Crius pulled ahead of the others from the start, and never gave up his lead. The spectators looked at one another and started chattering. The Spartan admiration for athletic ability was warring with their inbred contempt for helots. Leonidas looked around at the boys from the other herds who had also gathered around to watch. “Who wants to race with him?”
The clamor of the volunteers was great. A second race took place. Again Crius took an early lead and kept it.
Now several other citizens came over to Leonidas and demanded to know what he was doing.
“Crius claimed he could beat his betters. I am making him prove it.”
That raised eyebrows, but no one stopped him. Now volunteers from older age cohorts were demanding the right to put Crius in his place. Leonidas hesitated, but Crius was defiant. “I can beat them, too!” he insisted.
And he did—if by a smaller margin.
Word had spread, as it so often did in a close-knit society like Sparta, and one of the Olympic trainers showed up and asked what was going on. Leonidas explained, adding that Crius was tired now, but that he had beaten everyone so far.
“What are you thinking, Leonidas? We can’t enter a helot in the Games!”
“I wasn’t thinking of the Games. I was thinking of the army. Good, fast runners are worth their weight in gold.”
“Hmm. Let me see him run.”
Leonidas ordered someone to fetch Crius water, and one of the boys dutifully trotted over to the fountain house located under the shade of some large plane trees beside the course. He brought back one of the tin cups, brimming with water. He did not hand it to Crius, however, as this would have been too demeaning. He gave it to Leonidas, who gave it to Crius. Crius was breathing hard and sweating from his last race, but he was also looking pleased with himself.
The trainer selected one of the boys, who looked to Leonidas to be three or four years older than Crius. He told the boy to strip, while Crius was given time to catch his breath. Then he told the boys to race a diaulos—that is, from one end of the stadium and back again, requiring a turn at the far end.
Crius reached the far end first, but lost his advantage at the turn. He trailed the other youth most of the way back, but then with a supreme effort managed to overtake him at the very last minute. Cheers broke out in amazement—the spectators’ admiration for the sportsman at last overcoming their reluctance to acknowledge a helot.
Crius was too spent to even acknowledge the cheer. He bent over double, holding his knees, and his whole body swayed in time with his gasping lungs. He had his mouth wide open, gulping in air, and the sweat dripped from him onto the sand like rain.
Leonidas looked only at the trainer, who was standing with his hands on his hips and pursing his lips. At last he turned to Leonidas. “Would that he had been born Spartiate,” he said simply. “I’ve waited all my life for a boy like that. He has wings on his heels!”
So the Gods had given him a gift after all, Leonidas thought. “Don’t tell him that. He’s cheeky enough as it is.”
“But we can’t ignore such talent!” the trainer replied, professionalism vanquishing prejudice. “For a start, he would help train up the others. He would make them all try harder! And if you want him for the army, he needs to be able to run distance, not just sprint. We have yet to see if he is up to that.”
“He’s yours if you want him, then. He’s no use to me.”
“Seriously?”
“He has some sickness in his hands and can’t grasp things. He’s always dropping and breaking things.”
“Ah! The Gods are mean with their largess, aren’t they? They never give us anything without taking away something else.”
Just two days before the Olympic athletes were due to leave for Elis and the final stage of training near the sacred site, Leonidas injured his shoulder in training. It was nothing serious, just a dislocated left shoulder, but it precluded his participation in the Games. Many in Sparta were sour about it. Brotus sneered that his brother was afraid of facing real competition, as he set off with his trainer and no less than three helot attendants. Alkander, too, thought Leonidas had done it intentionally.
“What were you doing training Euryleon at dusk in the rain anyway?” Alkander wanted to know.
Leonidas sighed and massaged his injured shoulder with his other hand. “He’s the weak link in our file. He needs to get stronger or he endangers us all.”
“Drill masters and eirenes have been trying to strengthen him since he was seven—and they have all failed. What makes you think you can do any better?”
