Thessaly

Created as an experiment by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community populated by over 10,000 children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, along with some handy robots from the far human future - all set down together on a Mediterranean island in the distant past.

The god Apollo, living (by his own choice) a human life as Pythias in the city, his true identity known to only a few, is now married and the father of several children. But a tragic loss causes him to become consumed with the desire for revenge. Being Apollo, he goes about handling it in a seemingly rational and systematic way, but it's evident - particularly to his precocious daughter, Arete - that he is unhinged with grief.

More than 65 years ago, Pallas Athena founded the Just City on an island in the Eastern Mediterranean, placing it centuries before the Trojan War, populating it with teachers and children from throughout human history and committing it to building a society based on the principles of Plato's Republic. Among the city's children was Pytheas, secretly the god Apollo in human form.