Antinea gave birth to a boy at the beginning of the autumn. He was given the name Aristodemus, in accordance with the wishes of the elders. He was strong and healthy, with dark hair like his father’s and green eyes like his mother’s. When the midwife brought him to Kleidemos in a basket, his soul was deeply moved. He took the child in his arms and held him to his chest, covering him with his cape. He prayed, from the bottom of his heart: ‘O gods, you who live eternally and have power over life and death, you who reserved such a bitter fate for me, taking me – so small and defenceless – from my father’s arms . . . if it was written that my suffering was necessary to atone for some ancient misdeed, I beg of you, be satisfied now with the harsh punishment inflicted on an innocent person and spare this child, whom I have generated with immense love.’
So prayed Kleidemos, his soul full of hope and of anguish.
*
The arrival of the Athenian troops did little to advance operations and the Spartan officers soon realized that many of their allies were of the democratic persuasion and were loath to fight against the Helot rebels in order to reduce them to slavery. It was even rumoured that several of the Athenian commanders had made contact with the Messenians in the surrounding countryside. The Messenians were actually Spartan subjects and were tied to the city by a rigid pact of alliance, but they admired the courage of the defenders of Ithome nonetheless.
Suspicious and embarrassed, the ephors dismissed the Athenian contingent in the end, claiming that their aid was no longer needed. The Athenian army returned to Attica, but Sparta’s gesture raised such intense indignation in the assembly that Cimon, who was held responsible for the stinging rebuke, was violently attacked by his adversaries, who demanded his dismissal and exile. The proposal was put to a vote and the valorous commander, winner of many battles on land and at sea, was forced to abandon his city. The democrats reclaimed power and the already difficult relations between Sparta and Athens became even colder.
In the meantime the ephors and elders, having repaired most of the earthquake damage and regained control of the situation in Laconia, decided to take the city of Ithome by storm. It was time; many Messenians had joined the rebels and there was a real danger that the entire region might be lost to them.
The following spring an army of five thousand hoplites surrounded the city and laid siege. When the hot winds from the south had completely dried the earth King Archidamus gave orders for the final attack. It was a hazy day at the beginning of the summer and the king had divided his troops into four large battalions, preceded by Cretan archers and light infantry whose mission was to batter the bastions with any type of projectile, while the line infantry scaled the walls. The warriors began their march at daybreak, converging at the base of the mountain below Ithome.
Kleidemos and Karas, armed from head to toe, positioned all the able men on the walls, while the women and children brought stones and sand which were loaded onto shields to heat them under the blazing sun. Antinea would not leave Kleidemos’ side, passing him the arrows for his great horn bow.
When King Archidamus had the trumpets sounded, his warriors began climbing the slopes of the mountain in a silent march, compact, shoulder to shoulder. His archers were the first to reach the walls, and began to shoot clouds of arrows at the bastions, where the defenders were trying to protect themselves with their shields. When the hoplites, slower and weighed down by their armour, drew close to the walls, their archers and slingers parted ranks to let them through without ever interrupting their attack. A strong wind had come up, raising clouds of dust on the sides of the mountain and the Spartan warriors pushed on through that fog, heads low, their armour and crests whitened. Horrible spectres, harbingers of death.
Kleidemos drew his sword to give the signal from the bastions on high. His archers took aim at the enemy with a zeal born of desperation. Many of the light infantrymen supporting the Spartan troops fell, but the descending arrows accomplished little, shattering against the shields of the hoplites, who continued to advance in the dust. The sun was high now, and their armour gleamed through the haze. The various divisions had reached the top of the mountain and they locked together, enclosing Ithome in their grip.
From the tops of the towers, they seemed a swarm of monstrous insects in metallic shells. The defenders began to hurl down stones and overturn their shields full of burning sand which poured down on their assailants, sinking in between the plates of their cuirasses and causing them to back off, tormented by burns. But others came forward to replace them, while the light infantrymen approached with scores of ladders, covered by the dense rain of Cretan arrows. Kleidemos realized that responding with arrow fire had become useless, since the enemy were now sheltered by the protruding bastions. He abandoned his horn bow and turned back towards Antinea to ask for a spear.
