A Heroic King

by Helena P. Schrader

  As he approached he looked around for Oliantus and signaled the quartermaster over to him. “What is the chief cook’s name?”

  “Eudios,” Oliantus answered at once.

  Leonidas smiled, thanked him, then raised his voice and called out, “Eudios!”

  The helot was giving instructions to some of the youths turning the spits on which the pigs were slowly roasting. His face and forearms were streaked with smoke. The hair around his face was wet with sweat rather than rain. His face was bright red. He didn’t hear Leonidas’ call, and did not realize the Spartan king was addressing him until other helots started gesturing, jostling his elbow, and pointing.

  The chief cook looked over, dumbfounded, then hastily wiped his hands on the grimy skirts of his chiton and tried to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the back of his forearm as he asked anxiously, “Is something wrong, my lord? We’re doing our best, but the wood was wet. I could cut you―”

  “Hush, man!” Leonidas ordered. “I came to thank you for getting such a good fire going. Dinner smells delicious. And, all of you,” Leonidas raised his voice, and his eyes sought the helots hovering in the background―the helots who had herded the sacrificial beasts and meat-on-the-hoof, the smiths and wheelwrights, the coopers, surgeon’s helpers, and assistant cooks―all the helots who kept the army moving, fed, and armed from the obscurity of the train. There were almost four hundred of them. Counting the attendants of the Spartiates, the helots outnumbered the Spartans more than two to one.

  “All of you!” Leonidas raised his voice to be heard even in the shadows, where many of the helots hovered uncertainly. “You did an outstanding job clearing the field today. It made our job easier―indeed, possible. Without you, we might not have succeeded today. So this is as much your victory as ours. We trust you to do the same tomorrow.”

  For a moment there was stunned silence. Helots weren’t used to getting public praise from anyone, much less a king. Then after a moment, one of the bolder youths risked calling out, “We’re almost out of room to dump ’em, sir. The bodies are stacked up right to the edge of the road.”

  “Seriously?” Leonidas asked, shocked.

  Several voices answered, all confirming the youth’s report.

  “Someone’s going to have to go down to the beach, then, and start shifting the bodies into the sea,” Oliantus muttered in Leonidas’ ear.

  Leonidas looked over his shoulder at his quartermaster; that was a revolting task. The men were exhausted, wet, and hungry. He didn’t even want to give the order.

  “Don’t the Persians honor their dead?” one of the helots asked. “Won’t they come and collect them?”

  Leonidas shook his head. “Apparently not. I saw them toss their wounded over the cliff ….”

  “Sit down, sir,” Eudios suggested. “I’ll bring you some crispy pork and fresh bread, and we’ll clear the beach later.”

  “First, a sacrifice for the Gods,” Leonidas reminded him, squinting to see into the darkness beyond the pit toward the pen with the sacrificial animals.

  “What do you want, my lord?” a voice asked from that direction.

  “A cock. Just a cock. Anything larger would be inappropriate, since this battle is far from won.”

  It was too dark to see properly. The fires across the Greek camp were dying down, and the sounds of merrymaking had long since given way to snores. It was too dark to distinguish the fatal wound, or even how much blood was his own and how much was the blood of his enemies, but it was not too dark to recognize him.

  When did you get to be so old? Leonidas asked Sperchias’ corpse. Do I look as old you? Gorgo never told me….

  He sank on to his heels and reached for Sperchias’ hand. It was limp and chillingly cold. He laid it gently on his friend’s chest.

  Was it really a quarter-century ago that they had fought side by side on Kythera? Sperchias had kept him sane just by sharing the horror, the self-doubts, the nervousness, and the grief. For an instant they were floating together in the gently undulating, aquamarine waters before the Kytheran coast, struggling helplessly with the senselessness of cruelty. He closed his eyes and heard Sperchias’ laughter as he teased Laodice out of a honey cake. But over the years that laughter had become rarer, the lines on his face deeper ….

  Leonidas reached out and traced with his thumb the vertical lines that split Chi’s high forehead. His skin was clammy, almost clay-like, and sent a shiver up Leonidas’ spine.

