Protector

Name: Protector
Rating: 4.5 (5748 reviews)

by Conn Iggulden Book 2 in the Athenian series.

First published 2021

Amazon

4.5(5,748)

With Athens evacuated and the Persian army advancing, Themistocles must persuade suspicious Greek allies to commit their fleets to a decisive battle in the narrow waters of Salamis. Victory at sea does not end the invasion: Mardonius remains in Greece with a powerful army, and Athens must cooperate with Sparta despite bitter political divisions. The novel follows the campaigns through the coalition victory at Plataea and the struggle over Athens’s future.

The victory at Salamis depends on cooperation between states that distrust one another and disagree over strategy. Themistocles’s political skill is therefore as important as naval tactics, while the subsequent campaign against Mardonius requires Athens to accept that sea power alone cannot finish the war. The novel presents the Persian invasion as a coalition crisis whose outcome depends on maintaining unity long enough to survive.