Prokles shrugged. “There’s something to that.”
“The point is to act like we’re terrified.”
“I don’t know if we can do that, sir,” Alpheus spoke up, shaking his head dubiously. “We haven’t drilled ‘panic.’”
The Spartans laughed.
“Where do we draw up to fight again?” Demophilus asked anxiously.
“At the backward position: one hundred across, ten deep. When we reach the mark and turn, the main burden will be on the rear rankers.” Leonidas’ eyes sought men who were not front rankers, men like Temenos and Sperchias, men who were here not because they were the best fighting men Sparta had, but because they were his friends. He spoke directly to them. “You’re going to have to dig in until you’re up to your ankles in mud. The pursuing Immortals will be running, and they’re going to collide with us. The front ranks will lose their footing and will have a hard time staying upright if you don’t give us the support we need. Third and fourth rankers”―again Leonidas looked specifically for some of the men in these ranks, including Alkander and Oliantus― “you’ll do the most killing at first. The first and second ranks, most exposed when we break and run, are going to take casualties. Make no mistake about that. There is nothing so dangerous as turning your back on the enemy and running away from him.”
Addressing the front rankers now, Leonidas admonished, “When we break and run, keep your hoplon raised over your head, if you can, or even behind your head. I know it’s awkward, but it could save your life.”
They were nodding, but their faces were grim.
“They’re not immortal,” Leonidas repeated. “But they think they are. Let’s prove to them just how mortal they really are.”
At that, he pulled his helmet down and took up his shield.
Rather than pouring or spilling through the West Gate in a disorganized mass as the Medes and Cissians had done, the Immortals marched. They wore the same cloth turbans as the other barbarians, with long ties that were wound around their necks before hanging down their backs, but their uniforms were a particularly brilliant blue and yellow, with horizontally striped trousers and tight-fitting striped sleeves. Sperchias warned, however, that beneath their cloth tunics they had vests of leather scales that offered considerable protection for their heart, lungs, and stomach.
As the Immortals marched in, they expanded their front evenly and in an orderly, practiced manner. With each new man who marched in from the left of the Persian line, those already deployed stepped to the right. The whole rank advanced exactly one step forward only after it was full. It was an impressive piece of marching drill, and Leonidas gave the order for the Greeks to start moving their spears slightly, as if they were getting agitated. With satisfaction he saw Xerxes point to their lines. Xerxes had been taken in by their ruse; the question was whether Hydarnes, the commander of the Immortals, was taken in, too.
The first barrage of arrows, as Leonidas had predicted, soared well over their heads, and Dienekes remarked, “Shade at last!” to raise a chuckle from his commander.
It took the Immortals only five minutes to find the proper range, however, and as soon as the first arrows thwacked home into the hoplons of the front line, Leonidas ordered the advance. Although he had ordered a slow advance, the rear ranks were clearly nervous about what was to come and pushed the front ranks to a faster pace. Leonidas chose not to countermand their instincts, but let the battle take its course.
The arrows came at them ever closer to the level, ever more deadly. Three men to his left, one of the Spartan rankers took an arrow in the eye and dropped with an animal shriek of pain. The man behind took his place without missing a step, but gasps and other short cries indicated further wounds. Glancing along the line of the front rank, Leonidas was amazed by the number of arrows embedded in the bronze faces of the hoplons. His own lion had a mouthful of arrow shafts.
At last they were on top of the archers and, as Leonidas had hoped, these just seemed to melt away, pulling out to the sides to make room for the Persian spearmen.
Intentionally, Leonidas gave no order. Panic does not grip a unit in unison. It starts with the weakest link. The Thespians broke first, then the Spartans. Leonidas waited another couple of heartbeats, certain that the Persians would expect him, as king, to be the most determined to stand his ground. Prokles hissed, “Enough!” but still Leonidas counted to five before he turned and ran as fast as he could.
