The Falcon of Sparta by Conn Iggulden

Based on one of history's most epic stories of adventure, Conn Iggulden's latest bestseller pits Persians against Spartans in a legendary battle.

In the Ancient World, one army was feared above all others.

401 BC. The Persian king Artaxerxes rules an empire stretching from the Aegean to northern India.
As many as fifty million people are his subjects. His rule is absolute.

But the sons of Sparta are eager to play the game of thrones . . .

Battles can be won - or lost - with a single blow. Princes fall. And when the dust of civil war settles, the Spartans are left stranded in the heart of an enemy's empire, without support, without food and without water. Far from home, surrounded by foes, it falls to the young soldier Xenophon to lead the survivors against Artaxerxes' legendary Persian warriors.

Conn Iggulden

Formats & editions

Paperback

9781405921534

June 4, 2019

Michael Joseph

448 pages

RRP $19.99
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Hardback

9780718181468

May 15, 2018

Michael Joseph

480 pages

RRP $45.00
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Audio CD

9781405937382

May 15, 2018

Michael Joseph

RRP $39.99
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The Falcon of Sparta

Conn Iggulden

EBook

9781405921527

May 3, 2018

Penguin eBooks
Online retailers

Extract

Prologue

In Babylon, starlings gaped in the heat, showing dark tongues. Beyond vast city walls, the sun leaned on those who laboured in the fields, pressing them down.

As he walked in the middle of the road, the Great King bore a sheen on his skin, of oil or sweat his son could not have said. His father’s beard gleamed in tight black curls, as much a part of him as the odour of roses, or the long panelled coat he wore.

The air smelled of hot stone and cypress trees, like spearheads against the sky. The streets all around had been emptied of those who lived there. Not a child, not an old woman, not a chicken had been left to scratch the earth as the imperial soldiers had cleared a way for the king to walk. The silence lay so heavy, the boy could hear birdsong.