A Peerless Peer

by Helena P. Schrader

  “Have you ever been in a battle?”

  “Three times now, sir.”

  Aristagoras snorted and turned away from the escort to start back toward the waiting chariot. “How long will it take us to get to Sparta?”

  “That will depend on you, sir. If you wish to ride ahead, ten of us can be mounted to ride with you, and we can make Sparta tonight. If you wish to stay with your baggage, it will take roughly eighteen hours.”

  Aristagoras opted for the latter. He did not want to arrive without the gifts he had brought for Cleomenes.

  So they set off in a long convoy: the escort leading, followed by Aristagoras, his bodyguards, and his uncle/chancellor in the chariot, and then the baggage train with Aristagoras’ things and his slaves. For the march, the escort had removed their breastplates, helmets, and greaves and stacked these on a wagon along with their aspis. They then formed up two abreast and sixteen deep. Bareheaded and using their spears as walking sticks, they started up the winding road. A man with a flute in a satchel across his back brought up the rear.

  The first part of the journey was inhospitable. The narrow road switchbacked its way up the side of steep hills covered with scrub-brush. The heat of the sun made it particularly unpleasant, and men and beasts were soon sweating profusely. The horses provided Aristagoras were good quality, however, and Aristagoras caught occasional fragments of conversation, joking, and laughter carried back on the wind from the escort. With their helmets off, he could see they were all young men, and they maintained an impressive pace despite the terrain. At regular intervals the entire convoy halted for water.

  Eventually they crested the mountain range that ran down the Malean peninsula and started to descend very gradually, using a path that ran almost parallel to the spine of the Parnon range as it slowly lowered itself into the Eurotas valley. The landscape had changed dramatically, and Aristagoras was amazed. Somehow, all the reports of Spartan austerity—schoolboys forced to go barefoot and owning only a single himation, the image of boys stealing to keep from starving, and even the adult citizens huddling together in common messes that served only horrible black broth—had encouraged Aristagoras to expect a poor country. Unconsciously he had pictured a place parched to desert in the summer and nakedly cold in winter. He had expected everything to be brown, dusty, and wind-blown, and the dwellings to be hovels. This was not what stretched out before him.

  The broad bowl of the Eurotas valley was richly cultivated and dotted with prosperous farms. Everything was green, right up to the tree line of the massive range of Taygetos on the far side of the valley. The Eurotas sparkled when it caught the sunlight as it wandered and weaved its way slowly toward the sea—as if reluctant to leave this pleasant valley behind. On the floodplain itself wheat and barley grew thick, while the slopes on both sides of the valley were terraced and planted with olive and fruit orchards: apple, pear, lemon, and plum. The abundance of water was evident not only in the vegetation, but in the many springs and fountains. They were able to stop regularly to water the horses and oxen and to fill their own skins from natural springs bubbling with clean, cool water. Spartan slaves also regularly replaced the water in a large wooden barrel containing wine amphorae to ensure the wine was kept properly chilled.

  Nor was there anything inhospitable or unpleasant about the large, rambling rural dwellings that they passed at frequent intervals. Except for Doric colonnades fronting their porches, they were largely unadorned. No sculptures, terra-cotta figures, or mosaics garnished them, but they were solidly built of local limestone and utilized the local cream-colored tiles for roofing. They seemed to glow warm and bright against the green vegetation around them. Furthermore, although whitewashed rather than elaborately painted, their proportions were consistently elegant—as if designed by mathematicians or master architects rather than just built. Many had wide terraces and long balconies. Finally, these homes made up for their lack of decoration by incorporating natural beauty into their layout: flowering trees, potted palms, flowering tamarisk, myrtle and oleander bushes, cypress trees, and fountains.

  The day cooled rapidly after the sun sank behind the peaks of Taygetos, and when it was completely dark, the officer of the escort called a halt and came back to suggest that they camp for the night. Aristagoras readily agreed. He was hungry and stiff from the day in the chariot. One of the many natural mountain springs splashed invitingly into a crude stone basin to their right, and a grove of chestnut trees enclosed them in a pseudo-courtyard.

