A Heroic King

by Helena P. Schrader

  They didn’t get to bed until quite late, and they were both very tired. As Hilaira let down her hair, she saw that it was more gray than brown these days, and when she unclipped the pins at the shoulders of her peplos, she looked down at big but sagging breasts and sighed. Below them, her waist was thick and her hips wider still. She certainly wasn’t the slender, agile young maiden Alkander had married. Where had the twenty-six years gone? It wouldn’t be long before she had grandchildren. It was odd to think of herself and Alkander as grandparents, when in her heart she still felt like that lithe young filly who had eloped with her childhood sweetheart.

  She glanced over to Alkander. He was already naked and climbing into the bed. He was heavier, too, and his hair had receded halfway across his skull. Drill and the rations at the syssitia had kept him fit, but even so, he was clearly an “older man.” The boys of the agoge never forgot to call him “father” as they had in his younger days.

  Hilaira climbed into the bed beside him and laid her head on his chest. “Please don’t take unnecessary risks, Alkander. Let the younger men prove their valor and compete to be a modern Achilles. You’re too old for that.”

  “I know. And I never was the type, anyway. But I would be a slave now―and could never have married you―if Leonidas had not sponsored me in the agoge. The least I can do for him is to be with him now.”

  Hilaira drew a deep breath. “I do understand that, Alkander. I’ve never said you should stay here.” At age forty-eight, both Alkander and Prokles would have been assigned garrison duty if they had not elected to march north with Leonidas. They could have been safe if they had chosen not to volunteer. But she would have respected them less. “All I’m asking is that you don’t take unnecessary risks.”

  “Don’t worry. Not even Leo is going to take foolish risks. This will be a defensive engagement in which we let the terrain fight for us. Our position is much more defensible than Marathon―and don’t forget, despite the fierce fight at Marathon, only about two hundred Greeks fell.”

  Hilaira nodded. “I’m sure you’re right. But to me, two casualties would be just as terrible as two hundred―if you and Leonidas are those two men.”

  Alkander’s answer was to pull Hilaira to him and kiss her protectively, thankfully, and passionately.

  The march-out was set for the middle of the morning watch―later than usual, but a concession to the priests, who wanted Leonidas to publicly make the sacrifice and receive positive signs in favor of his (in their view) risky campaign during the Karneia. Leonidas and his family therefore returned to the palace very early in the morning. After ensuring that his personal belongings were long since packed on mules and ready to follow in the train, Leonidas had Meander and Taiwo help him into the armor they had spent much of the previous day polishing. This was one battle in which Leonidas intended to be recognized for who he was: a king of Sparta. In place of his usual modest and functional armor, he had allowed Arion to create greaves with snakes that climbed up from the ankle toward the kneecap, symbols of the Dioskouroi. His new breastplate had the ancient coils on each breast. His helmet had reinforced eye sockets and cheek-pieces with lion’s claws. The crest itself was taken from chestnut horses, stiffened with wax and reinforced with gold wires. The combination of bronze and red, from crest to the skirts of his chiton, was dramatic.

  Gorgo, meanwhile, was dressed by Uche (whom she had bought and brought back from Athens as Taiwo’s bride) in a white peplos made of silk purchased in Athens. It had a broad border of purple and gold embroidery. Her himation was made of an even sheerer lavender-colored silk that shimmered in the sun. She wore a diadem and collar of gold and rolled amethysts. Even the Athenians would have approved, she thought wryly.

  Agiatis was dressed in blues and turquoise, the colors of the Aegean, with a turquoise necklace and earrings. Gorgo let her wear a little rouge on her cheeks and lips as well, because that seemed to give the teenager courage.

  Pleistarchos was given a fresh white chiton. His head was shaved, his nails clipped and cleaned, and his feet scrubbed with pumice stone until the last traces of dirt were gone. He was very subdued and said almost nothing―making Gorgo suspect that, as with Agiatis the day before, the meaning of what was happening was starting to sink in.

