But he had little time to reflect on it. He exchanged a look with Diodoros, and they both pulled their helmets down simultaneously, then took the Kastor Company down the central ramp on the double. They waded straight into the fight, pushing aside anyone still trying to retreat and killing any enemy in their way. Around them, the sight of Spartan scarlet, the immaculate ranks and files, and the calm and silence of the Spartans quelled the panic. On both flanks men started to attach themselves. Later Dienekes, who came running in response to a message from Meander, claimed it had been like “rubbish sucked into the wake of a ship,” but all that mattered to Leonidas was that the panic had dissipated and the semblance of a phalanx was restored.
The Medes, meanwhile, had smelled blood, and for the first time had seen that the Greeks were vulnerable after all. They redoubled their assaults. It was obvious to Leonidas that with the Arkadians, he could not advance and clear the field. That meant they were stuck here, just slogging it out, until they were relieved. But maybe that was enough, he told himself: maybe it was enough that the Arkadians saw that they, too, could kill the Medes.
When they were finally relieved, Leonidas was nearing the end of his strength, and he didn’t protest when Dienekes announced he was taking over command of the reserve. “Go get something to eat and lie down!” he ordered his king unceremoniously.
“Eat?” Leonidas asked.
“It’s past noon. There’s a good stew on the fire, almost as good as black broth at home,” Dienekes assured him.
Leonidas returned to the Spartan camp. It was surreal to find this area perfectly calm and ordered while little more than two thousand yards away the slaughter continued. Leonidas sank down on a stool, propping his helmet upright on the ground at his feet, leaning his shield against his knee, and thrusting his spear butt-end into the earth.
Sperchias handed him a bowl full of thick stew. Leonidas looked at it. Was he hungry? Human body parts, rather than chunks of meat, appeared to be floating in the brew. He shook his head sharply to clear the hallucinations, then drank the lamb and onion soup.
Around him the men of the Herakles Company were preparing to take up their position on the wall, but the men of the Kastor Company stayed where they were. Leonidas lay down to rest, certain he wouldn’t be able to actually sleep. Meander offered to massage his calf muscles, and he agreed gratefully. Meander bent and removed his greaves; he rolled on to his stomach and closed his eyes. Meander was an absolute magician when it came to calf massages….
Prokles shook him awake. “The Medes have pulled out.”
Leonidas sat bolt upright. “What?”
“The Medes have been pulled back. We can hear new troops mustering, but can’t see them yet.”
“What time is it?” Leonidas looked at the sun even as he asked. Although past the zenith, the sun was still quite high. Diodoros and the Kastor Company were already gone, apparently in position on the wall. Leonidas looked at Prokles with a slight frown.
“The perioikoi are on the field. Their hour isn’t up but we thought it would make sense to swap them out now, during the lull in the fighting.”
“Of course,” Leonidas agreed. He grabbed his greaves, bending them back into place around his shins, and then got to his feet. Prokles handed him his helmet first, then the aspis. They walked side by side back to the wall in silence. From here, Leonidas could see the helots and slaves again clearing away the dead.
“What do you think their casualties have been so far?” he asked.
Prokles shrugged. “Easily five thousand men, maybe six.”
“That’s as many men as we have altogether.”
“That’s right―and it means no more to that man up there,” Prokles jabbed his thumb in the direction of Xerxes, “than six or seven individual men mean to us―probably less. They aren’t his friends dying, just his subjects.”
Horn signals from beyond the West Gate were getting louder. Leonidas saw Xerxes and his entourage turn to look back at the mustering area behind the West Gate. He saw Xerxes nod and raise his hand as if in greeting. Leonidas looked over at Demophilus; the Thespian commander nodded.
Leonidas reached up, pulled his helmet down by the nosepiece, and descended the right ramp to the field. Here at the base of the ramp there was still some grass. Ten feet farther out it had been torn up and trampled under by the phalanxes as they mustered. Fifty feet away there was nothing but a morass that was starting to stink vilely, despite the work of the slaves and helots. Pieces of human bodies littered the field, while blood, sweat, urine, and feces had soaked the earth to create a revolting mire.
