A Boy of the Agoge

by Helena P. Schrader

  In the spring of Leonidas’ eleventh year, King Cleomenes married. The young king (he was 23 at the time) chose a maiden of surpassing beauty, and inevitably the jokes in the syssitia were about the marriage of Aphrodite to Hephaestus. Everyone seemed to think it was very funny, and the ribald jokes were often beyond the understanding of the youngest mess-boys. In fact, Leonidas was frequently sent out of the room when the jokes about his half-brother’s marriage became too explicit. But while the bride’s beauty was cause for amusement, her age was the source of disapproval. In Sparta, girls generally weren’t viewed as marriageable until they were at least 18, and usually 19 or 20. But given the king’s own youth, he would have been forgiven that modest breach of convention in marrying a 16-year-old, if he hadn’t also “stolen” an heiress.

  This last fact aroused widespread and intense anger. Heatedly men pointed out that by marrying an heiress, the king, who was very rich already, concentrated even more wealth in his own hands—wealth that should have gone to an ordinary citizen instead. This was the first time Leonidas was made explicitly conscious of the fact that the reality of Spartan equality was far from the ideal laid down by Lycurgus and which they had so dutifully learned in school. But he didn’t pay it much attention.

  The next lesson was harder still. It came the same year when Prokles and Leonidas went off for one of their all-day rides during a holiday in the late summer. The weather was very hot and dry, as it had been for an inordinately long time that year. Everywhere the grass was brown and crisp rather than green and soft, and on the upper pastures the goats and sheep had sometimes grazed so much that dust blew at the slightest breeze. The shepherds moved the herds higher and farther to keep them from ruining the pastures altogether. Prokles’ father and grandfather wore frowns much of the time, saying that the hay harvest had been bad and they would have to buy imported hay to get the horses through the winter—or sell some of the horses off sooner. At least the stream that bounded their kleros to the south was still running, albeit very low. Many other mountain streams, particularly from the Parnon range, which was not as high and had less snow in winter than the Taygetos, had dried up altogether. Even the Eurotas was unusually lazy and shallow.

  When the boys set off for a ride, Lysandridas warned the boys to stay close to the Eurotas so the horses would always have somewhere to drink, and admonished them not to ride too fast in the heat. Leonidas could sense that the horse breeder would have preferred to order the boys to stay home, but the old man also knew how much the boys were looking forward to this outing before returning to the discipline of the agoge on the following day. His solution was to loan them the use of older horses, weathered veterans past their prime who could be relied on not to overexert themselves.

  Prokles and Leonidas avoided Sparta to ensure no officious Peer would commandeer their horses (as they had the right to do), and crossed the river well north of Sparta. They continued to the north, riding cross-country to avoid the dusty roads and keeping to the edge of the orchards and vineyards that were planted on the lower foothills of Parnos. They absolved their consciences by telling themselves that as long as they had the Eurotas in sight, they were following instructions.

  By noon, however, they were desperately thirsty, and the water in the goatskins they carried on their backs was so hot that it was almost undrinkable. Now the Eurotas looked a very long ways away—although it was still technically visible. The boys at once started to look around for an alternative, namely a mountain spring or village fountain where they could water themselves and their horses. They decided to turn east into the Parnon range, climbing towards a village they could see about a mile ahead of them. Even before they reached the village, however, they were met by a stocky woman carrying an empty jug on her head. She was obviously going to fetch water. They pulled up and called out to her, “Hello.” (She was a helot and not entitled to the title of “ma’am”.) “Can you tell us the nearest place to get water?” they asked her.

  The woman’s hair was streaked with grey, and her face was weathered by the sun to a leathery hide creased with wrinkles. Her feet were bare and the soles looked as hard as the soles of sandals. She squinted up at the two boys on their fine horses, obviously Spartiate sons by their shaved heads, and her expression was vaguely hostile. She made Leonidas feel uncomfortable, and his skin crept despite the hot sun.

  “There is still water at Seliasia,” the woman announced, finally answering the boys’ question, and she pointed vaguely. Leonidas and Prokles followed the direction of her finger with their eyes. This was farther northeast, deeper into the valley of another tributary to the Eurotas. They thanked the woman and headed in the direction she had indicated.

  It took them almost half an hour to reach the village the woman had pointed out, but they had no difficulty finding the fountain: there was a long line standing in front of it. Most of the people in line were helot women and girls, but with a cry of surprise, Leonidas noticed Alkander.

  “Alkander!” he called out, and urged his horse forward past half the line to reach their classmate. Prokles followed.

  Alkander looked up, and his expression was one of shock and then shame. He looked down, his face closed and blank, as it was whenever he was being upbraided for his failings or mocked for his incompetence.

  Leonidas jumped down from his mount, taking in the fact that Alkander was still wearing his agoge clothes, only he’d unpinned the chiton on his right shoulder so it hung around his waist leaving his shoulder bare—just like a helot. He was also carrying a knapsack loaded with a large amphora, and held a second in his arms.

  “Don’t you have water on your kleros?” Leonidas asked in shock, putting two and two together.

  “No,” Alkander answered, so softly that Leonidas read his lips more than heard his words.

