Last of the Amazons

In or around 1250 BC, so Plutarch tells us, Theseus, king of Athens and slayer of the Minotaur, set sail on a journey that brought him to the land of 'tal Kyrte', the 'Free People', a nation of fiercely proud and passionate warrior women whom the Greeks called 'Amazons'. Bound to each other as lovers as well as fighters and owing allegiance to no man, the Amazons distrusted the Greeks with their boastful talk of cities and civilization. And when their illustrious war queen Antiope fell in love with Theseus and fled to Athens with the king and his followers, so denying her people, the Amazon tribes were outraged. Seeking revenge, they raised a vast army and marched on Athens. History tells us they could not win, but for a brief and glorious moment the Amazons held the Attic world in thrall before vanishing into the immortal realms of myth and legend. Resounding to the sound of brutal, bloody battles fought hand-to-hand and peopled with wonderfully realised flesh and blood characters - from the unforgettable warrior Selene, whose surrender to the Greeks does nothing to tame her, and her lover, Damon, an Athenian soldier who comes to understand and cherish the ways of the Amazon, to the great and tragic figure of Theseus, and Antiope, the noble queen who betrayed her people for love - here is Steven Pressfield's most thrillingly imagined novel yet. In this dazzling and profoundly moving tale of love and war, honour and revenge, he brings the ancient world to brilliant life as never before to recount the extraordinary, near-forgotten story of the last of the Amazons...