Award-winning novelist Helena P. Schrader creates novels full of rich
and realistic characters, while providing readers a remarkable insight
into archaic Spartan society. Well-researched and
intelligently interpolated from recorded facts, Schrader's Sparta is a
refreshing change from the stereotypes encountered in much modern
Leonidas. The hero
of Thermopylae. In 480 BC he defied an army half a million
But who was he?
This is his story.
From his boyhood in the infamous Spartan agoge to the final stand of
the 300 at Thermopylae, Schrader brings Leonidas and his wife, Gorgo,
back to life. This is Sparta!!! As you’ve
never seen it before.
The life of
Leonidas and Gorgo
is explored in a trilogy of biographical novels.
Sparta: A Boy of the Agoge Fiction,
The younger of twins, Leonidas was lucky not to be killed at birth.
As a boy, he must prove himself worthy of Spartan
citizenship. Struggling to survive the harsh Spartan
upbringing without disgrace, he never expects that one day he will be
king or chosen to command the combined Greek forces fighting a Persian
invasion. But these were formative years that would one day
make him the most famous Spartan of them all: the hero of Thermopylae.
(Sparta 528-508 BC)
Sparta: A Peerless Peer
The Agiad and Eurypontid kings are at each other's throats, the
Peloponnesian League is in disarray, and the Greek cities of Ionia are
calling on Sparta and Athens to aid them in their rebellion against
their Persian masters. But Leonidas is less interested in
high politics than in putting his private life in order.
He needs to find reliable helots to restore his ruined
estate, and – most important – to find the right
woman to be his bride. This is the story of both
Leonidas and Gorgo in the years before Leonidas becomes king of Sparta
and before the first Persian invasion of Greece. (Sparta 508-494 BC)
Sparta: A Heroic King Fiction, published 2012
The Persians are collecting the largest army ever seen. The
Delphic oracle proclaims King Demaratus of Sparta a usurper, and King
Cleomenes is going mad. More and more Spartans turn
to Leonidas, Cleomenes' half brother and son-in-law, to take the helm
of the ship of state in what are clearly going to be difficult
times. But Leonidas is the younger of twins, and
his brother Cleombrotus has no intention of letting Leonidas lay claim
to the Agiad throne without a fight. While the brothers
clash, the murder of two Persian ambassadors by an agitated Spartan
Assembly sets in train the inevitable conflict between Sparta and
Persia that will take Leonidas to Thermopylae – and into
history. (Sparta 492-480 BC)
Singing in Sparta? Fiction,
Sparta is losing the war to retain control of Messenia, and in response
to an oracle from Delphi, the Athenians send a lame schoolmaster to be
Sparta's supreme commander. But Tyrtaios soon discovers there
is more to Sparta than Athenian propaganda led him to believe. Before
long the lame Athenian and Sparta's most successful commander are
moving Sparta in a new direction. Set in the Second Messenian War and
based on Herodotus, this novel takes the reader back to the days
immediately following the introduction of the Spartan Constitution and shows
how this unique society evolved out of a period of
chaos. (Sparta ca 650 BC)
Slave, Spartan Queen: A Tale of Four Women of Sparta
Two women, the beautiful princess Niobe and her ugly slave Mika, are
captured and sent to Sparta as spoils of war. While the beautiful Niobe
becomes the concubine of a prince, Mika serves in the household of an
ordinary Spartan woman. Yet beauty has its price, and soon the beautiful
Niobe finds herself in trouble with Sparta’s queen, while
Mika flourishes and falls in love.
This is the story of how two very different women respond to adversity,
and in so doing it explores both the nature of beauty and its impact on
human interaction – with a surprise ending. (Sparta ca 650
published 2005, Edited and re-released 2010
Two cities at war…
Two men with Olympic ambitions…
And one slave – the finest charioteer in Greece.
Set in archaic Sparta and based on incidents recorded in Herodotus,
this is the tale of a young man's journey from tragedy to
triumph – and the story of the founding of the first
nonaggression pact in recorded history: the Peloponnesian League.
(Sparta ca. 550 BC)
A freeteacher supplement is also
available for teacher's using this
novel in their classes.