The Ghosts of Athens by Richard Blake

Publisher: Hodder
Pages: 448
Year: 2013
Buy: Paperback, Kindle
Source: Review copy

Review
There is something fascinating about the fortune of western Europe during those years of mystery that lay between the Roman and Carolingian empires. Centuries of decline and decay, caused and aggravated by abandonment by the Roman authorities, now based in Constantinople, and attack by the northern tribes. Arguably, the one hope for those living amongst the ruins lay in the new Christian order which flourished in the West, just as it did in the East. Unfortunately, with the bishops not able to agree about even the nature of Christ, union seemed impossible and even undesirable.

It’s in this 7th-century world that we meet Aelric – senator and advisor to the emperor in Constantinople, troubleshooter and troublemaker, handy with fist and pen, with one eye open for attractive female company and the other for enlightening literary or theological texts. Having failed to keep the peace in Alexandria, Aelric is sent with Priscus, a deeply unsavoury general, to Athens. They are there to be either executed (or at least have their eyes burnt out) for having failed their master or to rule over an unhappy meeting of bishops and prelates designed to bring the western and eastern churches together. The fact that the novel is over 400 pages long indicates the latter.

The historical setting of The Ghosts of Athens is superb. The descriptions of Athens are compelling. The remains of the glory days can still be seen, admired and visited while the decayed city streets are filled with an ugly, diseased and impoverished population, as far removed as is possible to be from those famously godlike Athenians of antiquity. You can almost taste the rot. This is compounded by a description of a garden frog stew that put me off food for a week. And when a headless corpse turns up, pulled out from under an ancient tomb, and is subjected to the kind of treatment that only the despicable Priscus could summon up, I was reaching for a bucket.

There is an issue, though. This extraordinary historical colour is let down by a rambling and incoherent story that loses direction and point at every turn. Aelric has similar colour and is entertaining and shocking in equal measure. But he is not enough. The other characters came across to me as either cartoon grotesques or cardboard cutouts. Nobody seemed ‘normal’. The story could have been about the murder, it could have been about religious argument and debate, it could have been about a city on the point of violent collapse. I didn’t really know. It was a bit of all of these with Aelric’s own private agendas added in. Also, the early chapters are set at a future date in a fantastically-realised decrepit London but there was little to join it with the bulk of the novel.

The first third is excellent and pulled me in. The remaining two thirds did their best to spit me out. It is a shame because Rome’s death throes provide such a setting and Blake clearly enjoyed putting them to paper. The beginning is so much fun to read. However, a novel needs to give more to its reader, at least this reader.

The Ghosts of Athens is the fifth book in a series and it’s possible that if I had read the others I might have enjoyed it more. It’s unlikely, though, that I’ll read the next.

The Last King of Lydia by Tim Leach

Publisher: Atlantic Books
Pages: 320
Year: 2013
Buy: Hardback, Kindle
Source: Review copy

Review
Despite his unimaginable riches, Croesus, King of Lydia, has been vanquished. In 547 BC, Croesus sits upon a throne of wood erected on top of a pyre, his white robes smeared with oil, quick to catch a flame. Watching him is Cyrus, King of the Persians, now lord of an even greater empire thanks to the military weakness of Croesus. He continues to conduct his business, knowing he has a few more minutes before his rival king will be lit up like a candle. Croesus uses these moments to reflect on an encounter with Solon, an old politician and philosopher from Athens. Having shown him his treasure rooms, endless in their variety and magnitude, Croesus asked the old man who he believed to be the happiest man alive. Croesus was shocked to discover that this man was not him. All this wealth, which Croesus believed must make him the happiest man alive, counted for nothing if he didn’t live and die well. It’s only now, waiting for the flames to catch, that Croesus begins to understand the waste.

The Last King of Lydia is Tim Leach’s first novel and this is an extraordinary fact because it is without doubt one of the finest pieces of writing I have read for a long time. Not just as historical fiction, at which it excels, but for its exquisite depiction of man’s search for contentment and happiness, a good life as well as a good death when the time for that is right. Not just for kings but also for those who serve them, their slaves as well as their wives and children. While the poorest in the fields and nameless villages have humble ambitions, to be ignored by passing armies, not to be killed or raped or enlisted or stolen from, those at the court of the king have to deal with the sacrifices of service. This might mean a slap, a grope, confinement, separation from loved ones. To be free, not just physically, is a worthy desire for contentment. For the king, his pleasures come at the cost of misery to many, not least to the blind slaves whose sole reason for existence, in a cave beneath the palace, is to count and stack the gold coins that they can never see.

But no matter how rich and powerful these kings are they are as much at the capricious whim of the gods as their own subjects are to them. They have no control over ancient oracles, they cannot compete against the warnings of dreams and omens. However much they love their wives and children, they cannot save them from the judgement of the gods.

