Hilaira hummed as she brushed out the thick tail of a big bay gelding in preparation for clipping it. Some people preferred to wash the horsehair after it had been clipped, but Hilaira’s father said the natural horse oil helped keep the hair stiff and shiny. He recommended brushing it to a natural gleam, and then twisting and binding it with tarred twine in the middle, before folding it in two and stuffing it into the ridge of the helmet to fix it there. This gave the crest a thick, bushy look, although it was also shorter and stiffer than the tall, soft crests some men preferred.
The sound of hooves in the courtyard and the stirring of the horses in their boxes interrupted the peace of the afternoon. Hilaira looked up. The sunlight streaming through the open windows of the stables caught the dust particles swirling gently in the air, but she could not see into the yard. She looked toward the barn door in time to see a chariot roll past, but not who was driving. Her first thought was Gorgo; Leonidas’ bride of four years, although a decade younger than Hilaira, had become a good friend, and Gorgo often drove over to visit.
Hilaira put the curry brush down on the nearest bale of straw and started out of the stables. As she emerged, she squinted and put a hand over her eyes to shade them from the bright spring sunlight. She was astonished to see a heavy chariot with a professional driver at the reins, and Alkander’s sister, Percalus, dismounting from the chariot car.
Percalus had been considered a great beauty in her youth―so much so that men had been willing to marry her without a dowry and despite the fact that her brother had been too poor to pay his own school fees. She had been clever, too, Hilaira reflected, at playing her suitors off against one another until she obtained the ultimate prize: the hand of a ruling king. So Percalus was now a queen―and it was rare for her to come visiting her humble relatives.
At the sight of Percalus in her bright-colored and elaborately decorated peplos, her arms and neck laden with lapis lazuli jewelry, Hilaira tried to tidy her own attire. She could do little about her everyday peplos of natural wool with gray and brown stripes, but she removed her snood, brushed her hair back from her face with her fingers, twisted it together, and reaffixed it to the back of her head with the wooden clip. There was no time to do more. Percalus fell into her arms. “Where’s Alkander?” she demanded. “Where’s my brother?”
“He’s at the agoge,” Hilaira replied, confused by the question. Alkander had been an instructor at the agoge ever since he attained full citizenship at the age of thirty, six years ago. He spent every day at the agoge.
“Oh, why is he never there when I need him!” Percalus protested in a dramatic wail.
Hilaira could not remember a time when Alkander had failed his sister, nor a time when Percalus had done anything for Alkander. Percalus had preferred to forget all about her relationship to the impoverished Alkander as soon as she became queen. But Hilaira saw no utility in pointing this out and asked instead, “Why do you need him? What’s going on?” As she spoke she guided her evidently distraught sister-in-law toward the house, out of sight and hearing of the helot children, who were naturally staring wide-eyed at the Eurypontid queen.
“Haven’t you heard?” Percalus asked in disbelief and irritation. “You must have heard! The city is talking of nothing else. That snake! That vile, treacherous bastard Leotychidas!”
Leotychidas, too, had once been one of Percalus’ suitors, Hilaira remembered. In fact, Percalus had promised herself to him―but then Demaratus had come along. More recently, in her despair over her barrenness, Percalus had sought out an old priestess in the mountains of Mani, and this woman claimed Leotychidas had put a curse on Percalus’ womb. “Leotychidas has produced some old man,” the queen continued in a frantic voice, “who claims King Ariston said Demaratus was not his child! The senile idiot says Ariston swore Demaratus could not be his child. Leotychidas is calling Demaratus a bastard and has laid claim to the Eurypontid throne!”
“After all this time?” Hilaira asked, finding it hard to credit. Demaratus had been king for a quarter-century.
“Don’t you see?” Percalus demanded irritably. “He’s found a witness! Some toothless old man who was ephor the year Demaratus was born. I’m sure Leotychidas has bribed him to say this. I’m sure of it!”
They had reached the back door of the main house. Hilaira held the door for her queen and sister-in-law, then guided her into the hearth room and offered her a seat on a wooden bench.
