Maron twisted to look over his shoulder. The sight of the other allies staring and pointing made him smile sidelong at his brother. “They must think we’re crazy.”
“We probably are,” Alpheus retorted.
“Not just them,” Temenos remarked, dropping beside the brothers after lapping the field twice. “Look over there!” He pointed to the crest of the hill that sloped down toward the West Gate. Something was clearly moving on it. When Maron realized it must be Persian scouts, he felt his skin creep. He jumped up and looked frantically for Leonidas. He was somewhere out here―naked as a newborn babe! A single, well-aimed arrow….
Maron caught sight of the grizzled exile Prokles, a man he did not like and did not trust, sprinting across the field, and realized that several other guardsmen were likewise converging on their king at all speed. Maron ran to join them, only to hear Leonidas growl, “Until you started hovering around, they didn’t know which naked man was Sparta’s king. Disperse!”
The guardsmen hesitated, glancing over their shoulders. Prokles planted himself between Leonidas and the Persians, his back to the enemy, and stood his ground. “Leo! You have no right to expose yourself to risks like this! I’m escorting you behind that wall. The rest of us are enough to make the point.”
Leonidas glanced past Prokles’ shoulder to the mountain slope ending at the West Gate. He could make out three Persians. He didn’t think he or the other Spartans were in range, but Prokles had a point. He was taking an unnecessary risk. “Agreed.”
The other Spartans continued their exercises for an hour without incident, and then returned to their camp beyond the wall. The sentries on the wall and the lookouts, however, reported a steady stream of Persian observers who came forward to get a look at the Greek position and then went away again.
Midafternoon an Athenian triaconter landed on the tiny beach of the fishing village below Alpeni. The triaconter took up almost the whole of the little cove and attracted a large crowd of idle soldiers. The young, elegantly dressed Athenian captain came ashore asking for Leonidas. By the time he reached the Spartan camp, he was grinning widely.
Leonidas was playing backgammon with Alkander. They were in armor with their hoplons, helmets, and spears ready at hand, but sat on folding stools, resting their elbows on their knees. A flurry of voices and the phrase “Over there!” alerted Leonidas to the new arrival. He looked up, then stood.
“King Leonidas?” the Athenian asked.
Leonidas nodded. “I am he.”
The Athenian grinned more widely. “Abronichus. Themistocles sent me to report that the fleet has gone into position at Artemisium without mishap or loss, my lord. We’re 183 ships strong, of which 174 are triremes. I am to remain here with my triaconter to serve as your courier. If you have any message to send to the fleet, I’ll take it for you. A Phocian galley has been dispatched to Artemisium to serve the same function in the reverse direction.”
“Excellent. Have a seat and join me for some wine. Meander?” Leonidas looked around for his attendant.
“Sir?”
“Bring wine for the captain.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So, how is the morale in the fleet?” Leonidas asked.
“Ah,” Abronichus grinned, “what would you expect? Some men got a little weak-kneed at the sight of the Persian fleet and suggested Artemisium wasn’t such a good place to fight after all.”
“I can imagine,” Leonidas observed. “And then?”
“Themistocles and Eurybiades convinced them otherwise, though we did move to a more protected anchorage. You wouldn’t have a message you wish to dispatch at once, would you?” the captain asked. “I’d rather like to report how you strolled around naked in front of the Persians this morning.”
Leonidas frowned. “I didn’t stroll around naked; I was exercising.”
“In full view of the Persians. I hope you bummed your ass at them!”
Alkander couldn’t help laughing. Leonidas frowned at him, but then broke down and laughed himself, admitting, “I didn’t think of it. The display was more for our allies than for the Persians. My intent was to convey nonchalance―not contempt.”
“Yes, my lord.” The captain tried to look chastised, but couldn’t. He burst out laughing again. It proved contagious.
When the laughter died away, Leonidas observed, “You seem in extraordinarily good spirits.”
“Why shouldn’t I be? There hasn’t been a fight like this since the Age of Heroes, and I will have a front-row seat. One day, I hope to tell my great-grandchildren that I personally shared a skin of wine with King Leonidas at Thermopylae. The only catch is, I have to live that long.”
