The legend of Theseus belongs to the same sort of period as the Trojan War, perhaps best described as legendary history. He has to contend with pirates, with a barbarian invasion from the north that threatens the very heart of his kingdom, with the warlike Amazons and their fierce and beautiful queen Hippolyta, who becomes his lover, and with the jealous rage of his wife and the consequent tragedy. Theseus is now King of Athens, a small and comparatively poor city-state with predatory neighbours and internal factions, and as he establishes his rule he finds his adventures are only just beginning. The Bull from the Sea takes up the story when Theseus returns victorious to Athens, only to find that his father has committed suicide in despair (because Theseus forgot – accidentally or otherwise – to change the black sail of his ship to a white one to show that he was returning home alive). The first part of Theseus’ life, covering his boyhood and his defeat of the Minotaur in Crete, was told in The King Must Die. The Bull from the Sea is the second part of the story of the legendary Greek hero Theseus of Athens. And certainly her writing was as fresh and vivid to me on a recent re-reading as it was when it was all new to me, so that seemed worth celebrating. However, when I first came across Mary Renault’s Greek-set novels in the town library a couple of decades ago I didn’t know they were classics and had no idea what to expect, so maybe there are people in the same boat now. Her novels are classics of historical fiction, and seem rather above my likes and dislikes.

It seems a bit of a cheek to review a Mary Renault novel, a little like having the impertinence to review Dickens or Shakespeare.

The Bull from the Sea by Mary Renault