  Like Cassandra, Leonidas thought, Sperchias had foreseen much, but no one had heeded him. He had known the consequences of rejecting Persian demands. He, more than anyone, had saved that arrogant ass Zopyrus, who had died only a few yards away from him today. In death their blood had mingled like brothers―the eternal fraternity of fighting men, Achilles and Hektor.

  But Sperchias had been so much more than that. He had been willing to sacrifice himself to atone for the murdered ambassadors. He had been prepared to be slaughtered like a lamb, without a weapon in his hand. He had faced the prospect of being tortured, ridiculed, humiliated, unburied. That took a kind of courage Leonidas wasn’t sure he had. Yet his fellow citizens had never seen, understood, or valued Chi as he deserved. Chi had wanted nothing so much as to be a public servant, but the public had not wanted his service. At least Euryleon had found respect as a choral master, Leonidas thought, his eyes briefly shifting to focus on the other corpse. Euryleon had enjoyed a good marriage, a happy family life. Sperchias had not been so lucky. His wife had never appreciated him, and had sought another man’s bed as soon as Sperchias left for the Persian court. That was a hard fate.

  “He was living on borrowed time,” Alkander murmured at his shoulder.

  Leonidas started and looked up in alarm. Alkander was no different from Chi or Euryleon! He, too, had virtues far beyond the simple ones of a soldier. Alkander’s skill at coaxing the best out of young boys was far greater than his skill with a spear. He had no business being here!

  Leonidas pushed himself to his feet, groaning unconsciously at the aches in his thighs. “I have an urgent dispatch that you must take to Gorgo tomorrow,” he announced.

  Alkander shook his head. “No, Leo. You don’t, and I won’t.”

  They were face to face, only a couple feet apart. “Alkander, listen to me. We lost almost fifty men today. Thermopylae may hold until the main army comes up, but there won’t be many of us left. I want you to be one of them.”

  “And so do I―but not by running away.”

  “If I order you―”

  Alkander kept shaking his head. “I’m not a helot messenger boy, Leo. I’m not, because you made me go back to school and learn to be a Spartiate. You made me what I am, Leo. You have only yourself to blame for where we stand tonight.”

  “He’s right,” Prokles’ ruined voice sounded out of the darkness. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be counting my pay in some tavern in Sicily now.”

  “Is that where you’d rather be? I can―”

  “Stick it up your ass! I’m no more a messenger boy than Alkander. I’m here because I volunteered, and I’m here to fight.”*

  Leonidas looked from one friend to the other, then down at Sperchias and Euryleon lying side by side, thinking: “You won’t be alone for long. Whatever Hades holds, we’ll be sharing it together soon.”

  * Plutarch claimed that Leonidas tried to save the lives of some of the older men, but they “saw through him” and told him they were not heralds, but soldiers.

  CHAPTER 22

  CREATURES OF NIGHT

  LATE ON THE AFTERNOON OF THE next day, Xerxes pulled his troops back out through the West Gate, and an eerie calm descended over the Pass at Thermopylae. The Corinthians and Thebans had just deployed for their second turn ahead of the wall that day; abruptly the Persian emperor stood up, turned his back on the Pass, and walked away from his throne, growing shorter step by step as he descended the hill on the far side. There followed frantic horn signals and shouting. The troops fighting
for the Persian king turned and trampled one another in their haste to retreat.

  Helot goatherds, who had scaled up the high bluffs to get a view into the Persian camp and mustering ground, had reported earlier in the day that Xerxes had positioned Persian cavalry behind the deploying troops with the apparent task of “motivating” them. Once or twice the helot scouts reported that the cavalry pressed forward, effectively herding the subject troops through the West Gate and into the killing grounds. In short, the morale of Xerxes’ army left something to be desired.

  Greek morale, however, was also sagging. When Xerxes pulled his troops off the field on the second day, the Thebans and Corinthians did not pursue. Isanor sent a runner to Leonidas complaining, “The only dead the Persians left during their withdrawal were the men that got trampled underfoot by their comrades!”

