A narrative of the 76th Olympiad in Greece in the year 476 BC, when the Hellenes celebrated their victory over the Persians - a tour de force of historical authenticity and poetic imagination. In the first of two parts, we meet the participants as they are trained for the rigorous Games. The stage is set for the conflict between Sotion, carefree and fully committed to the ancient ideal, and the methodical, practical Ikkos, who trains himself rigorously apart from the others. Then follows a masterful account of the events themselves, in part two. Here, as elsewhere in the book, the world of ancient Greece attains a new actuality, as the Greeks are portrayed at a time of heightened awareness of existence.