The difference between freedom and servility is a recurring theme of the book. Although the Spartans are attempting to preserve their own freedom, their society is predicated upon the hereditary slavery of the helots. Does the treatment of the helots by the Spartans conflict with the concept of freedom the Spartans espouse elsewhere? How does the refusal of Rooster to be elevated from his status as a helot elucidate these contradictions?

Xeones’s story is embedded within a frame-tale: the record produced by the scribe Gobartes. Why do you think the author chose to tell the story in this way? The story is told out of chronological order within this frame. Does this non-linear approach help bring out the themes of the book? Why or why not?

During the course of Alexandros’s training in the agoge, Polynikes attempts to humiliate him. What would Polynikes’s motivation for this be? What does Polynikes reveal about his motives when he apologizes to Alexandros at Thermopylae?