  “How far away is it?” Leonidas asked next, looking about at the increasingly rugged countryside, which was hardly suitable to cultivation.

  “Two miles,” Alkander gestured vaguely.

  “You’re going to carry those amphorae full of water for two miles?” Leonidas asked, incredulous.

  “Of course.”

  Leonidas looked at Prokles. Obviously a Spartan hoplite was expected to march 40 miles in a day, but never in full panoply; there were baggage wagons for that. While on an advance or patrol, a hoplite might have to march four or five miles in armour, but even then the armour was distributed more or less equally over the whole body. Trying to carry a 20-gallon amphora in one’s arms while carrying another on one’s back was a very different proposition. Besides, Alkander was only an eleven-year-old boy, and by no means the strongest of them.

  “I can take the knapsack on my back, and we can rig up a saddlebag for the other one,” Leonidas suggested spontaneously.

  Alkander stared up at him as if he didn’t understand what Leonidas had said. “You mean, help me carry it home?”

  “We’ve got horses,” Leonidas pointed out.

  Alkander did not seem particularly grateful. He looked at the horses and then at the fountain house, and he swallowed. He shuffled forward with the line. Leonidas looked over at Prokles with a question in his eyes, and Prokles shrugged. They kept beside Alkander, moving forward as he did but not talking. When he went into the fountain house, Prokles stayed with the horses while Leonidas went inside with Alkander. First Leonidas refilled Prokles’ and his own goatskins with fresh, cool water from the basin while Alkander filled first the amphora in his rucksack and then the one he held in his arms. These being large amphorae, Leonidas had time to take the goatskins out to the horses and water them by hand twice before taking some water out for Prokles and himself. He refilled the goatskins a last time and then, as the second of Alkander’s amphora started to overflow, he reached out and took it in his own arms. It was staggeringly heavy. He struggled to get it out of the fountain house, down the steps, and on to the street, where Prokles was waiting with the horses. It was impossible to imagine carrying it two miles.

&
nbsp; “We can tie two old barley sacks together and hang one on either side of Penny’s withers.” Prokles had worked out the transport problem while he waited. Together the three boys obtained from one of the villagers some old, rather ragged barley sacks and hemp rope. They lashed the sacks together with the rope so that the rope lay across the withers of the mare Leonidas had been riding and a sack hung down on either side. They hoisted an amphora into each sack (with only a little spillage) and then turned Penny around. Penny did not like this awkward burden and balked. Prokles had to employ all his powers of persuasion with the insulted racehorse, most notably riding ahead with the other horse. Rather than be left behind, Penny at last moved forward.

  It took them nearly an hour, with frequent strikes by Penny, before they reached their destination. Leonidas had been so busy concentrating on coaxing the stubborn mare forward without upsetting the load and worrying about the chafing on her withers from the hemp rope (the hair was rubbed off and Penny was starting to bleed by the end) that he did not notice Alkander’s kleros until they were almost there. In fact, Alkander said, “Here we are,” and Leonidas looked about bewildered. There wasn’t a kleros anywhere in sight, just a helot cottage of dirty stucco with a thatched roof and a rough porch supported by rough-hewn wooden pillars.

  Prokles was staring, too, and not just at the cottage but also at the woman who emerged from it. She did not look very different from the helot woman they had encountered on the road. Her hair was thin and greying, her skin dark, her feet bare. In fact, both Leonidas and Prokles assumed she was a helot until Alkander addressed her. “Mom, that’s Prokles and this is Leonidas. They helped me bring the water.”

  Leonidas was too shocked by discovering this was Alkander’s mother and this filthy cottage was his home to register that Alkander had not stuttered once.

  The woman came nearer, modestly pulling the back of her peplos up over her head. “Leonidas? The Agiad?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Leonidas answered dutifully.

  “I’m honoured. Alkander has told me so much about you. I am honoured,” she repeated, sounding more stunned than honoured. “I wasn’t expecting you,” she said next. “I have nothing in the house.”

  “Don’t worry about that, ma’am. We just came to deliver the water.”

  “But you must come in,” she insisted. “I’ll find something. Come in.”

  Meanwhile Prokles and Alkander had between them taken the amphorae out of their sacks and removed the offending improvised saddlebags from Penny’s back. Prokles was inspecting the damage to his grandfather’s horse with horror and apprehension. The poor mare had been rubbed bloody in three places. His grandfather would have every reason to cane them both, Prokles was thinking. Alkander had one of the amphorae in his arms, so Leonidas took the other one and followed him into the cottage.

  Inside it was even worse than outside. First of all, the room was windowless. The only light came from the door by which they entered. The air inside was thick with smoke from a smouldering hearth-fire that heated the temperature in the room far beyond the heat outside, making it feel as if they were inside a bread-oven. Leonidas broke out into a sweat at once. The floor was packed dirt and, from what he could see in the dim, smoky light, the cottage was filled with a jumble of junk. The woman tried to clear a place for them at a table and brought wooden plates that she wiped clean with a rag. Leonidas was famished, but the thought of eating anything here turned his stomach. The woman, or he ought to say Alkander’s mother, set a chipped kothon in front of him and poured a finger of wine into it. She then looked around for water, and Leonidas hastened to offer water from his own goatskin. Prokles entered and joined them, a wary look on his face.