  Leonidas, limping badly from a thigh wound, calmed the perioikoi commander. “A score of dead more or less makes no difference at this point in the slaughter. Persian casualties must already top ten thousand.”

  “It’s indicative of poor morale!” Isanor insisted indignantly.

  “Correct, and I am confident that the perioikoi would not have been so lax,” Leonidas assured him. “But the Thebans and Corinthians are amateur soldiers, and they’ve had enough. We’ve all killed too many men already.” Leonidas felt the throbbing in his spear arm and wrist as he spoke; he had no idea how many men he’d killed these past two days, but it felt like hundreds.

  Vultures had circled constantly throughout the day, and they now swooped down onto the field to start tearing at the fresh bodies left behind. Lesser scavengers―crows, flies, canine and feline strays―were in almost continuous control of the field, except where the fighting was ongoing. The sound of beasts snarling in defense of carrion had punctuated the night before, and surely would again tonight.

  The Theban commander pushed his way back through his troops and mounted the ramp, exhaustion evident in his every step. He addressed Leonidas. “Well, what now?” he wanted to know.

  Leonidas was watching the West Gate, where the last of the Persian forces were disappearing in unseemly haste. He shook his head. “I don’t know, but my guess is that the Persian king will try to buy us off.”

  “What do you mean?” the Theban frowned in confusion. “Negotiate?”

  “I think Xerxes has had enough fighting for today and will try to get his way with a bribe.”

  “A lot of good that’ll do him!” the loyal Isanor snorted, but the Theban looked alarmed. Leonidas could guess what he was thinking: if Xerxes offered the Spartans enough, they might abandon the others, and if the Spartans withdrew, the defense of Thermopylae would collapse. The Peloponnesians would make a dash back behind the Isthmus, and the remaining troops were too few to hold the Pass alone. In short, the road to Thebes would lie open to the Persians.

  Leonidas told the Theban, “Stand your men down. We’ll have time to deploy if they send in troops after all.” The Theban gladly passed this order to his own men and the Corinthians, while Leonidas told Isanor to let the perioikoi relax as well. He then dropped down on the edge of the wall with his feet dangling and waited. His ankles, like those of every hoplite here, were swollen and inflamed with the excessive strain. He also had some bad bruises on his toes and the backs of his feet and the painful thigh wound, but it was his wrist that caused him the most concern. He couldn’t afford a weak right wrist yet.

  After about a half hour, a flourish of trumpet signals announced a flashily-dressed herald brandishing a long white pennant. He tried to ride on to the field on a white horse, but his horse was having none of it. The stench and the sight of the vultures triggered instinctive fear that no amount of horsemanship or even brute force could overcome. The herald withdrew to return a few moments later on foot.

  Leonidas just waited, but word of the herald spread. One by one the other commanders joined Leonidas. Behind them came their officers and as many of their men as could squeeze on to the wall. Diodoros, Dienekes, Kalliteles, Oliantus, Alkander, and Prokles had to push their way through the crowd to reach their king. Leonidas reached up a hand, and Prokles and Dienekes together hauled him onto his feet.

  The Persian herald came within shouting distance. “I have a message for King Leonidas of Sparta!”

  “He’s listening!” Leonidas shouted back.

  “This is for his ears alone!”

  An uneasy stir swept the crowd, and men started to push and shove to see Leonidas and how he was reacting. Leonidas knew that if he went out onto the field and spoke to the Persian herald where no one could hear him, the allies would start to question what secret deal had been struck―no matter what he told them. Even if he took one or two men with him as witnesses, those not present would assume the worst of those who parlayed: they would suspect a deal had been cut to their own advantage and the detriment of the rest. Exhaustion was already wearing away at morale; tomorrow or the next day men would reach the point where they didn’t care about anything but rest, peace, and an end to this horror. They would then be willing to take any deal offered―and would assume that he was no different.

  Leonidas took a deep breath and called out so that not only the herald, but the troops around and behind him, could hear: “I have no secrets!”

  A rustle of approving grunts and nods from his own troops rewarded him.