The new hordes started pouring through the West Gate. “Cissians,” Sperchias identified them, and passed the word. They were brightly clad, and their pennants fluttered gaily in the offshore breeze. These were tall men armed with axes and javelins, but they, too, had no proper shields and no body armor.
Leonidas drew a deep breath and looked left and right. Around him men flexed their shoulders and shook out a wrist here or a calf there. Maron was circling his head to get the stiffness out of his neck. They were tired, and it was blisteringly hot. Let’s get this over with, Leonidas thought, and gave the order to advance before the Cissians had even finished mustering.
They met about halfway across the field. The Greek phalanx was not as wide as the battlefield, and some of the enemy slipped around the left end, but this did not concern Leonidas excessively. There were too few of them, and he trusted the Tegeans and Mantineans to come off the wall and eliminate them. His objective was to convince the Cissians that they were no more invincible than the Medes.
The Cissians were throwing their javelins rapidly, and the sound of these missiles close at hand was unnerving at first, but the hoplons were holding up well. Leonidas’ arm was jolted twice in succession as javelins clanged against the bronze, and he winced for Arion’s artwork, not from fear. Then they had closed the distance, and the killing started again.
This time, however, Xerxes had planned a surprise for them. Shortly after they had engaged the Cissians, horsemen started pouring through the West Gate. Leonidas caught a glimpse of a white stallion, and he knew intuitively that it was Zopyrus. The Cissians, his brain registered, had just been bait, luring them deeper into the field where their wings were unhinged. Unlike the Cissians themselves, the cavalry could pour around the edges in sufficient numbers to be dangerous, and then they could either take them in the rear, or employ the Persians’ preferred tactic of riding around them while firing their bows.
Spartans were not invincible―they were as vulnerable as any armed force to the surprise of novel tactics―but rarely did Spartans suffer surprise more than once. Leonidas’ brother Cleomenes had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Thessalian cavalry during his first attempted invasion of Attica, before Leonidas was even out of the agoge. Leonidas could still remember the heated debates in the syssitia on how to best confront cavalry. Now he was ready for it.
Leonidas passed the order, first to Demophilus and then to his own wings, for both units to form squares. The ranks were ordered to pack in close, each man brandishing his spear forward. Horses were either more cautious, or simply saner, than men. Again and again in drill, the Spartans had found that if they made their ranks look like a solid wall hedged with bristling blades, horses would shy away before contact. It was a maneuver they had even practiced with the Thespians, because Thebes had superior cavalry. Leonidas was confident that Demophilus could manage this well.
Meanwhile the Cissians had parted to let the cavalry through. The cavalry rushed forward at a gallop and started circling the two Greek formations with great élan. Their arrows made a huge racket as they clattered on the faces of the hoplons, but they rarely bit into the wood, much less found flesh. The horses, however, were going crazy, terrified as much by the smell of slaughter from the first half of the day as by the sight of the strange domes of metal. They kept trying to spring over the bodies of the dead and dying, swerving and leaping so
abruptly that even these magnificent riders were sometimes unseated.
Leonidas had his eye fixed on Zopyrus. The Persian cavalryman was shouting and pumping his bow in the air, firing up his troops. He rode like a centaur, Leonidas registered, his legs clamped around the body of the horse so firmly that he seemed one with it. He pulled three arrows at a time from the leather case on his back and fired them in rapid succession, first aiming forward, then directly to the side, and then twisting in his saddle and firing to the rear as he rode around the Spartan formation. When he had done this three or four times, however, his expression darkened with frustration. Leonidas could imagine what was going through his mind. Xerxes was watching, and the Persian cavalry was riding circles around the Greeks but without any apparent effect whatsoever.
Leonidas saw Zopyrus raise his arm again, and with the bow still in his fist he made wide, circling motions. At once the cavalry drew off toward the West Gate, but Leonidas knew instinctively that this was no retreat. Zopyrus was too angry.
