Before he could fully grasp what had happened, the port oars were halted in the air, water dripping from them, and the starboard oars started to turn the bows around. Then, in perfect unison, the port oars again dipped into the water—backwatering. Now the great trireme pivoted around, and an instant later went in alongside the inside of the sea wall with just feet to spare. The oars were shipped and she glided into the tiny space, while barefoot sailors along her deck jumped ashore with lines. They dug in their heels and brought her to a halt just before her ram crashed into the side of the quay.
“Show-off!” a man mumbled on Leonidas’ left, and he looked up. The man beside him appeared to be a sailor, or rather a marine. He was in a simple chiton with a leather breastplate. He wore a full beard, greaves, and a helmet shoved back on his neck, but he was barefoot and he seemed to have salt in his hair and beard—and very likely in his veins as well, Leonidas thought.
“Is it one of ours, sir?” Leonidas asked anxiously.
“That?!” The marine glanced down at Leonidas, torn between contempt for so much ignorance and pleasure at the opportunity to show off. Recognising his audience as three boys of the Spartan agoge, he quickly gave in to the latter. “Not on your life. We haven’t got a crew in all of Lacedaemon who could pull off a manoeuvre like that. She’s Samian.”
He pointed out to his ignorant audience the fresh paint that gave this ship gunnels that gleamed even in the near darkness, and the large glinting “eyes” beside her prow. He praised the size and strength of the reinforcements on the ram. He assured them that her mast was tall and the yard broad, and said she had set a sail with a coiled snake device that suggested she came from the Samian tyrant, Marandros, himself. The fuss being made about a fat man, who now emerged from the deckhouse wearing very elaborate clothes and heavy gold jewellery, seemed to support this thesis. In fact, there was a large delegation of dignitaries on the quay to greet this traveller and his extensive entourage, and after much bowing and apparently the exchange of gifts, the fat man was offered a litter and then carried away, surrounded by an escort of soldiers carrying torches and trailed by his own numerous entourage.
Only after the commotion for the stranger had died down did Leonidas risk asking the strange marine about the other ships. “What about these triremes?” he asked. “Are they ours?”
“These poor wrecks?” the man answered with a contemptuous look at the ships Leonidas and his friends had found splendid just a few minutes earlier. “I don’t know who they belong to. Whoever owns them, they brought back the remnants of that ill-fated expedition to Libya.”
“You mean the colonists under Dorieus, son of Anaxandridas?” Leonidas asked in alarm.
“That’s right—the fools who set off without consulting Delphi! What could you expect of such an impudent expedition? Got just what they deserved: run off the African continent by Carthage. Carthage isn’t about to let some Spartan princeling get a foothold on its continent—no matter how small and insignificant the colony might have been. They drove him off, killing many of his companions, followers, and slaves. All the colonists who remained could fit aboard these two poor ships. Lucky to get off at all.”
“What of Dorieus? Did he make it back?”
“The Spartan prince, you mean? Unfortunately—not that he looked much like a prince in his rags. But he still had all his limbs, as far as I could see—and a black woman, too. Yes, Dorieus made it back, all right—more’s the pity. He wasted the lives of not a few good men, and from what I heard in the taverns last night, all he can talk about is revenge. Mad, that’s what he is, obsessed with being a king! Who needs kings nowadays? You’d be better off in Sparta without them—much less exporting them. Mark my words, lad, that one will cause trouble in Sparta still. It would have been better for everyone if the Carthaginians had put an end to him.”
The marine was right. Before Dorieus had been in Sparta more than a week, he was making trouble again. On the one hand he resumed his old tactics of openly denying Cleomenes respect, and on the other he lambasted the Assembly for sending him off with so little support and then “abandoning” him. He claimed to have sent pleas for help, which the ephors steadfastly claimed not to have received. Dorieus conceded that one ship might have been lost, but three? He found this incredible. So did some of his peers. From what Leonidas and his friends overheard in the syssitia and from what Philippos reported, a significant minority of the Peers felt Dorieus had been unfairly treated.
