The Road to Sardis

by Stephanie Plowman

‘It won’t be so bad when we get to the top,’ gasped Timotheus at our mid-day rest. ‘It opens out then, a bit, and goes down quickly just east of Plataea.’ He gnawed his knuckles in an agony of indecision. ‘We can’t get there today,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘We’ll have to wait until tomorrow . . .’

  We slept the sleep of exhaustion that night, and next morning at dawn started on the last stage of the journey. We ate all that was left of our food and, taking it in turns to carry Theron’s cloak, made the last ascent of the pass. No hoofbeats behind us, signifying search parties from Athens, only, as the early morning mist cleared, eagles soaring aloofly overhead, which made me feel that the All-Father was keeping an eye on us, and then, ahead of us, the pass itself. We turned and hugged each other. We laughed and cried, did silly little jigs in the road.

  At last we stood at the highest point of the pass. If all the household appeared on horseback behind us, we felt confident we could run off down the road being unfolded before us, outdistancing men on horseback, yes, because we were capable of anything that morning, and if it were an hour’s walk—Why, we could run it in no time!’ said Timotheus.

  Now the sun showed us our road opening out and descending below us rapidly, with many curves.

  ‘There, over to the east, there’s Plataea,’ said Timotheus, pointing. ‘See it?’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ I said, jumping up and down with excitement. ‘Isn’t it new looking?’

  ‘It has to be, the Thebans got the Persians to destroy it. And there’s the Asopus, there right below us—see it? Come on, last lap now.’

  ‘Timotheus,’ I said wonderingly, ‘who are those men, coming up from the left?’

  Timotheus stood frozen, peering. Slowly his hand went up to his mouth. There was an immensely long column marching up from the south, heading for Plataea. Dust rose about it, but spear tips twinkled, and from time to time we caught a glow of colour. It looked like a red caterpillar, I said, with a scared giggle, and as I said ‘red’, we both turned and looked at each other, appalled. Red cloaks—tunics—meant only one state.

  Timotheus, his face white and pinched, whispered, ‘Listen—listen—can you hear anything?’

  After a moment I said in a dead voice, ‘Flute music.’

  Only one state marched to flute music.

  Timotheus burst into tears. ‘We shouldn’t have stopped at all!’ he sobbed. ‘We should have marched day and night, as they have done! Oh, Lycius, the Spartans have come!’

  9

  ‘So loyal an ally’

  Two small, scared animals, we crept down through the pine-strewn slopes, closer and closer to Plataea, closer and closer to the Spartans. ‘Every other year,’ whispered Timotheus, ‘they’ve swerved east once they’re north of Corinth . . . but now the Thebans must have called the swine in, just as they did the Persians fifty years ago.’

  ‘We shan’t be able to get inside now,’ I said, feeling grief stretch before me into eternity.

  ‘No, but we must stay to see what happens.’

  ‘Of course,’ I agreed.

  An hour later, when we should have been at the city gates, we peered cautiously out of cover, and Timotheus gave a tremendous sigh and whispered, ‘Look, there’s my father!’

  Astymachus, with another Plataean, came riding out of Plataea, across to the Spartans, who grounded arms, halted. We were close enough to see their faces now. They scared me, those faces, because they were so expressionless. Any other halted troops would have looked about them with interest, being not only in a strange place, but in a place famous enough in their own history; not so the Spartans. They continued to stare woodenly ahead.

  ‘Your father’s putting up his hand,’ I said.

  Astymachus called, ‘Men of Sparta, who is your leader?’

  A white-headed figure stepped forward from the front rank, a younger man at his elbow.

  ‘King Archidamus!’ came Astymachus’s voice, startled. ‘I had not thought to see you here!’

  ‘Well, Astymachus, for I recognise you, I am here,’ came a voice remarkably strong in one so old, and for the first time I heard the strange Doric speech. ‘What have you to say to me?’

  ‘My city sends its protest against your violation of its territory,’ came Astymachus’ clear voice. ‘More, we protest that you are outraging your own king, Pausanias’, promise to us of independence for all time, the promise made at the time of the greatest peril, as well as the greatest glory, for both Sparta and Plataea—fighting side by side.’

  ‘Fifty odd years ago!’ jeered the younger man.

