The Thespians had chosen a lovely marble frieze showing the Muses weeping around a corpse on which the names of all seven hundred men were inscribed. But it was the Spartan monuments that aroused the most comment.
“Have you seen what the Spartan monument says?” one of the Athenians asked his fellows in a low, scandalized voice.
“Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to her laws, we lie,” Themistocles quoted easily.
“That sounds more like a complaint than praise!” the first Athenian remarked.
“What is it supposed to mean? Do they have a law against retreating?” another asked back.
“Hardly. They retreated from Athens four times in my lifetime alone!” Themistocles cut short the stupid speculation. “This refers to the law that says Spartan guardsmen never abandon their king in battle. Only Leonidas could have given the order to retreat. When he decided to stay and die, the three hundred had no choice but to stay with him. That is why there is a separate monument to Leonidas. To him goes the credit for the decision to fight here, with other Greeks, rather than cower behind the Isthmus. And to him goes the credit for remaining here, and covering the retreat of the others at the cost of his own life – and that of his companions. It was a noble thing to do,” Themistocles conceded, nodding with satisfaction.
Themistocles had liked Leonidas, and he was also glad the Spartan king was out of the way. Leonidas would undoubtedly have challenged Athenian dominance of the coalition, insisted on putting forward his own ideas, and pursued Lacedaemonian interests. In short, he would have stood in Athens’ way. Even his admiral, Eurybiades, had proved far more troublesome and independent-thinking than Themistocles had expected – or appreciated. Yes, things were much better the way they were, with Leonidas a dead hero rather than a living leader.
“The Spartans made the wrong choice,” young Kimon declared, shaking Themistocles from his thoughts.
“What do you mean?” Themistocles demanded irritably.
“The oracle gave the Spartans a choice: their city or their king. The Spartans, who pride themselves on building their monuments in flesh, should have valued their finest soldiers more than their pedestrian public buildings and old-fashioned monuments. You would have thought they would have scorned the material Sparta for the spiritual one: the Sparta embodied by Leonidas.”
Themistocles found Kimon’s admiration for the Spartan king a bit excessive. He snorted and remarked, “Yes, well, that’s what comes of so much Spartan virtue.” He nodded his head in the direction of the marble lion lying on his side, pierced by a score of bronze arrows. “Meanwhile, we have to deal with men of a different caliber altogether.” He nodded toward Pausanias, who was making an ostentatious display of sacrificing at the monument to Leonidas.
Kimon nodded. “You can tell a great deal about a man by his followers. Leonidas’ friends were good, honest men; Pausanias’ are sycophants. Leonidas’ simplicity of speech and dress were not an affectation, but incarnated Spartan reverence for emotional honesty, intellectual integrity, moral incorruptibility, and humility.”
“His example will live on,” Themistocles promised patronizingly.
“Perhaps, but how long before nothing is left but the notion of death rather than retreat―regardless of circumstances? How long before senseless sacrifice becomes a sacred code that no man dares defy? How long before suicide is raised to a virtue―if only it is done in the name of some larger cause? Leonidas was not an idiot who mindlessly obeyed orders, nor was he a simpleton who equated senseless death with courage. Rather, he was a man who loved and understood freedom as only a Spartan can―not as a license to self-indulgence, but as an opportunity to be greater than one’s self.”
HISTORICAL NOTE
THE HISTORICAL RECORD FOR THE PERIOD of Leonidas’ life covered in this novel is notably more complete than that for the first two books in this trilogy. The assassination of the Persian ambassadors, the Battle of Marathon and Sparta’s role in it, the suicide of Cleomenes I, the dispatch of two Spartan sacrificial envoys to Persia, Leonidas’ election to command the combined Greek land forces and the appointment of Eurybiades to command the combined Greek naval forces in 480, and, of course, the Battle of Thermopylae, are all recorded historical events. (Readers familiar with Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire may be astonished to learn that there is not a trace of historical evidence for the more than twenty wars he describes Sparta fighting against her neighbors during the reign of Leonidas. Sparta was, in fact, at peace with all her neighbors, including Argos, for the entire decade of Leonidas’ reign.) Last but not least, almost all the quotes attributed to Leonidas come from this period of his life and provide substantial insight into his personality.