This sentiment was assisted by the fact that his arch-rival, King Cleomenes, had not done anything to win over the citizens’ affection or respect during Dorieus’ absence. Although he was still young and not actively disliked, there was nevertheless a faction that found him suspiciously self-indulgent. There was his choice of wife on one hand—which was very greedy; and now he could to be seen entertaining—and being entertained by—the Samian ambassador in an “unfittingly” lavish manner.
In fact, it was rumoured throughout the city (and not the least loudly by the perioikoi who ran the major stalls on the agora) that the Samian ambassador had arrived in Gytheon with a ship “loaded with treasure”. Precisely because Leonidas had seen that magnificent ship, he tended to believe the claims. Furthermore, the perioikoi merchant who had the corner stall just behind the temple to the Horse-breeding Poseidon said that the Samian ambassador had brought chests full of ivory, gold, and silver into the city under the cover of darkness and guarded by crack troops.
“You can be sure he intends to buy something with all that loot—and it ain’t Lacedaemonian pottery!” The merchant gestured contemptuously toward the stalls across the street with their humdrum offerings of household goods. Leonidas had been told that at the time of the Tegean wars, Lacedaemonian pottery had found markets in the entire world, but today the best pots came from Corinth and Athens. Even the Spartans preferred these imports to their own simple wares.
“But what could he want to buy?” Leondias pressed his informant. This was a merchant of horse and chariot tack who knew Prokles and his friends from frequent dealings with Prokles’ father and grandfather. The boys sometimes hung around his shop in their spare time, helping to polish his wares in exchange for a good meal and gossip like this.
“Why, what Sparta makes best!” the merchant replied with a chuckle.
The three boys gazed at him, still not understanding—until Alkander ventured cautiously, “You mean our soldiers?”
“Exactly!”
“We aren’t mercenaries!” Leonidas protested indignantly.
“But you have to go wherever your kings lead. Why do you think the Samian ambassador spends most of his time at the Agiad royal palace? It’s not to admire the king’s young heir, fine as he might be. Though, of course, it could be because of his wife....” The merchant laughed at his own joke, but Leonidas was distracted by the reference to the Agiad heir.
Cleomenes’ beautiful bride had delivered a healthy son to her husband and the city shortly after the winter solstice. He had been named Agis, after the founder of the dynasty, as if to reinforce Cleomenes’ own claim to the throne. This son, whatever name he carried, had certainly strengthened Cleomenes’ position.
Admittedly, Dorieus had a son, too, but he had been born of an African woman. As such, the boy had no claim to citizenship, much less the throne. Still, Leonidas suspected his brother had brought the woman and baby with him to prove to everyone that he—unlike his father—was already potent at the young age of 24. He had obviously hoped that Cleomenes would be childless and had hoped his proven potency would furnish further evidence of his superiority over his rival. But young Agis, born of a beautiful and noble Spartan bride, made his own half-black baby an embarrassment rather than an asset. The African woman was hastily sent back to Gytheon with her embarrassing child, and it was said that Dorieus was looking for a “good” Spartan maiden to take to wife.
Prokles, meanwhile, was asking the periokoi merchant: “What do they want our army for?”
&nbs
p; “Why, to fight the Persians,” the perioikoi answered, as if this should have been obvious.
“What have the Persians to do with us?” Prokles wanted to know.
“Surely you know—provincial as you boys are—that they have enslaved almost all the Greek cities of Ionia?!”
“Is Samos enslaved?” Leonidas asked, remembering the magnificent ship and all the alleged treasure the Samian ambassador had brought.
“They are subjects of the Persian king. They may not live like chattel slaves nor even like our helots, but they are not truly free men,” the merchant insisted firmly.
“Of course not,” Alkander retorted with a shrug. “They have a tyrant.”
“Isn’t it the tyrant that sent the ambassador?” Leonidas was beginning to think he was confused in some way.
