Spartans at the Gates

by Noble Smith

  He paused to look at the hulks of at least fifty vessels, all in various phases of construction, sitting inside the open boat sheds. Some were just the beginnings of ships—the keels laid from aft to bow. And there were completed hulls that had yet to be planked, their wooden rib cages exposed to the sun. Near the water’s edge, perched on log rollers, was a nearly finished triple-decker, already rigged with ropes and sails. He saw men painting the entire hull with dark pitch, staining the ship black like all the others out in the bay.

  “It’ll be a backbreaker for you if they take you on,” said a voice from behind.

  Nikias turned and saw a cheery man of middle age with a wavy brown beard, kindly eyes, and cheeks that stuck out like apples when he smiled. Over his stout body he wore a leather apron covered with pockets out of which poked the handles of his woodworking tools.

  “You’ll be assigned a bench on the lowest deck,” continued the shipwright. “It’s hot and it stinks down there. But you look like a strong lad. You’ll work your way up fast.”

  Nikias realized that the carpenter assumed he had come from the country looking for work as an oarsman. He wondered, with frustration, why it was so obvious to every Athenian that he wasn’t a local. “How many ships are in the fleet now?” he asked.

  The shipwright scratched his beard, calculating. “Two hundred doubles, three hundred triples, and about a hundred of the smaller vessels fit for service. Most of the doubles and triples are guarding the shipping lanes now. The ones in the bay have just come in with cargo convoys from the north—timber and grain. Others are here to get supplies and men before heading back to the blockade of Potidaea. I heard say ten triples are going out to raid the coast of Megara.”

  “Good,” said Nikias, thinking of the Dog Raiders of Megara. “It will be nice for them to get a taste of their own piss.”

  “The Megarians will regret their treaty with the Spartans,” said the shipwright. “We’ll cut off their grain supply and they’ll starve.”

  “There’s so many new ships being built,” observed Nikias.

  “Perikles loves ships,” said the shipwright. “We’ll keep building them until the treasury is bare of owls and the mines of Laurium are empty of ore. It’s as good as anything to spend our silver on, at least in my opinion. I’m a boatbuilder, after all. They say the walls of Athens and the Piraeus protect Athens. But the wooden walls of the fleet are what keeps us safe from the Persians and Spartans.”

  Nikias had heard his grandfather say the same thing before when defending Athenian tax increases to pay for the fleet. “Do you know where the Sea Nymph is stationed now?” he asked, hoping to get information about his cousin’s boat.

  The shipwright laughed. “You’ll never get a seat on the pretty Nymph, my son. That’s Perikles’s personal dispatch ship. He bought it with his own money and picked every man on it.” He pointed at a magnificent two-hundred-foot-long ship beached on the shore. “Look at her. As pretty as any hetaera in the city.”

  “That’s the Sea Nymph?” asked Nikias.

  “She came in two days ago,” said the shipwright, and went on his way with a nod.

  Nikias headed down the road toward the port offices, thinking of his cousin as he walked. He hadn’t seen Phoenix in almost four years—not since his older Athenian relative had come of age and shipped out as an oarsman. Nikias had met Phoenix only six or seven times over the years, and they’d never gotten on well. Phoenix, in Nikias’s opinion, was a vain, loudmouthed braggart. The only thing they shared was the fact that their late mothers had been sisters. But he felt that he had to find him and tell him what had happened in Plataea. He wondered how he would locate the mariner in this port crawling with oarsmen on leave.

  He passed a row of workshops filled with women working at looms. Out in front of their shops, hanging from hooks, were displayed expensive bolsters—cushions for oarsmen to put on the arse-numbing benches of the galleys. The Athenian navy, everyone knew, did not supply these necessary pads for their mariners. The slipcovers had the names of various ships woven onto them, or pictures of things from the sea—shells, dolphins, triremes, and fish. Some had images of men engaged in acrobatic sexual acts with other men, or women, or satyrs, or a combination of all three.

  He saw a group of mariners bartering over the price of a cushion that bore the image of a grinning sea horse with a giant erection. The shoppers were obviously oarsmen because of their tremendously muscled shoulders and legs. He wondered if Phoenix had turned into one of these “sea-oxen,” as Chusor disdainfully called them.