At that moment an arrow shot by a Cretan archer descended from above in a long fall and struck Antinea, who collapsed with a cry. Kleidemos dropped his shield and took her into his arms, but in the meantime hundreds of Spartan hoplites had reached the top of the ladders and were clambering over the bastions from every direction. The defenders were at a loss to contain them. Karas, just a short distance away, was assaulted by a group of light infantry who had surmounted the bastion. He ran one of them through with his sword; the invader fell headlong over the parapet with the iron blade stuck in his body. Unarmed now, Karas grabbed another of his aggressors, lifted him up bodily and threw him against his comrades who were still climbing up, pitching them into a ruinous fall.
The giant turned and saw Kleidemos on top of the eastern tower. He was holding Antinea, her breast stained with blood, and he was being attacked by a group of Spartans with their swords bared. Karas was horrified at the sight: It was as if King Aristodemus had returned from the dead, his sacrificed daughter between his arms, ready to be swallowed up into Hades. He filled his huge chest and roared, overriding the din of the battle and the cries of the wounded. He shouted ‘Save the king!’ as he lunged forwards, pulling a spear from the grip of a cadaver that lay on the sentry walk. Kleidemos reacted, laying Antinea gently on the ground. He spun around, drawing his sword: he was completely surrounded. Overcoming every obstacle, Karas arrived just in time to break up the enemy circle. One of them turned against him, but Karas thrust out his spear. It penetrated the warrior’s shield and cuirass and pierced his breast; the giant lifted him up on its tip and threw him at the others, who backed off, terrified. Kleidemos flanked him, whirling his sword, and the assailants were flung back over the parapet.
At that sight, the Helot combatants took heart and regained control of the bastion, driving off the enemy and pushing away the ladders, engulfing those beneath in a hail of stones and darts, hurling beams torn from the parapet. Kleidemos picked up Antinea then and brought her to safety inside a shelter where the women were caring for the wounded.
The Spartans sent a delegation asking for a truce so they could recover their dead. It was granted, and the litter bearers ascended slowly beneath the walls of Ithome to collect their fallen men, recomposing as best they could their mangled, stone-crushed limbs. King Archidamus, standing at the entrance to his camp, watched the sad procession of bearers returning with the corpses of his hoplites. He looked at them, one by one, his jaw tight and his fists clenched. When they had all passed, he raised his gaze towards the city. The setting sun stained the mountain slopes red, dark red, like the blood of his warriors.
23
THE WOLF
ANTINEA FOUGHT OFF DEATH at length. After the arrow had been removed from her shoulder, she was devoured by a raging fever. Kleidemos would spend long hours at her bedside every night when he returned from the walls, stroking her burning brow and imploring the gods to save her. The baby was cared for by a wet nurse, a woman whose own child had been stillborn and who had enough milk to nourish Antinea’s son. The elders of the city had raised a modest sanctuary over the ruins of the ancient temple of Zeus Ithometa, where they offered supplications t
o the god for the health of their chief and the salvation of his bride.
In the end, their pleas were heeded and Antinea slowly recovered but her life was filled with anguish whenever she saw Kleidemos donning his armour and taking up his sword. Rain and cold came with the winter, and a little peace as military operations relented. The Spartans restricted their efforts to maintaining a small contingent in the valley, making it possible for the people of Ithome to take in supplies. They would leave at night, a few at a time, with their pack animals, loading them up with wheat in the nearby towns of the Messenians.
In the villages they could also glean news on what was happening in the surrounding area and the rest of the Peloponnese. And so Kleidemos realized that Sparta was in serious difficulty with its neighbouring states, especially with the Argives, who had always been hostile, and the Arcadians, who could not tolerate their hegemony. For this reason, he hoped to be able to prolong Ithome’s resistance.