  “Alkander has told me so much about you,” the woman repeated, setting bread before them. It looked rather burned, but Leonidas’ hunger got the better of him and he took some of it. “He says you are the only one in the whole agoge who is nice to him.”

  Leonidas was embarrassed, because he wasn’t really nice to Alkander. The most you could say was that he wasn’t particularly mean to him, either. “Do you live alone here, ma’am?” he asked to change the subject. He remembered vaguely that Alkander’s mother was widowed, but he thought he remembered Alkander mentioning a sister.

  “Yes, since my daughter moved away.”

  “Did she marry?” Leonidas asked innocently.

  Alkander scowled and his mother turned away. “I’ll get you some apples,” she announced and left the cottage.

  Leonidas looked at Alkander. “What happened to your sister?”

  “What is it to you?” Alkander snapped back. “You can see how it is for us here! My mother has almost nothing for herself after she pays my agoge fees. The kleros won’t support anyone else.”

  “But....you mean this is it? All of it?”

  “Of course! Do you think we’d be here if we had a fine house someplace else?” Alkander was angry.

  “But...” Leonidas looked helplessly at Prokles.

  “Where are your helots?” Prokles asked.

  “They live further down the road. In a better house, if you must know. There are lots of them, so they could build and fix it up more. My Mom’s alone with me in the agoge.”

  Leonidas and Prokles looked at one another, still dumbfounded and confused. “But how did you get so poor?”

  “How? How did you get so rich? Your brother just married an heiress, and so did your father. The rich get richer, while the rest of us have almost nothing left.” He was so bitter and so angry and so ashamed that he was red-faced—but he still wasn’t stuttering.

  “I’m no richer than you are,” Leonidas protested. “I wear the same clothes and eat the same food as you—”

  “Only as long as you’re in the agoge!” Alkander interrupted. “When you come of age, you’ll take over huge estates scattered all over Lacedaemon.”

  This was the first Leonidas had heard of that, and he didn’t believe it. “That can’t be. My half-brother even threw us out of our home when he became king!”

  “And where did you go? To one of your mother’s many estates! Where do you think your agoge fees come from every month?”

  Leonidas was appalled to realise he’d never given it a thought.

  Alkander seemed ashamed of his outburst, and he rushed outside into the fresh air. Leonidas and Prokles looked at each other, and then got up and went out. Alkander was standing with his back to them and his mother was evidently trying to comfort him, but he kept shaking his head and waving her away.

  She turned, saw that the other two boys had come out of the house, and put on a smile. “Please stay a little longer. I can go and fetch—”

  “We can’t stay, ma’am,” Prokles answered with a nod toward the sun. “We have to get the horses back to my granddad. Thank you for your hospitality, ma’am.” Prokles started untethering the horses, but Leonidas kept gazing at Alkander’s back. The chiton still hung from his left shoulder, exposing one scrawny shoulder blade.

  “See you tomorrow then, Alkander,” he addressed the other boy.

  Alkander spun around, and his face was struggling with emotions. “No, you won’t! The harvest was horrible. My mom can’t scrape together the agoge fees any more. I won’t be there tomorrow or ever again.”

  “But if you don’t finish the agoge, you’ll never get citizenship!” Leonidas protested.

  “Are you stupid or what!? I can’t afford the syssitia fees, either! I’ll never be a citizen. Never! I never fit in anyway, and you won’t care if I’m gone.”

  Leonidas was shocked and stunned. He could find no words, except a rather weak denial. “That’s not true. I’ll miss you. I’ve never forgot how you saved me from a flogging last winter. I—”

  “Just go away and leave me alone!”

  Prokles brought Penny over to Leonidas and handed him the reins. Reluctantly Leonidas mounted. Why hadn’t he ever thanked Alkander properly for helping when he was in trouble with King Ariston? Why hadn’t he m
ade more of an effort to help Alkander with things generally? Why hadn’t he stopped the others from mocking him? Alkander wasn’t really worthless. What difference did it make if he stuttered: what he said usually made sense, if one just let him finish—and listened to him. And while he was poor at sport, Leonidas was certain that somehow or other he would have brought his mother the water today even without help. Even more importantly, he had shown real courage in the Paidonomos’ office. Suddenly it was clear to Leonidas that Alkander wasn’t worthless at all, but a boy with intelligence, tenacity, and courage. He felt horribly guilty for not befriending him.

  All the way home, Prokles and Leonidas discussed Alkander. Prokles was less positive about him, but he agreed it was unfair for him to get thrown out of the agoge.

  “But how did he get to be so poor?” Leonidas asked in baffled outrage. “Lycurgus’ Laws guarantee every citizen sufficient land to support a man and his family. That was what the Land Reform was all about. That is the point of all our laws against hoarding and owning gold and silver and about eating in common messes and going to the same school and wearing the same clothes! The whole basis of our Constitution is equality of wealth so that we compete against each other only with respect to courage and virtue.”

  Prokles looked over at his friend a little askance. “You can’t really believe all that crap! Just look around you.”