  He kept going up the lane until he entered the busy square in front of the naval offices. A gang of workers had dug up the ground here to replace a clay water pipe. Several children were playing about in the mud caused by the broken conduit, but Nikias didn’t see a one-eyed slave boy anywhere.

  One of the slaves working on the pipe—a craggy-faced lout with a jutting jaw—stopped digging and glared at Nikias with a hostile expression. Nikias didn’t like the look of him and was worried the man might be one of Kleon’s spies, so he moved to the edge of the square where the slave couldn’t see him.

  “Stop right there, lad,” said a commanding voice.

  Nikias turned quickly and saw a handsome fifty-year-old man with silvery hair and a perfectly folded, expensive robe. He stood in a small wooden booth with a sign over the top that read: COLONISTS WANTED.

  “Your destiny awaits!” said the recruiter, flashing a smile and pointing at the sign.

  “No, thanks,” Nikias replied. “I’m not looking to move to some rock farm on the arse-end of civilization.”

  Nikias heard a snort of laughter. He glanced over to a nearby food stall where a bearlike man was chewing on a chicken leg, watching them with a bemused expression.

  The recruiter said with a scolding tone, “You are terribly misinformed, my lad. The colony of Thourion has some of the richest soil in the world.” He smiled again, raising his eyebrows and leaned forward, dropping his voice to a whisper. “The local women of Italia—or the men or even boys if you prefer—are beautiful beyond compare. You can’t imagine—”

  “I can imagine quite well,” interrupted Nikias. He’d heard about these Athenian colonies. Squalid places where the Athenians shipped off their poorer citizens to prevent overcrowding in the capital.

  “You’re right to be suspicious,” said the man at the food stall. He wiped his mouth on a hunk of bread and ambled over to the recruiter’s booth. “The only thing you’d have to look forward to in one of the colonies is catching some disease or getting murdered by the local barbarians.”

  “Not true!” exclaimed the recruiter. “The population of Thourion is fifteen thousand strong. They’re building a new assembly hall and a gymnasium. Wheat production is rising—”

  “Have you ever been there?” asked the other, picking a piece of chicken from a molar.

  The recruiter’s smile faded and he scowled. “No, I have not. But I have heard excellent reports.”

  The bearish man gave Nikias a conspiratorial grin. “That’s what King Xerxes said before he invaded Greece, ha ha! And look what happened to him.” And he slapped Nikias on the back.

  Nikias laughed. He liked this kind of Athenian man. Straightforward and bluff—just like a Plataean.

  “You’ve got a friend,” said the bearish man.

  Nikias felt a tug on his tunic and looked down to see a little black-haired slave boy—a one-eyed boy—staring up at him.

  “Come with me,” said the boy with a croaking voice. He gave the recruiter and the other man a suspicious look before darting off.

  Nikias nodded at the two Athenian men and took off after the slave boy. He was fast and Nikias had to move quickly to keep up with him. He shot in and out of a maze of alleys, courtyards, and doorways until he came to a dark stair that led down to a foul-smelling tunnel. Nikias could see sunlight and the sea at one end and reckoned this was the main sewer conduit for the Piraeus District.

  “I’m
not going that way,” he said to the boy when he saw the slave was moving away from the sea and into the darkness in the other direction.

  The boy shrugged. “Timarkos said you might be afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid,” said Nikias. “It stinks.”

  “You get used to it,” said the boy.

  “Isn’t there another way?” he asked.

  “Timarkos told me to bring you this way,” said the boy. He smiled, showing a mouthful of broken teeth. “It’s not far.”

  Nikias covered his nose with his hand and tried not to gag on the smell of the fetid wastewater. He had to crouch as they moved along a raised walkway, pressing his wounded shoulder to the clammy and slimy wall to keep from stepping off into the sewage. After a short distance they came to a small opening. He peered into it and saw the boy crawling down a dimly lit horizontal shaft.

  “Zeus’s balls,” said Nikias, getting on his one good hand and knees. He inched his way down the shaft. After twenty feet he emerged into a small undercroft lit by torchlight. Somebody moved in the darkness and Nikias tensed. “Who’s there?” he asked, clenching his left hand into a fist.

