The Corn King and the Spring Queen

by Naomi Mitchison

  Another said: ‘When Sparta’s lost, the King dies. The Persians only passed Thermopylae over a dead king; the Macedonians will only pass the same way.’

  ‘Kleomenes and the Spartiates are likely to make a vow when he sacrifices, last thing. I want to be there and see. It will be something to tell the grandchildren.’

  ‘But will Kleomenes? That sort of game was all very well in the old days, but now—a man can only live once. Why not make the best of life even if you lose a kingdom!’

  ‘Kleomenes is the people’s king. He’s got to die for the people. If he’d wanted to live he ought to have thought of it earlier and made peace with the League. It’s too late to live now.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the first one, ‘good thing for us we’re not Spartiates! But maybe he’ll win yet. He has luck, this King. And it’s a lovely position, whatever you say. No, I shouldn’t be too surprised if we’d got next year’s pay by tomorrow night.’

  Several of the Mess had joined Neolaidas, staring out, trying to spot King Antigonos’ tent. They whispered and pointed. Phoebis began by looking and then found he could not do it. He had never been so deeply distressed before a battle before; everything was heavy, head and heart dull with anxiety. His eldest son was going to be in this battle, with the youngest year-class. The boy was only sixteen, much too young really, but he had managed to get himself into it. And it was going to be this sort of battle!

  They had the map spread out on the ground again. Abruptly Panteus said: ‘Even now—what about falling back on Sparta?’

  But the King shook his head. ‘I don’t think I shall be betrayed here. I should for certain there.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Eukleidas. ‘The ephors’ party would have you down, like wolves. All the half-ways will have gone right over against us now—licking the Macedonian’s boots! We’ve got to stick it here, Panteus; it’s our only chance. And if we win—Kleomenes, I’ll hold Euas for you, or die. That’s straight.’

  But there were still three days during which nothing happened except raiding parties, mostly sent out by Antigonos to test the Spartan strength at one point or another of the line. It was very hot all the time, even at night, and the armies watched one another, and country people brought news of the numbers and temper of each over to the other. It became fairly clear that the Spartans were outnumbered by about three to two.

  On the Macedonian side there were constant councils of generals. They met in Antigonos’ tent. He stayed in bed as much as possible, with a light blanket, even in this weather, keeping up his strength. The doctors burnt all sorts of spices round his head, but still he coughed and coughed. When he spoke in that hoarse, whispering tone that they all knew, every one else was silent at once, to catch the low words. His commander-in-chief, Alexander, always saw to that anyhow. He was a Macedonian of the old type. If the young man from Megalopolis wished to go on discussing that surely laboured point about the cavalry, let him do it outside! The King was speaking. The voice of Macedon. So Philopoemen, desperately afraid of his point being missed—and, after all, look at the plan of the ground: is it so stupid, considering the bend of the river?—went outside the tent for ten minutes to discuss it with his friend Kerkidas and two of Alexander’s cavalry officers.

  Philopoemen had been given the command of the Achaean cavalry by Aratos, who admired him and realised that at this stage, at any rate, he need not be jealous of him. There were only a thousand of them, but they were as good as Alexander’s cavalry, and perhaps understood this kind of ground better. Kerkidas, a writer and politician, rather a fine and generous-natured man, led the exiles from Megalopolis. Only a thousand of them too. He asked young Philopoemen if he would come and speak to them before the battle, cheer them up a little if he could and hold out all the hopes there were—like a flag.

  Philopoemen said he would come over that night. Oh yes, he would speak for them! But if only he could get directly at King Antigonos! Or was the King too ill to be interested in such a small matter? Small for the whole battle. Thirty thousand men in one army! Yet that point of his might mean the lives of a good many Achaeans and a good many of the Megalopolis exiles who were down with the cavalry on the centre. But Alexander, the commander-in-chief, did not think it was suitable that Philopoemen of Megalopolis, a mere boy, should trouble the King. Alexander had a quite intelligible contempt for these much-burnt little towns of Hellas, towns too smashed up and plundered to give their citizens decent helmets—what! Did it, after all, signify if a few more or less were killed? He would take care of each individual life of his own Macedonians, most of all the Bronze Shields, the main body of the infantry; that was a different business. But this Achaean League!—talking as though it mattered!