“That is a problem, isn’t it?”
“My lord!” The shout came from farther forward. “Persians!”
They all looked sharply toward the Pass. A commotion had seized the men loitering near the East Gate, but it hardly looked like panic. No one was rushing to get their arms. On the contrary, they seemed to be pressing forward, flowing through the gate in an agitated mob, but without their weapons.
Leonidas guessed it was some kind of envoy even before word was relayed back, “An ambassador!”
“Brave man,” Sperchias, who had been watching Alkander and Leonidas play checkers, observed dryly, his thoughts far away in Persepolis.
Leonidas grabbed his helmet, with its chestnut cross-crest studded with gold wire, and got to his feet, muttering an excuse to the Athenian as he set off in the direction of the East Gate. By the time he reached it, word was being passed for him, and his own men parted to let him through. Men were speculating in a rumble of agitated voices, “Do you think they’ll offer terms?” “Yeah, earth and water or death.” “How do they know Leonidas is our commander?” “They had spies at the Confederation conference, stupid―all the cities that have since capitulated.” “Yeah, they probably know how many men we have here, right down to the last water boy and the fleas on the goats.”
Leonidas reached the wall and mounted it, by one of the ramps they had built to enable troops to deploy rapidly along its broad back. In front of him the Mantineans, who evidently had the watch, were lined up in a phalanx on the field with their shields locked and helmets down, but their spears sloped. A hundred yards beyond them, a Persian envoy waited on a magnificent white stallion, flanked by two heralds with flapping pennants proclaiming his mission. The envoy’s horse was unnerved by the Mantinean hoplites, but the man himself exuded not just calm, but disdain. Leonidas thought he looked like the Persian interpreter that Sperchias had saved from the mob in Sparta more than a decade ago.
“Your king has a message for me?” Leonidas called out.
“King Leonidas of Sparta?” the question came back.
Leonidas descended by one of the three ramps on the front of the wall. He passed through the Mantinean phalanx but stopped in front of it. The horseman hesitated, but then dismounted. They approached each other, one step at a time, to meet halfway. Leonidas had been right; it was Zopyrus.
The Persian bowed slightly, as if to say he knew his manners but did not think Leonidas deserved the courtesy of kings. “We meet again, my lord.”
“Sperchias told me you had made Persia safely. I’m pleased.”
Zopyrus smiled coldly, conveying disbelief. “I am not here by choice,” he started. “If I had my way, I would meet you with a bow, not a staff, in my hand. But His Magnificence, Xerxes son of Darius, the Great King, Lord of―”
“I’m familiar with his titles,” Leonidas cut Zopyrus off. “And none of his minions can hear you here, so let’s just get to the point. Your master has a message for me?”
“The Great King is a man of infinite mercy. He sees this pitiful band of men, sent by heartless or foolish cities, to fulfill a task no mortal can fulfill, and, being a civilized and compassionate man, he refrains from mocking or humiliating you. Clear the Pass and let him continue on his way unhampered, and he will hold no grudge against you.”
“Tha
t is very generous of him,” Leonidas observed. “But we did not come here to withdraw. We are here to fight.”
“With this?” The emissary gestured with his long, beringed fingers toward the Mantineans.
“There are more men here than meet the eye,” Leonidas assured him.
“How many? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Not all of Greece has enough fighting men to stop the might of Persia. Your cause is lost, and if you fight, your lives are lost as well. Why?”
“We prefer an honorable death to life without honor.”
Zopyrus raised his eyebrows skeptically. “What is honorable in throwing your lives away in a foolish gesture?”
“We won’t know how foolish our gesture was until you take the Pass,” Leonidas pointed out.
“Is this your last word?”
Leonidas hesitated, wondering if he could drag the negotiations out until the full Spartan army arrived. Maybe not, but each day they talked was a day they didn’t fight. Then again, if he put this offer to the allies, Leonidas feared they would start fighting among themselves again. He nodded slowly.
