{
 "attribution": "Source: Acenes of Sparta: The Dragon Slayer, the Sparta dragon novel. Lexicon: https://acenes-of-sparta-the-dragon-slayer.netlify.app/lexicon/ . Read the novel free on Kindle Unlimited: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HJ9V8YWV",
 "book": {
  "title": "Acenes of Sparta: The Dragon Slayer",
  "tagline": "The Sparta dragon novel",
  "author": "Manolis Tsongas",
  "hook": "A dragon is the reason the 300 died.",
  "kindle_unlimited": "https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HJ9V8YWV",
  "illustrated_hardcover": "https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H26KTD9C",
  "website": "https://acenes-of-sparta-the-dragon-slayer.netlify.app/"
 },
 "category": "people",
 "count": 20,
 "data": [
  {
   "id": "acenes",
   "name": "Acenes",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "A seven-year-old Spartan boy who becomes the subject of this account. After accidentally freeing the dragon Kalaxes during an earthquake, he embarks on a quest to find Leonidas' divine weapons and defeat the beast. Despite his young age, he displays exceptional courage, discipline, and tactical thinking befitting a true Spartan warrior.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": false,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/acenes.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "achilles",
   "name": "Achilles",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The best of the Achaeans, and the one who is told what his choice costs before he makes it.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": true,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/achilles.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "alcibiades",
   "name": "Alcibiades",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The Athenian general whose brilliance was matched only by his ambition. Thucydides, who knew him, records the Athenians distrusting his private extravagance so much that they handed the Sicilian expedition to a man they had already decided was dangerous, and then recalled him mid-campaign.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": true,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/alcibiades.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "atra",
   "name": "Atra",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The Spartan captain who leads the dead. He is the first of the ghosts to speak to Acenes, and what he says is four words: the dragon must be destroyed.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": false,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/atra.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "bellerophon",
   "name": "Bellerophon",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The legendary hero who tamed the winged horse Pegasus and slew the monstrous Chimera. In Kalaxes' treasury, the dragon mocks Bellerophon's achievement, claiming the hero never found the Chimera's true lair, which Kalaxes later discovered and turned its inhabitant to gold.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": false,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/bellerophon.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "cadmus",
   "name": "Cadmus",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The legendary founder of Thebes who slew a dragon and, under Athena's guidance, sowed its teeth in the ground. From these teeth sprang the Spartoi, fully armed warriors who fought each other until only five remained. These survivors became the ancestors of Theban nobility and, according to Prometheus, have a genealogical connection to the Spartans.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": false,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/cadmus.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "cynisca",
   "name": "Cynisca",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "Daughter of the Spartan king Archidamus, sister of Agesilaus, and the first woman to win at Olympia. Her four-horse team took the crown in 396 and again in 392 before the common era. Owners, not drivers, were proclaimed victors in the chariot events, which is what made the win possible for a woman at all.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": true,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/cynisca.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "dienekes",
   "name": "Dienekes",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The Spartan at Thermopylae to whom Herodotus gives the best line in his history.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": true,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/dienekes.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "endoios",
   "name": "Endoios",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "An Athenian sculptor of the sixth century BC, known almost entirely from signatures and from Pausanias.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": true,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/endoios.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "gyros",
   "name": "Gyros",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The bearded pirate captain who captures Acenes with the intention of selling him as a slave in Ephesus. His gold teeth and collection of colored beads in his beard demonstrate his success as a pirate and taste for displaying his wealth.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": false,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/gyros.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "heracles",
   "name": "Heracles",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The strongest of the heroes, and the ancestor the Spartan kings claimed. Herodotus gives Leonidas' descent back through twenty generations to Heracles, and it is the first thing he says about him.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": true,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/heracles.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "homer",
   "name": "Homer",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and the nearest thing the Greeks had to scripture.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": true,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/homer.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "king-leonidas",
   "name": "King Leonidas",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The legendary Spartan king who led the 300 at Thermopylae. Before his famous last stand, he confronted Kalaxes and used a divine amulet from Zeus to imprison the dragon within a mountain, sacrificing his divine protection that could have saved him from the Persians.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": false,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/king-leonidas.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "king-xerxes",
   "name": "King Xerxes",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The Persian ruler who employed Kalaxes against the Greeks. His frustration with Spartan defiance led him to unleash the dragon as a weapon of terror.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": false,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/king-xerxes.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "lycurgus",
   "name": "Lycurgus",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The semi-legendary lawgiver who established Sparta's distinctive political and social system. According to tradition, he lived in the 9th century BCE and created the militaristic, austere society that defined Sparta for centuries. His laws established the dual kingship, council of elders (Gerousia), military training system (agoge), communal dining halls (syssitia), and the disciplined lifestyle synonymous with \"Spartan.\" Historical records suggest Lycurgus may have encountered Acenes in his youth. One account describes the young Lycurgus practicing sword forms on the mountain path when Acenes was returning from his regular visit to the treasury. Upon recognizing the Dragon Slayer, Lycurgus reportedly asked about the lambda-shaped scar from the wolf battle. Acenes responded with wisdom that shaped the boy's later reforms: \"The greatest battles are not won through weapons or strength alone, but through what you carry inside, discipline to control fear, wisdom to know when to strike, courage to act when others hesitate, and integrity to serve something beyond yourself.\" This encounter may explain why Lycurgus later incorporated these precise virtues into the foundation of Spartan society, suggesting Acenes' influence extended far beyond his own lifetime, shaping the very civilization his journey had saved.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": true,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/lycurgus.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "medea",
   "name": "Medea",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "Granddaughter of Helios, priestess of Hecate, and the most dangerous figure in Greek myth who is not a monster. She gives Jason the fleece and kills for him, and when he sets her aside she kills their children and leaves.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": true,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/medea.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "odysseus",
   "name": "Odysseus",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The one Homeric hero praised for thinking rather than fighting. The Iliad gives him the night raid and the embassy; the Odyssey gives him ten years of getting home by lying well.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": true,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/odysseus.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "perseus",
   "name": "Perseus",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The hero who killed Medusa, using a polished shield to look at her without meeting her eye.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": true,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/perseus.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "theron",
   "name": "Theron",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "One of the mercenary captains under Alcibiades, and the one who does the laughing.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": false,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/theron.json"
  },
  {
   "id": "theseus",
   "name": "Theseus",
   "category": "people",
   "summary": "The Athenian hero: the Labyrinth, the Minotaur, the thread, and the sail he forgot to change, which killed his father.",
   "attested_in_ancient_sources": true,
   "api": "https://acenes-of-sparta.pages.dev/api/v1/entries/theseus.json"
  }
 ]
}