Gates of Fire

by Steven Pressfield

  What was he doing in the line? Alexandras' voice, cracking with grief, demanded of the gathered warriors. He's not supposed to be there!

  The boy barked for water. Bearer! he shouted, and shouted again. He tore his own tunic and, doubling the linen, pressed it as a dressing against his fallen friend's air-sucking chest. Why don't you bind him? his youth's voice cried to the encircled, gravely watching men. He's dying!

  Can't you see he's dying? He bellowed again for water, but none came. The men knew why, and now, watching, it became clear to Alexandras too, as it was already to Meriones.

  I've got one foot in the ferry, little old nephew, the ancient fighter's leaking air pipes managed to croak.

  Life was ebbing fast from the warrior's eyes. He was, as I said, not a Spartan but a Potidaean, an officer in his own country, taken captive long years past and never permitted to see his home again. With an effort that was pitiful to behold, Meriones summoned strength to lift one hand, black with blood, and placed it gently upon the boy's. Their parts reversed, the dying man comforted the living youth.

  No happier death than this, his leaking lungs wheezed.

  You will go home, Alexandras vowed. By all the gods, I will carry your bones myself.

  Olympieus knelt now too, taking his squire's hand in his own. Name your wish, old friend. The Spartans will bear you there.

  The old man tried to speak but the pipes of his throat would not obey him. He struggled weakly to elevate his head; Alexandras restrained him, then gently cradled the veteran's neck and lifted it. Meriones' eyes glanced to the front and the sides where, amid the churned and liquid turf, the scarlet cloaks of other fallen warriors could be seen, each surrounded by a knot of comrades and brothers-in-arms. Then, with an effort which seemed to consume all his remaining substance, he spoke:

  Where these lie, plant me there. Here is my home. I ask none better.

  Olympieus swore it. Alexandras, kissing Meriones' forehead, seconded the vow.

  A dark peace seemed to settle upon the man's eyes. A moment passed. Then Alexandras lifted his own clear pure tenor in the Hero's Farewell;

  That daimon which God breathed into me at birth I with glad heart return now to Him.

  In victory Dekton brought to Leonidas the rooster which would be sacrificed as thank-offering to Zeus and Nike. The boy himself was flushed with the triumph; his hands shook violently, wishing they had been permitted to hold a shield and spear and stand in the line of battle.

  For my own part I could not stop staring about at the faces of the warriors I had known and watched in drill and training but until now had never looked upon in the blood and horror of battle. Their stature in my mind, already elevated beyond the men of any other city I had known, now rose close to that of heroes and demigods. I had witnessed the mere sight of them utterly rout the not-unvaliant Antirhioni-ans, fighting before their own walls in defense of their homes and families, and overcome within minutes the crack troops of the Syrakusans and their mercenaries, trained and equipped by the tyrant Gelon's limitless gold.

  Nowhere in all the field had these Spartans faltered. Now even in the hot blood aftermath their discipline maintained them chaste and noble, above all vaunting and boasting. They did not strip the bodies of the slain, as the soldiers of any other city would eagerly and gloatingly do, nor did they erect trophies of vainglory and conceit from the arms of the vanquished. Their austere thank-offering was a single cock, worth less than an obol, not because they disrespected the gods, but because they held them in awe and deemed it dishonorable to overexpress their mortal joy in this triumph that heaven had granted them.

  I watched Dienekes, re-forming the ranks of his platoon, listing their losses and summoning aid for the wounded, the traumatiai. The Spartans have a term for that state of mind which must at all costs be shunned in battle. They call it katalepsis, possession, meaning that derangement of the senses that comes when terror or anger usurps dominion of the mind.

  This, I realized now watching Dienekes rally and tend to his men, was the role of the officer: to prevent those under his command, at all stages of battle-before, during and after-from becoming possessed. To fire their valor when it flagged and rein in their fury when it threatened to take them out of hand. That was Dienekes' job. That was why he wore the trans verse-crested helmet of an officer.

  His was not, I could see now, the heroism of an Achilles. He was not a superman who waded invulnerably into the slaughter, single-handedly slaying the foe by myriads. He was just a man doing a job. A job whose primary attribute was self-restraint and self-composure, not for his own sake, but for those whom he led by his example. A job whose objective could be boiled down to the single understatement, as he did at the Hot Gates on the morning he died, of performing the commonplace under uncommonplace conditions.

  The men were collecting their tickets now. These, to which I alluded earlier, are the woodentwig bracelets tied with twine which each man makes for himself before battle, to identify his corpse if necessary in the aftermath. A man writes or scratches his name twice, once on each end of the twig, then breaks it down the middle. The blood half he ties with string around his left wrist and wears with him into battle; the wine half stays behind in a basket maintained with the tram in the rear. The halves are broken off jaggedly on purpose, so that even if the blood name were effaced or defiled in some other way, its twin would still fit in an unequivocally recognizable manner. When the battle is over, each man retrieves his ticket. Those remaining unclaimed in the basket number and identify the slain.