Likewise, four of the key events involving Gorgo―the deciphering of Demaratus’ message, her rebuff of an importunate admirer with reference to “not being able to play even a female role,” her remarks about Spartan men and women, and her leave-taking from Leonidas―are recorded in history.
Based on this skeleton of facts, I have developed the substance of this novel. The novel weaves a logical story out of the isolated facts, but it is also an interpretation of the known facts. Furthermore, the interpretation is one based on knowledge of Spartan history before and after Leonidas. Given the sharp contrasts between archaic Sparta, with its international orientation and artistic flowering, and classical Sparta, with its declining population and xenophobia, I have consciously made Leonidas’ death a turning point in Spartan history. My Leonidas is conceived as the incarnation and advocate of Sparta’s archaic traditions and virtues; his domestic opponents, including his twin brother (completely unfairly and without historical basis, but for the sake of literary effect), foreshadow the degeneration of Sparta into a bigoted and militaristic state.
This interpretation is not arbitrary. There are a number of indications in the historical record that give credence to my thesis that Leonidas was well traveled and open-minded. First and foremost is the fact that Leonidas was elected commander of all Greek land forces by the independent representatives of all Greek states that chose to defy Persia in 481. This was not merely an acknowledgement of Sparta’s military primacy. Three years later, the same cities rejected his nephew Pausanias, who had just won the battle of Plataea, and his co-monarch Leotychidas, who had commanded the Spartan forces at another victory, Mycale.
The sacrifice of the Thespians at Thermopylae, which represented a much higher―indeed devastating―loss compared to population size than the sacrifice of the three hundred Spartans, is likewise best explained in terms of personal loyalty to Leonidas. Thespiae had no alliance or other form of affinity with Sparta. It was not any more threatened than were other city-states in Boiotia. Thespiae did, however, demonstrate after Thermopylae a powerful ethos of “victory or death”―as was notably demonstrated at the Battle of Delium during the Peloponnesian War.
Other historical events too often ignored or viewed only in isolation have contributed to my interpretation of Leonidas as well. Key among these is the Spartan response to Marathon. A great deal has been written and speculated about Sparta’s curious delay in responding to the Athenian plea for aid. Too little attention has been paid to the fact that what amounted to the entire active Spartan army (two thousand men) marched north in 490 without a king in command. Certainly no king is named. At the time, this was very much against Spartan tradition and requires an explanation. Speculation about helot revolts (for which there is only the barest of inferential evidence) does not explain this fact. A domestic leadership crisis (Cleomenes was either still in Arkadia or already raving mad, and Leotychidas was in exile) would explain both the delay in responding and the eventual dispatch of an active army without a king in command. Leonidas, an Agiad prince, who was by this time a mature man and experienced in war and would shortly afterward became king, is the most likely candidate as Sparta’s commander.
This in turn would explain how Leonidas won the respect and trust of Ath
ens and Plataea. The Athenian leadership would have been very frustrated by Sparta’s refusal to respond immediately, but they would have been thankful to the commander who turned up―ahead of expectations―after marching an army 120 miles in less than three days. Furthermore, if Leonidas had commanded the troops Sparta sent to Marathon, it would explain why ten years later he was obsessed with getting to Thermopylae in time―even if he had only an advance guard of three hundred men.
Insinuations that Leonidas played a part in his half-brother’s death are almost unworthy of comment. There is not a shred of evidence to support the thesis beyond the naked fact that Leonidas succeeded his brother. But he could have done that at any time after Dorieus’ departure from Sparta. Why, if Leonidas was a power-hungry man capable of fratricide, did he serve his half-brother loyally for thirty years before suddenly deciding to murder him? And where was Gorgo while her husband killed her father? Are we to assume that she suddenly turned patricidal? Or that she kept her mouth shut? Gorgo? Ancient historians blamed Cleomenes’ madness on either a curse of the Gods or excessive drinking. Modern historians ought to be familiar enough with paranoid schizophrenia to realize that Cleomenes’ behavior―including his self-mutilation―is completely consistent with this serious mental illness.
