The Gates of Athens Quotes

“While the moon rose and fell, lonely tracks through the mountains echoed to the slap of running feet as those lads earned their pay, racing to be first to the gates of Athens.”
― Conn Iggulden, The Gates of Athens

“The great moments of your life are still ahead. Yet if you only take a step when you are certain you are right, you will never move at all.”
― Conn Iggulden, The Gates of Athens

“a sentence and there was a chance the jurors would choose whatever Miltiades offered. Of course, the defence had the same problem. If Miltiades chose too light a punishment, the jury could easily go for the harder ending. Men liked to see blood; the advantage lay with”
― Conn Iggulden, The Gates of Athens

“through their”
― Conn Iggulden, The Gates of Athens

“A flame does not spare one house over another, not when the whole city burns.”
― Conn Iggulden, The Gates of Athens

“Grief was a corrosive force in a man's life. It had to be denied like any weakness, not drowned in wine.”
― Conn Iggulden, The Gates of Athens

“There is nothing like losing everything to remind a man what he values.”
― Conn Iggulden, The Gates of Athens

“Never let the deer see your bow.”
― Conn Iggulden, The Gates of Athens

“killing if they were to survive. All the things that gentled a man had been left behind. Humour, decency, a sense of fairness – all those made him weak when another tried to cut his head from his shoulders. Xanthippus”
― Conn Iggulden, The Gates of Athens

“exists because Athens is worth more than us. Our freedom is worth more than our lives, certainly our labours! Can you understand? It has never been clearer to me than today, setting foot in the Agora once again. There is nothing like our Assembly in the world, Cimon. Outside our bounds, there is just men telling others what to do – tyranny. I spent my years of exile in Corinth, on the Peloponnese. It took me a while to see what was different there, but when I understood, it was a hammer’s blow. Nothing changed! In Athens, we talk, we trade, we innovate. There is change every day, but always with the consent of the people. Always. I saw a man hanged when he criticised a nobleman of Corinth. There was no outcry from the people, as there would be here. Beyond blasphemy, we can say anything. We are free to praise Sparta, but the Spartans are not free to praise us! That is the difference between Athens and the world. Our law comes from the people, not at the whim of judges or kings. By”
― Conn Iggulden, The Gates of Athens