  As soon as the orders went out, Aristagoras’ household slaves set to work erecting his tent, spreading out carpets and setting up his bed, chairs, and tables. While he made himself comfortable in these abundant and well-appointed furnishings, his cook and two assistants started a fire and began preparing his meal. Aristagoras took no interest in this as it was routine for him, but he watched the way his escort likewise set up camp, their arms stacked in the middle and the small tents, apparently for four men each, erected in a neat circle. Four fires were soon burning, and water and wine was passed out.

  The officer of the escort appeared for the first time without helmet or spear. “Is everything to your satisfaction, sir?”

  “Yes, fine. Why don’t you join me for dinner?” Aristagoras suggested.

  The young man’s eyes shifted sharply. For a moment he seemed about to decline, but then he nodded. “Just let me tell my deputy where to find me.” He was gone before Aristagoras could answer, and so Aristagoras went inside his tent. His bodyguards would eat outside with the slaves, but his chancellor was waiting for him. “I’ve asked the escort commander to join us,” Aristagoras told the older man as he washed and dried his hands with the water and towel brought by a slave, then reclined on a couch.

  The older man nodded and stretched out on his own couch before asking, “What is your first impression?”

  Aristagoras sipped the wine poured for him into a kylix and admitted, “Not what I expected. I am most curious what this Spartiate will have to say—if we can get him to talk, that is. Aren’t they supposed to be terribly taciturn?”

  The arrival of their guest cut off the conversation. He was given water and a towel to wash his hands, and then offered water and wine. When he was settled and the first course of olives and pickled octopus was brought, Aristagoras opened, “Do tell us a little bit about yourself. I do not even know your name.” It was a question.

  “I am called Leonidas, commander of the Achillean Enomotia of the Kastor Pentekostus, Pitanate Lochos.”

  “I see. And that is how you define yourself? Who was your father? Have you no brothers? Are you married? Have you sons?”

  “My parents are both dead. I have two brothers still living, one dead. I am married and have two children, twins a year old.”

  “Sons?”

  “A son and a daughter.”

  Aristagoras considered the young man opposite him and concluded that for some reason, he did not want to talk about himself. He tried another tack: “If I have been informed correctly, Lacedaemon has the finest army in the world. Half a century ago you were masters of the Aegean; and even Croesus, King of Lydia, was not too proud to seek Spartan aid in his wars with Persia. Indeed, the whole world looked to you for soldiers to help them win, whatever their cause. But now your army never shows itself anywhere, and it seems to be quite useless. I mean, maybe you could explain to me what it is for these days? No one has dared attack you here in generations.”

  “The Argives are constantly trying to regain the shore just behind us, and Kythera, too, while the Messenians would rise up in revolt if they thought we were not strong enough to defeat them again.”

  “Ah, yes, the Messenians. A bit of a problem, aren’t they? How do you—as the great liberators of Greece, the opponents of tyrants, and all that—justify the oppression of an entire city-state of fellow Greeks?”

  “I don’t,” Leonidas retorted.

  “Meaning?”

  Leonidas shrugged. “Meaning the situation i
s as it is. I did not create it, and I cannot change it. Sparta defeated Messenia many generations back. The liberation of Messenia would destroy our economy as it is now structured. In short, it is not in my interest or that of any of my peers to change it.”

  “But if you freed Messenia, you would not have to fear the enemy at your back, would you? You would be free to use your army for other purposes—maybe even for causes that could bring you greater fame, glory, and wealth. Have you never thought of that?”

  “Have you been to Messenia, sir?”

  “No,” Aristagoras admitted.

  “Then you cannot know what wealth is needed to outstrip it.”

  Aristagoras only laughed; and then in answer to Leonidas’ stony gaze, he patted his arm condescendingly and noted, “And you have seen nothing of the wealth of Asia.”

  “True. Tell me about the Persians. Why did you fall out with them?”

