Thais of Athens

By: Ivan Yefremov

Narrated by: John A. Boulanger

The beautiful hetaera Thais was a real woman who inspired poets, artists, and sculptors in Athens, Memphis, Alexandria, Babylon, and Ecbatana. She traveled with Alexander the Great's army during his Persian campaign and was the only woman to enter the capitol of Persia - Persepolis.

Love, beauty, philosophy, war, religion - all that and more in a historic masterpiece by Ivan Yefremov.

©2011 TSK Group LLC (P)2019 TSK Group LLC

Information overpowered the story

That's of Athens is an information heavy historical fiction that misses the potentially evocative character to moralizing over Hellenistic realities and created understandings and beliefs. It reads like a scientific treatise in a romantic dust jacket The author's Soviet era Russian analytical realities overwhelm the story.
By all means read or listen to this story if you want terms and timeliness set against a character's fictional life.
It started strong with tensions between Thais and young Ptolemy but flattened afterwards and never managed to recover.
The reader should have been a woman. I think this reader is more suited to nonfiction.