  A man moved into the light and squinted at Nikias with weary eyes. “It’s me, Timarkos,” replied the wiry, goat-bearded Athenian spy. “Welcome to Athens, you sheep-brained fool.”

  NINETEEN

  Timarkos went to the opening of the shaft and shut a metal grate, then fastened it with a lock. “Climb,” he ordered, pointing to a wooden ladder at the end of the chamber. The nimble slave boy was already ascending.

  Nikias went slowly up the ladder—no easy task with one arm—and came up through the hole and onto a floor made of planks. He stood up and looked around. They were in a small room furnished with nothing more than a table and two chairs. There was a door at the end—locked with an iron bar—and two small square openings at the top of the opposite wall made to provide light.

  “Sit,” said Timarkos.

  Nikias sat down on one of the chairs and glanced to the corner of the room where the slave boy was already curled up, staring at him like a little one-eyed bug. Timarkos took the chair across from Nikias, rubbed a hand across his face, and looked at him with an expression of contained exasperation. Finally he said, “You certainly have made things difficult for me.”

  Nikias smiled wryly. “Oh? The last time I saw you in Plataea you handed me an assassin’s pig-sticker blade and sent me off to murder Nauklydes in the Assembly Hall. I would have been killed on the spot even if I had succeeded.”

  Timarkos raised his eyebrows. “You would have been remembered as a hero.”

  Nikias thought back to the terrifying moment. He had been about to run onto the floor of the Hall to stab Nauklydes in front of every citizen in Plataea. Fortunately his grandfather had arrived just in time. The Bull had exposed Nauklydes as a traitor without resorting to violence.

  “My grandfather’s way was better,” said Nikias. “Nauklydes was executed by the people, not slaughtered by an individual.”

  Timarkos scratched the scraggly whiskers on his neck. “At the time I sent you to kill Nauklydes I did not know your grandfather was still alive. But everything worked out in the end, did it not? Nauklydes was given a stone tunic, as he well deserved.”

  “Do you know who drugged me last night?” Nikias asked.

  “One of Kleon’s whisperers,” said Timarkos.

  “Why did they dump me outside the city and order me to leave?”

  “Athens is a snake pit of factions. But there are two main rivals vying for control of the empire. On one side there are men who will follow Perikles to Hades and back. And on the other are those who would gladly send his shade there forthwith, never to return.”

  “And which one are you?” asked Nikias. “Because that man who works for Kleon told me that you serve several masters.”

  “I do not serve any ruler or public official,” said Timarkos proudly. “I am an agent of the Delian League and an enemy to all who would thwart its dominance. And I have eyes and ears in both camps—the supporters of Perikles as well as his enemies. You were stupid, yesterday, to create that ruckus in that theatre and have your things stolen. A bag of darics and a letter to Kleon’s late concubine?” he added with an arch look. “I warned you not to trust Chusor.”

  “Who is Kleon?” asked Nikias. “What is his story?”

  “He’s a wealthy and powerful citizen,” said Timarkos, “who hates Perikles and the other nobles and wants them all removed from power. Possibly even ostracized. He has started spreading rumors that Perikles has misused public funds—an offense that brings exile if proven!”

  “How did you know about the gold?” said Nikias. “And the letter?”

  “I told you already,” replied Timarkos. “I have my sources in Kleon’s inner circle.”

  “Is Kleon the one who tried to have Chusor murdered years ago?” asked Nikias. “Because Chusor was having an affair with the hetaera Sophia?”

  Timarkos waved his hand in the air—a gesture of annoyance. “That is irrelevant. Your friend Chusor is a liar and a scoundrel. I warned you about him before.”

  Nikias glared at the spy. “Chusor risked his life to save Plataeans during the Theban sneak attack. We owe him a great debt.”

  “I wager Chusor had some other reason for being in Plataea,” said Timarkos. “And I’ll also bet he’s long gone by now. Now, you must tell me something. Where did the Persian gold come from?”

  Nikias quickly told him the story of finding the gold in the strongbox in Nauklydes’s office.

  “And what did you plan to do with the gold?” asked the spy.

  “Hire mercenaries and bring them back to Plataea.”

