A Boy of the Agoge

by Helena P. Schrader

There was a moment of tense silence. There was no question that the boy stuttered and that was not to be applauded, but the answer had been good. One of the men started rapping his knuckles on his table and declared, “Well said, Alkander.” And the others joined in nodding and saying this was a good answer. In relief the boys fled to the kitchen, their ordeal over for this night.

  That summer Leonidas’ father died. Of course King Anaxandridas was very old and it had been obvious he was dying for a long time, so it didn’t come as a surprise to anyone. What surprised Leonidas’ family was that the Council and the ephors and the Assembly acknowledged Cleomenes as king without a second thought.

  Not that Leonidas was surprised. It seemed perfectly obvious to him that since Cleomenes was the firstborn, and since he had been treated as the heir apparent all his life, he would become king when the time came. After all, Leonidas had quickly noted that he was only referred to as “that (whatever) bastard” by Taygete and her household; everyone else referred to him as “Prince Cleomenes.” (Leonidas noted, too, that the title “Prince” was not awarded either Cleombrotus or himself, although Dorieus sometimes enjoyed it.)

  However, it was soon evident that Taygete and Dorieus himself had convinced themselves that Dorieus would be chosen over Cleomenes, because he had proved such an outstanding model of manly virtue throughout his upbringing. He was now 18 and again at the top of his class in every sport worth speaking about—notably discus and javelin and running in armour. How could the Spartans, Taygete asked in outraged disbelief, prefer a “weakling” like Cleomenes over a strong young man like Dorieus? Sparta’s kings commanded her armies in the field. Dorieus had all the virtues one wanted in a commander, and Cleomenes had none.

  Taygete’s raging and grief clearly unhinged her. For the first time in her life she neglected her public duties, and her appearance at her husband’s funeral aroused indignant and unkind comment. It was all too obvious that she was not grieving over her husband’s death, but rather her son’s slight. Far worse, as always, she publicly slighted “that other woman”. But in the eyes of the city, “that other woman” was a widow no less than she, and more importantly she was now the mother of the reigning king. Voices of indignation were raised, particularly among the women, and Leonidas was ashamed of his mother.

  Leonidas, of course, took part in all the funeral rituals in his designated place—which was behind his brothers, of course. Since he hardly knew his father, he was not particularly affected by his death, and the elaborate mourning rituals were simply another set of rules (like those for the agoge, for sports, and for serving in the syssitia) that he had to memorise. He felt little different from the “official” mourners and helots, who were all required to “lament aloud” although they couldn’t have cared less if the king were dead. Because of the law that required two representatives, one male and one female, of every family to attend the funeral, the largest crowd of people that Leonidas had ever seen in his life assembled for his father’s funeral. Everyone was dressed in black—even he was allowed a decent chiton and himation rather than his agoge clothing for the occasion—and they all keened and hit their foreheads in grief. It would almost have been comical if it hadn’t all been so solemn.

  After the funeral, things got worse. For eight days after the funeral, the entire city observed mourning. This meant that all public assemblies were forbidden; the market was closed, and so was the agoge. This would have been bad enough—since Leonidas dreaded the thought of spending eight whole days at home with his mother even under normal circumstances—but in her present state of agitation, the thought was outright alarming. And then came the real blow: they had hardly returned from the funeral to the palace before a messenger arrived from King Cleomenes announcing that he was moving into the palace, as was his right, immediately. He gave his stepmother and her children just three hours to remove themselves.

  Dorieus was furious. He stormed out to confront Cleomenes, while Taygete went into hysterics, declaring they would have to drag her out by her hair! She was not leaving her home for “that vainglorious bastard”! The household, meanwhile, demonstrated an acute sense of self-preservation, and at once started clearing out the goods and chattels of the “deposed” branch of the family while studiously ignoring all Taygete’s orders to the contrary. Since no one was paying any attention to Leonidas, he had ample opportunity to observe the apparent chaos around him very alertly. It seemed to him that with the exception of his mother’s old maid and one or two other elderly servants, no one showed much sympathy for his mother. Here and there he even noticed suppressed smirks and overheard murmured exchanges that suggested a goodly portion of the staff was taking outright pleasure in Taygete’s humiliation. It was an important lesson, one which Leonidas took well to heart.