  ‘Sir,’ said Astymachus, ignoring him, ‘you will remember that time, for you fought here.’

  We waited breathlessly for the old man’s reply, had to wait for some time, for he was clearly moved; the shrewd appeal to Spartan honour had touched him very closely. Eventually he said in his old, faintly breathless voice, ‘Then let Plataea agree to be neutral in our struggle with Athens.’

  ‘But many of our wives and children are in Athens,’ said Astymachus, ‘have been there ever since Thebes attacked us so treacherously. Bearing this in mind, how can you expect us to make such a decision? And should we be allowed to remain neutral once you had returned to your own territory? It was in time of peace that your Theban allies tried to seize our city.’

  The clear voice, speaking so proudly, died away. The younger man put his hand on the old king’s arm, spoke in a low voice; Archidamus shook him off irritably, and replied, ‘In that case, Astymachus, I suggest you Plataeans entrust your town to our custody, first marking the land boundaries, your fruit trees and other possessions. Then you can go away till the end of the war, joining your wives and children in Athens if you like, but at the end of the war we shall hand everything back.’

  ‘That appears a handsome offer,’ said Astymachus, sounding as if he were laughing.

  ‘An honest proposal made seriously!’ replied Archidamus.

  ‘Sir,’ said Astymachus, serious now himself, ‘if you could live for ever, we could take that offer seriously.’

  ‘But you have no faith in Sparta’s word?’

  ‘Let us say, not much,’ said Astymachus, ‘and none at all in that of Thebes! But we will not refuse the offer out of hand; give us a truce to send messengers to Athens telling our ally what has been proposed. If she gives her assent, we will accept your terms.’

  ‘Never was there so loyal an ally as Plataea!’ said the younger man, jeering.

  ‘Never,’ assented Astymachus, all gravity now, ‘was there so loyal an ally as Plataea.’

  He went back into Plataea. We watched the Plataean messengers setting off for Athens, and had sudden qualms of conscience when we realised they would inevitably meet those searching for us on the way, to tell those poor souls that now the Spartan army was out. But we must wait here. We could not leave Plataea.

  ‘We’ll find wild goats and milk them,’ I said with brilliant inspiration, so I thought. After all, I had caught and milked our goats on the farm. But they were not the goats of the mountain passes, malevolent creatures more like the Kindly Ones than the grandmotherly members of our flock at home—and half the time we would find, after giving laborious chase to a briefly sighted pair of horns, that our quarry was the wrong sex.

  We managed to catch one venerable creature, and gained some milk, but I think we only caught her because she was not enjoying the best of health; at any rate, her milk made us sick. Worse, it made us sick at the very moment that a Spartan hunting party came marching up the path. They were looking for boar, I suppose. All they found was us. I was trying to be sick as unobtrusively as possible—being sick silently, I would say, is the most impossible thing in the world—and Timotheus, green-faced, had just got through his anguish. I do not think he ever forgave me, because when the leading Spartan came up and laid hard impatient hands on my writhing body, I instinctively recognised him as the man standing at the old king’s elbow, the man who had jeered at Plataean loyalty, and was able, very neatly, t
o be sick over him.

  He cursed, and gave me a whack with the shaft of his hunting spear.

  ‘Swine!’ shrieked Timotheus, a ghastly colour now that fury was added to nausea. He tried to rush at my assailant, and received a negligent clip on the side of the head from a hornyhanded Spartan that sent him toppling over, half senseless. By this time I was past all caring. Having been sick, I had the usual otherworldly feeling you get after you’ve lost the contents of your stomach; I was also in a towering rage. To a spoiled brat like me, being whacked with the butt end of a spear was the final humiliation; if he had tried to spit me on the point, I should not have hated him half so much.

  Still cursing, he was now tearing off a tunic that would never be much use again. ‘Yes, it wanted changing in any case!’ I said dispassionately. ‘What a dirty lot you Spartans are! My cousin told me you were.’

  ‘And who might your cousin be?’ said my adversary, after he’d struggled out of his tunic in a rather tense silence.

  His voice was extra loud—all Spartan voices are loud, but this one had a particular rasp. He must think he was someone, I reflected as I replied, ‘Alcibiades, son of Clinias. And who are you?’