Zopyrus bowed his head with a slight smile. “I’m pleased. I have waited a long time for the opportunity to show you just how arrogant―and stupid―you pig-headed Spartans are. Mind! This is not what Xerxes told me to say, but what I, Zopyrus, say. This is the second time you Spartans have rejected the Great King’s generous clemency and insisted on blood. Last time we were three unarmed emissaries surrounded by a mob of barbarians. This time you are as outnumbered as we were then. This time, the blood you spill will be your own―and you will choke on it!” Zopyrus spun about and strode back in the direction of his horse. He vaulted on in a single leap, spun it around on its haunches, and galloped away.
The others surged forward and swarmed around Leonidas. “What did they want? What did they want?”
“Surrender.”
“You turned them down?”
“Of course. We’ll fight tomorrow.”
* This exchange is recorded by Plutarch, and the Spartan retort is attributed variously to Dienekes or Leonidas.
† This quote is attributed to Leonidas in Plutarch’s collection of “Sayings of Spartans.”
CHAPTER 21
THE EMPIRE STRIKES
LEONIDAS WAS WRONG. XERXES DID NOT attack the next day. The sun rose from the sea, oozed its way across the late summer sky, and slowly sank below the mountains to the west without the Persians making any move to threaten Thermopylae. The Spartans (without their king) exercised provocatively in front of the wall, and the sentries from each allied contingent took their turn on the wall in rotation. In the camp the men gambled, groused, told tall tales, and cleaned their already pristine weapons and armor. They visited the hot springs or ventured down to the shore to buy fish from the locals and cool themselves in the refreshing waters of the gulf. The Persians appeared to do the same, while Leonidas watched the moon. Another day of the Karneia had passed. And another.
Early on the morning of the fifth day, however, the sentries observed a great deal of agitated movement in the Persian camp. Dust blew in large clouds and unintelligible shouts wafted on the morning breeze. Word was passed back from the sentries, and Leonidas went forward to the West Gate. It took him only a moment to be convinced: they were coming at last.
At about this time the sentries spotted what appeared to be a half-dozen carpenters, the sound of their hammers ringing out in the morning air, working in great haste to complete a broad wooden platform on the flank of the mountain that formed the West Gate. The platform commanded a view of the Pass between the West Gate and the wall. Next, a score of Persians could be seen dragging and wrestling a large, awkward wooden object up to the platform. The Greek sentries speculated it must be some kind of massive arrow or sling that would hurl death at them, but then brilliant cloths were draped over it and cushions scattered around, and the sentries realized it was a large throne. They looked at one another, dumbfounded, and then sent this news back to Leonidas as well.
Meanwhile, Leonidas ordered the deployment agreed upon days earlier. The perioikoi took the field first, positioning themselves at the head of the wall, with the Spartans and Thespians drawn up in full panoply on the wall behind them, to reinforce if necessary or relieve them after one hour of combat.
The decision to let the perioikoi engage first had been made at Isanor’s initiative. Leonidas had planned to take the field with the Spartans and Thespians, but Isanor requested the honor, arguing, “We’ll show the allies it can be done.” Leonidas had taken this wise advice. The perioikoi, although independent, had absorbed a great deal of Spartan training and ethos. Isanor was a veteran of countless border clashes with the Argives. Leonidas knew the perioikoi were up to the task, and Isanor’s point was good: the allies believed the Spartans could hold the Persians, but they secretly doubted their own ability to do the same. Leonidas had to convince the allies as soon as possible that other Greeks, not just the Spartans, could beat the Persians. It was an ideal task for the perioikoi.
All they had to do, Leonidas reminded Isanor as the commanders dispersed to give the orders to their troops, was hold the Persian onslaught for one hour. Then, Leonidas promised, the Spartans and Thespians would move down from the wall and take the field to replace the withdrawing perioikoi. Meanwhile, the Tegeans and Mantineans would move on to the wall, ready to relieve the Spartans and Thespians. They would be followed by the Arkadians, then the Corinthians and Thebans, who in turn would be relieved by the then rested perioikoi, and so on until the Persians gave up. That, at least, was the plan.