Leonidas was forty-eight years old, and he had never been a sprinter. The battlefield was littered with dead and dying. The footing was terrible. He tried to leap over a body, landed on the man’s knee, and lost his balance. The man wasn’t dead. He shifted, startling Leonidas even more. Leonidas began falling over backwards.
A hand grabbed him roughly under the left armpit and yanked him forward. A second later Prokles had him in a brutal grip by the right as well. Two men were pulling him forward, while someone else landed a kick in his backside to make him move faster. Behind him, Maron and Alpheus locked their shields. “No!” Leonidas screamed at them futilely.
Twice Leonidas slid on the slippery, evil-smelling morass and would have fallen to his knees except for Bulis and Prokles, who still had hold of him by the armpits. Leonidas’ lungs were giving out, and still he was running―almost flying, it seemed―on the stronger arms of his companions.
Behind them the Persians were shouting and hooting―part mockery, part triumph, part battle cry. It rose and reverberated into a melodic cry, a kind of “Wohuhu! Wohuhu!”
Leonidas collided with his own men, and spun around so fast his vision dimmed. The shields cracked into position. He looked for Maron and Alpheus, but there was nothing but a mass of Immortals, hundreds deep, rushing forward. Before he could catch his breath, the Immortals crashed into them. Leonidas was certain he would not have stayed upright if someone hadn’t been crushing a shield into his back so fiercely that he literally had no room to fall down.
Some of the Immortals were trying to stop themselves, leaning backward and flailing with their arms. Many lost their footing, slipped and slid, or skidded in the stinking mud. Others tried to turn aside or around only to collide with the men behind them, who had not realized the Greek line had re-formed.
Leonidas never knew who gave the order―he didn’t have the breath―but all at once the rear rankers were pushing and someone was calling out the time. “Left! Left! Left!” On each shout, the front rankers were pushed forward into this chaos by the men behind them. The spears of the second and third rankers thrust forward past the front ranks into the wall of still-confused Immortals. Slowly, the Spartan/Thespian line advanced with relentless cadence. Thrust, step, thrust, step.
They rolled forward for at least fifty feet, the rear rankers drawing more blood with their lizard-stickers than the front rankers, who were pushing their opponents down with their shields as much as killing with their spears. As the Immortals receded before them, two hoplites standing back to back and fighting doggedly with blood-drenched swords came into view. Maron and Alpheus! Leonidas could hardly believe it.
The sight of the brothers still upright, still fighting, brought a spontaneous cheer and then a surge along the length of the Spartan line. They almost jogged the last five paces until they had enveloped the brothers, and then slowed again to recover their cohesion as Maron and Alpheus were sent to the rear.
This pause, slight as it was, gave the Immortals time to recover from their shock. The resistance stiffened noticeably, and within seconds all forward momentum came to a grinding halt. What followed was the most vicious fighting of the entire day. The Immortals refused to give up another inch of ground, and although their spears were shorter, they could still find their mark.
Leonidas was aware of men going down all along the line; he could feel it, as if each man of his advance guard were a part of himself, as if each casualty were a wound to his own body. He was bleeding now from several wounds, cuts to his arms and calves, bruises to his feet and thighs. Any
one of these would have been temporarily crippling in other circumstances. And each time one of his advance guard crumpled and fell, it was a new wound, draining his strength.
Leonidas noticed with horror that he was also slowly losing his eyesight. He could not longer see the enemy clearly. The colors were all blending together, going gray, while the sound of the battle was fading behind a louder, hideous roaring sound. He was completely soaked in something cold. Cold blood? Was he dying? Was he already dead?
He shook his head in disbelief. It was pouring rain, raining torrentially on a gale-force, southerly wind. Men on both sides were losing their footing as the rain saturated the already slippery morass under their feet. Men started to go down not from enemy action, but because their feet were swept out from under them as little, bloody rivers formed. At the far right, men screamed hysterically as they were swept off the edge of the cliff.
Leonidas shouted for the Spartans to drop to one knee with their hoplons in front of them. It was a posture most commonly used for withstanding arrows and javelins in positions where they could not advance, such as aboard ships. Now his concern was just to keep together. He wanted to avoid the risks of movement on this suddenly treacherous ground.