  ‘Agis, son of Archidamus the King,’ he said, advancing on me, looking remarkably like a boar about to charge. His hand fell heavily on my shoulder. ‘So you’re an Athenian Eupatrid, my little fighting cock, are you? I don’t like Athenians, in any case, and in Sparta we teach our boys manners.’ And he slapped me twice across the face, nearly knocking my head off my shoulders. By this time the strange rank smell of unwashed Spartan bodies was making me feel sick again. I said with blazing eyes, ‘We chucked our kings out of Athens years ago, but at least they didn’t stink!’

  He grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and began to shake me murderously. I remembered another shameful story from my cousin’s deplorable record, jerked my head sideways, and sank my teeth heartily into his wrist. I would be a lion-cub too. At the same time I hacked him on the shins. Calling me all the names under the sun, Agis started trying to strangle me in earnest.

  I think they must have persuaded him before he did anything irreparable that it was below Spartan dignity to throttle a brat as small as I was. I came to my senses to find I was being hauled down from the pine forests with no more permanent injury than a singing head and a throat so painful I could not speak above a whisper. Timotheus, swearing and crying dreadfully, was being dragged along by another of the long-haired brutes. His face was still an odd colour; my own, with the dark red of near strangulation superimposed over the green of nausea, must have been odder still.

  I was awarded the proud privilege of being manhandled by Agis’ own royal hands. He told me in a pleased way that he hoped to be going back to Sparta quite soon with his father’s despatches to the Ephors. He would take me with him. I was a strong, handsome fellow—all I needed was to be taught a few manners. He looked forward to that. But first he wanted to know my name, and what an Athenian boy was doing here in the woods.

  ‘Don’t tell them!’ cried Timotheus. ‘Don’t tell them. They’ll twist your arm behind your back as they did mine, but you mustn’t tell them.’

  Certainly I should not tell them. Once they knew they had in their hands the sons of the Plataean and Athenian commanders, they would use us as hostages. This was so important there was not yet any room for worrying about being dragged off to Sparta by Agis to be taught manners, even though I knew Spartans frequently had boys whipped to death to test out discipline. Presumably discipline meant the same as manners to them.

  10

  The Journey Begins

  Any small boy is close to being a little animal, and a frightened small boy is altogether a little animal That is why, I suppose, my chief impression of the Spartan camp was the animal one of smells and sounds—the smell of their unwashed bodies, of their long greasy hair, and the sound of their loud voices eternally bawling commands. It’s not that Spartans don’t talk much, they don’t talk at all—they shout. Your head splits with the din of those eternally harsh, rasping voices, your stomach heaves with the smell of rough strong bodies sweating hard in the sun, above all, with the smell of blood, that worse, indescribable smell of people who have been hurt. People were always being hurt in the Spartan camp, especially the slaves. Athenian masters are forbidden by law to strike their slaves; Spartan masters seem to do little else but beat up their helots as a part of household management.

  Agis gave me a little talk on the superiority of Spartan education over the way I would have been brought up in Athens.

  ‘Fighting!’ he rasped. ‘You Athenian boys don’t know the meaning of fighting! You just go for each other like puppies, which is absurd. Our boys fight in earnest, hands bent to gouge and tear, eyes full of hatred like men ready to kill in battle!’ Then, possibly to revive the joys of childhood again, he seized my arm, twisted it rapidly behind my back, and said, ‘Going to tell me your name?’

  I was alone with him, because he had enough sense to realise that Timotheus and I encouraged each other, so Timotheus had been consigned to the tender care of a leathery staff officer. By this time I was horribly frightened of Agis, but I think I hated him more.

  I said, ‘I was silly and told you my cousin’s name, so you can find out from that.’

  ‘Alcibiades, son of Clinias,’ said Agis thoughtfully. ‘Clinias got killed at Coronaea, didn’t he? But it was his wife who was more important, in a way, because she was Pericles’ cousin! Well, well, my little fighting cock, are you too a relative of Pericles?’