  There were two or three reports to be put together from spies who had been sent out the night before to see what they could discover of Kleomenes ‘position. Now it had all been drawn out for King Antigonos to see. He studied it silently, propped up on many pillows. Aratos sat beside him on the edge of the bed studying it too. He twisted his fingers in and out of his grey, thinning beard. At last he tapped Antigonos on the shoulder and said: ‘This seems to me to be the typical Spartan formation, with the striking force on the right as usual. We can, I think, be certain that the Spartiate phalanx is there, on little Olympos. This is the way the Spartan army has been taught to go into battle for the last several hundred years.’

  ‘What conclusion do you draw from that, Aratos?’ said King Antigonos, looking round at him.

  ‘It might—I do not yet say that it does—lead one to suppose that King Kleomenes is too much afraid of us to dare to take chances. He and his army may be—I do not say yet that they are—in no state to do anything except the standard Spartan thing.’

  ‘That is possible, but, as you say, Aratos, not certain. Given the nature of the ground it seems to me to be an exceedingly good position; in fact—yes, I think I may say the best conceivable one.’

  ‘It is a formation that is usually extremely effective against an ordinary attack. Even with our strength, it would, I think, be most unwise to attempt anything direct. That is what he hopes we shall do. He hopes we shall be proud enough to try the direct method.’

  Alexander said: ‘I take it you mean to suggest a flank movement—by me and the Macedonian army. I warn you: it will certainly be necessary to use the whole of our forces, all along the line. You Greeks can’t leave all the fighting to us, even if you do all the crowing yourselves!’ He was not going to let this miserable little Achaean talk about our forces—our strength!—when there were only four or five thousand of them in the whole army, rottenly equipped too, and mostly in reserve because they’d got so panicked about this Kleomenes! But before he could think of the really crushing thing to say, his King had leant forward from the cushions and held up his hand for silence.

  ‘Naturally,’ said Antigonos, ‘there is no question in any of our minds of striking except with our whole forces. Kleomenes of Sparta at bay is the kind of proposition it is better to over-estimate. Aratos, you tell me this is the traditional Spartan army formation. Yet it has from time to time been beaten in the past. How was that?’

  Aratos paused for a minute, then said: ‘The other side has won when it has done something against the rules, something they didn’t expect.’

  ‘Instead of being bolted into a straight attack by the way they glared,’ said Kerkidas, who had come back with Philopoemen; but no one answered, though Aratos nodded.

  The King bent over the map. He had another fit of coughing that left him exhausted and shut-eyed for a few minutes. His doctors glanced at the bloodstained bowl into which he had spat, but the others looked away. It was more tactful not even to whisper; his ears were amazingly sharp still! All at once he sat up, with a heave which sent a queer flush racing over his thin, exquisitely shaved cheeks. He tapped with a finger-nail on the map. ‘We’ve got to take him on the left flank, round Euas.’

  ‘An impossible march!’ said Alexander. ‘They know that. It would hav
e to be at night—you cannot expect the Bronze Shields—’

  ‘Impossible is not a word I like to hear,’ said the King. ‘Now look at the map, my dear Alexander. So—you see?—out of sight behind the ridge—and so—then up from behind. That’s King Eukleidas with the light-armed troops and allies—I’m right, Aratos, yes?—we shall give him something to keep him busy in front, and you will smash in from the back. Then the whole line can engage. I will take on King Kleomenes myself. It will need careful timing. You will have to flash a signal to me from Euas when you are on the top. The Bronze Shields may consider themselves honoured. Do you approve, Aratos?’

  ‘You think it sufficiently certain that the feint attack can be made at the same moment as the real one? It would be—exceedingly awkward—if the turning column were delayed. Eukleidas is not a fool. Both jaws of your trap must close before he’s caught. They are likely to have outposts all down the further side of Euas, let alone that the country people would let them know immediately what was happening. It is quite possible that this is just the move Kleomenes anticipates.’

