Tides of War

Four cassettes, 6 hoursRead by Derek JacobiPlutarch, Plato, and Thucydides have all immortalized Alcibiades (ca. 450-404 b.c.) as a peerless general and conqueror on sea and land, whom the tides of war and fortune always favored. Raised as a ward of Pericles, he was later a protégé of Socrates, and inevitably compared to the legendary Achilles. The destinies of Alcibiades and Athens were inextricably intertwined; the man and the city-state mirrored each other's boldness, ambition, and the fatal flaws that were their undoing. When allied, Alcibiades and Athens were unbeatable. When divided, he led Sparta and Persia to glory. At the end of his life, in exile from all factions, Alcibiades was shunned by his countrymen in their most desperate hour. Athens would rather fall than be led by its most brilliant leader. Narrated by Alcibiades' trusted bodyguard and hired assassin in a mesmerizing death-row confession, TIDES OF WAR is epic historical fiction at its finest--a full-bodied, flesh-and-blood retelling of one of history's pivotal conflicts.