  I scowled at him, would not open my mouth. He ruffled my hair up in a dark crest, saying ‘Now you look just like a little fighting cock!’ and then, in his charming manner, seized this crest and lifted me clear off the ground by it. Tears spurted uncontrollably from my eyes. Agis observed this with pleasure, then said regretfully, ‘Sooner or later I’ll have to let my father have a look at you to see if he notices any resemblance—he’s by way of being a friend of Pericles. As you said, there’s no real need to ask you, but I did ask you and—’ here the loud voice became even louder—‘when I ask questions, I’m used to receiving answers.’

  He said I would receive no food until I told him what he wanted. Fiercely holding back the tears, I resigned myself to starvation.

  ‘Well!’ said Agis next morning, grinning wolfishly. ‘Feeling hungry?’

  He then proceeded to bawl at a slave to bring him his breakfast. If only he had known, he was being too clever there; the sight of a handful of olives, a hunk of good plain bread would have brought me blubbering to my knees, but Agis had to overdo it and have a bowl of black broth brought before him. The smell of this Spartan delicacy was enough in itself to convince me that there were worse things than starvation; Agis tried to make me feel the tortures of Tantalus by describing the recipe as he sat gnawing a lump of meat he had extracted from a liquid that might well have been dredged up from the Styx; but the thought of eating fat pork cooked in bull’s blood brought me almost to the state of nausea I had known when we had first fallen in with each other.

  Heavy feet stamped outside; two stocky captains looking remarkably like gnarled bulls, clumped in. The more scarred of the pair bawled that the commander of the Theban force besieging Plataea wanted a talk; Agis, who seemed to be expecting this, grunted in a way they recognised as assent, and within a few seconds two Thebans came clattering in, heavy-faced thugs, the pair of them, and not easily surprised or given to daintiness of feeling, I would say. However, even they looked a trifle startled to find Agis gripping a small boy by the scruff of the neck, and when he dropped his knuckle of pork back into what remained of the broth and offered them a hand dripping with grease, they seemed disconcerted. Agis interpreted this discomfiture—obvious enough for even him to read—as desire to share his breakfast. He said in his grating voice he would send for some more black broth. No need, said the chief Theban hastily—a handful of olives, a little bread, would suffice. They did not want to enrage their a
lly too much by refusing his offer of breakfast, but they couldn’t face black broth soon after dawn.

  ‘Well,’ said Agis in his loud voice, ‘you can have that, if you like, and I’ll have my officers in and as we eat we can discuss the line we’ll take with my father.’

  I pricked up my ears. Agis and his father must differ in the line to be followed towards Plataea, the gentle heir-apparent inclining to the sentiments of the brutish Thebans, one of whom now made me glare at him murderously by saying, ‘A fine looking little fellow you have there, Agis, but I thought Spartan boys left their families once they were seven.’

  ‘This,’ grunted Agis, shaking me pitilessly till I felt my head would fall off my shoulders. ‘This is a prisoner at present. I may decide to make a Spartan out of him . . .’ Here half a dozen captains filed in and squatted silently on the floor; Agis sat on his stool eating at the rough table, two other folding stools were brought in for the Thebans, and—my stomach tightened horribly at the sight—olives and bread and wine. But the Thebans were still fascinated by my presence.

  ‘Where did you get him?’ the first asked, gazing at me as if I were a fine specimen of a boar speared by their genial host. ‘He can’t be a Plataean boy—’

  Agis relinquished my neck to give my arm a vicious wrench.

  ‘Squawk, little bird,’ he said, grinning, and explained to the Thebans, ‘Once he opens his mouth, you’ll know where he comes from!’

  I set my teeth and glared stonily back at him. He gave my arm another wrench, and I spat into his leering face. With a violent curse he hauled me over his knee, jerked up my tunic and began to hammer away at my rear with a heavy hand. I yelled, partly because he hurt me, but also to make him keep up the hammering which produced sounds so musical to him, and all the time, while Agis concentrated on one end of me, I was reaching out furiously at the other, to seize bread and olives and cram them into my mouth between yells. The Thebans were plainly bewildered by all that was happening, they did not point out to Agis what was going on; neither—and this seemed more extraordinary at the time—did the squatting Spartans. Two of these were actually grinning; the others looked as approving as Spartans can look. Later on I was to understand why; their boys are taught to steal as part of their education, and anyone who could whip food off the table under the nose of the king’s son, they evidently looked on as a most promising recruit to their ranks.