In The Last King of Lydia, Leach has created a figure in Croesus who is timeless. While he is recognisable as the rich king of legend, here we are given a portrait of a man who thinks himself almost a god but learns in the very hardest way that he is as humble as the slave that he has taken for granted. Isocrates, his slave, and Maia, Isocrates’ wife, also learn to know this great king as a man. Status is slowly eroded. Complemented by the stories of other men, such as Cyrus the Persian conqueror, Harpagus the great general, Solon the philosopher and Gyges the son, here is a story in which figures from history are stripped bare, learning to know themselves just as we learn to know them ourselves. It is hugely poignant and at times shocking but always beautifully, lyrically written.

This is a novel of tableaux, scenes from an ancient Greek vase – the king on his pyre, the siege of a great city, the march of an immense army, the glorious towers of Babylon. This ancient world comes alive and yet still feels completely relevant to our own world. The descriptions are so vivid, the language and speech so eloquent, that the characters move in a landscape rich in colour. I know little about this period of history but now I want to learn all I can.

I cannot praise The Last King of Lydia enough, nor urge you enough to read it. I wish that there were more books by Leach that I could read right now but we must wait for the next, a sequel. Without doubt, this is a contender for my novel of the year.

God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great by Christian Cameron

Publisher: Orion
Pages: 773
Year: 2012
Buy: Hardback, Kindle, Paperback
Source: Bought copy

Review
There are few figures from history who throw a shadow as long as that of Alexander the Great. Attempts to tell his story must be brave, not least because there are readers such as myself who will have loved Mary Renault’s Alexander Trilogy for decades. But Christian Cameron, a man and author steeped in the military history of the period and intensely involved in its re-enactment, not to mention a fine writer to boot, is up to the task like no other. God of War proclaims itself an ‘Epic Story’ and it is just that – in subject matter, in depth and insight, in scope and in volume. At almost 800 pages, each meticulously filled with historical detail, this is no swift read, at least not for me. For ten days, I was immersed in another time and place, populated by some of the most fearsome and ruthless soldiers to march across the ancient world. At their head is Alexander.

God of War does not, though, attempt to look inside the mind of Alexander the Great. Instead, our narrator is Ptolemy, king of Egypt, boyhood friend of Alexander, becoming one of his most brave and able commanders. This might make you recall the Oliver Stone movie Alexander, I certainly did, but this aside Ptolemy is perfectly positioned to tell the epic story of Alexander and chart his progression from golden prince to feared tyrant. Why did the Macedonians follow Alexander year after year, from battle to battle? There are sections during this story in which Ptolemy struggles to find an answer. This is the Alexander who clasps the hand of Darius, the King of Kings, as the great Persian dies, weeping for the death of his reason to fight. His own men, who make the greatest of sacrifices – and some suffer horrendous fates – receive little such regard from the man they’ve followed across the earth.

Ptolemy is a fine storyteller. He shocks and amuses, especially when commenting on the qualities that define the people of the places they conquer. Like many others, he suffers more than his faire share of injuries and so there are swathes of action that pass in a blur for Ptolemy. Each time he comes to, Alexander’s character has been eaten into that little bit more. While Alexander himself is seen as a driving god(demon)like force on the fringes, Ptolemy’s own life is told with great detail – his love for Thais, his children, his horses (how he loves his horses) and his friends. Of course, Alexander was once one of them.

After the initial chapters which cover the end of Philip of Macedonia’s reign, the succession of his son Alexander and Alexander’s time in Athens, the majority of the novel follows Alexander’s epic campaign. As a result, there are sieges and battles galore. There is a lot of blood, there are accounts of horrific events and deeds, women and children suffer, slaves and prisoners suffer. The campaign makes people mad, not just Alexander. And throughout it all, there is the question of why.

While it is impossible to fault God of War for its authenticity and historical detail and spirit, I did find the military scenes relentless in a book of such length. This, of course, is inevitable in a novel about one of history’s greatest military leaders but I thought the character of Alexander himself stayed too much in the shadows. I missed the intimacy with Alexander that Mary Renault gave us. I missed the details about Alexander’s life, his wives and friends. He remains elusive – intentionally, no doubt. Much of the time, especially as the novel progresses, I also found it hard to understand why anyone would follow him anywhere. More understandable is why men would follow Ptolemy and his fellow commanders.

Nevertheless, God of War is an extraordinary and staggering achievement by Christian Cameron. I doubt Cameron’s expertise in Greek military history can be equalled or even approached. He is steeped in this period and it shows on every page. God of War does make demands on the reader, or at least this one, but the reward makes them well worthwhile.