Within a week Leonidas was confronted with the consequences of his brother’s grief. He entered the syssitia in which he was then serving, oblivious of the scandal his brother had caused that same afternoon by failing to rise in the presence of King Cleomenes. His brother’s pointed and public mark of disrespect for a reigning king made Leonidas the target of a barrage of hostile questions. What in the name of the Twins had he been taught at his mother’s knee about the Spartan Constitution? Didn’t he realise that the ephors swore to preserve the kingdom only as long as the kings upheld Lycurgus’ laws? Wasn’t he aware that the ephors consulted the heavens every nine years and that they had a clear warning that the Agiad line would die out unless his father took a second wife? Or more bluntly: just who the hell did Dorieus (and implicitly Leonidas) think he was to challenge the ephors and Council and Assembly?
The furore did not die down. Leonidas soon learned that Dorieus was not as isolated as the questions that first night had made it seem. In fact, there were a score of young men who supported Dorieus, calling Cleomenes not only illegitimate but weak and inadequate. These angry young men all consistently refused to stand for Cleomenes, and interrupted him when he spoke, and openly declared they would not follow this “weakling” in battle.
Shortly afterwards, the rotation of mess duties took Leonidas and Alkander to the mess of the Eurypontid King Ariston. Leonidas was at once confronted with open glee over the dissention in the Agiad House. “Squabbling like a pack of hounds, aren’t you, boy?”
“Yes, father,” Leonidas agreed readily, determined not to get drawn into any sort of defence of his brother. He had served in this mess once before, the previous year, and he disliked the Eurypontid King Ariston not only on principle, but because he seemed to be a thoroughly selfish and self-satisfied man with no redeeming qualities. Furthermore, Leonidas had heard from his mother that the Eurypontid had tricked and betrayed even his “best friend” in order to steal his wife. Although Spartan law explicitly “allowed” a woman to be “shared” between two Spartan citizens for the sake of siring sons, it was supposed to occur only with the consent of all parties. King Ariston, however, had allegedly tricked a man who owed him much money into promising “anything” Ariston asked. Ariston had then asked for his wife. The man and his wife had allegedly both begged to be released from the promise, but Ariston’s lust outweighed his sense (as Leonidas’ mother had worded it) and he had taken the woman to be his queen. From that time onwards Ariston did not have many friends, and his messmates were mere sycophants who flattered him and agreed with whatever he said. Leonidas hated the atmosphere in this syssitia, much preferring those messes where the men treated each others as equals, comrades, and friends.
“Aha, so you admit that the entire Agiad house is nothing but a pack of squabbling dogs.”
“Yes, father,” Leonidas agreed again, determined to just get this night over with as quickly as possible.
“Well, then, boy, from now on you can go on all fours and answer with ‘woof’ for ‘no’ and ‘woof woof’ for ‘yes’.”
Leonidas just stared at the older man, unable to believe his ears.
“I gave you an order, boy! Go on! Get down.”
“No, father.”
“What did you say?”
“No, father.”
“I gave you an order, whelp!”
“Not one I have to obey!” Leonidas flung back, losing his self control and refusing to add the compulsory “father”, either.
“What did you just say, boy?” The Eurypontid’s eyes narrowed at him, and although he was reclining on his coach with a kylix in his hand, he seemed to tense like a cat preparing to spring.
“I don’t have to crawl on all fours and bark like a dog. I’m Spartan! In fact, I am every bit as good as you are.”
An uproar erupted from the other members of the mess, and the Eurypontid king threw his entire kylix of watered wine in Leonidas’ face. Leonidas stood for a moment with the wine dripping off his nose and running down his cheeks and neck. Then he turned and ran out of the mess.
“Going out to cry, little whelp?” someone shouted after him.
“Running back to your mother’s womb, baby?” another hooted.
But King Ariston shouted for him to come back.
The helot cook caught Leonidas by arm and advised him urgently to return. “You can’t win, boy. Go in and do what they want of you. It’ll be over in a moment or two! If you run away, they’ll take this to the Paidonomos. You’ll get flogged! Don’t be a fool, boy. It’ll hurt you less to say ‘woof, woof’ a couple of times than to have your back torn open by the cane!”
