A vivid novelistic history of the rise of Athens from relative obscurity to the edge of its
golden age told through the lives of Miltiades and Cimon the father and son whose defiance of
Persia vaulted Athens to a leading place in the Greek world. When we think of ancient Greece we
think first of Athens: its power prestige and revolutionary impact on art philosophy and
politics. But on the verge of the fifth century BCE only fifty years before its zenith Athens
was just another Greek city-state in the shadow of Sparta. It would take a catastrophe the
Persian invasions to push Athens to the fore. In Phoenix David Stuttard traces Athens's rise
through the lives of two men who spearheaded resistance to Persia: Miltiades hero of the
Battle of Marathon and his son Cimon Athens's dominant leader before Pericles. Miltiades's
career was checkered. An Athenian provincial overlord forced into Persian vassalage he joined
a rebellion against the Persians then fled Great King Darius's retaliation. Miltiades would
later die in prison. But before that he led Athens to victory over the invading Persians at
Marathon. Cimon entered history when the Persians returned he responded by encouraging a
tactical evacuation of Athens as a prelude to decisive victory at sea. Over the next decades
while Greek city-states squabbled Athens revitalized under Cimon's inspired leadership. The
city vaulted to the head of a powerful empire and the threshold of a golden age. Cimon proved
not only an able strategist and administrator but also a peacemaker whose policies stabilized
Athens's relationship with Sparta. The period preceding Athens's golden age is rarely described
in detail. Stuttard tells the tale with narrative power and historical acumen recreating
vividly the turbulent world of the Eastern Mediterranean in one of its most decisive periods.