  Antigonos smiled at him with mocking friendliness and said: ‘But yet, this is perhaps the last time that anyone will be afraid of Kleomenes!’ He went on: ‘Kleomenes may have thought this would be our move a few days ago. But I think our last few raiding parties will have confused him fairly completely. I’ve an idea, though, that the men for this turning movement will be the Illyrians. What do you say to that, Demetrios?’

  Demetrios of Pharos looked at the map in his turn. He was glad not to be opposite the Spartan phalanx itself. Yes, that frightened him! He had learnt war first among creeks and harbours and steep limestone islands under Teuta, the pirate Queen, before he had turned against her and gone over, just in time, to the Romans, who, much impressed by his courage and ability, had made him an ally, a ruler by permission of Rome—not that this last thing hindered him much when the Romans were so busy with Gaul in the north and likely to be busy in the south—if all one heard about Carthage was true. Demetrios believed in luck. He was much more comfortably prepared to take on the flank movement against Eukleidas, who was, after all, no one special, only the second king, and that not by birth, but by his brother’s doubtful gift, than to have anything to do with Kleomenes of Sparta himself, who undoubtedly used to have, and perhaps still had, an amazing amount of luck. Kings, of course, have their own luck. They are nearer the Gods. The Gods see who it is that makes the sacrifices. Demetrios said: ‘I can take this on. My men consider themselves not inexpert at surprises. If there are any outposts we shall be able to deal with them. I will arrange communications with Alexander. He will be doing the front attack on Euas, I suppose? As soon as it is dawn we shall be able to flash with shields; at least one can be certain of the sun!’

  In a little silence one of the mercenary captains said: ‘Then there does seem to be a chance that Kleomenes and the Spartans will be done in at last! And by God—by us!’

  And Aratos said: ‘Kleomenes and the army of the revolution. Yes—if They are with us—at last.’

  On the Spartan side too there was constant co-ordination of spies’ reports to be made. One or two deserters were brought straight to headquarters to be questioned. The King’s tent was set up there on a spur of little Olympos, facing left and front, with a clear view across either towards the Macedonians or to the centre in the valley and the opposite slopes of Euas. From time to time the all-well signals were flashed across by highly polished silver shields, or at night by flares. Eukleidas had his own headquarters, and Panteus his. In the intervals of waiting, when everything that could be prepared had been, they did routine things which kept them from thinking. They made lists of provisions and equipment and filled in amounts of what they had taken or needed, one for themselves and a duplicate for the magistrate in charge of the State treasuries. These were good things to worry about. When there was so much evil stuff for dreams in their heads, it was better to dream fantastically of this. The King’s compliments, and will Panteus kindly send him a list of helmet straps supplied to his division since the third day of the last month? Dream on who can.

  An hour before dawn one of the sentries was relieved and another went on duty for that perilous time. Panteus went the rounds and then knelt in the half dark by a blessedly chilly pool and washed and combed his hair—carefully, carefully… a fine corpse… all wounds in front. Why think that! The army of the revolution was to live, not to die. Kleomenes, my dearest, if I never see you again…. Oh, keep quiet, bit of me, bit of me that I hate!

  In that same cool hour Philopoemen had ridden over to Kerkidas and the Megalopolitan exiles. They came round him in a half-circle, closing together so that his voice could carry—oh, too easily! A thousand separate men. It sounded something, but how little the Macedonian king or his commander-in-chief cared!

  He spoke with gathering force, saying that now he and they might retrieve the honour of their burnt and beaten city. Megalopolis should be rebuilt—oh, built again on the ashes of Sparta, when that proud and evil place had come to its doom; Sparta, that had brought ruin and despair and exile on them, as in the old days the ruinous Spartan Queen, the destroyer and adulteress Helen! Now, today, if the Gods were willing, flame and destruction would come at last on Sparta and the ideas, the patterns of Sparta. This was a battle for the ideas and patterns of the right-thinking city states, the cities which were now to live each in the harmony of its own laws and ethics and customs, in the peaceful shade of its own guardian mountains. This lovely pattern of cities. He himself would fight and die, if need be, for this. The world would see that this, and not Sparta, was the Gods’ choice in Hellas. Before the eyes of the King of Macedonia and all his allies the thing would be made plain. Philopoemen bade them to remember this, he cried out to every man of Megalopolis to have beyond his own individual courage the special and communal courage of being the example, of having all those eyes on them for the utmost glory of their own city and in hatred of Sparta!

