The Isle of Stone

by Nicholas Nicastro

  Dicaearchus was sitting up, examining the soles of his bare feet. “These fucking rocks! I’ve never bled so much in seven years of war!”

  “In seven years of war you’ve never stopped complaining.”

  “Look for yourself, then! Here, here, and here . . . !”

  “I’d dance on razors not to have to walk on sand again,” said Timon. “I believe my toes are permanently curled.”

  “So your boyfriend tells us,” Patronices replied, the ends of his lips smugly twisted.

  The next group to land included Xeuthes, Stilbiades, and the deck men Cleinias and Oreus. Old Sphaerus was invited as well, but refused. “Anyone who invites his enemy to dinner is a fool,” he said in a voice so dripping with portent everyone had to laugh. Philemon, the trierarch, meanwhile, made one of his rare appearances outside his cabana, sticking his head out when the ship came to rest ashore.

  “Is the siege over?” he asked.

  They had three large fires going now, each loaded with sap-filled twigs that made much smoke and noise. The Lacedaemonians obviously know we are here, thought Xeuthes as he leaned against a boulder, his eyes fixed north; if we bring enough men ashore that may be protection enough against an attack. It made no sense for their adversaries to reveal their numbers before the real battle, he judged. Yet he was also beginning to suspect that he had been precipitate in declaring the beach safe. A third of his crew was now on their backs, snoozing or roasting little buff-colored lizards they had caught in the brush. If the enemy managed a sneak attack, most of his men would be cut down before they got to their feet.

  “You there! Keep your traps shut!” the captain snapped at the archers posted on the Terror’s foredeck. The bowmen straightened up, ceased their chatter. They were, after all, supposed to give cover if the Lacedaemonians came. “Remind me to trade away those idlers when we get back,” Xeuthes said to the bosun. Stilbiades agreed with a drowsy grunt.

  The attack came just past noon. Before Xeuthes heard anyone cry out, arrows were whistling over his head. Scanning the hillside, he spotted them at last—not Spartans, but weird negative images of Spartans, with cloaks faded to gray and skins broiled red from the sun. They were spearless, swords in hand, zigging and zagging like oblong rocks bouncing down the slope to crush them. There seemed to be only a dozen—or in Lacedaemonian terms, there were only sixty Athenians to face twelve raging furies.

  “They’re here! They’re here!” someone cried.

  “Back to the ship!” Xeuthes commanded. “Archers . . . by the gods . . .”

  They were shooting, but hitting nothing as the lead Spartan approached the edge of the camp. He struck down the first Athenian he met—a hold man named Lysimachus—with a precise economy of effort: just a brief pointing of the end of his blade, a stab to the soft part of the throat, and on to the next one. Everything was in an uproar now, his crew breaking frantically for the water, the great crimson lambdas appearing over the rocks; the Terror’s little corps of six hoplites, having brought their armor with them, made a stand with shields presented. Three Spartans raised their own shields as they crashed against them, pushing the Athenians backward over the broken ground until the latter lost their footing. Five of Xeuthes’ men were killed where they lay; the last escaped by abandoning his shield.

  Stilbiades was yelling something as he shoved Xeuthes back toward the gangplank. Philemon, for his part, was running with impressive speed, his bulk streaming back in great liquid waves across his torso. With the Lacedaemonians closing behind him, he seemed suddenly to be airborne, little feet churning on pointe as his piercing scream rose to a funereal crescendo.

  Xeuthes was yelling at him, at the bosun, at everyone as he backed onto the plank. The archers seemed not to have hit a single attacker. The enemy were at last slowed down by the extraordinary efforts of a few ordinary oarsmen who threw flaming boughs. The smoking missiles seemed to give the Spartans pause—one of them stood still long enough for an archer to get a bead and put an arrow through his shoulder. He was propelled sideways, toppling on his side like a stone cairn blown down on a windy hillside. Two other Lacedaemonians converged to help him; the oarsmen kept throwing their burning sticks until they were distant enough to turn and run.

  The crew took with them as many of their dead comrades as they could. Yet, as the Terror pulled away from the shore she abandoned ten bodies on the beach. The captain had Sphaerus take them out into the bay and back again in a wide loop, to rest again near shore, ram-forward. Xeuthes then went up to the stem and did what custom demanded: he asked for quarter and the Lacedaemonians’ permission to retrieve the dead.

  The customary answer was to accede, but he got no answer from the island. Xeuthes repeated his plea, then turned to Stilbiades.

  “Are those dogs ignoring me?”

  “Feel that,” said the other, raising his open palm to the shore. “There’s quite a strong fire behind that smoke.”