  Aristagoras frowned, and his answer was sharp for the first time: “Because they are an insufferably arrogant people. They think they are superior to every race on earth! They think all other peoples are not merely different, but uncivilized. They use other peoples for their own ends, but they do not respect them.”

  Leonidas held his tongue. He thought this description would fit the Athenians—or the Spartans themselves, for that matter. Didn’t every city think it was the best in the world? That its laws and its gods were the finest?

  “You will have heard of my Naxian expedition,” Aristagoras continued in a still agitated voice. “That pompous Persian ass, Megabates, went snooping around the fleet and found one Myndian vessel on which there was no watch set. And why should there be? We were on the offensive. No one knew where we were bound. We had not even set course for Naxos! But that arrogant asshole ordered the captain of the vessel to be put in chains with his head sticking out an oar-port! He turned a venerable gentleman into an object of ridicule for the whole fleet! A Greek trireme captain! A man who had raised the entire sum to lay down the keel and who paid every man-jack aboard, oarsman and marine alike—treated like a mere slave, humiliated before his own crew! It was an outrage against all men of means! If such things are allowed, who will want to raise money for a trireme ever again? I freed him with my own hands, and Megabates—although he was under my orders—reproached me for it! Then when we came to Naxos, he pouted in his tent like Achilles and waited until all my resources had been exhausted in the futile siege, and then he went home, having ruined the enterprise!

  “Yet rather than blaming Megabates as he deserved, Artaphernes demanded that I pay the expenses of the Persian force that had sat around eating and drinking, but so singularly failing to support me! To have paid such a debt would have ruined Miletos! So what other choice did I have but to turn against such unreliable friends?”

  Leonidas listened in patience to this flood of self-justification and was impressed by Aristagoras’ ability to excuse his despicable behavior, but he doubted that even Cleomenes would be impressed by the story.

  “You understand the situation?” Aristagoras asked when Leonidas said nothing.

  “No, sir. If any commander failed to set a watch, we’d put him in the stocks, too.”

  “A senior commander? A polemarch?” Aristagoras asked incredulously.

  “Especially a polemarch—except it would not come to that, because each section leader sets his watches, so no polemarch has to. Not even I need worry about the watch. I know I can rely on my four section leaders and my deputy. But, of course, I did check before I came to see to your wishes. You can come with me now if you like and ask each of my four section leaders what the watch is for tonight.”

  “Tonight? Who are you afraid of?”

  “Indiscipline.”

  Aristagoras stared at him, uncomprehending, and then shook his head. “You do what is senseless just to keep yourselves from being free to follow your own pleasures, as is perfectly normal for any free man.”

  “No, we do what is necessary for the freedom of all of us by ensuring that we cannot be taken by surprise.”

  “A man who is forever constrained to do what he does not want is no better than a slave,” replied Aristagoras, dismissing Leonidas’ answer with an irritated wave of his hand.

  “A man who follows only his baser instincts is worse than a slave: he is an animal.”

  “If he follows only his baser instincts, perhaps,” Aristagoras conceded, adding, “but a free man can choose between his baser instincts and his nobler sentiments—and it is that freedom to choose that makes him free.”

  “Perhaps,” Leonidas conceded, but then he smiled and got to his feet. “And, therefore, I hope you will respect the fact that I now choose to check on my men.” He walked out of the tent, but did not go directly to the campfires. Instead, he stood breathing in the smell of the pines and looking up at the stars, remembering what Lychos had taught him about navigating by the constellations.

  Aristagoras had succeeded in making him feel enslaved. He longed to be with Lychos—who might be anywhere the sea could take him, Crete or Byzantion, Cyprus or Naukratis. Then, with a wince of guilt, Leonidas realized that he had not wished to be home with his wife and babies. For six years he had imagined married bliss; and after only two years of enjoying it, he was already tired of it. He told himself he loved his twins. He had even named his daughter “Kleopatra,” beloved of her father; but the truth was that their scream-ing and fussing and Eirana’s obsession with them tired him out.

