SPARTAN by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

The author of the internationally best-selling Alexander Trilogy.

In ancient Greece, two sons are born to a noble Spartan family. One is strong and healthy, the other lame and feeble. Cruel Spartan law decrees that the crippled baby must be killed and his father reluctantly abandons him to the wolves of Mount Taygerus. But by chance, and unbeknown to his grieving parents, the child is miraculously found and saved by a Helot - the once proud race of men now enslaved by Sparta.
Brithos is raised in the mighty warrior caste of Sparta, but Talos, as his new family christen him, lives in servitude. His adoptive grandfather schools him in the history of the Helot people and instils in him the heroic legend of Aristodemus, last King of the Helots, whose armour, it is prophesied, will be worn again by the liberator of his people.
As the boys grow to manhood, they meet in ferocious conflict, Talos defending the honour of the woman he loves against Brithos' bitter brutality. He is quickly vanquished and as Brithos stands over him ready to strike the fatal blow and still unaware of their blood ties, a mysterious premonition of the truth stops him in his tracks. Shaken, Brithos relents and takes his brother as a servant and their lives and fates become entwined as the shadow of war begins to engulf Sparta in a conflict that will lead both brothers to their ultimate destinies...

New, paperback book. 331 pages, measuring approx. 15cm x 23cm x2.5cm