He was going to try to drive through them. The Persian cavalry was already formed up in a tight pack and gaining speed. Leonidas would have thought this madness, but the Persians rode huge, heavy-boned horses―significantly heavier and stronger than the Greek breeds. These, packed in as close as they were and maddened by the fever of their riders, might just stampede into his ranks of spears. A smile was spreading across Zopyrus’ face.
If they stayed as they were, Leonidas feared the Persians would ride right over them. Men would be trampled, and the Persians would fire straight down at point-blank range. His only alternative was hardly safer, but it had the advantage of surprise. Leonidas gave an order that was unheard of except against light infantry, an order that no group of men but Spartans would have followed. He ordered runners out to meet the oncoming horsemen. The fleetest of the mid-rank men, men identified for this task long ago so that no one had to think about it now, jostled forward between files without hesitation. They ran toward the mass of horse. Just before they clashed, they formed into clusters, islands of spears, and then dropped down onto one knee.
The tactic worked even better than expected. The horses were frightened into confusion. They tried to jump over or run between the hedgehog-like formations of hoplites. They reared up, swerved, and collided with one another, and all across the field Persian cavalrymen were dumped on to the blood-soaked mud. The charge collapsed into a melee.
As soon as the impetus of the cavalry was broken, ranks of Spartans and Thespians sprang forward. A horse is far swifter than a man, but anyone who has run hounds against rabbits knows that a smaller animal can accelerate much faster. Before the Persian horse could turn to disengage and mass for another charge, the hoplites were upon them. Eight-foot spears cleared men from their mounts or sank deep into the flanks of already fear-maddened horses.
An engagement such as this had nothing to do with phalanx warfare. It was every man for himself, with the Greeks stabbing at horses as well as men. The wounded and terrified horses whinnied and reared. They kicked, bucked, and trampled friend and foe alike. The Persians flung themselves from their dying horses. They tossed away their bows and used their javelins like spears until these broke, and then they drew their swords. It was impossible to tell which side had the upper hand.
By now, the rear and middle ranks of the Greek phalanx were as much at risk as the front ranks. From two hundred yards away, Leonidas watched helplessly as a still-mounted Persian spurred up behind Euryleon as he struggled with a dismounted Persian. Leonidas wanted to shout a warning, but it was too late. The javelin thrust was so powerful it went clear through his friend’s bronze armor and deep into Euryleon’s back. The choral master dropped to his knees, vomiting blood, before falling face down into the foul mud, and Leonidas lost sight of him behind the other fighters.
Leonidas looked for Zopyrus. He was still mounted and almost alone. His horse was trying to bolt, but he held it by turning it hard so that it circled and circled. Around him Spartans and Thespians were killing the cavalrymen who had been thrown and were pulling those still mounted from their horses so they could be stabbed and gutted. Men and horses were screaming.
Zopyrus spotted Leonidas. His eyes narrowed as he lifted his bow and drew the string back to his ear. Leonidas could read the thoughts on his unprotected face: he no longer expected to triumph or even survive, but he intended to take Leonidas with him. Twelve feet separated them. Zopyrus was beyond the reach of Leonidas’ spear. The bow Zopyrus carried was heavy, and Leonidas was certain the arrow it loosed could shatter a hoplon at this range―assuming he didn’t put the bolt right through the eyehole of his helmet. The arrow flew and Leonidas raised his shield at a slant in the hope of deflecting the arrow, which he knew could not miss him. A second later the impact of the bolt almost unbalanced him. Leonidas heard it scrape on the bronze facing, and his arm was numbed. When he lowered his shield Zopyrus was nowhere to be seen―only Prokles standing where the Persian had been, beating the butt of his spear into something at his feet with an almost demonic hatred.
Later, Leonidas learned that the sight of the Spartans attacking the cavalry had brought Xerxes to his feet for the second time that day.