  He stopped, at the peak of his own resolve for death or honour. Suddenly one of the Megalopolitan soldiers rose up from the hillside in his full armour and spoke: ‘Philopoemen, all this is well said, and maybe the younger of us needed to hear it. But we—we fathers and craftsmen, we know already what we have to fight for! You need not show us how or where to hate. We know. Philopoemen, I will say what my hate and shame is, for today I shall have my chance to end it. That King took my daughter, my lovely lamb—from the steps of the altar—my little maid—’ And in a great passion of anger, of choked-down hatred, the father of Archiroë threw down his shield and spear and flung up his arms for Philopoemen and Kerkidas and the Gods to witness the undying war between Megalopolis and Sparta.

  Chapter Two

  TWO HOURS AFTER midnight Demetrios of Pharos marched off very quietly along the bed of the ravine to the right, with no lights and no singing. Just after dawn Alexander gave the signal for the first attack on Euas, the frontal one which was to engage Eukleidas until the Illyrians got him in the back. All along the line every one was ready; an attack of this sort had been expected and Eukleidas, according to plan, retreated uphill behind the palisades, letting the enemy come on; then, when they were on the steep, hot slope of Euas, Panteus in the centre called in his mercenaries and sent them to catch the attacking column in the flank and rear. At the same time Kleomenes and the Spartiate phalanx lowered their spears and charged downhill, down the grass slopes and screes of little Olympos, straight into Antigonos and his Macedonian phalanx, driving them struggling back towards their tents. Here too the mercenaries of both sides engaged. Kleomenes had got the initiative of the battle. If he could keep it….

  It was difficult and of the utmost importance for the Spartan army to keep up communications right along from Euas to little Olympos. They had no reserves to fill up gaps and stop a break through if Panteus lost touch with either Eukleidas or the King. Half an hour after the beginning of the battle Panteus got his division swung round, forward on the ri
ght as well as the nature of the ground permitted, so as to keep in touch with the King’s phalanx; his left was in full action. It looked as if the Macedonian attack on Euas would be smashed.

  But then two things happened. Philopoemen, who could get no orders from Alexander, took the thing into his own hands and charged the Spartan centre at the head of his cavalry. Panteus made the only possible counter-move; he recalled the mercenaries to support him, and when they rushed back the Macedonian frontal attack on Euas re-formed and went on. In the river-bed now there was a desperate struggle, Panteus and his division driven back step by step by one cavalry charge after another, first Philopoemen, then Alexander with the regular Macedonian heavy armed horsemen. And whenever a cavalry charge had gone past, the Megalopolitan infantry came grimly after to finish it up. Company after company broke under the spears and horse-hoofs; and through the wounding and killing and screaming and smashing up, Panteus knew all the time that if his division was driven back much further he would lose touch at both sides, the Macedonians would get in between the hills and the pass would be lost. He had only a few hundred cavalry against Philopoemen’s thousand. Again, his equipment was not good enough. Spears broke, shields broke, javelins broke, swords broke at the hilt, he hadn’t fresh supplies. But the Macedonians had—cartloads. Then the second thing happened. The Illyrian column came up behind Euas and took Eukleidas in the rear.

  The Spartiate phalanx re-formed for another charge on the slope of Olympos—quick, quick, before the Macedonians, worse broken up, could get together to take the charge. Now was the time for the break through! The King looked over to the centre; he saw that Panteus was having a bad time, but if he and the phalanx could only drive back Antigonos now, that would immediately relieve the centre—the whole shape of the battle would change! Then he looked right across to Euas. ‘My God, what’s happening there?’ No one could tell for a moment. Then they saw that Eukleidas was trapped and done for. There was no possibility of saving the left. Even while they looked they could see their own men on Euas swept down off the crest, caught on the edge of the column coming up, pressed together, getting fewer, all so tiny, so unlikely from here—not real. The King said quite quietly: ‘Oh, my dearest brother, I’ve lost you now.’ That was it. That was the fact. Five minutes ago it had not happened. Now nothing could alter it.