Tides of War is a novel by Steven Pressfield, set in the decades following the Peloponnesian War, Jason, a member of the Athenian landowning class, recounts the events of the war to his grandson. However, most of the narration occurred through Jason’s recounting of his meetings with Polemidas, an Athenian mercenary whom Jason had defended years earlier for the murder of Alcibiades. Through the course of his career as a mercenary, Polemidas had come into contact with most of the pivotal figures of the era including Socrates, the statesmen-general Pericles and Nicias, and Spartan general... Lysander. Polemidas describes his travels, most prominently his upbringing in Sparta and his family estate outside Athens, to Athens during the Plague, the Athenian marines during the disastrous Sicilian Expedition, and Athens’ eventual defeat at the battle of Aegospotami. However, it was the character of Alcibiades who loomed most large over the narrative, just as he had the greatest impact on the Peloponnesian War.
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