The wind was howling around the face of the mountain, and Leonidas spared a glance in the direction of Xerxes’ throne. It was abandoned, the pretty cushions and cloths flying away or tumbling down the slope, the footstool and tables overturned. Lightning flashed and thunder followed right behind. The next bolt was even closer, and men flinched involuntarily. But the Immortals had faded away.
The Greeks were huddled in the middle of an empty field.
The other allies were wild with jubilation. They were jumping up and down, clapping one another on the back, and singing paeans to the Gods. Some had formed lines, arms on each other’s shoulders, and were dancing despite the rain. They had not only survived the day, they had held the entire might of the Persian Empire to a draw. They had stopped the invincible Immortals in their tracks. The Pass was still in Greek hands, and the Gods were clearly on the Greek side. How else explain that Zeus himself with his thunderbolts had driven Xerxes from his viewing platform? How else explain that when the Greeks were in the moment of greatest danger, the rain and wind had forced the invincible Immortals to withdraw?
Leonidas was too tired to join in the rejoicing. He was far more concerned about bringing their wounded and dead off the field, and anxious that every man still alive was properly treated. Meander was hovering around him, anxious to bind up his wounds, but Leonidas wanted the names of the dead. “Where’s Alkander?” he demanded, abruptly noticing the absence of his closest, dearest, oldest friend. No sooner did he miss Alkander than he felt instantly and helplessly lost. He was a little boy again, in that horrible storm during the Phouxir―only Alkander wasn’t with him. He couldn’t survive without Alkander! It was a moment before he remembered he wasn’t supposed to survive.
Prokles pointed to the bloody field and growled, “He’s out there looking for Sperchias.”
Sperchias? That was almost as bad. He and Sperchias had been together on Kythera…just like Euryleon. Only now did it sink in.
“Sit down, Leo!” Prokles ordered. “Let Meander look after you. You’re losing a pint of your god-damned royal blood, and for all we know it’s the only pint left from Herakles.” As he spoke, Prokles pushed him into the imperfect shelter of his tent to at least get him out of the drenching rain.
As he sat, Leonidas caught sight of his hoplon. With horror, he registered that the beautiful bronze work was torn, bashed, punctured, and clogged with clotted human remains―a hideous wreck. Only one eye of the lion was recognizable for what it had been. The rest, once so lifelike and defiant, was just junk, beyond repair. Leonidas felt a rush of shame. How could he have been so irresponsible as to take a work of art into battle? Why hadn’t he left the shield at home for Pleistarchos? Men were mortal, meant to die, but art―art was meant to be immortal and transcendent. Something as beautiful as this shield should never have been subjected to this kind of violence! It should never have been violated by war. He wanted to weep for what was irretrievably lost to all mankind.
Prokles’ voice snapped him out of his spiraling grief. “You’ll need one of the spare hoplons,” he commented matter-of-factly, and before Leonidas could even answer, Oliantus ducked into the tent to announce, “Fourteen confirmed dead, sir. Five still missing. Twenty-two seriously injured, plus Eurytus and Aristodemos. A total of forty-three casualties.”
Leonidas stared at him. “At that rate, we have just five more days before we’re wiped out.” For the very first time since he had arrived at Thermopylae, Leonidas seriously wondered whether they could hold the Pass until the Spartan army arrived.
“Our casualties were disproportionately high today because we took the field against the Immortals. The other allied contingents have less severe casualties.”
“What about the Thespians?”
“I don’t have the exact numbers―”
“Get them. Or wait,” Leonidas tried to stand, but Prokles and Oliantus both shoved him back down. Prokles signaled for one of the helots to fetch Demophilus.
Meanwhile Oliantus continued, “The helots have managed to get a fire going in a long pit behind the hillock and have rigged up canvas covers to protect it from the rain. They are roasting four pigs. The Gods alone know where they found embers and dry wood. As soon as Meander gets you patched up, we should head over. The others won’t start without you.”