Leonidas’ greatest worry was that at the first sign of weakness, the relieving forces on the wall would panic and run the other way, rather than reinforce the fighters when they were needed most. To discourage this, Leonidas planned to keep one hundred Spartans on the wall at all times under his own command. That way there would always be some troops ready to spring into any breach and restore confidence and morale if panic threatened.
The noise from the Persian camp was getting louder, and the clouds of dust were like fog billowing up from the sea. Leonidas looked around at his companions. They were armed and upright―except for Prokles, who was leaning against a cart full of extra spears with his legs crossed at the ankles. Leonidas was vaguely aware of the other commanders in their respective camps calling their men about them and haranguing them, but it seemed rather pointless for him to do the same. There wasn’t a man here, Spartiate or helot, who didn’t know how important it was to hold this position until the full army arrived in what was now just seven days. So he just nodded and set his helmet on his head, cocked back on his neck. He looked for Meander. The young man caught his glance and nodded once, indicating the two extra spears on his back and the water skin. Leonidas noted the medical kit, too. “Let’s go,” he said, and led the Spartans forward.
The perioikoi were mustering just behind the wall when the Spartans arrived. “We’ll be right behind you, and we’ll reinforce you at the slightest sign of trouble,” Leonidas paused to reassure Isanor, noting without looking the white faces and trembling hands of some of the perioikoi men.
“Don’t worry about us,” Isanor replied in his rough, gravelly voice. “We’re not going to disgrace Lacedaemon.”
On the wall the Thespians were forming up, too. Leonidas smiled at Demophilus and then Dithyrambus. The latter grinned back and asked, “You don’t think there’s any chance they’ll turn tail and run before we can get a crack at ’em, do you?”
“Unlikely,” Leonidas laughed.
“Did you see that?” Demophilus asked, pointing to the brightly cushioned throne on the slope beyond the field. It had now been provided with a footstool and a side table and was surrounded by smaller chairs, likewise draped with cloth. The distance was too great to see the details, but a dozen men were fluttering about, apparently slaves preparing snacks, refreshments, and what looked like documents. Xerxes expected pleasant entertainment, Leonidas concluded, while r
ecording which of his captains fought most bravely and deserved the greatest reward.
Leonidas gazed at the scene for a moment, then turned to Demophilus and advised, “No need to keep your men on their feet while we’re in reserve, and keep water circulating. No man should engage the enemy thirsty.” He reiterated the best way to move the men down the three ramps onto the field and the way to file them forward. Although he had helped train the Thespians ten years ago, that had been for warding off raids and hit-and-run attacks, not for a fixed-phalanx battle of this nature. Still, to their credit, the Thespians appeared to be bearing up well. Leonidas’ gaze ran along their front rank and recognized with a start not just Arion’s brother, but the bronze master himself.
He strode over. “What are you doing here, Arion? I thought you were in Sparta making shields for my countrymen!”
“Sir? I, well―”
Leonidas regretted his question. The bronze master had never been a man of quick words and clearly didn’t know what to say, but his sentiments could hardly be faulted. It had been unfair to single him out. Leonidas grabbed his shoulder and overplayed the awkward moment by declaring, “Well, now I know who’ll fix my shield if it gets damaged.” Leonidas held up the flashy aspis with the roaring lion that Arion had designed and made for him more than a quarter-century earlier. Today was the first time he was carrying it in battle.
A flurry of shouting drew attention to the front again, and the enemy was pouring through the West Gate. They came on the double, anxious to deploy as many men as possible through the bottleneck fast. The perioikoi responded by filing rapidly up the ramps on the back of the wall and down the ones on the other side. They formed up as Leonidas had recommended, one hundred across and ten deep, stretching across the field roughly eighty feet forward of the wall. Leonidas watched with approval as the men took up their position, and Isanor prowled up and down along the front rank. He was talking to them, but Leonidas was more interested in the way the rear rankers braced themselves with their legs about two feet apart, their left feet leading slightly. He was also watching the steadiness of their spears. The perioikoi were damned near as good as Spartiates, he concluded, with some surprise and a great deal of pride.
A Heroic King Page 51