There is no evidence that Leonidas’ ascension was challenged by his other brother, his twin Cleombrotus. The rivalry between the brothers is an invention of my own for literary purposes. That said, we do have a curious quote attributed to Leonidas that inspired my interpretation. According to Plutarch, “When someone said to him: ‘Except for being king, you are not at all superior to us,’ Leonidas, son of Anaxandridas and brother of Cleomenes, replied: ‘But were I not better than you, I should not be king’” (Plutarch, Sayings of Spartans, 225). For a man who had not been heir apparent to his father and had gone through the agoge, it seems unlikely that Leonidas was referring to his royal blood alone. I think the response suggests confidence that he had proved himself superior to others. That, in turn, hints at some kind of a domestic power struggle. By making Leonidas a twin who had to convince the Spartan Assembly that he is the rightful king, I do justice to this exchange. My Leonidas is king not just by virtue of his bloodlines (Cleombrotus has the same bloodlines), but because he has demonstrated superior capabilities that induced his fellow citizens to raise him up above his twin.
Tellingly, another quote attributed to Leonidas is his refusal to accept the crown of “all Greece” from Xerxes with the argument: “If you knew what is honorable in life, you would avoid lusting after what belongs to others.” This response does not suit the kind of man who would have killed for the throne―most especially not a man who would kill his own brother and father-in-law for the throne. If Leonidas had been ambitious and greedy (like Pausanias or Lysander after him), he would have accepted Xerxes’ offer! Certainly his answer underlines the fact that he believed himself entitled to the Agiad throne―not something he would have felt if he had stolen it, by murder or otherwise. I believe a combination of legitimacy through birth and popular acclaim based on his achievements fits best with the known record of Leonidas.
There is no historical basis for the smallpox epidemic I describe. However, there was apparently a considerable delay between the murder of the Persian ambassadors and Sparta’s decision to send two men to Persia as human sacrifices. I felt this delay could best be explained by some kind of catastrophe that could only be interpreted as divine displeasure. An epidemic had the virtue of being drawn out―and so, in contrast to an earthquake or flood, it would likely lead the Spartans to believe their envoys’ offer to the Gods would still be relevant by the time they reached Susa. The names of the Spartan envoys are recorded, as are the verbal exchanges between them and the Persian satrap Hydarnes and with Xerxes himself.
Although not explicit in the historical record, it also seemed logical that if envoys went to the Persian court, they would encounter Demaratus there―and thereby become the means of bringing Demaratus’ message back to Sparta. The delivery of that message, scratched on the wooden back of a folding wax writing tablet, is described in Herodotus (7:239). Herodotus states that at first no one could make sense of the blank tablets, until Gorgo suggested that the message was hidden under the wax. That she was present when the significance of the tablet was being discussed reinforces my interpretation of Gorgo as a partner to Leonidas, not just his brood mare.
Eurybiades is also a historical figure. He really did have command of Sparta’s small contingent of ships (twelve at Artemisium and twenty at Salamis), as well as being appointed commander of the combined fleet of ships fighting the Persians in 480-479 BC. He was not personally elected as was Leonidas, but the allies refused Athenian leadership of their fleet―despite the fact that Athens provided by far the largest number of ships (nearly two hundred).
The allies specifically asked Sparta to provide a naval commander. This is highly significant, because it suggests that at this time Sparta was considered a naval power capable of providing competent leadership at sea. It is important to remember that Athens was not a significant sea power in the sixth century BC, and it did not build its massive fleet until the discovery of silver in Laurium in 483 BC. In short, in 480, Athens was a parvenu naval power. The naval powers of the sixth century had been Corinth and Aegina. They preferred Spartan command to Athenian command, probably out of deep-seated suspicion of their trade rival Athens, but they would not have accepted Spartan naval leadership if Sparta had been perceived as utterly incompetent and incapable. This is what led me to hypothesize a Spartan fleet-building policy under Leonidas.