Percalus looked at the simple furnishings with obvious disdain. She was used to thick Persian rugs and Macedonian goose-feather cushions with bright, woven covers. She did not belong to the faction of citizens who interpreted Lycurgus’ laws against the hoarding of wealth to be a prohibition against all forms of luxury. Hilaira didn’t belong to that faction, either; she and Alkander simply didn’t have much extra income. They had only this one kleros, and from its solid but not excessive earnings they had to pay Alkander’s mess fees and the school fees for both their sons, twelve-year-old Thersander and eight-year-old Simonidas.
Hilaira brought her sister-in-law two of her homemade cushions with linen coverings, and sent her helot housekeeper to fetch water and wine. Then Hilaira eased herself down on the stone facing of the hearth and asked Percalus, “What does your mother-in-law say to these accusations?”
“The old fool!” Percalus exclaimed. “Holding the entrails of a sacrificed ox in her hand, she has sworn that on the third night after King Ariston brought her to the royal palace as his wife, she was visited by a ‘phantom’―that’s exactly the word she used. A phantom! Who―she claims―looked exactly like King Ariston. After lying with her, he left a wreath he had been wearing on his head and vanished. Only a few moments later, Ariston himself came. He demanded to know who had left the wreath, and they quarreled until they took the wreath to the priests for interpretation. According to the old idiot, the priests told her the wreath was made from twigs of a tree only found in the shrine of Astrabacus, and suggested that she had been visited by Astrabacus himself―a story which the hare-brained old fool insists Ariston believed.”
“No one else will,” Hilaira commented dryly.
“Of course not! But as my mother-in-law pointed out, women don’t always carry a child to the tenth month. There is nothing odd about a child being born after only nine months, or even less. You know that!”
Hilaira nodded. Her second son, Simonidas, had been born earlier than expected, and he had always been small and a bit dreamy. He was in his second year at the agoge, and she worried about him. She tried to meet him in town at least three times a week to be sure he got some affection and some of the sweets he loved so well. But now was no time to think of him; she focused again on her sister-in-law. “What do you want of Alkander? He can hardly say anything about Demaratus’ birth, since he was not born himself at the time.”
“Of course not, but surely he can talk to Leonidas.”
“Leonidas is the same age as Alkander.”
“I’m not an idiot!” Percalus snapped back. “I know how old Leonidas is! But he’s Cleomenes’ brother and son-in-law. He must have influence with him! The ephors have referred the matter to the Gerousia, and with Demaratus charged of usurpation, Cleomenes alone will chair the meeting. Leonidas has to be sure Cleomenes dismisses these ridiculous charges and supports Demaratus.”
That was never going to happen. Cleomenes and Demaratus had been at each other’s throats for as long as Hilaira could remember. Cleomenes blamed Demaratus for his most spectacular humiliation: the defection of the allies during one of his invasions of Attica. Cleomenes had been plotting with Leotychidas to ruin Demaratus ever since. In fact, Hilaira strongly suspected that Cleomenes might be behind this latest attack. Still, there was no point telling Percalus that, so Hilaira instead promised that Alkander would talk to Leonidas.
Phormio was getting very heavy these days. Sometimes, when he noticed how much his weight slowed him down, he would tell himself he had to lose weight. But then his wife would put a delici
ous pork chop on his plate, encrusted in bread and parsley, and open the basket with white bread fresh from the oven, and all his resolve melted away. Besides, he told himself, he did not need to get around so much these days. He was extremely wealthy and could afford messengers. Furthermore, he was an important man, one of the Council of Forty who administered perioikoi affairs and represented the perioikoi to the Lacedaemonian government; people generally came to him, not the other way around.
The exception to that rule was his most important client, the Agiad prince Leonidas. For the last sixteen years, since Leonidas had come of age and into his inheritance, Phormio had served as his steward. It was a highly lucrative position, since his advice could be used to further his own business interests as well as those of his employer. Phormio had done very well by Leonidas, and vice versa. Due in no small measure to Phormio’s careful guidance, Leonidas was now substantially wealthier than his twin Brotus, although both had received identical shares from their father’s estates at the time of their maturity. But Brotus was a conservative who took no interest in his estates and refused to own shares in manufacturing and trading enterprises. Brotus claimed that Spartans should draw their wealth from agriculture alone.
