Growing up just as the Peloponnesian War is drawing to a close, handsome and athletic Alexias is entering Athenian society with high hopes. The adult world he enters is one in which the power and influence of his class have been undermined by the forces of war, and more and more Alexias finds himself drawn to the controversial teachings of Sokrates. Among the great thinker's followers, Alexias meets Lysis, and the two youths become inseparable, wrestling together in the palaestra and journeying to the Olympic Games. But in Mary Renault's 1956 novel, the war with Sparta will draw these young men in, and require unimaginable sacrifices.