As spring drew near and his son had begun to walk and babble his first words, Kleidemos considered what might happen if Sparta decided to concentrate all its forces on an attack of Ithome. When rumour reached the council that the ephors and elders had decided to put an end to the stalemate in Messenia once and for all, they urged Kleidemos to take little Aristodemus and Antinea to safety.
Kleidemos asked Karas to take his wife, his son and his ageing mother far away from Ithome, to some safe place in Arcadia or Argolis where he could reach them or from where they could be called back once he had won freedom for his people and himself. Karas thought it best to carry out the mission before the spring campaign, and so Kleidemos one night told Antinea about his intentions.
‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘I’ve learned that Sparta has decided to terminate this war, which can mean only one thing, in their minds: destroying Ithome and annihilating or enslaving our people. I’ve come to a decision. I want you out of harm’s way, along with our child and my mother. Karas is ready to take you to a secret place in Arcadia where you will be safe with a family of good people he knows well. I will stay here to defend the city. If we manage to hold out, or to defeat the Spartans, we will finally have earned our freedom. And then you’ll come back to me, or I’ll come to get you.’ Antinea burst into tears. ‘Is this the luck you’re wishing me? You’re crying as if I were already dead.’
Antinea turned towards him and held him tightly. ‘Please don’t send me away! I beg of you, do not send me away. I will die of anguish without you, without knowing what’s happening to you. I’m sure I won’t be able to bear it!’
‘You will,’ replied Kleidemos firmly, gently breaking off her embrace. ‘Think of our son: he needs you.’
Antinea was inconsolable. ‘You’ll never survive! The Spartans won’t stop until they’ve razed the city to the ground. I want to die here with you, with my son, if the gods will it, with my people.’
‘No, Antinea, you don’t know what you’re saying. Now, I’ve made a decision and you must abide by it. You will depart the first night of the new moon, with Karas. I’m having you leave to protect you from a serious risk, but the situation is not hopeless. The next Spartan campaign will be led by King Pleistarchus. He is the son of Leonidas. I will ask to meet with him, to talk – perhaps we can avoid a fruitless massacre. Not even Sparta can put its warriors’ lives recklessly at risk. Many of them died in the earthquake, and many more have fallen in this war.’
Antinea said nothing but she was consumed by unrelenting sadness. She lay her head on Kleidemos’ chest and listened to the beating of his heart.
‘Fate kept us apart for many years,’ he began again. ‘When I saw you going off on your ass that day so long ago, I wept bitterly because I was sure I would never see you again. And yet I found you, after laying my life on the line hundreds of times in distant lands. We must continue to hope, Antinea, and trust that we shall see each other again. Sometimes the gods allow us no comfort, but there’s a force deep down inside of us that won’t let hope die. It’s the force that brought me back to you from the lands of far-off Asia, from the solitude of savage Thrace. I will always be with you, Antinea, and with our little one, but don’t let me be the only one believing and hoping. If you are certain of seeing me again, we will be reunited one day, free to live in serenity until we have grown old and have seen our children’s children growing up strong around us like young olive trees. At the height of the storm we forget that the sun exists and we fear that darkness will dominate the world. But the sun continues to shine above the black clouds and sooner or later its rays force their way through, bringing us light and life.’
Antinea was still, embracing him tightly. She tried to open her heart to his words and to hold back the burning tears that rose into her eyes.
The first night of the new moon, Karas had the two women and the little boy climb onto a cart so he could take them far away from Ithome. Kleidemos watched them going off, holding his arms high above his head like he had that long-ago day on the plain. He felt solace that they were going to a safe place, shielded from danger. And yet he felt death in his heart at separating from those he loved better than life itself. The people of Ithome watched him, standing at the northern gate of the city, so full of sadness and of hope. They too wanted the son of Talos the Wolf to be saved. And they knew that a chief, in the supreme moment, must be alone.
