Before the Trojan War, there was the Theban War.

To the heroes beneath the walls of Troy, the heroes of the Theban War were peerless and unattainable role models. Diomedes, son of Tydeus, so prayed to his goddess Athena:

Hear me, o daughter of Zeus! Stand by me, as you had once stood by my father, divine Tydeus, when he went to Thebes!

And King Agamemnon jeered him:

Woe to thee, son of brave Tydeus, the horse-tamer! Why do you tremble with fear? Why do you glance around, looking for a route of escape? Your father Tydeus was not wont to retreat in fear when he led bronze-clad Argives against the walls of Thebes

What was the Theban War? Who fought it? What remains of the Homeric epics which described it? What can archeology tell us?

Aleksander Krawczuk's books on Greece and Rome have shaped three generations of antique lovers in Europe.

They have been huge best-sellers because of their unassuming style: reading him feels like taking part in a pleasant chat after a nice dinner by the fireside, with a glass of sherry in hand.

His topics are important and may at first seem forbidding, but the good professor finds a way to talk about them in an unassuming way without dumbing them down in the process.

Pick up this book today and escape into... intelligent pleasure.