  Whatever transpired between Dorieus and Cleomenes, the former returned red-faced with agitation and blustering about revenge, but he had obtained only a 24-hour reprieve. Taygete turned her rage on her eldest son, and pounded his chest with her fists as she shouted at him that he had failed her. Since he was wearing a breastplate, she did herself more hurt than Dorieus, and he withstood her onslaught as stoically as he had borne the various floggings he had endured. Eventually, Taygete exhausted herself and collapsed in Dorieus’ arms, a broken woman.

  They had to carry her out of the palace on a litter the next morning. She was swathed in black veils and the curtains of the litter were kept closed. Dorieus had arranged for her to move into one of the larger town houses, one which belonged to the Agiads and was usually used to house state guests from other cities. But Taygete refused this, insisting on going to one of her country estates.

  This meant that they had to organise a wagon and then spend the whole day on the road before arriving at a rather run-down manor that was ill prepared for royal guests, having only had a few hours’ notice. Taygete was taken straight to bed, and Dorieus then called his younger brothers to him. He was very grim. He clenched his teeth and fists in anger. “We must avenge this humiliation!” he declared. “Right now none of us are of age, but you must swear by the Twins and on the bones of Orestes that you will avenge our mother! They can’t do this to us! I will be king of Sparta! As soon as I am of age, I will lay claim to my birthright! Swear! Swear you will avenge our mother!”

  Leonidas did not see that he had a great deal of choice. He and Cleombrotus solemnly swore on the house altar (which was dedicated to some lesser god), but called—at Dorieus’ insistence—on Orestes to be witness of their pledge that they would avenge their mother and not acknowledge Cleomenes as rightful king of Sparta.

  The remaining seven days of the “holiday” were a long drawn-out nightmare, dominated by an alternately weeping and hysterically shouting mother and a grimly fuming elder brother. It was even too much for Brotus, and for the first time in their lives the twins became allies. Together they fled the house as much as possible, seeking relief “hunting” (without success) in the foothills of the Taygetos. Leonidas had never been so glad to get back to the agoge.

  Unfortunately, the next holiday came around all too soon. He was again faced with the very grim prospect of having to spend three days with his mother, and he had heard that things had not notably improved at home. In fact, throughout the city it was rumoured that the ageing queen was going slowly mad. It was said that she wandered about her little farmhouse having wild conversations with ghosts or the Gods—in any event, with beings no one else could see.

  While the other boys excitedly packed together their knapsacks and chattered happily about all the things they were going to do (and eat) at home, Leonidas sat morosely on the doorstep of the agoge barracks, wondering if his mother would even remember to send a donkey cart to come fetch him and Brotus, or if they would be expected to walk the whole 16 miles to her farm.

  Suddenly Prokles was standing beside him, his knapsack over one shoulder. “Would you rather come home with me?” he asked simply.

  “Yes, I’d love to!” Leonidas agreed at o
nce. He had met Prokles’ parents on several occasions because Prokles’ father, Philippos, was still on active service and so lived in barracks just a couple blocks away, while his mother kept a small apartment in the city. Here she was raising Prokles’ two younger siblings. Prokles and Leonidas had dropped by to see her more than once, and she had always had a smile and something nice to supplement their monotonous school diet.

  Prokles shrugged as if he didn’t care one way or another, and then said, “Come on then. My granddad’s waiting already.”

  Leonidas jumped up and followed after the other boy with a mixture of relief and tardy apprehension. The thought of spending a holiday with Prokles’ kindly mother had prompted Leonidas’ ready acceptance. Prokles’ grandparents were something else again.

  Although Leonidas had never met them, after 16 months of living side by side with Prokles he knew enough to be intimidated. Prokles’ grandfather had driven the winning four-horse chariot at no less than two Olympic Games and subsequently won 14 various pan-Hellenic races with his own horses. His wife was famous in her own right, for once having ridden from Tegea on a racehorse with word that the tyrant Onomastros had seized power and the reasonable citizens of Tegea would welcome Spartan intervention. Leonidas was rather intimidated by such historic personages.