Leonidas tried to shrug, but it hurt, and he frowned in irritation as he answered, “Because I have to succeed. It’s my ass he’s covering!”
“Why don’t we just admit that not everyone born of Spartiate parents is meant to be a hoplite? Why can’t we let our young men be what they want to be? What they are best at, as in other cities? Why shouldn’t Spartiates be poets and architects and sculptors—not just beasts of war?”
“What are you talking about?” Leonidas protested. “Are you a beast? Am I? We’ve spent the better part of our lives learning to use our brains and use them with discipline and precision—at least as much as our arms. Spartiates are poets and architects and sculptors. Have you forgotten—”
Alkander cut him off. “Yes, but we still have to fit the mold—we have to be perfect, interchangeable hoplites in the line—before we can be anything else!”
“What’s got into you?” Leonidas wanted to know.
“I have a son,” Alkander reminded him simply. The infant had been born to Hilaira just two weeks earlier, and Alkander felt an overwhelming sense of protectiveness toward the tiny life entrusted to him. He had never expected to feel this way. In fact, he had at first resented the fact that Hilaira was pregnant and would soon be too busy being a mother to be a wife. But when Hilaira had placed the squalling infant in his arms and he had seen the tiny fingernails and the miniature toes, he had been unmanned by a sense of wonder. He realized that just as the infant had fingers and toes, he also had a heart and a mind: that he was a whole person. That realization filled Alkander with an intense desire to make sure that this little person had a better life than he’d had. At the same time, it terrified him that the child might at some point fail to meet the high demands placed upon Spartiate youth. Alkander had endured several sleepless nights until the elders passed the boy fit to live.
Now he said to his friend, “I hate to think of my son suffering in the agoge as I did.”
Leonidas sighed. He knew that Alkander had suffered because he was not terribly athletic and had stuttered as a boy. While Leonidas had for the most part enjoyed his upbringing, for Alkander the years in the agoge had been unmitigated hell. But it also depressed Leonidas to think that Alkander had a son already—when he himself did not even have a wife. So they said no more.
The spectators began to assemble in the fields around the sacred precinct almost a fortnight before the start of the Olympic Games. Men started to trickle in from all over the world, some spectators coming from as far away as Tarentum, Egypt, and Phoenicia. The locals catered avidly to their needs, selling food, wine, herbs, clothes, shoes, and utensils, as well as the usual souvenirs and tin or clay figurines for votive offerings or as good-luck charms.
As more and more spectators arrived, tents or shacks were set up in rows along improvised streets, and men of the same city congregated together; for example, there were Boiotian, Euboean, Samian, Delian, Naxian, Arcadian, and Argive quarters. The largest quarters were the Corinthian and the Athenian.
There was great rivalry between these two trading cities, a rivalry that had intensified in recent years; both were maritime cities with large and growing fleets of both merchantmen and triremes. Both were dependent on imported grain and exported finished products. They competed head-on in many crafts such as pottery and bronzework, and in trades such as slavery. The Olympic Games always brought such competitiveness to a peak. This year the usua
l rivalry was sharpened by the fact that the reforms in Athens had brought many brash young men of poorer backgrounds into positions of power—while Corinth remained an unabashed and proud oligarchy, in which “the best rather than the rest” reigned, according to the Corinthians. Topping it all, both cities thought they had the best runner: the man most likely to win the short sprint, which was the origin of the Games, the most prestigious contest, and the one whose winner gave the next four-year Olympiad its name.
At the bookmaker tables in the shanty town outside the sacred precinct, the betting was lively. Different bookmakers specialized in different sports, and they shouted out the odds to the milling crowds that collected to place bets or simply to sightsee. The Spartan king Cleomenes caused a minor sensation when he rode through on his white stallion and insisted on betting ten to one against his co-monarch, Demaratus. There was also much pushing and shoving at the table taking money on the boxers, as the Spartan Cleombrotus and his Rhodian rival, Periander, had faced off twice before and shared the victories equally, although a large minority of island Greeks insisted that the dark-horse Naxian contender, Lakrates, was going to put the two favorites to shame.
