History Sans Boredom...

Reading history books can be boring, even for professional historians. For people who dislike history anyway, it can be downright painful. One way to ease the pain, or even make history fun, is through the artistry of fiction, whether in the visual media or in book (or eBook) form. I've been looking for some good, written historical fiction during the past few weeks. My criteria are pretty simple. I want something fun to read – a page-turner – and not too long. Three hundred pages is about as long as I want to spend on a story. I do go longer for select authors – Steven King's Under the Dome is on my reading list – but I prefer shorter works. I also like historical fiction that has some semblance to reality as I know it. Historical romances don't hold much interest for me.

For my first effort I wanted to find something on ancient history. Using Google Search I found this website about Best Historical Fiction... http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/15.Best_Historical_Fiction I had to work a little to find something in that list that me my reading criteria and settled on a book by Nicholas Nicastro entitled Antigone's Wake. Antigone is the name of one of the seven extant plays of Greek playwright Sophocles. The book is NOT about the death of Antigone, but about a significant, though little known, event in the life of Sophocles, the siege of Samos. Samos was a Greek island and a member of the Delian League, a defense organization dominated by Athens. Samos rebelled against the high-handed tactics of Athens and against the taxes they imposed in return for protection. Athens responded by laying siege to Samos and ultimately bringing that delinquent group back into the fold.

Sophocles was (and is) one of the top playwrights in Athens during the period 400 to 500 BC, along with Aeschylus and Euripedes. The story takes place in a nine month period from 440 to 439 BC. Sophocles, though an artist, was expected to participate in military campaigns as needed. All Athenian males received military training from an early age. Sophocles, 55 years old, was considered a wise man. Pericles, the leading political and military mind, chose Sophocles to serve as one of his ten generals in the Samos campaign. Antigone's Wake is the name of his ship.

What I found interesting about this book is that in about 200 pages I learned a lot about daily life in Athens, how politics, theater, and the military worked, and about what it meant to be a citizen of Athens. I learned more about ancient Greek sex life than I really wanted to know. I also learned about a few other famous Greeks, including Pericles, Aeschylus, and Euripedes, the art of war, and what it meant to be an island kingdom, Samos, and a partner with Athens. Nicastro managed to keep me turning pages and informed.

Is the work authentic? It feels like it,and Nicastro's bio suggests he has the ability to do serious research. One reviewer, David Hollander, associate professor of ancient history at Iowa State University, attests to the reliability of the research and that the extrapolations about Sophocles were reasonable.
So, enjoy the book. I liked it well enough to download Nicastro's book, Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great to my Kindle. I also have in hand Ursula LeGuin's tale of ancient Rome, Lavinia. Look for more on those, later, here.