A Heroic King

by Helena P. Schrader

  “Indeed! What a day that was! Look!” the shoemaker ordered the Spartan king, “I got this wound there!” He turned slightly sideways and lifted his short, rough chiton to reveal an ugly scar that ran down the side of his thigh. “And there hangs my hoplon!” He pointed deeper into the darkness of the shop, where a battered hoplon hung beside a sword in its baldric.

  “Are you well, Demeas?” Kimon asked the shoemaker with apparent interest. “I heard you were ill.”

  “No, not really, but business is bad.” He shook his head. “Too many cheap wares flooding the market from Thessaly these days. They have cheap leather up there because they have room for huge herds of cattle. The workmanship is crap, but people aren’t willing to pay for quality anymore. All they care about is the price! If it’s cheap, they’ll buy it even if the straps break in a fortnight. Then they run back and buy another pair of cheap sandals, rather than investing in good wares like these!” He grabbed a pair and held them out to Kimon, as if he expected him to inspect them.

  Kimon nodded politely and remarked, “I’m sorry I have not sent my steward around to buy for the household as my father used to do. I just can’t afford it.”

  “I know, my lord―not after the fines the Assembly leveled on your good father. I voted against it! You can be sure many of us did.” “I know, Demeas,” Kimon assured him. “I was there, even if I wasn’t old enough to vote.”

  “They drove your father to his grave, they did―Xanthippos and the others.”

  Kimon drew a deep breath but answered with restraint, sad rather than angry: “My father was seriously wounded, Demeas. There was little hope for his recovery.”

  “But these ungrateful wretches! If you’d but seen him at Marathon. No one fought better than he did―but they would not even let him put up a monument to himself!”

  “But it is true, Demeas, that he could not have won the battle without the others―without you.”

  “Well said,” Leonidas remarked, prompting Kimon to add, “In Sparta no living man is allowed a monument―isn’t that right, Leonidas?”

  “Yes. Not even Olympic victors,” Leonidas agreed.

  Demeas looked surprised, but not particularly taken with the idea. “But why not? If a man has done something noteworthy, why should he have to die before it is commemorated?”

  “Perhaps because too much praise can go to a man’s head―and a man who is top-heavy tends to fall down,” Leonidas explained.

  Demeas liked that and laughed heartily, but then he turned to Kimon again and asked, “Is it true, my lord, that we’re all to get ten drachma apiece from the silver mines?”

  “That’s the proposal of the Council,” Kimon assured him.

  “I could use ten drachma!” Demeas admitted. “There’s a break somewhere in the drainage pipe from our latrine, and I need to have the whole thing dug up and replaced. Besides, my daughter’s almost twelve, and I’ll need a dowry for her soon.”

  “Ten drachma won’t last for long, though, will it?” a deep voice growled as another man entered the little shop. The newcomer was stocky with a burly chest and a thick, short neck. His short-cropped curly beard and short hair were wet with rain. His chiton came to mid-calf, an awkward length that had neither the elegance of the long robes worn by the rich nor the practicality of the knee-length clothes of workmen and slaves. His nose was rather flat in his broad face, but his eyes were sharp and seemed to glint even in the poor light. They focused directly and pointedly on Leonidas. “King Leonidas, if I’m not mistaken?”

  “You are not mistaken, and with whom do I have the honor?”

  “Themistocles, son of Neocles.”

  “Ah!” Leonidas recognized the name. He had heard much about this man already. But to be sure he was not mistaken, he added, “The man who wanted to build a wall around Piraeus?”

  “Yes, that’s me,” Themistocles agreed, his eyes still inspecting Leonidas intently. Abruptly he broke eye contact with Leonidas and turned on the poor shoemaker. “So, Master Shoemaker, you could use ten drachma, but what happens after the ten drachma are used up?”

  Demeas shrugged, “At least I’ll have a fixed drainage pipe.”

  The others laughed, but not unkindly. Themistocles clapped him on the shoulder and declared, “Indeed, so you would. But what would you say to money that comes in year after year? Not just once, but with every summer?”

  “Is there that much silver in the mines?”