The chair litter, therefore, had some difficulty making progress. It was carried by two black slaves, and a young man who walked with a limp and a foppish cane escorted it. Inside, to the surprise of those who bothered to glance up, was a young man. It was rare for young men to let themselves be carried around. If they were too lazy to walk but rich enough to have slaves, they usually rode horses. But a glance at this young man suggested he was ill. His face was aged prematurely and etched with a crooked grimace that came from the pain that never quite left him.
The young man walking beside the litter, entertaining him with his chatter, was plump and cheery. He kept up a commentary for his companion as if he were afraid of silence. At the booking table for the runners, the youth in the litter waved for his slaves to halt. “Find out the odds on Aristeas, Chambias,” the young man in the litter asked his friend.
Chambias nodded eagerly and lurched toward the table to comply. He soon reported back, “Seven to four; the Athenians have two runners they think can beat him.”
Lychos took his purse from his belt and removed ten drachma, which he then handed to Chambias. “Put these on Aristeas.”
Chambias nodded and plunged back into the crowd, going straight to the head of the line, since the other men appeared to be poor craftsmen of no importance. The Athenians, however, protested loudly, and two of them laid hands on the Corinthian youth, thrusting him roughly toward the end of the queue.
Chambias was outraged. These men stank of sweat and garlic, and they had no right to touch him at all—let alone push him around. “Who the hell do you think you are?” he demanded, outraged.
“We’re Athenian citizens!” one man barked back proudly.
“Citizens!” Chambias scoffed. “You wouldn’t know how to wear panoply—much less use a spear—even if you could afford it!”
“But we can send a trireme’s ram into the heart of any ship we choose!” came the loud answer, supported now by cheers from the other rowers.
The information only made Chambias more distressed to have been touched by these rude men—mere thetes, the lowest class of Athenian citizen. The fact that they manned Athens’ fleet of triremes did not in any way endear them to Chambias. Athens’ fleet was paltry and inept compared to the proud fleet of Corinth. Furthermore, in Corinth the men who hired on for the fleet, while freemen, were considered the lowest filth of the city—men without land, property, or families. They certainly didn’t vote in Assembly, and they wouldn’t have dreamed of laying a hand on a priest! Chambias could only conclude that in Athens these men had been given so much power that it had gone to their heads. He tried a different argument: “Have you no respect for a cripple?”
“Oh, you don’t look too crippled to stand in line!” an Athenian retorted bluntly, adding to his compatriots with a sneer, “These spoiled aristo boys whine about everything.”
“That’s because they spend so much of their time bent over, they can’t stand up anymore!” another replied with a snicker.
Indignant and full of contempt for Athens—a city that gave men such as these the power to sit in judgment on their betters and make policy—Chambias went to the back of the line.
Lychos, the young man in the litter, hadn’t noticed what was happening to his companion, because his attention had been drawn by shouting and laughter over to his left. There, in front of the brothel stalls, one of the pimps was with one hand holding back a young Spartan, who was evidently trying to escape, while with the other hand he was holding on to the bare breast of one of his whores. The crowd was roaring with laughter at the discomfort of the young Spartan, who was blushing bright red and tripping over his own feet in an effort to escape. Lychos joined in the laughter as the Spartan fell and the pimp used the opportunity to push the whore down on top of him. The guffaws of the crowd swelled as the Spartan struggled to free himself from the embraces of the whore, who was playing to the crowd by clutching the youth in a lewd embrace.
“Haven’t had a woman yet, eh? What better time to start than now? Make this an Olympics to remember. I’ll give you a discount, seeing as you have so little experience!”