  A chariot with two magnificent chestnut stallions waited in the crowded street in front of the agoge, and Prokles ran straight for it, leaving Leonidas in his wake. “May I bring a friend along?” he called out, already grabbing the edge of the chariot and swinging himself up agilely beside his grandfather.

  The man holding the reins looked over at Leonidas, who was hanging back uncertainly. He had a hideous scar in the middle of his forehead where (as Leonidas knew from Prokles) the flailing hooves of a Tegean cavalry horse had found their mark almost half of a century earlier. Prokles’ grandfather had awoken in Tegean captivity, a slave. It was almost four years before his father had bought his freedom and brought him home. Now he was a man of 62 years, still slight of build and wiry. The hands that held the reins of his fretful horses were scarred by work in the Tegean quarries. His grey eyes met Leonidas’ and he smiled. “Hello there. And who might you be?”

  “Leonidas, father.”

  “The Agiad?”

  “Yes, father.”

  “What will your mother think if you don’t come home for the holiday, young Leonidas, son of Anaxandridas?”

  “I don’t think she’ll notice, father,” Leonidas mumbled truthfully, as he looked down ashamed. What must a man think of a boy whose own mother didn’t want him?

  “Come on, then; climb aboard.” Leonidas didn’t hesitate any longer, and he felt the grip of the older man helping him. “Ever ridden in a chariot before, boy?”

  “No, father.”

  “Right; then come stand here next to me and hold on. Don’t be ashamed. You have to get a feel for them. Prokles has had lots of practise.”

  What followed was even more fun than the agoge. Prokles’ grandfather, Lysandridas, had a lovely kleros on the western side of the narrowing valley of the Eurotas north of Sparta. The house was built into the side of a steep hill so that the house appeared to be only one storey from the road, but the back of the house was two and a half storeys high. The back terrace offered a wonderful view across the orchards to the valley and the Parnon range. Prokles’ grandmother was a severe-looking woman with straight grey hair that she wore pulled severely back at her neck. She was thin and tough, and not at all gentle; but there was nothing cold about her, either. In her own matter-of-fact way, she made Leonidas feel so welcome it was almost as if he’d been coming here all his life.

  That very first evening, the whole family—including the helots—gathered on the warm tiles of the back terrace. The helot women were spinning, and one of the men was sharpening farm implements with a hand stone. Lysandridas himself had a stack of leather tack and a bucket of warm water. Prokles started helping without being asked, and Lysandridas showed Leonidas how it was done. Prokles’ grandmother brought wine and water in solid pottery jugs and then settled herself down with a lyre, which she played very softly so as not to disturb conversation.

  Leonidas at last ventured to ask, “Will you tell me about your Olympic victories, father?”

  Lysandridas laughed. “If you like; but as you will see, the fates are fickle, and victory and defeat lay side by ide. My greatest victory was one that Sparta chooses to ignore—because I was driving for Tegea. It is good to strive for excellence, but sometimes I think it would be better if we did not put so much emphasis on winning.”

  But that was too much philosophising for the eight-year-old audience, and so Lysandridas told the boys what they wanted to hear: about the excitement and the close calls and the funny ways of foreigners. They sat until the last light had drained out of the sky and the stars were bright in the moonless night. Far too soon, as far as Leonidas was concerned, the Olympic champion stood and announced it was time for bed.

  Leonidas followed Prokles up an outside stairway and along a gallery to a room that Prokles had to himself most of the time. There was a large window with shutters to keep out the heat of the sun, but warmth lingered in the room nevertheless. There were a carved chest, hooks on the wall, and a broad bed with linen hangings and covers. On a table stood a wash basin and a pitcher with cool water. The boys washed themselves perfunctorily and had just climbed into bed when there was a knock at the door. Lysandridas opened it and stuck his head in: “I presume you want to help me with the horses tomorrow, young Leonidas?”

  “Yes, father—but I know nothing about them.”

