Spartan
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Narrated by:
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Derek Jacobi
About this listen
Herodotus tells us that not all of the three hundred Spartan warriors died at the hands of Xerxes, King of the Persians, in the battle of the Thermopylae: two were saved bringing a life-saving message back to the city . . .
Valerio Massimo Manfredi's Spartan is the saga of a Spartan family, torn apart by a cruel law that forces them to abandon one of their two sons - born lame - to the elements. The elder son, Brithos, is raised in the caste of the warriors, while the other, Talos, is spared a cruel death and is raised by a Helot shepherd, among the peasants.
They live out their story in a world dominated by the clash between the Persian empire and the city-states of Greece - a ferocious, relentless conflict - until the voice of their blood and of human solidarity unites them in a thrilling, singular enterprise.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's a good story, with a decent pace and no obvious gaps from being an abridged version (though I've never read the full book so I might have missed something!)
Much of the story is from the position of the helots, the servant/ slave class that supported the Spartans. But don't let that fool you - it's a great story covering the famous battle of the 300, but more interestingly, the aftermath of that battle.
The story was really brought to life by the excellent narration - I can't praise Jacobi enough. It really highlighted just how good an audiobook can be if the narrator is top class, which Derek Jacobi is.
A good, well-paced, brilliantly read story!
Excellent - particularly the narration
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