Tides of War

Through the recollections of men who knew him, the novel traces the career of Alcibiades, the gifted Athenian commander whose ambition repeatedly altered the Peloponnesian War. The narrative moves through plague-stricken Athens and the Sicilian Expedition before Alcibiades escapes condemnation by defecting first to Sparta and then to the Achaemenid Persian court in Asia Minor.

During the Decelean phase of the war, Alcibiades returns to command Athenian forces and wins a succession of victories, yet his private brilliance cannot resolve the political instability of the democracy that repeatedly celebrates and rejects him. The destruction of the Sicilian expedition and the final collapse of Athenian power turn his career into a study of charisma, treason and civic self-destruction.