An Epic of Ancient Greece
— OF —
by Mike Serna
Sparta and Argos lock horns in a battle of 300 champions. Winner takes all.
Chapter I
"When two cities cannot agree, three hundred swords shall speak in their stead."
In the sun-scorched plains of the Peloponnese, two ancient powers stood divided by blood, pride, and the bones of forgotten kings. Rather than march full armies into ruinous war, Sparta and Argos struck a pact older than memory — three hundred of their finest sons, blade against blade, until only one side stood breathing beneath the Hellenic sun.
The Battle of Champions is Mike Serna’s roaring historical epic — a meticulously rendered descent into honor, brotherhood, and the brutal arithmetic of glory. It is Homer rewoven for the modern reader: visceral, poetic, and unforgiving.
The Premise
Forged from infancy in iron and discipline.
Heirs of Hera, hungry for ancestral glory.
Each a king upon the field of his own death.
Land, honor, and the silence of the dead.
For the Reader
Two storied cities, centuries of grievance, one impossible bargain.
Every blow ledger-kept; every breath measured against history itself.
Men who choose the spear over the long, soft road of forgetting.
The Chronicler
Mike Serna is a historical novelist whose pen lingers in the dust of forgotten battlefields. Drawing from Herodotus, Thucydides, and a lifetime of obsession with the warrior cultures of antiquity, he writes with the cadence of an oral poet and the precision of a strategist.
“I do not write of war. I write of the men who, knowing better, walked toward it anyway.” — M.S.
Praise
“A thunderclap of a novel. Serna writes battle the way Homer sang it — by torchlight.”
— The Athenian Review
“Brutal, beautiful, and terribly true. The pages smell of dust and bronze.”
— Kirkus, starred
“Rarely has historical fiction felt so much like overhearing the dead speak.”
— Lydia Marchetti, novelist
The Field Awaits
Three hundred blades. One immortal day. Take your place upon the line.
Chronicler of the bronze-bound dead. Writer of histories that should have been.
Correspondence
For press, signings, and oracular consultations:
press@mikeserna.com
© 2026 Mike Serna. The Battle of Champions. All rights reserved. — MOLON LABE —