In the footsteps Mary Renault, Charles Lloyd published a homoerotic novel, The Walls of Sparta earlier this year (Lethe Press).
Drawing on the biography by the Athenian historian Xenophon who knew the warrior king personally and the biography by the later historian Plutarch, the author tells the story of Agesilaos II who ruled Sparta from roughly 400 to 359 BCE. a period when the city-state reached the peak of its power and began its decline. He fought into his 80s in Greece, Asia Minor and Egypt.
Charles Lloyd portrays this interesting figure through episodic chapters told from the point of view of the real men and women he depended on: his wife Kleora, his sister Kuniska, his son Arkhidamos, his older lover Lysandros, his seer Agias, the famous warrior Isadas and Xenophon.
Underlying almost everything and especially pivotal moments is homoeroticism. Agesilaus along with most of the Spartan male characters are involved in the culturally central relationships of a whisperer, an older, more experienced young warrior citizen who courted and educated a listener, a younger warrior.
Writing for a gay readership, Charles Lloyd invents a wide array of interweaving male characters including friends, military subordinates, political rivals, scribes, heralds, Persian boys and slaves. Through them, he depicts nuanced relationships and men in love in ways more familiar to present-day gay people.
The result is a vividly engrossing, detailed portrait of Spartan society and culture with many romantic and explicitly erotic scenes.
Charles Lloyd is an emeritus professor of classics at Marshall University in West Virginia.