Leonidas’ attitude was more flexible. He did not personally engage in any kind of trade or manufacturing, but he put land and capital at the disposal of perioikoi who did, and collected an agreed share of their income in return. Not that he was all that interested in business, Phormio reflected, as the heavy chariot pulled up in front of Leonidas’ lovely kleros on the west bank of the Eurotas. As he let himself down off the back of his chariot before the wide colonnade that fronted Leonidas’ country home, Phormio admitted to himself that Leonidas was not so much interested in business as willing to give Phormio a free hand running his affairs. The person who was good at business was Leonidas’ wife, Gorgo.
Phormio had been skeptical at first. Like all perioikoi, he grew up surrounded by Spartiate women running their husbands’ estates, but most of these women had run just one kleros. They understood the essentials of overseeing the planting, the harvest, the slaughter, and the production of common household products such as cheese, preserves, bread, wool, wax, and honey. Phormio had seriously doubted, however, that a woman could understand the more complex aspects of industrial production and commerce. Perioikoi women certainly didn’t!
Gorgo had rapidly taught him that she could. After he got over the initial awkwardness of reporting to a very young woman (from the day of his marriage Leonidas had referred Phormio to Gorgo), he had quickly discovered that dealing with Gorgo was far more satisfying than talking to Leonidas himself. Gorgo was genuinely interested in what he had to say. She asked good questions, was eager to learn, and quickly grasped the relationship between risk and reward. She recognized the multifaceted components contributing to profit, and she developed an astonishing appreciation of long-term over short-term gain. She could comprehend complex relationships and think things through to logical conclusions. Increasingly, Phormio looked forward to their weekly meetings and the questions she would put to him. She challenged him to be better than ever before.
Phormio mounted the steps to the front porch and called a greeting through the open door. He was answered from the far side of the house. So he passed through the large, paved formal hall to the back terrace.
The terrace was surrounded on three sides by the whitewashed two-story house, but the fourth side looked out across Leonidas’ fields to the Eurotas, with the panorama of the Taygetos mountains beyond. At this time of year the view was particularly spectacular because the peaks of Taygetos were still white with last winters’ snow, yet Leonidas’ pear orchards were already in bloom, framing the central field on which barley had been planted.
The terrace itself was paved with local terra-cotta tiles set in a simple but elegant pattern in which only the shapes and positioning of the tiles, not their colors, provided the design. There was a simple free-flowing fountain with a bronze lion-head spout backed up against the right-hand wing of the house. This emptied into a terra-cotta basin in the shape of a large shell before the overflow filled a trough for washing and watering animals. There were also large terra-cotta pots containing palms and flowering plants framing the terrace and ascending the outside staircase to the second story of the house. Although Phormio’s own house was considerably more decorated, with colored mosaic floors and frescoes on the walls, on days like this―when nature provided an abundance of color and sunlight glittered on the dribbling water of the fountain―he recognized how beautiful this understated kleros was.
Gorgo was sitting behind a large loom set up under an awning in the corner of the terrace. A dog, going gray at the muzzle, slept at her feet, while two puppies cavorted about on the edge of the terrace. Gorgo did not try to rise for Phormio, but she broke into a smile and gestured for the steward to come sit beside her.
Gorgo had never been considered a great beauty like her mother. Her hair was the color of chestnuts, her eyes green, and her mouth too wide to fit society’s ideals of beauty. But she was by no means unattractive. She was slender, but with well-developed breasts. Her arm muscles, exposed as she worked at the loom, were firm, and her skin an even light brown. She was barefoot here in her own home, and the slit of her peplos revealed a lovely, well-shaped leg propped under her as the other worked the pedal of the loom.
Phormio settled himself comfortably and asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” Gorgo smiled. “I’ve never had problems with pregnancy.” She was pregnant for the second time, having given Leonidas a daughter two years earlier.
Phormio nodded again. “That is good. I have made a sacrifice every week since you told me the news, begging Eileithyia to give you an easy birth and Athena to give us all a son. You have heard the news?”
