The Last of the Wine

The Last of the Wine

by Mary Renault (Author)

Synopsis

Alexias, a young Athenian of good family, grows up just as the Peloponnesian War is drawing to a close. The adult world he enters is one in which the power and influence of his class have been undermined by the forces of war, and more and more Alexias finds himself drawn to the controversial teachings of Sokrates. Among the great thinker's followers Alexias meets Lysis, and the two youths become inseparable, wrestling together in the palaestra, journeying to the Olympic Games and fighting in the wars against Sparta. On the great historical canvas of famine, siege, and civil conflict, their relationship captures vividly the intricacies of classical Greek culture.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 368
Edition: New Ed
Publisher: Arrow
Published: 06 May 2004

ISBN 10: 0099463555
ISBN 13: 9780099463559
Book Overview: Stunningly detailed, thrillingly plotted, and filled with characters who live and breathe on the page, The Last of the Wine is a masterpiece of the art of historical fiction from one of its greatest practitioners.

Media Reviews
Not since Robert Graves' I, Claudius has there been such an exciting, living image of the ancient world on this grand a scale The New York Times Book Review
Author Bio
Mary Renault was educated at Clifton High School, Bristol and St Hugh's College, Oxford. Having completed nursing training in 1937, she then wrote her first novel Promise of Love. Her next three novels were written during off-time duty whilst serving in the war. In 1948 she went to live in South Africa but travelled widely. It was her trip to Greece and her visits to Corinth, Samos, Crete, Delos, Aegina and other islands, as well as to Athens, Sounion and Marathon, that resulted in her brilliant historical reconstructions of Ancient Greece. Mary Renault died in 1983.