The Pericles Commission - A Mystery of Ancient Greece (Paperback)

Early one bright, clear morning in Athens, 461 BC, a dead man falls from the sky, landing at the feet of Nicolaos. It doesn't normally rain corpses. This one is the politician Ephialtes, who only days before had turned Athens into a democracy, and with it, kick started western civilization. It looks very much as if Ephialtes was assassinated to stifle the world's first democracy at its birth. But Ephialtes has a lieutenant: a rising young politician by the name of Pericles. Pericles commissions the clever young Nicolaos to expose the assassin. Nicolaos walks the mean streets of Classical Athens in search of a killer. He's totally confident he'll succeed. There are only a few small problems. Pericles is looking over his shoulder, analyzing his every move. He'd like to get closer (much closer) to Diotima, the intelligent and annoyingly virgin priestess of Artemis. He'd prefer not to go near Pythax, the brutally tough chief of the city guard. It would definitely help if the main suspect weren't Xanthippus, a leading conservative and, worst of all, the father of Pericles. But most of all, what Nicolaos really needs, is to shake off his irritating 12 year old brother Socrates, who keeps making helpful suggestions. Can Nicolaos save Athens, democracy and the future of western civilization?