The spellbinding image of the beautiful hetaera Thaïs inspired poets, artists, and sculptors in Athens, Memphis, Alexandria, Babylon, and Ecbatana. She accompanied Alexander the Great during his Persian campaign and was the only woman who entered the Persian capital—Persepolis. Love, beauty, philosophy, war, religion—everything and much more in Ivan Efremov’s historical masterpiece “Thaïs of Athens.”