  When the men heard their names called and came forward to take their tickets, they could not stop their limbs from quaking. All up and down the line, one beheld warriors clustering in groups of twos and threes as the terror they had managed to hold at bay throughout the battle now slipped its bonds and surged upon them, overwhelming their hearts. Clasping their comrades by the hand, they knelt, not from reverence alone, though that element was abundant, but because the strength had suddenly fled from their knees, which could no longer support them. Many wept, others shuddered violently. This was not regarded as effeminate, but termed in the Doric idiom hesma phobou, purging or fear-shedding.

  Leonidas strode among the men, letting all see that their king lived and moved unwounded. The men gulped greedily their ration of strong, heavy wine and made no shame to drink water as well and plenty of it. The wine went down fast and produced no effect whatever. Some of the men tried to dress their hair, as if thereby to induce a return to normalcy. But their hands trembled so badly they could not do it. Others would chuckle knowingly at the sight, the veteran warriors who knew better than to try; it was impossible to make the limbs behave, and the frustrated groomers would chuckle back, a dark laughter from hell. When the tickets had all found their mates and been reclaimed by their owners, those pieces bereft within the basket identified the men who had been killed or were too badly wounded to come forward. These latter were claimed by brothers and friends, fathers and sons and lovers. Sometimes a man would take his own ticket, then another, and sometimes a third besides, weeping as he accepted them. Many returned to the basket, just to look in. In this way they could perceive the numbers of the lost.

  This day it was twenty-eight.

  His Majesty may set this number in comparison alongside the thousands slain in greater battles and perhaps judge it insignificant. But it seemed like decimation now.

  There was a stir, and Leonidas emerged into view along the front of the assembled warriors.

  Have you knelt? He moved down the line, not declaiming like some proud monarch seeking satisfaction from the sound of his own voice, but speaking softly like a comrade, touching each man's elbow, embracing some, placing an arm around others, speaking to each warrior man-toman, Peer-to-Peer, with no kingly condescension. Assemble, the word spread by murmur without needing to be spoken.

  Does every man have the halves of his ticket? Have your hands stopped shaking enough to fit them together? He laughed and the men l
aughed with him. They loved him.

  The victors formed up in no particular order, wounded and unwounded, plus squires and helots.

  They cleared a space for the king, those in front kneeling to allow their comrades behind to see and hear, while Leonidas himself strode informally up and down the line, presenting himself so that his voice would carry and his face be seen by all.

  The battle priest, Olympieus in this case, held the basket up before the king. Leonidas took out each unclaimed ticket and read the name. He offered no eulogy. No word was spoken but the name. Among the Spartans, this alone is considered the purest form of consecration.

  Alkamenes. Damon. Antalkides. Lysandros. On down the list.

  The bodies, already retrieved by their squires from the field, would be cleansed and oiled; prayers would be offered and sacrifices made. Each of the fallen would be shrouded in his own cloak or that of a friend and interred here upon the site, beside his mates, beneath a mound of honor. Shield, sword, spear and armor alone would be borne home by his comrades, unless the omens declared it more honorable for his corpse to be restored and interred in Lakedaemon.

  Leonidas now held up his own bracelet and slid the twin halves together into place. Brothers and allies, I salute you. Gather, friends, and hear the words of my heart.

  He paused for a moment, sober and solemn.

  Then, when all stood silent, he spoke:

  When a man seats before his eyes the bronze face of his helmet and steps off from the line of departure, he divides himself, as he divides his 'ticket,' in two parts. One part he leaves behind.

  That part which takes delight in his children, which lifts his voice in the chorus, which clasps his wife to him in the sweet darkness of their bed.

  That half of him, the best part, a man sets aside and leaves behind. He banishes from his heart all feelings of tenderness and mercy, all compassion and kindness, all thought or concept of the enemy as a man, a human being like himself. He marches into battle bearing only the second portion of himself, the baser measure, that half which knows slaughter and butchery and turns the blind eye to quarter. He could not fight at all if he did not do this.

  The men listened, silent and solemn. Leonidas at that time was fifty-five years old. He had fought in more than two score battles, since he was twenty; wounds as ancient as thirty years stood forth, lurid upon his shoulders and calves, on his neck and across his steel-colored beard.

  Then this man returns, alive, out of the slaughter. He hears his name called and comes forward to take his ticket. He reclaims that part of himself which he had earlier set aside.

  This is a holy moment. A sacramental moment. A moment in which a man feels the gods as close as his own breath.

  What unknowable mercy has spared us this day? What clemency of the divine has turned the enemy's spear one handbreadth from our throat and driven it fatally into the breast of the beloved comrade at our side? Why are we still here above the earth, we who are no better, no braver, who reverenced heaven no more than these our brothers whom the gods have dispatched to hell?

  When a man joins the two pieces of his ticket and sees them weld in union together, he feels that part of him, the part that knows love and mercy and compassion, come flooding back over him. This is what unstrings his knees.