  There was no time left for discussing things with him, however, because the sound of the crowd out in the street could no longer be ignored. Agiatis glanced out the window and exclaimed, “The whole city is out there!”

  “What did you expect?” her mother answered.

  From somewhere came the whine of a salpinx. The advance guard was moving into position. A moment later, Leonidas was at the door. “Ready?”

  “As ready as we’ll ever be,” Gorgo told him, signaling to the children.

  They descended into the private peristyle and through the hall to the front entryway. The palace seemed utterly deserted. Leonidas opened the door and abruptly the sunlight streamed in, glancing off his polished bronze as the wind caught at his red cloak. Gorgo followed, with Agiatis to her left and Pleistarchos on her right, into the sunlight. Halfway down the palace steps the ephors were waiting, flanked by the twenty-eight non-royal members of the Council. They parted to let Leonidas, Gorgo, and the children pass, and then the ephors and Council closed ranks behind them and followed the king and his family to the temple of Zeus the Leader.

  Here an even larger crowd was gathered, including the professional priests and heralds. At the exterior altar, a young man held a magnificent black ram that waited docilely, oblivious to impending danger. Leotychidas was nowhere to be seen, but Brotus and Pausanias stood near the front where they had an excellent view, Gorgo noted.

  Leonidas took the ram expertly between his knees, clasped it by its horns with his left hand, and pulled the head back to expose the shaved throat. He held his right hand out, and a temple attendant handed him a sharpened knife. It glinted briefly in the morning sun like a flash of lighting. Leonidas slit the ram’s throat expertly. The ram sank down onto his knees. Leonidas bent and lifted the dying animal onto the altar with the ease of a man who still had great strength in his arms and shoulders. As he did so, the ram’s eyes met his. The ram’s last look was so full of reproach that Leonidas recoiled slightly.

  The seer Megistias sliced expertly into the belly and let the innards spill out onto the polished marble of the altar. A moment later, the seer nodded and announced in a loud voice: “We march!” He smiled broadly to Leonidas. Megistias was going north with the advance guard.

  A tall, blond helot, selected for this purpose, stepped forward to collect coals from the altar, placed them with metal tongs into a bronze pot, and prepared to carry these flames to the border. At the border to Lacedaemon, an altar would be built to Zeus and Athena and a new sacrifice made. Only if the signs were again auspicious would the army proceed beyond the borders.

  Meanwhile, Leonidas laid down the knife he’d used to kill the ram and dipped his hands in a silver bowl containing water to clean the blood away. He shook the water from them before accepting the clean linen towel offered. He dried his hands, then started down the steps, with Megistias trailing him.

  The men of the advance guard came to attention as Leonidas reached the bottom of the steps. He needed only to turn to the right to start marching at their head.

  But Gorgo met him face to face. “Do you have any final instructions for me, Leonidas?”

  Their eyes met. Leonidas bent and touched his lips to hers, but far too briefly for her to respond. Then he looked her straight in the eye and said, loud enough for others to hear, “Marry a good man and have good children.”*

  Then he turned to the right and started walking northeast out of the square, the city, and Lacedaemon, with his hand-picked advance guard of three hundred Spartans in formation behind him.

  * This exchange between Gorgo and Leonidas is recorded by Plutarch.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE PASS

  THEY WERE SIX THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED heavy infan
try, not counting support elements, by the time they reached Thermopylae. Tegea and Mantinea each brought five hundred hoplites, Corinth four hundred, and the smaller Peloponnesian allies had mustered a combined force one thousand two hundred strong, including the smallest contingent of eighty men from Mycenae. These League troops, together with the three hundred Spartiates and the thousand perioikoi Leonidas had selected to bring north, made the Peloponnesian force three thousand nine hundred strong.

  Leonidas was not displeased with this turnout by the Peloponnesian League, all of whom had a second line of defense at the Isthmus of Corinth. Sending so many troops north, far from their own homes, was a significant, indeed surprising, gesture of solidarity. He had, however, expected more men from Boiotia and from Phocis and Trachis, the regions north of the Isthmus most directly threatened. For these cities, the Pass at Thermopylae was the last defensible position. Yet mighty Thebes produced a paltry four hundred men, leaving Leonidas to suspect they planned to capitulate to the Persians.

