A Boy of the Agoge

by Helena P. Schrader

  The role of lion was undoubtedly seen as an honour, and reflected the confidence Hellanikos had in Leonidas’ ability to sing the difficult text prepared for him, but Leonidas himself was far from happy. While the other dancers were being asked to pantomime animals they had frequently observed, he was being asked to portray an animal he had never seen in his life. In past performances, the occasional lion had usually been portrayed with a great deal of prancing about, bullying, and roaring.

  Leonidas did his best to follow in this tradition, but when he performed his introductory routine for his friends, Prokles told him bluntly that he looked “like an ox trying to imitate a bear”.

  When Alkander finally finished laughing, he pointed out, “Lions are big cats. Why don’t you try to act more like a cat than a bear?”

  The trick worked, and Leonidas’ pantomime soon won the praise of Hellanikos, but Leonidas was still nervous about performing for the whole city and foreign guests. The dance was performed on the dancing floor right in the agora, and there was always a huge crowd. The younger boys climbed up on to the roofs of the buildings to get a good view, and the dignitaries (notably the kings and foreign guests) sat in chairs dragged out for the occasion and set up at the top of the steps to the Council chamber, where they had an excellent view.

  This year, Cleomenes was conspicuously accompanied by a number of Athenian guests. He was still trying to convince the Council to introduce a motion to the Assembly calling on Sparta to support the exiled Alcmaeonids in driving the tyrant Hippias out of Athens. Equally notable was the absence of his queen. The infant son she had given birth to in the fall was rumoured to be ailing, and both she and her mother-in-law had stayed home to tend to him.

  The absence of the much-admired Agiad queen had the unfortunate side effect of making Alkander’s sister Percalus all the more prominent. Although dressed only modestly and not in any official role at this festival, it was impossible to overlook the attention she attracted. One of Cleitagora’s sons had already inquired of Leonidas if she had a dowry, which Leonidas had answered in the negative. (It wasn’t that he objected to providing Alkander’s sister with a dowry if she needed one, but it was obvious to both him and Alkander by now that this was not going to be necessary.) Now that the word was out about her dowry, the young men gathering around her were all suitors who could afford to take a dowerless bride—which meant they all came from very powerful and wealthy families, including the Eurypontid king and his younger cousin, Leotychidas.

  Leonidas was preoccupied with his own preparations, of course, and paid little attention to what was going on in the audience. The Elisian composer was fighting again with the Thebean poet. They had been fighting like cats and dogs from the day on which the cast had first come together to start rehearsing. The poet felt that the composer’s music was too frivolous for his text, while the composer called the text “ponderous, pompous, and pubescent”. The performing youths preferred to call it “putrid”. In fact, they had developed their own rather farcical version of the entire performance, which entailed making occasional but key substitutions in the text that gave it decidedly bawdy overtones.

  Now, with the entire city collected and the composer trying to talk the boys into cutting certain stanzas that had been agreed on earlier, some demon got into them. Even as Hellanikos gave his final instructions to perform exactly as practised, the boys exchanged a look, and Leonidas knew they were going to do it. They went out on to the dancing floor, and an expectant hush fell across the entire crowd. The musicians started to play the music, and Leonidas minced his way into the centre of the agora like a market cat in the early morning. In the centre he sat down and proceeded to lick his right “paw” and use it to wash his face and behind his ears. The audience was delighted. Cats rarely appeared in fables. The “dog” appeared next....

  Hellanikos knew something was wrong almost at once, but it was too late to stop them. All he could do was hold his breath in anticipation. He knew and his dancers knew they would be in serious trouble if they offended their elders. If they were still willing to take the risk, than he could only hope and pray that they would do so for the sake of something worth seeing. By the time they started singing the corrupted text, he was far too amused by the audacity and wit of his charges to be angry with them.

  The Thebean poet, however, had not noticed the subtle changes in the pantomimes, and so it was only after they started to sing his text in garbled and wilfully misshapen form that he gasped in horror. “What’s happened? What is going on?” he demanded. “What have you done to me? They are butchering my text! They are making a mockery of it! How could you do this to me?!”