  What else can a man feel at that moment than the most grave and profound thanksgiving to the gods who, for reasons unknowable, have spared his life this day? Tomorrow their whim may alter. Next week, next year. But this day the sun still shines upon him, he feels its warmth upon his shoulders, he beholds about him the faces of his comrades whom he loves and he rejoices in their deliverance and his own.

  Leonidas paused now, in the center of the space left open for him by the troops.

  I have ordered pursuit of the foe ceased, I have commanded an end to the slaughter of these whom today we called our enemies. Let them return to their homes. Let them embrace their wives and children. Let them, like us, weep tears of salvation and burn thank-offerings to the gods.

  Let no one of us forget or misapprehend the reason we fought other Greeks here today. Not to conquer or enslave them, our brothers, but to make them allies against a greater enemy. By persuasion, we hoped. By coercion, in the event.

  But no matter, they are our allies now and we will treat them as such from this moment.

  The Persian!

  Suddenly Leonidas' voice rose, booming with such explosive emotion that those closest to him started from its sudden power. The Persian is why we fought here today. His presence loomed, invisible, over the battlefield. He is why these tickets lie bereft in this basket. Why twenty-eight of the noblest men of the city will never again behold the beauty of her hills or dance again to her sweet music. I know many of you think I am half-cracked, I and Kleomenes the king before me.

  Laughter from the men. I hear the whispers, and sometimes they're not such whispers. More laughter. Leonidas hears voices the rest of us don't. He takes chances with his life in an unkingly manner and prepares for war against an enemy he has never seen and who many say will never come. All this is true…

  The men laughed again. But hear this and never forget it: the Persian will come. He will come in numbers dwarfing those he sent four years ago when the Athenians and Platae-ans defeated him so gloriously on the plain of Marathon. He will come tenfold, a hundredfold, mightier. And he will come soon.

  Leonidas paused again, the heat in his breast making his face flush and his eyes bum with fever and conviction.

  Listen to me, brothers. The Persian is not a king as Kleomenes was to us or as I am to you now.

  He does not take his place with shield and spear amid the manslaughter, but looks on, safe, from a distance, atop a hill, upon a golden throne. Murmured jeers rose from the men's throats as Leonidas spoke this. His comrades are not Peers and Equals, free to speak their minds before him without fear, but slaves and chattel. Each man, even the noblest, is deemed not an equal before God, but the King's property, counted no more than a goat or a pig, and driven into battle not by love of nation or liberty, but by the lash of other slaves' whips.

  This King has tasted defeat at the Hellenes' hands, and it is bitter to his vanity. He comes now to revenge himself, but he comes not as a man worthy of respect, but as a spoiled and petulant child, in its tantrum when a toy is snatched from it by a playmate. I spit on this King's crown. I wipe my ass on his throne, which is the seat of a slave and which seeks nothing more noble than to make all other men slaves.

  Everything I have done as king and everything Kle-omenes has performed before me, every enemy courted, every confederation forged, every weak-kneed ally brought to heel, has been for this single event: the day when Darius, or one of his sons, returns to Hellas to pay us out.

  Leonidas lifted now the basket which held the tickets of the fallen.

  That is why these, better men than ourselves, gave their lives here today, why they consecrated this earth with their heroes blood. This is the meaning of their sacrifice. They have dumped their guts not in this piss-puddle war we fought today, but in the first of many battles in the greater war which God in heaven and all of you in your hearts know is coming. These brothers are heroes of that war, which will be the gravest and most calamitous in history.

  On that day, and Leonidas gestured out over the gulf, to Antirhion below and Rhion across the channel, on that day when the Persian brings his multitudes against us via this strait, he will find not clear passage and paid-for friends, but enemies united and implacable, Hellene allies who will sally to meet him from both shores. And if he chooses some other route, if his spies report what awaits him here and he elects another passage, some other site of battle where land and sea play to our greater advantage, it will be because of what we did today, because of the sacrifice of these our brothers whose bodies we inter now within a hero's grave.

  Therefore I have not waited for the Syrakusans and the Antirhionians, our enemies this day, to send their heralds to us as is customary to entre
at our permission to retrieve the bodies of their slain. I have dispatched our runners to them first, offering them truce without rancor, with generosity. Let our new allies reclaim unprofaned the armor of their fallen, let them recover undefiled the bodies of their husbands and sons.

  Let those we spared this day stand beside us in line of battle on that day when we teach the Persian once and for all what valor free men can bring to bear against slaves, no matter how vast their numbers or how fiercely they are driven on by their child-king's whip.

  Book Three

  Rooster

  Chapter Twelve

  At this point in the recounting of the tale, an unfortunate incident occurred regarding the Greek Xeones. A subordinate of the Royal Surgeon, during the ongoing attendance upon the captive's wounds, unwittingly informed the fellow of the fate of Leonidas, the Spartan king and commander at Thermopylae, after the battle at the Hot Gates, and what sacrilege, to the Greek's eyest His Majesty's troops had performed upon the corpse after it was recovered from the heaps of the dead following the slaughter. The prisoner had hitherto been in ignorance of this.