Attention had been so riveted on the struggle between the whore and the young man on the ground that no one noticed another Spartan who had pushed his way through the crowd. In a swift movement he reached down, hooked his elbow around the woman’s throat, and with no apparent effort dragged her off his countryman. The young man on the ground picked himself up and brushed himself off, still blushing in shame. His companion released the whore, pushing her in the direction of the pimp, and took the embarrassed young man by the arm. Together they pushed through the surprised crowd, the one still red-faced and the other grim.
Lychos was suddenly reminded of the day he had nearly died. There had been two Spartans that day, too. He couldn’t remember it well—everything was a confused blur—but something about these two young men reminded him of his rescuers.
Chambias was back from the betting tables, complaining about the Athenians and indignantly relating how they had treated him, but Lychos wasn’t listening. “Do you remember the Spartans who killed the boar?” he asked his friend.
“What?” Chambias couldn’t follow his thoughts.
“The boar. Two Spartans killed it. I was wondering if they might be here, but I can’t remember their names—only that one was King Cleomenes’ younger brother. Do you remember their names?”
Chambias shrugged. “No, I’ve forgotten.”
Leonidas and Euryleon didn’t speak until they were halfway back to the Spartan camp. Then at last Euryleon ventured, “I got lost, Leo. Really, I did. I didn’t mean to go there. I just—got lost.”
Leonidas believed him. Euryleon wasn’t intentionally a troublemaker; he just consistently got himself in trouble because he couldn’t see properly. Left on his own he got lost, or stumbled in the dark, or knocked things down …
When Leonidas didn’t answer, Euryleon ventured another remark. “Did you see them, Leo?”
“Who?”
“Those—those slaves.” He looked sidelong at his section leader and then asked, “Was it just my eyesight, or were they really just children?”
Leonidas nodded grimly. “There were several children.”
“But that’s sick!” Euryleon protested angrily.
Although Leonidas agreed with him, he felt it was his duty to be more diplomatic and remind his subordinate that other cities lived by different laws. “Lycurgus’ laws are not followed outside of Sparta.”
Euryleon thought about this in silence until they reached their camp. “We are very different from the others, aren’t we?”
“I don’t know.” Leonidas smiled sidelong at Euryleon and admitted ruefully, “I don’t know much beyond Sparta.”
Asteropus was unhappy. As usual, Cleomenes wanted good
signs, and there were none.
“Then make another sacrifice!” Cleomenes ordered, adding ominously, “Or maybe I need another priest.”
The threat of dismissal made Asteropus break into a cold sweat. He was happy in Delphi, far away from the rigor of Spartan life. It wasn’t just the discipline of the barracks, drill fields, and gymnasia that he was glad to escape. Worse than the army and its physical constraints was the fact that in Sparta, even thought was disciplined! Asteropus loved idle talk and debate about frivolous topics. He liked to get lost in words or to let his thoughts wander in any direction they fancied. He delighted in tossing unfinished ideas about and even discussing total nonsense—all of which was considered bad taste in Sparta. There, discourse was supposed to be “productive,” and one was expected to remain silent rather than make a facile or inadequately considered remark.
Asteropus loved the theatrical offerings of Delphi, too. Plays provided so much greater freedom of expression and feeling than the traditional dances and choral singing of the Spartans. Of course, the Spartans commanded the traditional arts well. Hardly anyone could match the precision and harmony of a Spartan chorus or the beauty of a troupe of Spartan dancers, whether it was the maidens recreating the beauty of wind in a field of flowers with their bright dresses and shawls or the awesome sight of Spartan swordsmen dancing by torchlight. But Asteropus had come to like dissonance, irregular rhythm, and the unpredictable beat of music that was less controlled, less predictable, more radical. In Sparta everything was communal; in Delphi he was free to be himself.
“You would be ill served if I made up an omen in order to mislead you, sire,” Asteropus reasoned.
“I didn’t say make something up; I said try again—harder.”
Asteropus took a deep breath. “I will have to find a pure animal, sire.”
A Peerless Peer Page 20
