brings Spartan occupation and the rule of the Thirty Tyrants, whose violence reaches Alexias's household. He and Lysis join Thrasybulus's democratic exiles, and their struggle to restore the city culminates at Munychia, where political liberation and private grief become inseparable.