  Xeuthes could feel the heat through his beard. The island, of course, was a tinderbox, but could the blaze have spread so fast? And what was the precedent for claiming the fallen from a burning battlefield when the victors have fled? Pondering these questions, he left his ship floating, with oars poised in midstroke, as the rising inferno melted the crystals of sea salt on his brow to stinging tears.

  6.

  The Lacedaemonian emissary arrived the very evening the truce lapsed. Demosthenes received the man in his tent before joining one of the ships that would guard the island that night. It had lately turned cold on the bay; a hint of fall, of snow on some Balkan mountain and leaves beginning to moulder, hung on the northwest breeze. On his field bed his valet had left his equipment for the night: a pack with some bread and cheese, a woolen cloak, a little scroll of light poetry to divert him, and if that failed, a set of well-worn worry beads. That his visitor would perceive him to be a man willing to stand a post himself was all to the good, he thought—but in retrospect he regretted showing the beads.

  This time they sent an old Spartiate named Zeuxippos. As he regarded the cadaverous fellow, the old man’s eyes shot back a look of mildly tempered amusement, as if the sight of anyone not Spartan bearing arms seemed somehow absurd. Demosthenes responded with the condescension Athenians typically reserved for Attic and Euboean hicks who came into town on festival days. And why, wondered Demosthenes, did the longhairs always send a new man for every errand? Was it something as straightforward as not permitting any one person to become indispensable? After years of fighting the Lacedaemonians, he suspected that the reason was both simpler and subtler: they must believe that any one of them had to be competent, by the mere fact that he was a Spartiate.

  “By the terms of the truce, the Peloponnesians handed over all the Athenian ships they had captured,” Zeuxippos was saying. “Need we remind you that with the resumption of the war, you are now bound by oath to return our property to us?”

  Demosthenes stuffed his beads into a fold in his cloak. “Honored guest, what you say is correct—but incomplete. By my understanding of the terms, the smallest violation by either side nullifies the agreement.”

  “And how have the Lacedaemonians failed to keep their oaths?”

  “In what ignorance do the Spartans keep their elders! Nor am I obliged to tell you how you have wronged us—though I will, just to show you how Athenians value their agreements. A small party of our allies was attacked during a foraging trip to the north of Pylos. One man was killed. And so by the terms of the armistice, we are released from our obligation to return the ships.”

  Zeuxippos appeared ready either to laugh in Demosthenes’ face or assault him with his veiny fists. “I think you speak of an invasion of our territory by bandits. The attempt was driven into the sea. Have I heard you rightly—did you say the Athenians were in league with these troublemakers? If so, the violation was on your part, not ours.”

  “It is my understanding, sir, that the Messenians are the rightful owners of this territory, and that it is therefore impo
ssible for them to ‘invade’ what is already theirs.”

  “Take care, Demosthenes! We are not disputing in the stoa here. These are matters older than you know, and perhaps beyond your understanding. If you wish to speak of what is ‘rightful,’ know that the rabble you call your ‘allies’ swore before the gods never to return from exile.”

  “Their grandfathers did, perhaps,” replied Demosthenes. “But that is nothing to us—they fight with us now, and as I have said, the smallest violation nullifies our commitment.”

  On schedule, Leochares begged to interrupt.

  “General, the fleet is ready.”

  “So you see I must leave you now,” said Demosthenes. When Zeuxippos said nothing, he could not resist adding, “If you wish anything to eat or drink before you leave—wine, fruit—please ask the steward. We are very well provisioned here.”

  Zeuxippos turned himself around. Before he left, he leaned hard on his staff and addressed Demosthenes over his shoulder.

  “I wonder if they will elect you general again, Demosthenes, when you fail to learn the lessons of Aetolia.”

  It was a blow well struck. Demothenes colored despite himself, but could think of nothing to say. He was rescued when Leochares made an unexpected return.

  “Begging your pardon, but we have word from our lookouts on Koryphasion.”

  “What is it? Have the Peloponnesians found the courage to attack?”

  “No, General—it’s the island. It’s burning.”

  VIII

  Dispatches

  1.

  Cleon had a sophisticated sense of which speakers to attend to and which to ignore. Just then there was a youngster from Scambonidae on the platform, probably some sweet-cheeked scion of a rich father too frightened to risk his own name in public, propounding the kind of moderation that lost wars. Clean only heard one or two words at a time—a weakling verb, some overwatered adjective—but that was enough to know the speech wasn’t worth his attention.

  Instead, he focused on the message in front of him, written just days before by a Messenian informant outside of Pylos. Through his network of merchant guest-friends scattered from the far west to the borders of Attica, he got his information, delivered by mounted courier, days before the dispatch ships rounded the Peloponnese. In ordinary times this was a handy advantage; during crises like this, it would be decisive in the defeat of all his enemies, near and far.