  In contrast, little Thespiae turned out with an astonishing seven hundred hoplites, virtually every man who could afford panoply of one sort or another. They were commanded by Demophilus and included the mason, Dithyrambus, who had lost his bride to Theban raiders and had endured a summer of Spartan training almost a decade ago. Leonidas recognized the man, now gray at the jowls, and welcomed him and the others with genuine pleasure. The enthusiasm was reciprocated―if cheers, back slapping, and smiles were anything to go by.

  As the force moved closer to Thermopylae, however, the countryside became increasingly deserted. The last twenty miles presented a landscape that was eerily abandoned. The advancing troops of the Confederation encountered no refugees such as those that had flooded and partially blocked the road further south. The fields were empty of workers, and many gates swung, unlatched, in the wind. The houses were boarded up or simply left with doors and shutters open, their contents exposed or already plundered by passers-by. The only domesticated animals were strays. These either ran away or forlornly tried to befriend the transient strangers. The Phocians and Trachians, the natives of this region, seemed to have disappeared―taking their heavy troops with them.

  Fortunately, this proved a misunderstanding. The natives of this region calculated the months differently from the Peloponnesians, and when the defensive force promised by the Confederation failed to arrive on the date expected, the locals had taken to the mountains. The sight of five thousand men marching up from the south, however, brought the Phocian and Trachian troops down from their hideouts. These increased the Greek army by roughly a thousand heavy troops.

  Leonidas had been told about the Pass at Thermopylae by representatives at the Confederation Council―most specifically by Themistocles, who had passed through it on his way to Tempe and back―but Leonidas had never seen it himself. On arrival, therefore, he ordered the troops to set up camp near the town of Alpeni, just short of the Pass, but proceeded forward to conduct a thorough reconnaissance in person.

  The coastline here ran almost due east-west, and the approach from the north by which the Persians would come lay at the west end of the Pass; Leonidas and his troops were camped to the east. He asked the Phocian commander to lead him through the Pass to the so-called West Gate, and took Dienekes, Oliantus, the perioikoi commander Isanor, and Demophilus, as commander of the largest allied contingent, with him.

  The Phocian led them through the so-called East Gate, a track between the mountains and the sea barely wide enough for a cart. To their right the Malian Gulf was a vivid blue, lying about one hundred feet below the level of the road at the foot of a sheer cliff. Beyond the East Gate the steep shoreline continued, but the mountain on the left retreated somewhat to the south, forming a broad field almost a hundred yards wide. This was flat except for a lone hillock standing like a sentry before the steeper, stony slopes of the mountain. The lush green vegetation betrayed water reserves beneath the surface of the field.

  Not more than a thousand yards ahead of them, the mountain curled back toward the sea, almost completely enclosing them with its sheer, barren slopes. The mountain ended in a broken cliff that dropped almost straight to the level of the field, just fifty feet short of the seaward cliff. Spanning the ledge between the mountain cliff and the drop to the shore were the ruins of a wall.

  “We built that wall generations ago,” the Phocian explained, “to protect ourselves from the Malians.” He gestured to the west, toward Thessaly. “A bunch of cutthroats and thieves!” he dismissed the Malians.

  Leonidas gave no thought to the Malians, who could not be defended and so had submitted to the Persians. Instead, he closely considered the wall at the point where it joined the mountainside, squinting up at the thousand-foot cliff with satisfaction. No cavalry in the world could cross this barrier. Meanwhile, Oliantus and Dienekes walked to the other end of the wall to look down at the sea. The drop-off here was almost equally sheer and the fall was a good eighty feet, an excellent anchor for their right flank. The Phocians had picked a good place for their wall. Leonidas nodded to indicate they could continue.

