Goat Song

by Frank Yerby

First published 1967

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3.8(328)

Ariston grows from a difficult youth into a celebrated Spartan warrior whose beauty, physical ability and appetite for experience repeatedly draw other people into his orbit. His progress through Greek society carries him between military service, sexuality, patronage and personal rivalry while the long struggle between Sparta and Athens transforms the world around him.
The Peloponnesian War gives the novel its historical structure, exposing contrasts between Spartan discipline and Athenian political and cultural life while forcing Ariston to navigate a conflict that consumes much of the Greek world. Yerby uses the fictional soldier to explore ancient attitudes toward citizenship, women, slavery, sexuality and honour without turning the novel into a chronicle of generals and battles alone.