“Of course it was the tyrant that sent the ambassador. But Marandros is a Greek tyrant, and he does not like being under the Persian yoke.”
The three boys just gazed at the merchant with various expressions of disbelief and confusion on their faces. It didn’t entirely make sense to them, and it was soon evident that they were not alone in this.
When, not long afterwards, King Cleomenes announced to the Assembly that Marandros wanted a Spartan army to help “free” Ionia from the Persians, the debate among the adults was not substantially different from that which the boys had had. There were those who felt the Persians were a growing threat, devouring one city—or indeed whole nations—after another, that had to be stopped sooner or later. Others insisted that what happened on the other side of the Aegean was not any business of Sparta’s. Others, more practical or more subtle, simply pointed out that Sparta did not have the ships to transport an army to Samos. To this the Samian ambassador replied that Samos would provide the bottoms, but this offer only made the old men in the assembly even more suspicious. It would mean that the Spartans would also have no way to return home—unless and until their Samian “hosts” provided the ships. That seemed a very risky proposition indeed, the old men insisted firmly, implying that by accepting Samian bottoms for transport, the Spartan army would be effectively “kidnapped” by a foreigner for his own purposes. Sentiment started to swing against support for Samos.
By now two factions had emerged. One faction was led by Dorieus, fervently advocating support for Samos as a means of establishing Sparta’s reputation abroad. The other faction’s most eloquent spokesman was Demaratus, the heir to the ailing Eurypontid King Ariston. Demaratus argued that it would be absolute madness to embark upon a foreign expedition in foreign bottoms to take on the most powerful nation on earth.
Dorieus mocked Demaratus for doubting that Spartan arms would prevail, which of course caused the Eurypontid to make disparaging remarks about the success of Dorieus’ own expedition. Dorieus responded with an unseemly display of temper, blaming—again—the ephors for abandoning him. While Dorieus was criticised for losing his temper, he nevertheless seemed to be gaining sympathy for the cause of supporting Samos. After all, people started saying, after Spartan humiliation at the hands of Carthage, Sparta could not “afford” to be seen as frightened of any foreign power. Sparta’s reputation would be damaged and even the Allies of the League would start to question Sparta’s right to leadership, if it did not demonstrate the “unquestionable prowess of its magnificent army”. (There always seemed to be elements in the Assembly that devoured such phrases, even though they were at odds with a culture that demanded modesty and brevity of its individual citizens.)
It was at this stage that Cleomenes put an end to the whole debate, however, by peremptorily and unilaterally sending the Samian ambassador packing. He sent him away with high-sounding words about Spartan arms not being for sale, but Leonidas couldn’t help but think he only sided with Demaratus to foil his hated rival Dorieus.
After all the excitement had died down with the departure of the Samian ambassador, Leonidas was startled to be stopped by Dorieus as he came off the race track after a long run. Dorieus had not previously made any effort to contact him, and Leonidas had observed him only from a distance—not keen to draw attention to himself, either. Since his return, Dorieus had outfitted himself in new clothes and armour, and he was again a splendid sight in the eyes of his little brother. Leonidas was at a particular disadvantage under the circumstances; he was naked, dripping wet with sweat, and gasping for breath.
His elder brother seemed to look him up and down and find him wanting. “I hear you still aren’t herd leader,” were his first words.
Bent over and holding on to his knees as he tried to get his breath back, Leonidas admitted this was true. “Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
“Ephorus is a good leader, sir.”
“And you aren’t,” Dorieus concluded.
Leonidas held his tongue. He had no idea whether he was a good leader or not, but he hadn’t forgotten what the marine in Gytheon had said about this brother, either.
“I also hear you adopted a mothake,” Dorieus continued.
Apparently he had taken some interest in his youngest brother after all, Leonidas thought, and readily answered, “Yes, sir.” He was proud of paying Alkander’s agoge fees.
“A weak stutterer, who did not deserve to be in the agoge in the first place!” Dorieus dismissed Leonidas’ friend.
