Lo Scudo Di Talos (1988)

Abandoned by his parents at an early age in the name of the cruel law of Sparta, Talos, the cripple, grows up among the helots, saved and cared for by an old shepherd who teaches him to oppose a destiny already assigned. Despite his deformity, his courage and obstinacy make him a skilled and powerful archer, in the service of the overbearing but intrepid Brithos. Like all noble sons of Sparta, Brithos was raised to be a warrior, and little does he yet know that a thread of blood unites his past with that of Talos. But fate lines up the two men side by side in the fight against the invading Persians... Athens and Sparta, the glorious victory of Marathon and the heroic sacrifice of Thermopylae: the great history of the Greeks is the setting for a splendid and tormented family story. The shield of Talos, among Valerio Massimo Manfredi's most loved books, is a spectacular and historically rigorous novel, full of political passions and affections, courage and adventure. A book to relive the time of gods and heroes.