Acropolis: Curse of Athena

424 BC: Artabas is half-Persian, half-Greek, an outsider who lives on his wits. He serves as a Spartan spy, in Corinth, a nest of corruption. Sparta and Corinth seem close to defeat after eight years of war. Athens is in the ascendant. A truce has been declared for the Olympian Games and Corinth is crowded with travellers.Artabas learns of a banquet arranged for important Athenians by powerful men in the city with links to Syracuse. Syracuse is the great power in the west, supplying the Peloponnese with much of its wheat for bread, yet so far she has stayed neutral.He uses his lover to eavesdrop, a prostitute in a brothel. But when the girl is found dead, his life takes a new direction, first in a quest for her killer, later in a bid to follow his own ambition, in the labyrinth that is Athens. Philip Wooderson tells a story involving Alcibiades, spoilt nephew of the late Pericles, intent on glory in war no matter the cost to Athens; his aunt, the wily Aspasia, a seductress still in her prime, who schemes to regain the influence she held when Pericles ruled; and her aged lover, Euripides, writer of tragic plays, who sees disaster looming and schemes to end the war. Artabas finds himself courted by each, and soon learns he can trust no one, except for his friend Socrates- a man who claims to know nothing.The story concludes in Acropolis:Wind of Hermes.