“But he doesn’t have the right to ask that of me!” Leonidas insisted, with all the intensity of a child confronted with something that is not fair. For three years he had memorised the Laws of Lycurgus. For three years they had taught him that the Spartan Constitution was designed to ensure that all citizens were treated equally. The land reform, the common education, the uniforms at school and in the army, the equal portions at the messes—everything was designed to ensure equality of status for all Peers.
Furthermore, Leonidas had also been taught for three years that all the discipline of the agoge was carefully instituted because no other city in the world took such an intense and protective interest in its youth. The agoge was harsh, his instructors and eirenes and the men at the syssitia said, but it was fair. It had been explained that the very rigorousness of their training was a privilege reserved only for future citizens. Helots and perioikoi were not subject to the discipline nor put through the tests because they would never be citizens, never stand shoulder to shoulder in the phalanx, nor vote at Assembly, nor have the right to be elected to office, Ephorate, or Council.
In short, it had been drummed into him that as sons of Peers and as future Peers, the boys of the agoge had a right to respect. Citizens were not allowed to strike the boys or otherwise force them to do anything. That was the exclusive prerogative of the officials of the agoge, and only after “due process” in which the boys were given a chance to defend themselves. Certainly no citizen had the right to humiliate the boys of the agoge in ways incompatible with their dignity as future Peers.
But no sooner was Leonidas out of the oppressively hot syssitia and the mocking circle of hostile faces than he became afraid of his own courage. In the sobering chill of the night air, the cook’s warning rang in his ears, and the thought of a flogging made his bladder weak. He started running for his agoge barracks, anxious to tell his side of the story to his eirene before the Eurypontid king could report him to the headmaster.
Leonidas’ eirene, Lysimachos, was in the eirenes’ mess with his colleagues. He was anything but happy to be interrupted during this short interval of free time. “What the hell are you doing here, Leo? Dinner can’t be over yet.”
“Please, sir. I need to talk to you about something,” Leonidas explained, still standing in the doorway and signalling for his eirene to come over to him. “Just for a moment, sir.”
“You look like you need a pee. Go take care of that first and then come back for me.”
Five minutes later Leonidas found himself breathlessly relating what had transpired. But even as he told the story, he knew he was not going to get any help from his eirene. Lysimachos, son of Megakles, was not exactly the top of his class. The best youths were always assigned the most senior age-cohorts, because it was assumed they were the most difficult to manage. By the time the Paidonomos assigned the eirenes to the ten-year-old and younger age-cohorts, only the “dregs” were left. But whereas Gitiades and the other two eirenes who had commanded Leonidas’ unit the previous three years had at least taken their duties seriously, this youth didn’t seem to give a damn what his elders thought of him. He let the boys of his unit wait on him hand and foot and claimed the best of everything for himself. He certainly did not lead by example, and Leonidas had been looking forward to the change of eirene at year’s end even before this incident. Now
he found himself the object of Lysimachos’s outrage.
“You did what?!” the youth demanded furiously of Leonidas.
“I walked out, sir—”
“You don’t have the right to do that!”
“But they wanted me to crawl on the floor and bark like a dog!” Leonidas protested.
“So what?”
“Well, they don’t have the right to make me do that! I’m not a helot. I’m every bit as good as King Ariston!”
“Oh don’t give me that shit! You’re a little boy! You have to do what any Peer asks of you—let alone a ruling king and his household cronies. Are you out of your mind?! I’ve never known you to be a troublemaker before! You’ve always been so sensible up to now! What in the Name of Zeus got into you? By all the Gods! If the Paidonomos finds out about this, he’ll have my hide!” Suddenly the young man was afraid for himself. He grabbed Leonidas and shook him hard. “You go back there and apologise for what you did. Grovel, do you hear me?! Go down on your knees and grovel for forgiveness—”
“NO! NEVER!” Leonidas told the eirene and fled.
Leonidas was very, very frightened now. He knew he was in trouble, and he knew that no one was going to help him. He ran in search of Prokles, who was returning from his own mess duties at another mess.