Except for his role at Artemisium and Salamis, Eurybiades appears to play no role in history. It is important that he was Spartiate, which supports my thesis that under Leonidas, if not before, there were opportunities for Spartiates to gain experience in naval warfare. The fact that he was replaced as naval commander by Leotychidas the following year further suggests that at least briefly, in the post-Salamis era, naval command attained exceptional prestige. Then again, Leotychidas never distinguished himself with military valor, and so he may simply have preferred to face the Persians at sea, where the bulk of the fighting inevitably fell to the far more numerous Athenians and other allies, than to face the Persians on land, where he would be expected (but unable) to live up to the reputation of Leonidas.
The other reforms I have attributed to Leonidas tie in with this hypothesized naval policy. Triremes required oarsmen, and rowing a warship is notoriously back-breaking, tedious, stinking work. It was so unpleasant that it was seen as punishment in later centuries, when criminals would be condemned to “the galleys.” The image of slaves chained to the oar-banks is one we carry around with us from films like Ben-Hur. In fact, however, in the ancient world, particularly in ancient Greece, the crews of warships were predominantly citizens. This was because no city could afford to entrust the maneuverability and speed of their fighting ships to anyone who did not have a stake in the outcome of an engagement.
This clearly raised a problem for Sparta. We know that Sparta’s population was in sharp decline in the period after Thermopylae, probably due to a combination of a devastating earthquake in 465 BC and attrition in the brutal war with Athens that began in 459. Although Spartiates commanded ships and fleets during this war, eventually defeating Athens in the naval battle of Aegospotami in 405 BC, Spartiates did not man the oars of Lacedaemon’s (eventually victorious) ships.
The most probable source of competent seamen was the perioikoi residents of Lacedaemon, many of whom were probably merchants and could have had a seafaring tradition going back centuries. Perioikoi towns, unlike landlocked Sparta, were often located on the coast (Epidauros Limera, Boiai, Kardamyle, Asine, Pylos, and, of course, Gytheon, to name only a few). On the other hand, perioikoi hoplites were an important component of Lacedaemonian land armies. The perioikoi element equaled that of the Spartiates at Plataea. This suggests that the perioikoi elite did not greatly outnumber the Spart
iates themselves. However, there might have been poorer perioikoi who, like Athens’ poorer citizens, manned the Lacedaemonian fleet. Given the fact that Sparta’s fleet never reached the dimensions of Athens’, it is conceivable that all manpower for the Lacedaemonian fleet came from the perioikoi. This would explain the trustworthiness of the crews, and would fit the notion that ancient Greek warships were manned by free men.
But we also know that revolutions do not occur when people are generally content or when they are most oppressed and exploited. On the contrary, revolutions or uprisings are most likely to occur when a long period of rising living standards and political expectations is abruptly ended by economic or political crisis. No more than fifteen years (and possibly as early as ten years) after Leonidas’ death, the only documented helot revolt in Spartan history occurred. It occurred before the start of the Peloponnesian War, and so cannot be attributed to the impact of that conflict. The timing of that revolt needs to be explained. While the confusion and loss of Spartiate life caused by the Great Earthquake might have been the opportunity that the helots seized, their dissatisfaction―and the period of rising living standards and expectations that had been sharply disappointed―had to predate it.
My hypothesis is that during Cleomenes’ reign the helots had enjoyed a slow but steady increase in living standards, which accelerated under Leonidas and was combined with rising political expectations. We know that later in Sparta’s history, various popular leaders played with schemes to allow some helots to earn or buy their freedom. Some of these measures were eventually implemented. There is nothing inherently absurd about Leonidas entertaining such notions. Any Spartan politician with the foresight to appreciate naval power might also have looked to the most numerous class in the Lacedaemonian population for manpower. If Leonidas had introduced laws that opened opportunities for helots to earn their freedom, he would almost certainly have enjoyed huge popularity among the helots―which would in turn explain how a Spartan army could risk mobilizing her entire citizen population and deploying it outside of Lacedaemon, with a force of thirty-five thousand helots in attendance as light troops, during the Plataean campaign. If these thirty-five thousand helots had been in any way untrustworthy, they would have posed a greater risk than the Persians themselves, and they would never have been taken out of Lacedaemon.
A Heroic King Page 61