ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The shield of Talos is a novel by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, published by Mondadori in January 1988.

Trama

First part
Kleidemos is a Spartan boy born in the noble family of the Kleomenids, among the most important of Sparta, but because of a malformation to the foot the father Aristarchos abandons him - albeit with a mild heart - on Mount Taigeto, in obsquire to the strict laws of the city. Egged by an elderly ilota pastor, Kritolaos, the young man changes his name in Talos, grows and becomes a strong and courageous boy, but unaware of his origins. Kritolaos submits him to a hard training, helps him to use the stick as a weapon (as well as as a support) and gives him the arch of the ancient king Aristodemo, hero of the First Messianic War, who teaches him to use.

The fate wants Talos to save his dear friend and fiancée, Antinea (daughter of an ilota farmer who Talos was helping in the fields), from a attempted physical violence by Brithos and his friends, unaware that the latter is his older brother. Although he is on the verge of killing his brother Brithos looks him intensely in his eyes and saves him. During the convalescence Talos falls in love with Antinea, but, returning home after several days, finds the dying grandfather; immediately after his disappearance Talos is acclaimed by the other elders as "the Wolf". Two months later, however, Brithos organizes a night punitive expedition: the percuote group Talos and massacres his flock, saving his life a second time. The boy recovers again thanks also to the treatment propinate by the giant Karas; along with him Talos continues to do as a capovillage.

At the outbreak of the Persian wars the boy, like all the Ilotes, is led to Sparta to be chosen by Brithos as a helper of the soldiers at war. Talos therefore departs for the war with him and fights at the Thermopylae, assisting, unaware, the death of his true father during the famous battle. King Leonidas and his men are surrounded by Persians, so the ruler sends Talos, Brithos and Aghìas to Sparta to deliver a message to the Ephoras.

On their return to their homeland, however, the three surviving warriors are accused of desertion and cowardice, because a Krypteia agent, a sort of secret service Spartan, had replaced the King's message with a void, without them noticing: unable to bear the shame Aghìas commits suicide by hanging himself in his house, while Brithos, fled one night to kill himself from his hut, is saved from his death. With his help Brithos began a lonely war fighting all autumn, winter and spring throughout Greece to kill the emissaries and Persian troops of Mardonius, who went long and wide to depredare the peasants' masses, and finally found the glory dying heroically in the victorious b