In Aegean Fire, in 433 BC in Classical Greece, from his chained position at his oar, Arion catches a glimpse of Athens' fabled Akropolis through an oarport of the trireme commanded by his nemesis, Smerdis. Despite the fantasies of his childhood as the scion of a wealthy mercantile family on Lesbos, when he had always dreamed of coming here, he now hates Athens.
After the Battle of Sybota, due to previous violent insubordination witnessed by Artontes, Arion's new master, Arion is dispatched to the dreaded mines in Laurion.
In 431 BC, like all other movable property, Arion is brought back to Athens for the duration of the first Peloponnesian summer occupation of Attica. After Arion nurses Artontes' wife and child through the plague, Artontes shows his appreciation by assigning Arion to an oarbench on one of his cargo ships, but exposure to pirates might be more threatening than the plague, naval battles, or the mines.
To assist potential readers in making good choices about whether or not to purchase any of the four volumes of Arion's Odyssey, I offer the following additional information about this tetralogy, which is set in Classical Greece, with the city-state (polis) of Athens as one protagonist and Arion (a human) as the other.
Each volume of Arion's Odyssey is a combination of historical novel, ancient travelogue, ancient poetry, mythology, religion, and history. If you would enjoy a saga as detailed as Melville's Moby-Dick, as kaleidoscopic as Michener's Iberia, and as expansive as Hugo's Les Miserable, you might love this tetralogy.
Regarding Athens and its empire, the following portion of each novel is similar to an ancient travelogue: one third of Life After Death at Ipsambul (volume 1); one fifth of Aegean Fire (volume 2); one tenth of Beyond the Battle of Naupaktos (volume 3); one tenth of Return to Lesbos (volume 4).
Set in the ancient Mediterranean world, Arion's Odyssey is an adult story about Arion, a sensitive Greek (boy becoming a man) from a wealthy mercantile family on the Greek island of Lesbos. It begins fourteen years prior to the inception of the Peloponnesian War, and ends during that war: it spans the period from 445 BC to 427 BC.
If you would like to experience life in the ancient Mediterranean world, then you will probably enjoy this adult story about coming-of-age there.