  “No. That’s the point. The silver won’t go on forever. But if we invest the silver in something that makes Athens strong―really strong―we could multiply the benefits many-fold and keep the money coming in for years into the future.”

  “How?” the shoemaker wanted to know.

  “You’ll hear about it at the Assembly tomorrow,” Themistocles promised. “But remember what I said. My proposal will put money in the hands of Athens’ poor for generations to come.” Then, without even drawing a new breath, he pointed to a pair of sandals and declared, “Those look about my size.”

  Demeas hastened to hand them to him.

  Themistocles inspected the sandals closely, pulling expertly at the places where they were most likely to come apart, then sat down on the nearest bench, removed the muddy sandals from his feet, and tried on the new pair. Meanwhile Kimon, noting that the rain had let up, suggested to Leonidas that they continue.

  They bade Demeas goodbye, but Themistocles stopped them with a “Wait for me!” He turned to the shoemaker to ask, “What do you want for these?”―pointing to the sandals now on his feet.

  “Four obols.”

  “Done!” Themistocles fished in his purse, removed the coins and put them in Demeas’ hands, then took Leonidas by the arm and held him fast as they went outside.

  The rain had indeed let up and so had the wind, but it was still drizzling and the streets were deserted. Themistocles spoke in a low voice. “So, Leonidas of Sparta, you think the Persians are coming back.”

  “I have proof of it. An Egyptian scribe spent almost a year inside the Persian Empire taking meticulous notes, and―”

  “You don’t have to convince me―any more than young Kimon here.” He nodded toward the younger man, who raised an eyebrow but held his tongue politely. “I know the Persians are coming, but Athens”―he gestured grandly with his arm to include not only the workshops, factories, and taverns around them, but also the acropolis visible in the distance―“does not want to believe it. They close their eyes to the threat. Besides, fear makes men small-minded and selfish. If you want the masses to forgo their ten drachma, you have to offer them something more than threats. You have to give them a vision. I learned that from your father,” he added to Kimon almost reproachfully.

  “What sort of vision?” Leonidas asked warily.

  Themistocles shrugged. “A vision of glory―with very real material benefits in the short term.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I will ask the Athenian Assembly to build a hundred triremes with the silver,” Themistocles declared, his eyes fixed on Leonidas.

  Kimon gasped. “A hundred triremes? We’d need seventeen thousand men to man them!”

  “We would, wouldn’t we?” Themistocles agreed.

  Kimon said no more. Leonidas nodded, understanding: oarsmen had to be paid year after year….

  Themistocles continued, “With the seventy triremes we already have and some more private contributions, Athens should be able to launch a fleet of two hundred triremes in the next couple of years―twice what Chios ever had. Together with Corinth and Megara, and Lacedaemon, of course, we would be a formidable force. Don’t you agree, my lord?”

  “Two hundred triremes?” Leonidas asked, unable to imagine it. He had struggled to find the means and the men for just twenty. “With citizen crews?”

  “With citizen crews,” Themistocles confirmed.

  “It would alter the power equation in the Aegean altogether,” Leonidas concluded, not entirely comfortable with the proposition. Such a
fleet would be an asset in the fight against the Persians, of course, but what then?

  “It would, wouldn’t it?” Themistocles agreed. Then he bowed his head to the others and turned to stride away in his new sandals. They watched him go until he was long out of hearing, and then Leonidas turned to young Kimon to ask: “What am I to think of all that?”

  “Themistocles is a brilliant man. My father mistrusted him, yet warned me never to underestimate him. Themistocles seems to have an uncanny ability to anticipate developments. Certainly if Themistocles’ walls had been finished in time, we would have had no need to fear the Persians during the last invasion. Can a navy replace walls? Can it defeat an enemy like Persia before it lands? I don’t know. But I certainly doubt whether even Themistocles can convince the Athenian Assembly―men like Demeas―to give up their ten drachma for the sake of a navy.”

  “But the navy would put money in their pockets, too. That was his point,” Eurybiades entered the conversation. “He’s trusting that men much poorer than Demeas will see the advantages of a standing fleet that needs more than seventeen thousand oarsmen―year after year.”

