The Last of the Wine

If you think our wars are long and drawn out, the 25-year war between Athens and Sparta at the time of Athenian power in ancient Greece. The story is told by Alexis, born at a time of plague and the outset of the war. Alexias is born to a rich family and takes part in all the big events that shaped the outcome of the war. The book traces his adventures from his school days and how he witnessed the great naval battle in the Great Harbour, how he was captured and buried his father on his return. There are… show more.

The most perfect and poetic of Renault’s brilliant series of novels set in ancient Greece, which incorporates a captivating dramatization of the courting rituals surrounding the Athenian gymnasium that then leads into a lingering and lyrical love story. The whole saga is set against the historically accurate and stirring backdrop of the downfall of the Athenian Empire at the end of the 5th century BC.

The Last of the Wine, the first and best in Renault’s series of novels set in ancient Greece, brings to life that world as no other novel I’ve read has done. The title derives from the fact that it is set at the end of the Peloponnesian War, which results in Athens’ defeat, so there is an elegiac tone running through it. The events are seen through the eyes of a young man called Alexias, who introduces the reader to major historical figures such as Socrates. Renault’s big achievement is to succeed in entering the contemporary consciousness of her characters… show more.

I first read this novel when I was in my teens. I had just begun to learn Ancient Greek at school and had spent my first summer holiday in the Greek islands. I instantly fell in love with the Greek world, ancient and modern, and Mary Renault brought to life for me the world of Athens at the height of the ‘classical’ civilization of Greece, 2,500 years ago. It is a world strangely close to us, and yet unimaginably distant too. Renault’s warm humanity and gift for atmosphere and storytelling captivated me and I’ve been coming back to The Last… show more.

Mary Renault (pen name of Mary Challans, 1905-1983) was an Oxford-educated novelist who, in order to practise her gay sexuality more freely, emigrated permanently to South Africa, where she joined in with the feminist, anti-Apartheid ‘Black Sash’ movement. Her first novel, The Charioteer, had a (male) gay plot but, unlike the rest of her considerable oeuvre, was set in contemporary Britain. Otherwise, she specialized in ancient Greek worlds settings, both mythical/prehistoric and historical, with a preference for the ‘Classical’ 5th and 4th centuries BC. 

Though not a trained Classicist herself (she had read English at St Hugh’s),… show more.