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THE SCROLLS OF LYSIS by Barnaby Ross

THE SCROLLS OF LYSIS

By

Pub Date: Feb. 1st, 1962
Publisher: Simon & Schuster-Trident

Into the heart of Thebes and that of its Supreme Boeotrach, Epaminondas, marches the sly Thamos from Gyaros, bearing the scrolls of Epaminondas' exiled sage Lysis (killed by a Spartan leader as Epaminondas will be at Mantinea), destined to reveal to the great leader his future. The hitch: only Thamos can read the scrolls, providing a perfect set-up for treachery, which Thamos pursues with zeal after he loses Epaminondas' daughter to Clothon, General Pelopidas' son, in a political marriage. The time is some ten years after the Peloponnesian War; in the course of the narrative Thebes is garrisoned by Spartans, overthrows the yoke of alliance at Leuctra, deals with Alexander of Pherae. Against this background, Thamos operates, accomplishing various deaths, including those of Clothon and Epaminondas. His double-dealing discovered, he escapes to Egypt with the sow who is tied to him by her knowledge of his first crimes at Gyaros. Despite the trappings of history, a specious, sorry little number which specializes in rude language and crude sex and seems indifferent to it all. The author's Quintin Chavas (see p. 691, 1961) set the pattern for its successor.