  Timarkos smiled without mirth. “You’ve got balls, lad,” he said. “Foolhardy idea, however. No mercenary in Athens would be stupid enough to walk into the middle of a Spartan siege, no matter how much gold you offered them. None of this has import, though. Kleon has the gold now and he’ll be able to finance a pretty bit of espionage using those funds. Excellent work, young Oxlander.”

  “It was bad luck,” said Nikias, burning with irritation at Timarkos’s sarcasm. “Why is Kleon afraid of me?”

  Timarkos burst out laughing. “Afraid of you? He’s not afraid of you. He milked you for all of the information he wanted and cast you aside like a scooped-out pomegranate. You’re nothing to him. An annoyance—a horsefly. But Kleon is the type of man who crushes those who displeasure him, like you or I would swat a bug.”

  Nikias sat back and sighed. He felt like an imbecile. He’d wasted an opportunity—squandered the Persian gold and accomplished nothing to help Plataea. “How goes it with the Plataean emissary?” he asked, hoping for some good news. Several days before he had left Plataea, his grandfather had sent two aged generals to Athens on a mission: to beg Perikles’s permission to allow the Plataeans to sign a peace accord with the Spartans.

  Timarkos’s face looked truly sad when he said, “The two honorable generals have failed to sway Perikles, even with your city’s promise of neutrality in the event Sparta and Athens go to war.”

  “But why?” asked Nikias. “What good can come if Plataea is besieged and destroyed by Sparta?”

  “If Plataea is allowed to exit the Delian League,” said Timarkos, “other city-states who are pressured by the Spartans will have no reason to resist. They will jump ship. If Plataea stands firm, however, then your city will be seen as a shining example of loyalty to the League. That is why Perikles cannot allow the peace treaty with Plataea and Sparta.”

  “And will Perikles give us no help at all?” asked Nikias. “No warriors or cavalry?”

  “It goes against his policy,” said Timarkos. “He believes that we Athenians can outlast the Spartans behind the walls of our citadel. That same strategy applies to you Plataeans.”

  “Perikles seems more like the enemy of Plataea than Kleon,” said Nikias bitterly. “Maybe I should hope Kleon comes to power. Maybe then my city will get some
warriors.”

  “It’s not as simple as that, lad. The beating heart of the Athenian Empire is to the east of Athens: the islands and colonies under our control are where the real wealth comes from. The Spartans can’t touch the islands because their navy is worthless. And all the treasure from those places can be shipped here to the Piraeus port and fed safely up the Long Walls to the citadel—grain to feed the people of Athens, and silver to fill our coffers. The Oxlands are merely an afterthought. It doesn’t matter if Plataea falls, in the grand scheme of the empire. Even Kleon knows this to be true.”

  Nikias shook his head. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Plataea an afterthought? We stood by you at Marathon. And against Xerxes. We’ve fought in a dozen wars for Athens since the Persian invasions. My own father died at Koronea helping the Athenians fight Thebes and the other Oxland rebels. Yet we’re merely an afterthought?”

  “This coming war with the Spartans will be won or lost on the seas,” said Timarkos. “We cannot defeat the Spartans on land. And so we must sacrifice that which we cannot afford to hold. That is Perikles’s plan—to let the Spartans ravage the regions around Attika while we wait them out inside the citadel of Athens. The Long Walls will enable us to keep Athens fed from the sea.”

  Nikias thought of something his grandfather had told him a year ago: that if Sparta and Athens ever did go to war, Plataea would be caught between them like an olive crushed between two grinding stones. He felt like that olive now—flattened … utterly demoralized.

  “Why were you even in Plataea spying on Nauklydes the traitor?” asked Nikias. “Why concern yourself with my city—why talk to me now—if what happens in the Oxlands is meaningless?”

  Timarkos leaned forward and for the first time Nikias saw him drop his haughty mask. “I am not Perikles. Nor am I Kleon. And I think they are both wrong in regards to Plataea. I believe your city-state is crucial to this coming war. I am of the opinion that the Spartans will dash themselves to pieces on the rock of your high walls. If anything their siege will buy us more time to build up our fleet and make an attack into the heart of Spartan territory. The Spartans will gather their forces in Plataea and leave their back door wide open. There are no walled cities in Sparta, as I’m sure you know. An invasion force could wipe out their meager defenders and raise a second Helot revolt from which the Spartans would never recover.”