  “The Great King sends a message from monarch to monarch, not to the rabble!” the herald protested.

  “The ‘rabble’ has stopped the Great King’s armies; it can hear his words.”

  The herald was clearly disconcerted. He seemed on the brink of breaking off the parlay and returning, but then he lifted his head and shouted again: “The Great King Xerxes, son of Darius, offers to King Leonidas, son of Anaxandridas, of Sparta the following: If he gives up this pointless resistance against the forces of Civilization and the true God Ahuramazda; if he takes the hand outstretched in friendship by his most gracious Majesty, the merciful and generous Great King; if he puts his arms in the service of His Magnificence, the Joy of Ahuramazda, joining the invincible multitude of a thousand nations; then Xerxes, King of Kings, will make Leonidas, son of Anaxandridas, King of all Greece.”

  This offer provoked a collective gasp from hundreds of Greek throats, although Prokles muttered, “I’ll bet Demaratus spews up his dinner when he hears this.”

  Leonidas spared Prokles a quick smile, then took a deep breath and called back as loudly as he could: “Tell your master that if he understood honor, he would not lust after what does not belongs to him. I, Leonidas of Sparta, would rather die for the freedom of Greece than rule it in subjugation!”*

  The excited response among the men on the wall drowned out the answer of the herald. Leonidas thought the man said something, but he wasn’t sure, much less able to decipher it over the noise around him. When the herald turned his back on the Greeks and started toward the West Gate, the crowd on the wall started cheering and hooting. Then someone started to chant: “Le – o – ni – das! Le – o – ni – das!”

  “Get me out of here!” Leonidas ordered in a low voice to his countrymen, and they obligingly cleared a way through the crowd for him.

  The night was warm and dry, the moon just a day past full. If all had gone as planned, there had been an Assembly this morning that declared a fifteen-year call-up and approved the deployment to Thermopylae of all five lochagos at their maximum strength of a thousand each. If all had gone as planned, five thousand Spartiates, with their support troops and an additional thousand perioikoi, had started marching north by noon. Other cities that had held back because of the Olympic peace would not be far behind. In six to seven days, the Pass would be so full of defenders that they would have a hard time finding a place to camp and fresh water for them all. Once they were here, Xerxes would have no means of dislodging them. His only hope would be to break through the Greek fleet and outflank the Pass by sea.

  The news from Artemisium was also good. The Greek fleet h
ad sailed out yesterday afternoon to do battle. The Persians, taken by surprise by such audacity on the part of a fleet much smaller than their own, had launched their triremes at a leisurely pace. The Greeks had managed to capture or sink a number of these ships before Persian numbers started to overwhelm them. They then pulled into a defensive circle with their sterns together and their rams pointing outward at the circling Persians. The Persians again made the mistake of believing the Greeks intimidated and cowed. For the second time on the same afternoon, they were taken by surprise. At a signal from Eurybiades, the Greek fleet exploded outward, each trireme choosing a different target. In the ensuing fighting, which lasted until darkness, the Greeks sank or captured over a score of Persian ships for no losses of their own.

  Leonidas invited the Athenian captain of the penteconter sent with this news to join him for a meal, giving the Athenian the “second portion” due to Leonidas as king, then sent the Athenian back to Eurybiades and Themistocles with the news of the second day at Thermopylae. Although Leonidas made no mention of Xerxes’ offer of the crown of “all Greece,” other members of the captain’s crew heard the story from the still excited allies.

  After the Athenian departed, Leonidas limped over to the field hospital that had been set up beyond the East Gate. Spartan casualties had been much fewer today than the day before, just five killed and seven wounded. The perioikoi had lost twenty men, however, so he visited them first, then stopped to speak to every wounded Spartiate, especially Alpheus and Maron. Alpheus had a wad of wool in his eye socket and a patch over it; he claimed he was not in pain. Maron insisted, less convincingly, that his ankles were much better. “I’ll be back on the field tomorrow,” he promised.

  “That’s for the surgeon to decide,” Leonidas answered, and was about to say something more when Meander burst into the little field hospital breathlessly.