  “Yes, that’s what he’s counting on,” Kimon agreed. “But triremes don’t last forever. They ream from beaching too often, or grow barnacles from being too long at sea. And once they start taking on water or can’t keep up with the others, they will be discarded like a pair of old shoes. Who will pay then for the new ships? Go down to Piraeus and count the number of hulks rotting on the shore―all once-proud triremes.”

  “Athens discards her heroes when they no longer serve her,” Leonidas reflected sadly, adding softly, “Like your father.”

  Kimon sighed and looked away, not meeting Leonidas’ eyes.

  “Why do you stay? With the money you paid to an ungrateful Assembly, you could have founded a colony somewhere else. My brother did.”

  “I can’t leave,” Kimon admitted, helplessly gesturing to the city around him. “Athens isn’t Aristides and Xanthippos―much less Kallixenos or Pheidon! It’s not even Themistocles or my father. It’s Demeas and all the men like him: men without any particular politics or vision, yet a dogged determination to be themselves. Demeas can’t afford his panoply, and he is certainly no trained soldier like you Spartans, but when the Persians landed at Marathon, he was there with that battered hoplon and his cheap sword, and he stood for six hours with blood gushing from his thigh against the onslaught of an army twice our size.” Kimon shrugged. “I can’t explain it, but it has to do with something in the air here. Freedom―despite the stink of broken latrines.” He paused and turned to look at Leonidas. “And, I promise you, they will fight for it as they did at Marathon. They will fight when the Persians come, by land or by sea. They will die fighting rather than surrender their freedom. You can count on that, Leonidas. On us.”

  * Plutarch attributes this rebuttal to Gorgo when “a stranger in a finely embroidered robe was making advances to her.”

  † This is Gorgo’s most famous line, attributed to her by Plutarch and others. Plutarch specifically identifies her questioner as “a woman from Attica.”

  PART III

  THERMOPYLAE

  CHAPTER 18

  CONFEDERACY FOR FREEDOM

  “THREE YEARS AGO THEY REFUSED TO believe there was any kind of threat at all, and now they are like chickens with their heads cut off!” Sperchias complained to Leonidas. They had come yet again to the Isthmus for a meeting of the Greek cities determined to oppose the Persian invasion.

  The loose confederation had first met more than a year earlier. At that time, still not wholly convinced of the threat, they had agreed to send spies to the Persian court. These, however, had only confirmed what Teti had recorded and Demaratus had warned in his secret message to Sparta. Ever since then, the Confederation had been in almost permanent session, and appeals for help had been sent to Syracuse, Crete, and Corcyra. Indeed, over Spartan objections, a delegation had been sent to Argos to try to convince this powerful city to give up its neutrality and join the coalition against Persia.

  Meanwhile, at a leisurely, confident pace, Xerxes had collected a massive army and then moved it up the Asian coast of the Aegean. All along the projected march route, his quartermasters had hoarded grain and other foodstuffs in massive warehouses. Herds of livestock were corralled to provide meat, while the fields were shorn of grass to provide fodder for both his meat on the hoof and the Persian cavalry. At the Hellespont, a bridge was created out of ships tied side by side. Across the ships a wooden walkway with handrails was constructed. It was so wide and steady that even chariots could roll over it, their drivers and archers upright in the carts, and the cavalry did not bother to dismount.

  Meanwhile, to ensure a safe passage for his ships, a canal was dug through the Athos peninsula. This ensured there would be no repeat of the disaster that struck Darius’ fleet more than a decade earlier.

  The Thessalians, steadfast opponents of the Persians, demanded immediate aid from their allies, and so ten thousand hoplites from the coalition had been sent north to the pass at Tempe by Mount Olympus to protect Thessaly. The Athenians had provided the largest contingent of troops under the command of Themistocles, but Leonidas had been unable to convince the Spartan Assembly to approve deployment of even the active army so far from home. Instead, the Spartan Assembly voted to send a force of perioikoi hoplites under the command of a single Spartiate, Euanetus, son of Karenus.

  Euanetus was a conscientious commander, the very man who had replaced Leonidas as lochagos when Leonidas became king, but Leonidas was not surprised he’d fallen under Themistocles’ spell. The Athenian effectively seized control of the operation, and heeding warnings from a friend in Macedonia that Tempe could easily be outflanked, Themistocles ordered a retreat.

