WL's Mainstream Gay Book Reviews - 65. Axios: A Spartan Tale by Jaclyn Osborn (Gay Historical/Romance/War Fiction)

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/35699997-axios

This book was something that I heard a lot of good things about from readers, who also enjoyed the Song of Achilles. Ancient Greece is one of those things I learned about in middle and high school with my classical education. Like many kids, my education focused on the virtues of the ancient Athenian society and its democratic value system. Yet, as I grew older, I found myself drifting to different areas of ancient Greece, including Thebes and their famous Sacred Band, a great example of a society giving a gay man something to fight for. Yet in all the ancient histories and myths, I had rarely given Sparta much more than a second thought. In fiction, Spartans are usually depicted as brutal warriors with a lust for battle and a macho attitude that puts off scary toxic masculine vibes. I was surprised to read this book and found the characters understandable, even admirable in their way. Maybe, because this story is told from the perspective of a gay male, so it helped make the horrors of Spartan culture understandable and digestible without offering them forgiveness. It’s also the first time I’ve read a book where the character and society are protagonists to the readers, but antagonists to the world at large. Jaclyn Osborn deserves praise for this historical fiction story with its incredible details about the Spartan training practices, regimented social structure, and complex morality within the ancient world. I would argue that people who enjoyed Mary Renault’s trilogy based on the life of Alexander the Great, will also enjoy Axios as well.

Length: 334 pages in print and 13 hours 33 minutes on audible, this is not a simple reading project, but a multi-day or multi-week reading. You will enjoy the romance, the torturous training sessions that the boys undergo, and a taste of the ancient world they lived in. If you are looking for a peaceful light reading with little conflict, then I would not advise reading this book. It will take its toll on you with amoral characters, conflicts, and tragic deaths.

Plot: The story chronicles the life and time of Axios, a spartan warrior, from childhood to his death. We start the story with Axios being sent to the Spartan training at the young age of seven. He meets a boy named Eryx, whose father had fled the battlefield out of cowardice so he has to live up to Spartan values even more. They become friends first, then lovers as they grow to become teenagers, discovering their sexual interest in each other. They supported each other as they climbed the adolescent training ranks, despite their differences in views and beliefs. While Eryx is the model for every young boy, who is training to be a soldier, due to his fighting technique and his discipline, Axios in contrast must struggle and work harder to reach adequate levels of proficiency. Additionally, Axios is revealed through his inner monologue to question the very nature of Spartan society, their harsh way of life, and how their society functions. While both boys are indoctrinated into the Spartan military and society, it takes Axios longer to acclimate. However, after Axios faces a life and death situation between choosing higher moral values or killing to protect Eryx, Axios chose Eryx and accepted Sparta’s harsh reality in a cathartic moment in the middle of the story. We also are introduced throughout the book to their friends and fellow trainee soldiers in the Spartan army, their lives and loves, and the tragic consequences of a child soldier’s life in the ancient world. Major and minor historical battles take place, which shows the continuous decline of Sparta as a city-state. Yet, despite knowing they were inevitably going to fall in battle, both young men and their friends chose to carry on. There was brotherhood between these young soldiers and love between Axios and Eryx, but there was sadly never peace for them to explore that love fully, due to the glory of Sparta.

Review: This is one of those books I recommend for folks that love history and are not afraid of bittersweet romantic endings. Some people are going to say this love story between two Spartans was always doomed, but I would argue that Eryx and Axios had over two decades of their lives, which was more than many gay men in love have had throughout history, including more than other gay characters in this novel. It’s a love forged in fire under the harshest of conditions. I think this historical fiction was done very well with an amazing romance.

In terms of characters, Axios and Eryx were very unique, displaying opposite personas as sexual partners and portrayal in society. While Axios was a stereotypical sexually submissive partner throughout the novel, his preferred sexual position did not make him weaker by any means. Axios demonstrated fortitude and strength both in physical activity and will; he was capable of thinking beyond the regimented life that was forced on him. Eryx in contrast was portrayed as a stereotypical sexually dominant partner, but in his daily life, he obeyed all his commands and live by the rules. In life, I’d argue that Eryx was far more submissive and accepted whatever his society dictated without any thought.

For the setting, the Sparta of popular fiction, like the 300, and this book share certain virtues based on a warrior tradition and a deep sense of national pride, but this book shines an ugly light on this society that eventually was destroyed by their over-aggressive and ambitious desire for hegemony. The story did not hide any of the gruesome details about how badly the Spartan treated their male children, how vicious they were trained to be, and how callous this society acted against perceived “weakness” in individuals.

My favorite arc of this novel was the indoctrination of Eryx and Axios through the murder of a helot. The helots were a group of people in Sparta, mostly used as agricultural slaves or servants and according to ancient historians were treated harshly by Spartan citizens. The novel depicts their treatment as being subhuman, their lives holding no value except for what they can provide male Spartan soldier citizens. During a dinner, Eryx was challenged to show he was strong enough to kill without remorse by a superior officer towards an offending helot, but despite performing the act, his actions and subtle motions in secret with Axios showed he was not without empathy. Later with Axios, we see how dehumanizing murder is on a person. When Eryx was held captive by a helot boy, who was fleeing the Spartans in a bid for freedom, Axios had to make a moral judgment. Axios knew the slavery and degradation against the helots that his society held were morally wrong. He instinctively knew the helot boy had a right to seek freedom despite what the rules of his society said. Yet, the helot boy’s resistance was dangerous to the social order he lived in. Additionally, the helot had taken his lover, Eryx, captive and threatened his life. In the end, Axios chose to kill the helot boy and accept the harsh truth of his society. Stuff like that isn’t found often in fiction stories, there’s usually a clear moral good and evil with the hero choosing the high road. Instead, we have a murder and the acceptance of the protagonist into what amounts to a supremacist society’s value system. It was a shock, but I applaud Jaclyn Osborn for writing it because it made the story and the character far more real.

Despite such dark moments, Axios and Eryx, along with their comrades, showcased the various forms of love and light that were hidden in Sparta. The society was horrible, but the inhabitants of the society were not typical villains. It makes you realize that sometimes ideological antagonists are not the devil incarnate, but just people with a diametrically opposite ways of life. You can’t live with their harmful behavior against you, but you should see them as human beings with their own reasons and experiences that made them who they are. I think this story humanized the Spartans, who were villains, but you can see their humanity.

There were some character issues, notably the single-minded nature of Eryx, preventing any possible happy ending for them. Surrender was an option in the final battle, but it would be cowardice, which Eryx could not bear due to what his father did. Yet, only a few chapters prior, Eryx was willing to withdraw to save the life of Axios. That felt a bit weird in terms of characterization. Axios also had bouts of flimsy characterization as well, where he at times appeared to be an enlightened modern gay man, then at other times, he seemed stuck in his Spartan ways. It might be a writer’s personal choice in how the characters’ interactions would operate in particular scenes, but they did seem a bit off.

Rating: 4 out 5, it was a very enjoyable book. It’s worth a read for ancient history fans, fans of wartime love stories, and fans of stories where you read about the villain written as tragic heroes.