(urth) Essential Background Reading for Soldier Series

[Alan Lewis]

>> What else?  Is there anything I'm going to
>> definitely need to make
>> sense of Soldier of Sidon?
>>
>> Rostrum
>
> The Illiad, Odyssey, Herodotus' histories, a good
> general history of Rome that covers the etruscans and
> the early Rebublic, a good book on Greek mythology (I
> like Graves' Greek Myths because it offers alternate
> versions) Frank Miller's 300 (just kidding - it is
> entertaining as hell, though). That's all I can think
> of off the top of my head.
>
> Don

One vote of respectful disagreement for all of the above.  As far as I can 
tell, there is no required reading to make sense of Soldier of Sidon.  It's 
not without its mysterious passages, but its far more of a straight read 
than Arete.  That said,

[potential slight spoilers to follow]







passing knowledge of some basic Egyptian mythology and geography would be of 
use, also throw in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, add a dash of King 
Solomon's Mines, along with knowledge of the search for the source of the 
Nile a la Burton/Speke.

Alan