“That’s not true, sir!” Leonidas responded hotly, and then got hold of himself before he could truly get in trouble. Meeting his brother’s eyes, he insisted firmly, “Alkander is as good as any of us, and smarter than most. Sir.”
“A stutterer?” Dorieus retorted, incredulous.
“He only stutters when he’s nervous—”
“Oh, a nervous boy as well! May the Gods protect the men who have to stand with him in a phalanx—but then, that will be you, won’t it?” his brother seemed to sneer.
“I would be happy to stand with Alkander in line of battle,” Leonidas replied steadfastly.
Dorieus laughed outright. “All this courage from a boy who’s never even stood in a phalanx in drill, much less in battle.”
Leonidas had no answer to that; it was true.
“At least you’ve grown some,” Dorieus observed. This too was true. Leonidas had suddenly started growing, and although Brotus was growing, too, it was no longer at so fast a pace. Leonidas was starting to catch up on his twin.
“I do not intend to let things rest where they are,” Dorieus announced next. “I am going to Delphi and will get a judgment—a judgment that I can show the Assembly—and then see if the ephors can stop me.”
Leonidas wondered how he could be so sure Delphi would support him, but he held his tongue. His brother nodded goodbye (or was it “dismissed”) and then turned his back and was gone. Leonidas was glad when a few days later he set off for Delphi.
By then the summer was over, and the time had come for the 13-year-olds to prove they had learned the skills taught to them over the last seven years by living “outside society” for 40 days and 40 nights. The rules of the exercise prohibited them from carrying any weapons except the small sickle-shaped hand tool they had learned to use for a variety of tasks. They were likewise prohibited from taking dogs or beasts of burden with them. Nor could they take money or extra clothing. If they were sighted in a city or town, they were subject to immediate arrest, and—unless they could escape—they were deemed to have failed this all-important test. Depending on how serious the breach of the rules was, a boy could be held back a year and thereby forced to suffer the almost unbearable indignity of remaining a “little boy” for a year longer; or, theoretically, a boy could be expelled from the agoge altogether—but no one could remember that ever happening. It was said, however, that boys had died during their “fox time”, usually the victim of wild animals they wounded but failed to kill, or in a rare case or two from outright starvation.
Of course, neither the officials of the agoge nor Spartan society at large was really as naïve as official policy pretended. Everyone knew that the boy
s could and did find warmth, shelter, and even food in the homes and gardens of “sympathisers” and, of course, they helped themselves to anything left about carelessly. As a result, wise housewives and helot tenants guarded carefully anything they did not want stolen during the annual “fox season”. But officially, the boys were supposed to live entirely like men cut off from their units in enemy territory—by hunting (without dogs), trapping, and living off the wilderness.
Given their poor performance the previous year, Alkander and Leonidas were both somewhat nervous about enduring this all-important test. Prokles, on the contrary, was completely unconcerned. In fact, he seemed to be openly looking forward to the ordeal. When his mother showed all three boys a hollow trunk where she promised to leave “emergency rations” for them, and told them to leave a certain shutter of the salt-house off one hinge if they needed more, Prokles announced confidently, “Don’t worry about me, Mom;” adding to Leonidas and Alkander, “You can take all the stuff you want. I won’t need it.”
Of course both Alkander and Leonidas knew that Prokles was the best trapper among them, but his confidence still seemed somewhat exaggerated. After all, it had been another exceptionally hot and dry summer, and although not quite as bad as the year they found Alkander at the fountain, there was less game in the forests than was usual at this time of the year. Nevertheless, there was nothing they could do but hope Prokles was right and thank his mother earnestly.
“Now don’t you worry,” she answered. “I’m not going to let any of you starve; just be very careful when you come to get the stuff. The dogs will recognise you, of course, and won’t bark, but you never know who might be visiting for some reason. Come only after dark and be as quiet as you can.” They had no need for her admonishments. They were determined not to get caught, even if it meant half starving to death.
A Boy of the Agoge Page 11
