Public-domain ebook
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In: Historical Novels·Adventure
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #27587.
William Stearns Davis’s A Victor of Salamis is a work of historical fiction that dramatizes the Persian invasions of Greece, focusing on the legendary figures of Xerxes, Leonidas, and Themistocles. The novel opens with a lyrical invocation to Athens, followed by an author’s note that explains the author’s intent to revive the drama of Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea, and to capture the natural beauty of the Hellenic landscape. From there the narrative jumps into a bustling prologue at the Isthmian Games, where a noisy crowd of Spartans, Athenians, and foreigners gathers to hear the crier announce the pentathlon contest of Glaucon, a young Athenian whose personal stakes and reputation become the first thread of the story.
The prose is unmistakably early‑20th‑century, marked by formal diction, elaborate description, and frequent classical allusions. Davis writes with a theatrical flair, blending dialogue‑driven scenes with vivid crowd‑noise and detailed setting. Readers who enjoy richly staged, character‑driven retellings of ancient wars, especially those who appreciate a blend of scholarly detail and novelistic imagination, will find this novel engaging.
The opening · free to read
The invasion of Greece by Xerxes, with its battles of Thermopylæ, Salamis, and Platæa, forms one of the most dramatic events in history. Had Athens and Sparta succumbed to this attack of Oriental superstition and despotism, the Parthenon, the Attic Theatre, the Dialogues of Plato, would have been almost as impossible as if Phidias, Sophocles, and the philosophers had never lived. Because this contest and its heroes—Leonidas and Themistocles—cast their abiding shadows across our world of to-day, I have attempted this piece of historical fiction.
Many of the scenes were conceived on the fields of action themselves during a recent visit to Greece, and I have tried to give some glimpse of the natural beauty of “The Land of the Hellene,”—a beauty that will remain when Themistocles and his peers fade away still further into the backgrounds of history.
W. S. D.
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