Late in the afternoon, another long lull descended over the battlefield. After the defeat of the Persian cavalry, the Cissians had fought for four hours, only to be slaughtered in even greater numbers than the Medes. At one point their ranks broke. They tried to flee back the way they’d come, only to be driven forward again by a fresh squadron of Persian cavalry. By the time the perioikoi were back onto the field, it was clear that the Cissians were no longer fighting willingly. Leonidas noted some men lowering themselves over the edge of the cliff toward the sea, apparently able to slip and slide away. Or perhaps the heap of corpses below had become so great that they could let themselves fall, sure of a soft landing? Whatever their fate beyond the cliff, they preferred it to fighting the Greeks.
Xerxes must have noticed this, too, because the Cissians were withdrawn. The Greeks waited for almost an hour, the perioikoi pulling back to sit on the comparatively clean grass in front of the wall, refreshing themselves with water.
“Maybe they’ve had enough for today,” Alkander suggested hopefully as the waiting dragged on.
Leonidas just looked at him.
“How long until sunset?” Dienekes asked.
The sun had slipped behind the mountains and clouds were creeping over the sky, making it hard to know how long until darkness would put an end to today’s slaughter. Suddenly an Arkadian lookout, who had been posted on the mountain flank around Xerxes’ throne, came sprinting headlong across the killing grounds and pounded up the southern ramp to shout hysterically, “The Immortals! The Immortals are coming!” The panic in his voice was impossible not to overhear―and with every breath, he was spreading it.
“Good!” Leonidas called out to shut him up.
The young man gaped at Leonidas. “But, my lord, the Immortals! They can’t die!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. They’re as mortal as you and I. The unit is only called that because it gets replenished immediately, like the Spartan Guard. They are the Persian elite. The best unit they have.” The Arkadian stared, as did men from all the other allied contingents, collected at the wall just to see what was happening. It was for the latter that Leonidas added, “We should be honored. Up to now, Xerxes thought he could defeat us with slaves. At last he acknowledges we are Persia’s equals.”
Then he signaled Demophilus, Dienekes, Diodoros, and Kalliteles, the commander of the Herakles Company, to come to him. He drew them aside, but their men crowded around, too, elbowing out the other allies not due to fight just yet.
Leonidas raised his voice to be heard even at the back of the crowd. “These are Xerxes’ best men―and they are an important prop to his throne. They can’t afford to break, or the subject peoples will lose respect for their masters. But nor can they afford to take too many casualties, or Xerxes might find himself p
oorly protected in a sea of armed men whose loyalty is doubtful. When we stop them in their tracks, it will have a profound impact on enemy morale.” Leonidas paused to let this sink in.
He continued: “The Immortals will have been thoroughly briefed on all earlier engagements. Their commander has probably been up there beside Xerxes all day.” He gestured in the direction of the throne on the mountainside. “He will expect us to take up the same position as before and will have given his archers, who will take the field first, that range. What I propose is to take up a position farther forward, but thin our line so that it still stretches across the field, to give the illusion of being in the same place. That way the barrage should fall long, behind our ranks.”
“They’ll adjust fast. They can see everything we do,” Dienekes pointed out.
“Yes, but we’ll be able to close faster. As soon as the barrage is falling amongst us, we advance into it. No jogging. No running. Just slow and steady, as if the barrage were completely meaningless. But this time, as soon as we encounter the spearmen―who are the elite of the elite and Xerxes’ own personal bodyguard―rather than engaging, I want every man to turn around and run as if we hadn’t expected them.”
“They’ve seen us reverse and re-form at the wall a dozen times already,” Prokles protested.
“A half-dozen,” Leonidas corrected. “And up to now we have only reversed and regrouped after pushing the enemy out, or nearly out, of the West Gate. What I propose is to break as if terrified―not just counter-march, but really break and run like panicked men―and to do that as soon as we encounter the spearmen. My bet is that they are so sure of their own aura of invincibility, and so certain we are afraid of them, that they will believe we are terrified, even if it is not logical.”
A Heroic King Page 53