  While this saved ten thousand hoplites from death or captivity, it also meant the effective abandonment of Thessaly. The Thessalians understandably felt betrayed, and promptly offered earth and water to Xerxes. The Persian army was now deep inside Greece, advancing slowly and steadily, and apparently as irrevocably and unstoppably as lava from a volcano.

  Leonidas nodded to Sperchias, his eyes on the agitated plenum meeting below the Temple to Poseidon in the amphitheater at Isthmia. The Confederation meetings had started here when the Greeks were gathered for the Isthmian Games, but this was an Olympic year, and normally the cult site would have been abandoned. Instead, despite the absence of athletes and trainers, the guesthouses were filled to overflowing with the representatives of the Confederation, their scribes, and their slaves. The locals catering to their needs for refreshment and entertainment moved in and out in a constant hubbub.

  The Athenians had imposed their rules for debate upon the Confederation Assembly. This meant that as long as a man did not slander another representative, attack the president of the Assembly, or speak to a topic not on the agenda, he could talk as long as he wanted. Leonidas had the impression that there was an inverse relationship between the size and importance of a city and the long-windedness of its representatives. In any case, even men from the most obscure of cities―cities with only a pair of penteconters or a couple of hundred hoplites―were capable of talking for what seemed like hours.

  Leonidas had heard nothing new for a long time. City after city had sent to Delphi for advice, only to be told the same thing: surrender or flee. Leonidas turned to Sperchias and remarked, “When Leotychidas’ representative returned with the latest oracle saying that Sparta would lose a king in battle or be destroyed, I wondered if Leotychidas had bribed the oracle, but now I’m beginning to wonder if it was Xerxes!”

  Sperchias nodded glumly. “Very likely. The Persians, you know, believe Apollo is simply another name and manifestation of their god Ahuramazda. Xerxes has sent many embassies to the priests at Delphi assuring them of his respect and promising them his protection―once he has control of all Greece. We can be sure he sent them tokens of his admiration as well. No doubt those gifts were linked to services
―or threats.”

  Leonidas considered his friend for a moment, flabbergasted by this conclusion. On second thought, now that Sperchias had put it into words, it seemed obvious. Of course the Persians would try to bribe the oracle. After all, his own brother Cleomenes had proved it was corruptible. The actors might have changed, but ultimately the Pythia herself, and the priests who interpreted her messages, were just human beings. Why should anyone think they would be impervious to Persian gold? “Why didn’t you report this earlier―to the ephors and Council?” Leonidas asked his friend.

  “Would it have made a difference? Or rather, would it have helped you?” He paused to let Leonidas consider the consequences before putting his thoughts into words. “Because of the oracle, all Sparta agrees we have to fight in order to save the city. Without the oracle, you might not be here with a mandate to form a coalition that can fight at Thermopylae and Artemisium. The message to Athens was much worse, by the way. They were told: Why sit you, doomed ones? Fly to the ends of the earth, leaving home and the heights your city circles like a wheel . The head shall not remain in place, nor the body … but all is ruined, for fire and the headlong god of war, speeding in a Syrian chariot, shall bring you low,” Sperchias quoted.

  “That’s not what Themistocles told me. He said their oracle predicted his fleet would save Athens.”

  “That’s Themistocles’ interpretation of the second oracle.”

  “What second oracle?”

  “Well, what I quoted was the first oracle Athens received. The men sent to Delphi were, understandably, devastated―until a prominent Delphian suggested they return again with olive branches and beg Apollo to reconsider. They duly received a second oracle, which warned: Await not the host of horse and foot coming from Asia, nor be still, but turn your back and withdraw from the foe . But it also included the phrase: Though all else shall be taken … and the fastness of the holy mountain of Kithairon, yet Zeus the all-seeing grants to Athena’s prayer that the wooden wall only shall not fail, but help you and your children . Themistocles believes―and I tend to agree―that the ‘wooden wall’ is the Athenian fleet, and that it will not ‘fail.’ But whether it fails or not, Athens will be lost.”