The text dramatises the conflict 2500 years ago between the global superpower Persia, and the two 'terrorist' Greek states Athens and Sparta The book also examines the whole extraordinary panorama of East and West From the temple priests of Babylon to the Spartan secret police from the Persian love of ducks and gardens to the Athenian relish for prostitutes from Darius, murderer, usurper and the supreme political genius in the history of the Middle East, to Themistocles, the man who saved the West