  They scrambled over the ruined wall and found themselves in a yet wider field. To the left, nestled against the base of the mountain, were the hot springs that gave the Pass its name, Thermopylae (Hot Gates). The springs were dedicated to Persephone, the Phocian explained, but there was also an altar to Herakles. The hero had died not far from here, continued the Phocian, gesturing vaguely toward the northwest. That was appropriate, thought Leonidas; as a descendant of Herakles, his dying here would be like a family reunion.

  This wider area gradually narrowed to a small passage which, like the East Gate, was little more than the width of a cart and formed the West Gate. The flank of the mountain that hemmed in the road here was comparatively gentle and covered with scrub brush, by no means as formidable an obstacle as the cliff behind them or even the mountain that formed the East Gate. From here it did not look suitable for cavalry, but foot soldiers, particularly men from mountainous homelands, would have no trouble scaling or descending this particular slope.

  Beyond the West Gate, the countryside opened up into a broad plain fed by three rivers: the Spercheios, the Melas, and the Asopos. Here the Persians would have room to camp several hundred thousand men, grass to graze thousands of cavalry horses, and plenty of water for both man and beast.

  As the small party moved beyond the West Gate to gaze into the still empty valley, Leonidas’ gaze followed the road until it disappeared into the haze before the mountains in the distance. He stared in this direction for a long time. It was too hazy to see much of anything.

  “And this is the only road into Phocis from Thessaly?” Leonidas asked casually, just for confirmation.

  “Unless you count the Anapaia track,” the Phocian replied with a shrug.

  The others spun about, almost in unison, to gape at the man in disbelief.

  “What did you say?” Leonidas demanded. “What track?”

  “The Anapaia track,” replied the Phocian, gesturing toward the mountains to their left. “It’s not anything to worry about,” he assured the southerners in answer to their shocked looks. “It’s not wide enough for more than two men, in many places only one, and it climbs over very rough terrain―more of a goat track than anything―until it reaches the cornice between the mountain ridges. The Persians could never get their whole army over it. It’s totally unsuitable for horses, let alone a baggage train with carts and wagons.”

  “They don’t have to put their whole army across it!” Leonidas snapped. “Just an elite force of troops that can take us in the rear! Where does it start?” His heart was racing in alarm, and he was fighting to get control of his emotions. This was Tempe all over again! The locals had demanded assistance and assured everyone the Pass could not be turned―but it could.

  “To reach it, the Persians would have to cross the Asopos gorge,” the Phocian assured them, pointing.

  “And can they? Can you?”
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  “They’d need a local guide. The gorge looks impassable.”

  “But it is passable?”

  “Yes, in two places, although the better―”

  Dienekes was cursing colorfully, and Demophilus looked outright sick. Leonidas waved Dienekes silent and looked so hard at the Phocian that the latter took a step backward. “You’re saying there are two ways to outflank us?” Leonidas asked with barely contained fury.

  “No, no! There are two ways across the Asopos gorge, but they meet on the other side at the foot of Kallidromos. From there it is a very steep, difficult climb―as I said, better for goats than men, and sometimes only possible single file. After that it follows the mountain ridge as the Kallidromos curves around, and then descends by a steep but good track into Alpeni.”

  The perioikoi Isanor was wiping his mouth with his hand in a gesture of subconscious distress, while Demophilus’ face had turned into a rigid mask to disguise his emotions. Dienekes wasn’t trying to conceal his feelings; he was cursing again. Oliantus, however, asked calmly, “Is there any place along the path that is defensible?”

  “At the top of the steep track, where it comes out of the woods, would be one place. Right before the path levels off for a bit.”

  “How many men could be positioned there?” Leonidas asked, following Oliantus’ logic.

  “I don’t know. A couple hundred.” That was obviously a guess.

  “Dienekes!” Leonidas snapped. “Go with this man and follow the trail to the point where the two trails coming across the Asopos meet. From there, follow the trail back until you find a strong defensive position. Then report back to me.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “You want to see the trail?” the Phocian asked, still uncomprehending.