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New York Times bestseller: A "highly superior historical novel" about the bond that grows between two men in ancient Athens (Saturday Review). Alexias is a young aristocrat living during the end of Athens's Golden Age. Prized for his beauty and athletic prowess, Alexias studies under Sokrates with his closest friend, Lysis. Together, the young men come of age in an Athens on the verge of great upheaval. They attend the Olympics, partake in symposia, fight on the battlefields of the Peloponnesian War, and fall in love. The first of Mary Renault's celebrated historical novels of ancient Greece, The Last of the Wine follows Alexias and Lysis into adulthood, when Athens is defeated by Sparta, the Thirty Tyrants take hold of the city, and the lives of both men are changed forever. Through their friendship, Renault opens a vista onto ancient Greek life, uncovering its vibrancy, culture, and political strife, and offers an unforgettable story of love, honor, loyalty, and the remarkable bond between two men. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author. "Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us." --Hilary Mantel… (more)
themulhern: "The Last of the Wine" is for adults and "Marathon Looks on the Sea" is a young adult novel. But they are similar in structure, as in each a boy is born and grows up in the midst of events that finally culminate in an historic ending.
The world of Alexias, a young boy growing up in fifth century B.C. Athens is one similar to our own in at least one respect. There was an almost continuous war going on, in this case between Sparta and Athens. The young boy is sheltered from this at first and manages to explore his feelings and make a new friend, Lysis. The result of his experiences will have to await further perusal of this rich and exciting historical novel. ( )
Mary Renault's novel appears thoroughly researched and correctly written. However, I just could not get into the story. At first we read the first 100 pages and could not get involved and put it aside thinking we were just distracted. On a second attempt we realized this was going as slow as molasses and didn't need to keep trying. ( )
When I was a young boy, if I was sick or in trouble, or had been beaten at school, I used to remember that on the day I was born my father had wanted to kill me.
Quotations
When you are man enough to carry a shield, you will learn how it happens that men are sold into slavery, and their children born in it. Till then, it is enough for you to know that Amasis and the rest are slaves, not through any merit of yours, but by the destiny of heaven.
Why do I argue with a man who thinks whatever will earn him his freedom in two years? He can think what he likes then. It seems I can be more just than Midas, not because I am good, but because I am free.
the good must first be wrought with toil out of a man's own self, like the statue from the block.
It is the true teacher's gift, they say, to discover a man to himself.
I would feel my soul climb love as a mountain, which at the foot has wide slopes with rocks and streams and woods, and fields of every kind, but at the top one peak, to which if you go upward all paths lead; and beyond it, the blue ether where the world swims like a fish in its ocean, and the winged soul flies free. And thence returning, for a while I found nothing created that I could not love.
There is a labyrinth in the heart of every man; and to each comes the day when he must reach the centre, and meet the Minotaur.
A man who thinks himself as good as everyone else will be at no pains to grow better.
Since this war began we have spent more than silver; more than blood even; something of our souls.
So I came back to philosophy. . . . I had come to it as a boy from wonder at the visible world; to know the causes of things; and to feel the sinews of my mind, as one feels one's muscles in the palaestra. But now we searched the nature of the universe, and our own souls, more like physicians in time of sickness.
And from this time on, there began to be two nations in the City. For it was no longer enough that a man, to be safe, should guard his tongue. It was necessary to surrender the soul; and many surrendered it.
the want of hope unmans one more than the want of food
No tyranny is safe while men can reason.
Men worship such words; and then, feeling themselves a part of what can do no wrong, swell up in hubris, thinking only how much higher they are than another set of men, not how much lower than the gods.
Last words
ALEXIAS, son of Myron, Phylarch of the Athenian horse to the divine Alexander, King of Macedon, Leader Supreme of all the Hellenes.
New York Times bestseller: A "highly superior historical novel" about the bond that grows between two men in ancient Athens (Saturday Review). Alexias is a young aristocrat living during the end of Athens's Golden Age. Prized for his beauty and athletic prowess, Alexias studies under Sokrates with his closest friend, Lysis. Together, the young men come of age in an Athens on the verge of great upheaval. They attend the Olympics, partake in symposia, fight on the battlefields of the Peloponnesian War, and fall in love. The first of Mary Renault's celebrated historical novels of ancient Greece, The Last of the Wine follows Alexias and Lysis into adulthood, when Athens is defeated by Sparta, the Thirty Tyrants take hold of the city, and the lives of both men are changed forever. Through their friendship, Renault opens a vista onto ancient Greek life, uncovering its vibrancy, culture, and political strife, and offers an unforgettable story of love, honor, loyalty, and the remarkable bond between two men. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author. "Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us." --Hilary Mantel
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Book description
Combining the scholarship of a historian with the imagination of a novelist, Mary Renault masterfully brings the ancient world to life in this page-turning drama of the Peloponnesian War.
Athens and Sparta, the mighty city states of ancient Greece, locked together in a quarter century of conflict: the Peloponnesian War.
Alexias the Athenian was born, passed through childhood and grew to manhood in those troubled years, that desperate and dangerous epoch when the golden age of Pericles was declining into uncertainty and fear for the future.
Of good family, he and his friends are brought up and educated in the things of the intellect and in athletic and martial pursuits. They learn to hunt and to love, to wrestle and to question. And all the time his star of destiny is leading him towards the moment when he must stand alongside his greatest friend Lysis in the last great clash of arms between the cities.
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