Spartan

Sparta orders that Talos, a child born with a damaged leg, be abandoned, but a Helot shepherd rescues and raises him among the people who labour for the warrior state. His elder brother Brithos enters the severe education of a Spartan citizen, and the two boys grow up on opposite sides of a society that treats one as a master and the other as property.

The Persian invasion forces both brothers into the same war. From Thermopylae to the final struggle at Plataea, private loyalty conflicts with Spartan law, class resentment and the demand for absolute obedience. Talos's intelligence and courage give him an unexpected role in the defence of Greece, but his knowledge of his birth and of Helot suffering makes victory inseparable from the question of what kind of Sparta deserves to survive.