“Tell them not to stand on ceremony at a time like this. They can start without―”
“Precisely at a time like this,” Oliantus corrected, “we need to remember who we are and who you are, my lord. At no other time is a Spartan king more important to us than on the eve of battle.”
Leonidas bowed his head in silent acknowledgement, but then asked anxiously, “How badly wounded are Maron and Alpheus?”
This brought a smile to Oliantus’ tired face. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it. They swear the Twins appeared and stood on either side of them, fighting with them and protecting them with their divine shields. Alpheus lost an eye, and Maron’s ankles are bloated up like the fetlocks of a plow horse, but they aren’t going to die.”
Demophilus arrived, and Leonidas shook off Meander and Prokles to get to his feet. They gazed at each other silently; then Demophilus put his arms around Leonidas and murmured, “Thank you.”
“Whatever for?”
“Without you, they would have run; they would have let the Persians just flood across Boiotia without even trying to stop them. Now they know it can be done,” he continued, gesturing toward the men singing and dancing around other campfires. “Now I know it can be done. We can beat them!”
Leonidas was ashamed of his own moment of doubt. He nodded, but then asked, “What were your casualties today?”
“Close to seventy. And yours?”
“Half that,” Leonidas lied. No need to alarm the allies. “Will you join me for dinner? I understand there is roast pork.”
“No, I’ll eat with my own men. Arion asked if you need him to make any repairs to your shield.”
Leonidas looked at it, the sense of loss welling up again, but not quite so intensely as before. He shook his head. “Tell him his lion sacrificed its immortality to give this mortal another day.”
Demophilus nodded. They clasped hands briefly, and then Demophilus withdrew.
Leonidas turned to Prokles. “Please. Help Alkander find Sperchias. Bring him here.” He pointed to the corpse of Euryleon, which was already stretched out in his tent.
Prokles nodded and started in the direction of the wall.
Leonidas sat down again and let Meander finish bandaging his open wounds and firmly bind his swollen right wrist in linen. It felt much better that way. Then he pulled himself to his feet and hobbled out of his tent. The rain had eased to a gentle drizzle.
Dienekes met him as h
e approached. “We’ve just elected Maron and Alpheus the bravest fighters for today,” he announced.
That pleased Leonidas and he nodded, adding, “I understand the Twins were with them.”
“The Twins were with us all!” Diodoros remarked as he joined them, handing Leonidas a kothon brimming with wine.
Leonidas poured a libation, “To the Twins and Fair Helen!” Then he lifted his voice and took up the paean to Kastor. Around him the other Spartiates and even the helots joined in reverently. They were all acutely conscious of both their own mortality and the divine grace they had experienced this afternoon. As the song died on their lips, the wind and rain seemed to ease a little, and Leonidas was fighting back a new rush of grief as he registered that Euryleon would never lead another chorus, never teach another generation how to dance….
Leonidas’ eyes fell on Temenos. He looked utterly exhausted. His hair had come loose from its braids and hung about his sagging shoulders, one of which hung lower than the other. “That’s dislocated, Temenos,” Leonidas diagnosed at once. “You need a surgeon.”
“Oh!” Temenos looked down at his left shoulder, his shield shoulder. “Is that why it hurts so much? I just thought I was tired.”
Around him the others laughed, and one of the men offered, “Come here! I’ll pop it back for you.” Leonidas caught his breath and watched in amazement as the others pressed around to help Temenos. Weren’t these the same men who year after year heaped ridicule on him because he refused to take a Spartiate wife? Weren’t these the men who called him “helot lover” and told their sons not to stand for him or show him other gestures of respect?
Diodoros moved closer to ask Leonidas in a low voice, “Can we keep this up until the main army arrives?”
Today was the last day of the Karneia. Tomorrow the Spartan army would start marching north. If they held for just five more days…. Five more days like this? “We don’t have a choice,” Leonidas answered Diodoros, and continued toward the long, canvas-covered pit, in which a fire smoldered.
A Heroic King Page 54