When Prokles heard what Leonidas had done, he gasped. “By all the Gods! You are in deep shit, Leo!”
“But surely you can see I couldn’t do what he asked of me?” Leonidas protested again, more distressed than ever to discover that even his best friend did not support him.
“I’m not saying you should have crawled or barked, but you shouldn’t have fled. What did Alkander do?”
“What could he do? They weren’t addressing him.”
“Well, he could have distracted attention from you—dropped a tray or knocked over a krater or something!” Prokles declared contemptuously.
Leonidas sighed. He didn’t doubt that Prokles would have done something like that if he had been in the syssitia, but you couldn’t ask that of Alkander. Alkander was still always last in sports and his stutter was, if anything, worse. No one listened to what he said, and his only function in the unit seemed to be to serve as a ready example of all things contemptible. It was unreasonable to expect him to actively risk more ridicule and abuse just to protect Leonidas. Leonidas didn’t expect it of him.
“You’re right. You can’t expect help from that trembler,” Prokles echoed Leonidas’ thoughts. “I’ll see if I can catch my dad at his syssitia before he heads home. Maybe he’ll know of something you can do.”
But Leonidas was summoned to report to the Paidonomos before Prokles returned. Leonidas had not been in the office of the Paidonomos since the day his father brought him to the agoge, which seemed like ages ago. Here by the light of torches he was confronted not only with the Paidonomos, but also the deputy headmaster for the younger age-cohorts, several of the officials of the agoge, the Mastigophoroi (the men who would actually carry out any flogging that was ordered), and the Eurypontid chief steward as well. The latter was one of the men who had witnessed the whole incident and had delivered the king’s complaint to the Paidonomos. Leonidas was aware that his knees were shaking, a disgraceful display of fear that made things even worse.
The Paidonomos announced to Leonidas, his eirene Lysimachos, and Alkander, all of whom had been summoned at the same time, that a complaint had been lodged against Leonidas for “impudent” behaviour to “none other than the Eurypontid king”. The Paidonomos then asked Lysimachos for an explanation. As was to be expected, the eirene proclaimed complete ignorance of both the charges and the incident. He put on a great show of being taken completely by surprise. In one sense it was a kind of defence, because at least he said he’d never had any trouble with or complaints about Leonidas before now. Still, he ended by saying that of course if Leonidas had “taken a bad example from his rebellious and arrogant older brother”, they must “act vigorously” to “nip his impudence in the bud”. Adding, “A good flogging would no doubt do him good.”
Finally Leonidas was asked directly to explain himself. He had not been taught to dissemble and said straight out: “King Ariston ordered me to get down on my knees and crawl around on the floor like a dog, answering only with ‘woof’ or ‘woof, woof’.” Leonidas was so afraid of the flogging he expected that he spoke in a rush of air that made him talk too fast. He was bright red with agitation and his breathing was irregular.
“Ridiculous! The boy is not only impudent, he is a liar.” This judgement came from the Eurypontid official. The steward then went on to describe what had happened at the mess, saying that Leonidas had strutted into the mess arrogantly declaiming that he didn’t have to serve anyone there or even address them as “sir” or “father” because he was “as good as any of them”. The steward concluded his narrative by saying, “Then he just turned around and strolled out.”
“That’s not true!” Leonidas burst out furiously, yet at the same time feeling helpless against these incriminating lies. “Father!” he pleaded, turning to the Paidonomos. “It’s not true. I admit, at the end, after he’d ordered me to crawl on the floor and bark like a dog, I—I didn’t—I couldn’t bring myself—to call him ‘father’. But only after he’d ordered me to crawl on all fours and bark like a dog.”
“Why on earth would we give you such a ridiculous order?” the Eurypontid steward asked, in a tone of voice that made it seem utterly inconceivable. “You are making this whole thing up to protect yourself from the flogging you deserve.”
“You can flog me if you like, but I won’t crawl on the floor and bark like a dog! Father,” Leonidas shouted in despair.
“Why on earth would anyone want you to?” the steward asked back in a tone of injured rationality. “The boy is obviously as mad as his mother. He must be hallucinating things.”