  Hellanikos threw up his hands. “I had no idea they were going to do this.”

  “What do you mean you had no idea? Who gave them those insulting texts? Everyone knows Spartan youths always follow orders! You gave them orders to commit this outrage!”

  “Nonsense! You heard me give them orders to the contrary. Besides, I’ve never even heard this text before. They must have written it themselves. They are doing this on their own initiative and at their own risk.”

  “They are turning the entire performance into a farce!”

  They were indeed—and the audience loved it, none more than the Athenian guests of King Cleomenes. As the dance ended, these men leapt to their feet, applauding vigorously. “Magnificent! Brilliant! Bravo! Bravo!” they called out to the performers, before turning to Cleomenes and remarking in obvious wonder and delight, “We had no idea you had comedy in Sparta! What a pity none of our comic playwrights could be here to see this. They would recruit your youths for one of our comic choruses on the spot! And these youths! Where do they get their training? I had no idea you had a drama school here. I thought all your youth just drilled and let themselves get flogged,” Isagoras exclaimed in rapturous enthusiasm.

  Then a new thought occurred to Kleisthenes: “They aren’t really Spartiate, are they? Perioikoi? Surely not helot?”

  “Of course they’re Spartiate,” Cleomenes countered indignantly. “Why, the youth who played the lion is my own brother.”

  “Your brother?!”

  “Well, half-brother. Shall I have him come over?”

  “Of course! At once! Such a talented youth! And a magnificent voice! Does he have a lover?” Isogoras asked anxiously.

  “Leonidas?” Cleomenes couldn’t imagine such a thing. “I shouldn’t think so,” he answered dryly, and then attracted the attention of one of his helot attendants and told him to go fetch Leonidas.

  The performers were towelling the sweat away and gulping water laced with a thimbleful of wine to recover. They were euphoric, mostly for having got away with their mutiny, but also because the applause had gone to their heads. They were cracking jokes and exchanging good-natured insults, and their laughter came in volleys that echoed in the lofty ceiling of the bathhouse that they used as their changing room.

  The arrival of the helot with the message to Leonidas that he was to report to his brother was unwelcome. “Do I have to go?” Leonidas asked rhetorically. The others tossed unwanted advice after him as he pulled his chiton on over his head and belted it. Someone threw a himation after him as he left, and he just managed to catch it.

  “What is this all about?” he asked the helot as they trotted along the back streets towards the steps of the Council House. It was now getting dark and the crowds were starting to disperse. Smoke from cooking fires filled the air, and the smell of meat roasted over great pits along the waterfront came in on the evening breeze. Leonidas was famished and thirsty. He wanted to find Prokles and Alkander and spend what free time he had left with them. He wanted to know what they had thought of the parody his troop of dancers had performed—or rather, wanted to collect the praise he expected from them. He wanted to have dinner with Prokles’ family and drink some stronger wine. Instead, he found himself reporting to his elder brother. “You sent for me, sir?”

  “Your own brother has to call you ‘si
r’?” Kleisthenes remarked with raised eyebrows, while Isagoras exclaimed in shocked amazement that Leonidas, shaved and barefoot, was evidently really a youth from the agoge. (His costume had covered his head, hands, and feet.)

  “He doesn’t have to; it’s just habit.” Cleomenes answered the first question with a touch of irritation. “Leonidas, these gentlemen from Athens wanted to meet you. May I present my little brother Leonidas, gentlemen. Leonidas, these are Kleisthenes of the Alcmaeonid family and Isagoras, son of Tisander, of Athens. They were impressed by your little performance today.” From Cleomenes’ mouth it sounded very patronising.

  Leonidas ignored his brother’s barb and addressed himself to the guests: “Thank you, sirs.”

  “Tell us, have you had much training as an actor? We thought Spartan youth spent all their time drilling and what not?” Kleisthenes asked with apparent interest.

  “No, sir. We rehearsed almost six months, every day except holidays.”

