For seventy years, victory - rapid, spectacular victory - had seemed the birthright of the Persian Empire. . .

In the fifth century BC, a global superpower was determined to bring truth and order to what it regarded as two terrorist states. The superpower was Persia, incomparably rich in ambition, gold and men.

The terrorist states were Athens and Sparta, eccentric cities in a poor and mountainous backwater: Greece. The story of how their citizens took on the most powerful man on the planet is as heart-stopping as any episode in history.

'Magisterial... told with great authority and a novelistic colour and verve' Books of the Year, Independent

'Holland has a rare eye for detail, drama and the telling anecdote'  Dominic Sandbrook, Daily Telegraph

'An unequivocal argument for the relevance of ancient history' Observer

'Holland brings this tumultuous, epoch-making period dazzlingly to life' William Napier, Independent on Sunday