Elephants & Castles

✍ Scribed by Duggan, Alfred

• Book ID: 110237424
• Year: 1962
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 179 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

Alfred Duggan's new novel re-creates the career of Demetrius and portrays the vivacious courtesan who was more conspicuous, even in his public life, than his wives. Elephants, and the archer's castles mounted on their backs, played a significant part in the career of this many-sided man.

Demetrius, surnamed Poliorcetes�Besieger of Cities�was the first man to be worshipped as a God during his lifetime by the people of Athens. That was not the most important thing about him, for neither worshippers nor deity took the affair very seriously. He passed his life fighting strenuously to restore the great Empire of Alexander which his father had helped to found. Though he did not succeed, the last years of his life were curiously contented.

This is the beginning of the Silver Age of Hellas. The Greeks had exchanged political freedom for enormous material prosperity; and if the final decision in any matter of importance lay with some Macedonian soldier of fortune, many wise men believed that membership of the new World Empire was worth the loss of liberty. In this new atmosphere anyone might do anything. Demetrius tried his hand at most things.