“About Demaratus?” Gorgo asked back.
Phormio nodded. “It is very bad news.”
Gorgo looked over at the round-faced perioikoi manager, and only now noticed how worried he looked. She stopped weaving and turned to face him. “Do you believe these accusations, then? You think it possible that Demaratus is not King Ariston’s son?” Gorgo found it hard to believe. In fact, she strongly suspected her father was behind the entire affair. She suspected her father had somehow found this forgotten citizen, old enough to have been an ephor the year Demaratus was born, and had bribed him to tell the story he had.
“My lady,” Phormio addressed her formally, “perioikoi do not presume to know what is right when it comes to the kings of Lacedaemon. We pay homage and taxes to whomever the Spartans recognize as king. But between the two of us, my dear, I am deeply worried. If Demaratus must step down and Leotychidas becomes king, the consequences for Lacedaemon will be grave.”
“Why?” Gorgo asked earnestly, her eyes fixed on the fat perioikoi she had come to respect and admire for his business acumen, common sense, and humanity.
“Because Leotychidas is backed by men such as your uncle Brotus and others who think Lacedaemon is better than every other nation in the world and that her army can solve every problem. They see Lacedaemon as a fortress of virtue that will be contaminated by contact with foreigners. They want to cut themselves―and so the rest of us―off from the world. They want to stop the sun in the sky and keep everything the way they think it was in some forgotten past. They are frightened men, afraid of change, afraid of anything unfamiliar, afraid of new ideas.”
Gorgo did not like her uncle Brotus. Brotus had frightened her as a child because he had always seemed to be frowning. More important, she knew that he coveted her father’s throne and, until she had a son, he was the heir to it. Even if she had a son, Leonidas said, Brotus would argue that the crown could not pass through a daughter and insist he was still her father’s heir. Leonidas would defend her rights and those of her son―she knew that―but she knew, too, that he was only an ordinary citizen and that there was no guarantee of success.
“Let us talk of pleasa
nter things, like the profits we made from the yearling sales. I did not come here to bring dark thoughts to a lady in your condition,” Phormio declared with a smile, feeling only slightly guilty. He knew that a man did not give his wife as much authority as Leonidas gave Gorgo without respecting her opinion. He knew that Gorgo would pass on to Leonidas the concerns he had expressed, concerns that the perioikoi dared not voice officially. Too many Spartiates would take it amiss if perioikoi dared to express an opinion concerning the legitimacy and prestige of the Spartan kings.
But Phormio put his trust in Leonidas. Leonidas knew how dangerous Brotus and Leotychidas were, and it didn’t hurt to remind him that the vast majority of Lacedaemon’s citizens, those who did not vote in the Spartan Assembly, had a stake in this dynastic crisis, too.
Nikostratos was seventy-two. For most of his adult life he had served as Sparta’s treasurer, elected year after year to this position. Ten years ago, however, he had been elected to the Gerousia, and he had soon found the double burden too much. Four years ago he had surrendered the burden of the treasury to a younger man to focus on his duties as councilman.
His eyesight was weak, so he was almost always accompanied―if not by his second wife, Chilonis, the mother of the Agiad King Cleomenes, then by a young helot boy with sharp eyes, quick legs, and a cheerful temperament. Not only did the boy lead Nikostratos where he wanted to go, he called out to anyone impudent enough to block his master’s path, and commandeered horses if Nikostratos was in a hurry.
The boy cleared Nikostratos’ way from the Council House across the square and down the street beside the Canopy, the stoa in which the Assembly met monthly. They passed the rotunda dedicated to the Olympian Zeus and the Olympian Aphrodite, and turned left at the corner on which Kastor’s Grave stood. Ahead of them stood the massive building complex that housed the headquarters, barracks, stables, and storerooms of the Mesoan lochos, one of Sparta’s five regiments. In peacetime, the lochos consisted of two hundred men on active duty, who were required to live here in the barracks. In wartime, up to eight hundred reservists could be called up by age cohort to swell the ranks until, in a full call-up reactivating men up to the age of forty-five, the lochos could field one thousand men. Leonidas commanded this lochos in peace and war.
A Heroic King Page 3