  Eirana was a good mother. She seemed to live for nothing beyond the welfare of her three children. She could not sleep at night for listening for their slightest whimper, nor could she sit down for a glass of wine without jumping up a half-dozen times to do something for one or the other of her babies. She threw questions at him, but her attention was drawn away before he could draw breath to answer. In consequence, she knew nothing of what was going on in his life or in his head. Worst, she claimed his kleros wasn’t good for the children. There were “vapors” from the Eurotas, and “chills” from Parnon, and there were too many snakes in the cellar, and the stairs were too steep, and … He couldn’t remember it all. She had moved to one of his larger estates on the far side of Taygetos. He could only get there on the longer holidays, which he sometimes thought had been her real intent in moving …

  No, his marriage was not a success, he admitted to himself with a deep sigh, as he started toward the campfires.

  He was stopped by his second in command, Oliantus, who emerged out of the darkness before Leonidas reached the firelight. Oliantus seemed doomed to always being second best. Leonidas had watched him nearly win the crown in long-distance running at Olympia, only to be defeated in the last lap by the Athenian Eukles, who was now a famous runner, and the Corinthian who had carried away the crown. On taking command of the enomotia, Leonidas had found Oliantus a silent, introverted man, apparently still brooding over that defeat. Leonidas, however, had rapidly discovered that while Oliantus was not the best hoplite—the two best hoplites of each squad made up the front rank—he was conscientious and reliable. For this reason, Leonidas had appointed him his deputy and made him responsible for everything that went on behind the lines. He was the man who made sure that the cooking fires never went out, that their supplies were not damaged by rain or lost to mice, that their pack animals were fed, shod, and sound, et cetera, et cetera.

  In the last two years Leonidas had come to value him immensely, understanding that the ugly, shy man was devoted to his duties and all the men in a way that was selfless and, too often, thankless. The natural tendency of men was to complain about everything from their bedding to their food, without ever giving a thought to how difficult it was to organize these necessities. “Is everything all right, Leo?” he asked out of the darkness.

  “With our guest? I think so. He brought enough luxuries and slaves to be comfortable wherever he goes.”

  “Have you found out what he wants?”

  “I haven’t tried—but he hate
s the Persians for petty reasons and is curious about us. I think he will ask us to help him fight the Persians.”

  “And what will your brother say?”

  Leonidas shrugged. “I expect that depends on what Aristagoras promises him. It’s not that Cleomenes is venal, but he is vain. He might like the title of ‘liberator.’”

  They reached Sparta by midafternoon the next day. At that time, the drill fields on the east bank of the Eurotas were occupied by boys of the agoge rather than by troops. Leonidas tried to hurry past, feeling that the boys, scruffy and sloppy as they were, made a bad impression. It took a decade to train troops up to the standard expected in the Spartan army, and none of the boys on the drill field were near to it yet.

  Leonidas could make out some sixteen-year-olds being given instruction in the intricate art of deploying from line of march into phalanx. This meant shifting from a formation two across by sixteen deep to an eight-by-four square. They were making an absolute hash of it, and all he could think of was his own remark about never fighting “scrambled.” These boys didn’t seem to have caught on to where they ought to be, even in the initial formation! Nearby, some fourteen-year-olds were struggling with the “simple” task of—on command—reversing the grip on their spears from underhand to overhand. Whenever the command came, the clatter of dropped spears followed—and then came the shouts of exasperation and the bobbing of the line as the youths retrieved their dropped spears. The youngest boys on the drill fields at this time were being shown the basics of keeping in formation with shields (wicker in this case) and spears at the ready. They were so inept that they looked more like a bunch of farmers harvesting hay, or wheat waving in the wind, so unsteady and uncoordinated were their spear-tips.

  Aristagoras paused to watch.

  “They’re just the boys in training, sir,” Leonidas apologized.

  Aristagoras gazed at him with raised eyebrows. “I can see that. I thought you ran around wild as boys.”