  “May I suggest we discuss this over dinner, gentlemen?” Cleomenes interrupted. “A meal is awaiting us at the palace. You’ll join us, Leonidas.” It was an order, not an invitation. A state chariot had drawn up, and Cleomenes gestured his guests and Leonidas aboard. Resentfully, Leonidas had no choice but to go along.

  It was the first time he had set foot in his childhood home since the day Cleomenes had expelled him along with his mother and brothers. It was a strange sensation to return, and even stranger to be taken to the state apartments of his father. These were very ancient and very elaborately decorated with mosaic floors and vivid frescoes on the walls, something not seen in newer Spartan homes. Oil lamps provided soft, wavering light, and music floated into the andron from an adjacent room in which a flutist evidently played. The food was presented upon pottery imported from Athens, as the Athenian guests noted with delight. “Oh, the very best! You must have excellent purveyors in Athens!” They even recognised the names of individual artists on the pottery. At least, Leonidas comforted himself, he was probably going to get a decent meal.

  Eventually, after things had settled down, the Athenians focused their attention on Leonidas again. “Just how old are you?” Isagoras asked Leonidas, leaning forward to get a better look at him at close quarters.

  “Seventeen, sir.”

  “And how long have you been training as an actor?”

  “I’m not training as an actor, sir. I was selected for this one dance.”

  “That was your first performance?! Remarkable. Then again, talent usually shows itself young. What will be your next role?”

  “I hope there won’t be one, sir.”

  “What? You can’t be serious. Why should you not want to act again?”

  “It takes too much time, sir. I still have drill and the other classes. Rehearsals robbed me of almost all my free time.”

  “Seriously?!” The Athenians looked over at Cleomenes for confirmation. “You don’t excuse even your best choristers and dancers from drill?”

  Cleomenes shrugged. “Of course not. My brother and the others are still in the agoge. They have to learn how to be good hoplites. As Spartiates they must learn the profession of arms.”

  “But why to the exclusion of all else?” Isagoras leaned intimately close to Leonidas again, and Leonidas drew back instinctively. “Why not give up all that mindless drill and let me adopt you?” the Athenian asked him directly. “You never need worry about marching or sleeping out in the rain or eating your horrid black broth again. I know a dozen comic playwrights who would be delighted to employ you!”

  Leonidas shook his head sharply.

  “Why not?” the Athenian pressed in a cloying voice. “You can’t mean you like being flogged and running around in rags?”

  “No, sir, but I like what I will be,” Leonidas answered far too sharply. It was humiliating to stand here before these wealthy Athenians and know that to them, he was a pitiable creature.

  “You mean a Spartiate hoplite? A cog in a military machine? An interchangeable part of the Spartan line? Is that really such an enticing prospect? Think of the alternative: you could be a great actor, a man who brings audiences applauding to their feet. You would be wined and dined and entertained at the best addresses, adored by men and women! I fear you simply cannot imagine the joys of life in Athenian society.”

  Leonidas glanced at his brother, offended that the Athenians felt free to talk like this in the Spartan royal palace. Cleomenes, however, looked highly amused, as if he were enjoying the exchange. So Leonidas replied simply, “Nor you the joys of mine, sir.”

  “Joys? What joys do you have in your miserable clothes and barren messes?”

  Leonidas glanced again at Cleomenes, resentful for being subjected to this shame. How was he, a youth of 17, supposed to explain to these Athenians what it meant to be Spartiate if the ruling king had failed to do so? Cleomenes, however, simply raised his eyebrows, evidently looking forward to Leonidas’ answer. Leonidas had no choice but to reply, and he decided on a single word: “Freedom.”

  “Freedom?! But you are chased from one exercise to the next. You said yourself you have no free time. You are the least free of all free Greeks. Indeed, I think you are less free than many slaves.”

  “No, sir!” Leonidas snapped back. The never-forgotten cage on the Persian ship seemed to cramp and suffocate him even as he lounged here in the royal andron. Leonidas had tasted slavery, and he was certain of his answer now: “We are the most free of all Greeks, because we are free of fear. We are not afraid of hunger or cold or pain because we have known them all, and we know we can endure them all. We fear no man, because we know we are dependent on no man’s favour and no man’s pay, but are the absolute masters of ourselves.”

