Renault learned well from the master sculptors of the Parthenon, who worked with both Greece's incomparable light and the deep shadows it casts, carving their immortal reliefs to be viewed in the context of the monument as a whole. Landon Casson has pointed out that as Renault shaped the "very special and precious relationship that could exist between men who were lovers" in The Last of the Wine, she simultaneously revealed "the pathetic lot of Athenian women of good family . . . the role of housekeeper and brood mare." Renault's unfailing good taste and Classical restraint also illuminates such sobering Greek practices as infanticide, bringing them into convincing perspective.

As well as adapting material from Platonic dialogues in The Last of the Wine and fleshing out the historical account of the Peloponnesian Wars, Renault adopted the first-person memoir style Classical writers loved and used so often. Renault employed this narrative...