The siege began that spring. It was led at the beginning by two high commanders and four battalion commanders. King Pleistarchus would arrive later, after the celebration of Artemis Orthia; he would be presiding over the feast, along with King Archidamus. In Sparta the ephors had sought at length to discover who was commanding the Helots; when the first accounts arrived from Messenia of a mysterious warrior wearing a suit of armour the likes of which had never been seen before, they attempted to track him down but were unsuccessful. The man was reported to be lame, and some named Kleidemos, the son of Aristarkhos, but he had been missing since the time of the earthquake and was presumed dead. No certain evidence was ever found, and although ephor Episthenes sensed the truth, he said nothing. None of the Spartan warriors had ever seen his features, because Kleidemos always fought wearing the helmet that covered most of his face.
Karas carried out his mission successfully. He did not return immediately to Ithome, but stopped in Arcadia to gather news. When he finally came back, just in time before the siege closed in on the city, he related all he had learned to Kleidemos. The Athenians had been deeply impressed by the Helots’ strenuous resistance and they were pressuring Sparta to free them once and for all. No one knew what the Spartans thought of this proposal. When King Pleistarchus finally arrived at the camp, Kleidemos tried to arrange an encounter, but to no avail. One day he saw the king passing on horseback down the trail that led up from the valley, inspecting the fortifications of the besieged city. He wrote a brief message and tied it to an arrow. Pointing his horn bow towards the sky, he calculated the trajectory, and let fly. The dart shot off with a whistle, followed its long course and stuck into the ground just a few steps from the king’s horse.
Pleistarchus dismounted and hurriedly picked up the arrow, scanning the message. He looked up towards the city: the bastions were completely empty, but on the very top of one of the towers he saw an immobile warrior covered in gleaming armour who seemed to be looking at him. The king returned his stare, then gestured for his escort to leave. He weighed his spear in his hand and then hurled it with great strength; it stuck into the trunk of a dried olive tree that stood halfway between where he stood and the city walls. The warrior vanished from the tower and shortly thereafter one of the city gates opened. He reappeared on the side of the mountain, planted his spear into the ground, and advanced slowly on foot towards the olive tree. Under the eyes of his bodyguards, the king walked towards the tree as well. The warrior raised his hand in salute and the king scrutinized him for some time without speaking. He was disturbed at the sight of that strange armour, and his gaze sought to penetrate behind the visor crowned with
wolf fangs. The eyes blinking in the narrow slot of the gilded bronze sallet were certainly not those of a slave, son and grandson of slaves.
Kleidemos found himself, for the first time, face to face with the king. He had seen him a few times in Sparta, but always at a distance. He was an attractive young man, just a little over twenty, muscular and dark-skinned, his long wavy hair touching the edge of his cuirass. His shield bore a carved sparrowhawk, symbol of the Agiads, the dynasty of his father, great Leonidas.
‘Who are you?’ demanded the king.
‘Is my name important?’ came the reply.
‘No, it is not. But your shield bears the wolf’s head of the King of Messenia—’
‘The man standing before you wears the armour of Aristodemus and thus has authority over the people of Ithome.’
Pleistarchus seemed surprised. ‘What do you want from me?’ he asked.
‘I know that you are the valorous, worthy son of a great father. For this reason, I believe that you respect the courage of this people, who have resisted for three years in their battle for liberty. This war has lasted too long; too much blood has been spilt in vain. Allow these people to live in peace on the land of their ancestors. If you withdraw your warriors, you will have nothing to fear from us. We are ready to vow to a pact of peace that we will never recede from.’
‘I have no power to offer you a peace pact, even if I desired to do so,’ said Pleistarchus. ‘If you want to save these people, persuade them to return to the fields they have abandoned. If you truly have authority over them, convince them and I give you my word as king that they will not be harmed.’
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