Sweet Nectar of the Gods

In the waning days of a doomed campaign, an army of Greek mercenaries find themselves stranded deep within the Persian Empire. Betrayed by the Persians and thousands of miles from home, the warriors must fight their way north across hostile territory in a brutal march known to history as the Anabasis. Sweet Nectar of the Gods dramatizes a haunting moment near the end of this journey—when the soldiers, exhausted and malnourished, encounter an unexpected bounty: abundant food in the hills of Anatolia. Desperate for nourishment, they indulge freely—only to fall victim to violent illness and madness. Hallucinations sweep through the camp. Men convulse, babble incoherently, and see visions that blur the line between the real and the divine. With half the force incapacitated, the remaining leaders must act quickly to protect the sick, maintain order, and defend against the ever-present threat of Persian attack. A lone physician, caught between ancient superstition and early empirical methods, races against time to understand the reason and uncover a cure. Told in stark, tactile realism with mythic undercurrents, this short script explores the fragility of reason under strain, the psychological toll of prolonged war, and the tension between logic and belief in the ancient world. Drawing from Xenophon’s original account, Sweet Nectar of the Gods is a gripping, dreamlike descent into survival, seen through the eyes of those who marched through history—and nearly didn’t return. Photo source: "Stanton Moor 2" by Chris Morriss https://www.flickr.com/photos/7840760@N05/27566180365/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/