  “Fine words, young man,” Kleisthenes agreed in a rather sour tone, “but empty, too. You live in constant fear of your instructors, your elders, your own leaders. Why, any citizen can call you to account, report you for the slightest infringement of the rules, cause you to be flogged like a common slave.”

  “Not so, sir.” Leonidas insisted hotly, aware that there was enough truth in the man’s words to make it all the more important to protest. In fact, it was the very fact that there was some truth to what he said that made Leonidas so agitated. He hated to think of his society in the way this Athenian was portraying it, and he wanted it to be better. He argued: “We obey our elders only as long as we respect them or what they stand for. Take tonight’s performance: the text was not what our chorus master had prepared and rehearsed with us. It was our own work.”

  Cleomenes burst out laughing and slapped himself on the thigh in delight. “I should have known it! I’m beginning to like you, little brother. I thought that pompous Thebean looked like he’d swallowed a porcupine!”

  “You wrote the text?” the astonished Isagoras asked, in amazement and obvious admiration.

  “No, sir, we all did. Everyone in the troop contributed bits and pieces as they occurred to us. It just sort of evolved.”

  The Athenians seemed delighted to learn this, too, and congratulated Leonidas yet again. “A youth of many talents, indeed!” Isagoras insisted, stroking his shoulder. Leonidas shuddered, and turned on his brother. “May I be excused now, sir? My friends will be wondering where I am.”

  Cleomenes considered him over the rim of his kylix and then nodded. “Yes, of course; unless you, gentlemen, insist that he stay?” he asked his guests.

  Isagoras appealed to Leonidas to stay, and when Leonidas insisted he wanted to leave, Isagoras pleaded, “At least let us drink your health!”

  This was agreed, and wine was called for. To Leonidas’ astonishment, it was poured pure into his kylix, and they all drank it that way—even his brother. It tasted terrible, and he had a hard time swallowing it down. At once he set his kylix aside and stood. “Thank you. I hope you have a pleasant stay in Lacedaemon. Good night.” He fled from the overheated, overlighted room.

  Outside the andron, the corridors of the palace were cool and d
ark, lit only by the occasional lamp at strategic corners. Leonidas knew his way out, of course, and he headed toward the back—the kitchen and stables exit where he would draw less attention than at the main front entrance. To reach the back, however, he had to pass through one of the inner atriums, the one around which the private apartments of the royal family were grouped.

  Looking up toward that wing of the sprawling palace in which he had grown up, Leonidas noted that light spilled through the second-floor colonnade on to the roof of the peristyle. Counting the windows, he could identify his own nursery. This room was also lit, and he thought he could hear whimpering coming from it. He remembered that Cleomenes’ youngest son was sick, and started to hurry away.

  Something moved and made a sound in the darkness just in front of him. He stopped abruptly, the hair standing up on the back of his neck—until he realised it was only a child, standing beside the central fountain sucking its thumb. It had to be Cleomenes’ little daughter. She gazed up at him with huge, frightened eyes.

  He went down on his heels to be at her level. “Nothing to be afraid of, child.” He couldn’t remember her name. “I’m not going to hurt you. But shouldn’t you be in bed at this time of night?”

  “Of course she should be in bed.” The voice came from the side of the atrium below the nursery, and a moment later a lady stepped out on to the crushed marble pathway and started toward him.

  It was “that whore”, his stepmother. He had not seen her up close since that horrible storm during his “fox time”. He slowly got to his feet again to face her, bracing himself for the worst. She was, he thought with a sinking heart, very like his own mother: tall, slender, grey-haired, and dignified. She was dressed very simply in her own home. Her head and feet were bare, but she wore beaded earrings and a collar of beads as well. She held out her hand to the child, who did a childish thing: she took refuge behind Leonidas, clinging to his knee and giggling, as if this was a game of hide-and-seek.