  “I’ll teach you everything you need to know,” the older man promised, adding, “I am sorry that your mother has been turned out and is said to be ill.”

  “Thank you, father.”

  The door closed and then opened again. “Which does not mean I support your brother Dorieus in his impudent claim to the throne. The ephors’ decision to give your father the granddaughter of Chilon the Wise to wife was correct and indisputable. I knew Chilon personally, and he was a man of awesome intelligence combined with exceptional human warmth and humour. His granddaughter has many of those same qualities, and the Agiad house can only profit from her blood. I expect much of the young king. Now, enough. Get a good night’s sleep. You will have a busy day tomorrow if you want to start learning about horses.”

  And indeed he did. By the time Leonidas returned to the agoge after the holiday, Leonidas was firmly in love with horses, and Prokles was his best friend.

  Leonidas and Prokles were soon inseparable. They not only spent their holidays together—sometimes riding from dawn to dusk—but they sat together in class, slept side by side at night, wrestled, raced, and swam together, and even stood together in chorus, managing always to match their accomplishments so perfectly that there could be no official objection.

  As nine-year-olds the boys of the agoge were taught how to skin and gut their catch and cure the fur. Because they were allowed to keep whatever they trapped for their own use, trapping had an immediate positive effect on the diet of the boys. Their meals were increasingly supplemented by rabbit, hare, squirrel, or even by sweets, fish, and other delicacies purchased with the proceeds of the sale of fur. Leonidas and Prokles trapped as a team, building and placing their traps together and sharing the yield equally.

  As nine-year-olds they were also taken on their first overnight camping trips. These were important exercises in moving in the countryside at night, in making their own beds from the ubiquitous river reeds, in carrying fire all day so they could make a fire at night, in locating a camp for proximity to water, good visibility, and defensibility, and also in watchkeeping. By the end of the summer, when the first autumn thunderstorms drenched the countryside and the nights turned cold, the boys felt very proud of their ability to keep their fires going even in this weather. But they were glad, too, when the “season” ended and they again spent all their nights in the relative warmth and saf
ety of the agoge barracks.

  CHAPTER 3

  Ages 10 and 11

  AS THEY BECAME TEN-YEAR-OLDS THEIR TRAINING continued to increase in difficulty, with archery and hunting added to the program. The length of the overnights extended to three days and then four, and finally five in the fall. It was on returning from one of these longer camping cum hunting expeditions that Leonidas learned that his mother had died. He was given leave to attend her funeral.

  She had given orders to be buried on her estate rather than beside her husband, whom she blamed for her humiliation. If King Anaxandridas, she reasoned, had not given in to the pressure of the ephors—or at least not slept with “that other woman”—then she would never have been driven from her home, and her son would be king of Sparta. In a lucid moment before her death she had asked to be buried beneath a chestnut tree, and it was here that her body was interred.

  The funeral was the first time that her three sons had collected together in a long time. Brotus was now a good four inches taller than Leonidas and much heavier. He was burnt almost black from a summer of frequent camping and outdoor sports. Leonidas looked light beside him not only because his skin just didn’t tan as darkly, but also because his eyebrows were bleached in the nearly continuous exposure to the summer sun and the fuzz of hair on his shaved scalp was almost invisible. Dorieus, however, put both his younger brothers in the shade. He had graduated top of his class and had served his year as a meleirene with his usual unblemished record of excellence. As an eirene, he had had charge of a class of 18-year-olds—a privilege accorded only the eirenes deemed capable of such unruly charges so close in age—and here again he excelled and was deemed the finest of all the eirenes. This past winter he had finally become a citizen, and now awed his younger brothers in Spartan scarlet and a full head of hair.

  But Dorieus was not a happy man. Unlike the younger boys, he had been very close to his mother, and he grieved sincerely. More importantly, he felt a burning sense of guilt because he had failed to avenge her humiliation. Now, even if he one day became king of Sparta, his mother would never see it. In his guilt-stricken grief, he again made his brothers swear that they would never accept Cleomenes as the Agiad king. Then they all returned to the city.