“No, f-f-f-father. He’s n-n-n-not!” Alkander broke in.
Everyone had forgotten the other boy was even there. Every head in the room swung around to look at him in astonishment. After four years in the agoge, Alkander had a reputation. Everyone in the room knew that Alkander was a hopeless case. He was still tall for his age, but he was last in every race. He could barely get up a rope. He was downed in wrestling with hardly a fight. His javelin and arrows always fell short, and the singing masters had given up on him entirely and ordered him to keep silent. Most importantly, because he was known to be a stutterer, he was automatically assumed to be the lowest form of Spartan life: a “trembler”, or coward.
“Did you wish to speak, Alkander, son of Demarmenus?”
“Yes, sir. Leonidas isn’t m-m-making anything up, f-f-f-father. He w-w-was ordered to go on all f-f-f-fours and b-b-bark.” Alkander’s breath was exhausted after this effort and he fell silent, but his throat was working in agitation and his face glistened with sweat in the torchlight. His fists opened and closed at his side.
“The boy is just trying to cover up for his friend.” The Eurypontid steward dismissed Alkander with a contemptuous wave of his hand.
The Paidonomos’ eyes shifted sharply to the steward, but settled on Alkander again to ask: “Why on earth would a king order a boy of the agoge—much less an Agiad prince—to behave like a dog?”
So he was a prince after all, Leonidas noted, somewhat to his surprise and encouraged by this unexpected honour.
“B-b-because K-K-King Ariston c-c-claimed the Agiads were f-f-fighting—”
“This is agony to listen to! Can’t the boy be taught to speak properly—”
The Paidonomos silenced the steward with a single look. Turning back to Alkander he prompted, “Go on.”
“—he said the Agiads were f-f-fighting among th-th-themselves like d-d-dogs.”
“Which indeed they are!” the steward agreed.
“Thank you. That will be all. Return to barracks.” The Paidonomos dismissed the boys and their eirene.
Out in the hall, Leonidas wanted to thank Alkander. He
was awed by the courage the weak boy had shown in speaking up like that to the Paidonomos even when he hadn’t been addressed, but Lysimachos silenced him before he even got a word out by announcing: “You were lucky this time. Don’t think they’ll go so easy on you next time around!” After that, no further comment seemed appropriate.
The following spring Dorieus left Sparta with almost 200 followers, most of them perioikoi, to found a colony in North Africa. Leonidas did not know the details of the stormy confrontations between his older brother and the ephors, but he knew that the whole enterprise was viewed as ill conceived and foolhardy. In his haste, his brother even neglected to consult Delphi. The handful of young Spartiates who accompanied him were of good family but reputedly all “hotheads”—at least that was what the older men in the syssitia said when they lectured Leonidas on his brother’s wilfulness and rashness.
Part of Leonidas was glad to see Dorieus go. The six months since he had publicly refused to acknowledge Cleomenes as king had brought only hardship to Leonidas. But he also felt a chill of growing isolation. Even if Dorieus hadn’t been much of a brother to him, he was better than nothing. Now the only relative he had in the world— unless you counted his hated half-brother Cleomenes —was his twin brother Brotus.
True, it had been four years since Brotus had been the bane of his existence, but the twins were still anything but close. In fact, they were almost exact opposites of one another. While Brotus excelled at sports of strength like sprinting, jumping, and especially boxing, Leonidas was better at sports where skill, judgement, or tenacity helped more than strength—wrestling, archery, and long-distance running. While Brotus was useless in chorus, Leonidas was increasingly recognised as gifted. Brotus was impatient with writing, had a poor memory for for poetry, and generally did poorly in any classroom subject; while Leonidas was one of the best “scholars”, with a neat and admired handwriting. On the other hand, Brotus could track almost anything, and was reputed to have the “nose of a dog,” while Leonidas was too easily distracted by plants and weather and other things to track properly; without Prokles, Leonidas would rarely have had extra rations. In short, Leonidas found little comfort in the fact that Brotus was his last remaining relative in Lacedaemon.
A Boy of the Agoge Page 6