  . . . As the fire was hidden from the Athenians by the high ground of the island, it was first seen from the glow it cast over the south end of Sphacteria. Some time later a ship returned from patrol with news of its outbreak in the dry brush of that area. Demosthenes was at first suspicious of this story, for the vessel was manned exclusively by Acharnians, who had been known to exceed their orders in their zeal to harm the enemy. At length the captain of the ship, Xeuthes, son of Cratinus, convinced the general that the Lacedaemonians were themselves to blame, having foolishly allowed a campfire to go out of control. As Xeuthes was prepared to swear by the name of his father, who fought the barbarian at Salamis, Demosthenes was convinced that no unmanly treachery had been done on his account.

  In the following days the fire spread to an extent that amazed both Athenians and Peloponnesians. The south was scorched overnight, and when dawn brokea great tower of smoke was seen rising over the island. The lookouts on the ships said they could follow the progress of the blaze by the streams of embers, which ignited the vegetation that was downwind and weakened by drought. The crackling of the flames was heard from the water; the explosion of certain tree trunks made thunderclaps that echoed from one end of the bay to the other. . . .

  He reached the last line of the message just as the speaker concluded. From the left of the Assembly came a smattering of applause which, by his internal measuring stick, he judged to be of no threat to his interests. The herald, holding the myrtle at the end of his outstretched arm, did not need to pose the question, “Who wishes to speak?” before a familiar face made the slightest of affirmative gestures. The citizens of Athens broke into an uproar as Cleon mounted the rostrum. The dispatch he had been reading was now safely inside a fold of his chiton, tucked reassuringly next to his heart.

  “Gentlemen, we have heard much today about what is advisable, just, or prudent about this war. I would not dare to impugn the motives of those who urge policies with which I disagree. For our system is unique in the freedom under which such debate is held, where any man, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, may have his say, and in so doing place his wisdom in the service of the state. Instead of demeaning these deliberations with the language of faction, I will therefore confine my remarks to the facts as we know them—and only to the facts.”

  The cacophony of cheers and catcalls died away, for they all recognized that Cleon had decided to explore a new key. Today, he would out-Nicias Nicias’ calm, detached, measured drone.

  “All can agree on how matters now stand. It is fifty days since the Lacedaemonians were trapped. The effort to reduce the island has been under the nominal command of our esteemed Nicias, though he has yet to leave the city to take direct control. That task he has left to his deputy on the scene, Demosthenes, son of Alcisthenes, which I agree to be only right and proper since Demosthenes not only conceived the operation, but has been in Pylos from the beginning. To this end a sum of three hundred talents has already been spent, with every reason to believe that significant further monies will be required. What, then, have we gained from this expenditure of time and resources?

  “Since the end of the truce, we are told, no supplies have reached the garrison except what one man or a small boat may slip past our blockade. No blockade mounted so close to an enemy coast can be ‘watertight, ’ the admirals say. Fair enough! But if that is so, to what degree can we expect this strategy of delay to ever achieve success? There is no sign that the Lacedaemonians are in desperate straits at the moment. Indeed, the Spartiates who once seemed so desperate to gain the return of their sons have never returned to the Assembly with better terms. How confident those old men of the Gerousia must be! How heartily they must be laughing at all of us!

  “Please don’t misunderstand me—I don’t say these things to be provocative. I raise my concerns because I believe the People deserve to know what the prospects for success really are. And so the question must be put to our strategist-in-chief: with the Lacedaemonians lounging unconcerned on the beach, and our treasury running low, and the autumn storms bearing down on our brave sailors, what provision has he made to bring the siege to a prompt end?”

  Having said not one word more than he believed necessary, Cleon surrendered the wreath. And while there were some titters around the sanctum when he claimed not to seek an argument, it was an uncannily statesmanlike performance for a man of Cleon’s reputation.

  Nicias, who was at the nearby house of a friend when his adversary had begun speaking, rushed back just in time to hear Cleon’s final question. One of his allies filled him in on the rest as he came forward, his back bent like an old tree tormented by the wind. When Nicias reached the platform he seemed more than usually loathe to speak. It was a reticence that had served him well over the years: though he was one of the wealthiest men in Athens, his defenders came from all strata of fortune and penury, many out of simple pity for the civic burdens he so obviously bore.

  “Cleon is a speaker,” began Nicias. “I am not a speaker, but just a general. Perhaps Cleon will excuse me, then, for voicing an opinion on matters of my expertise during one of the rare moments when we are not enjoying his.”

  Laughter. Cleon bit his lip.

  “I know that it seems that this affair has gone on for a long time. This should not be a surprise, considering that certain voices have been proclaiming victory since the first hours of the siege. In any case, I need not remind this Assembly of the magnitude of our task, both to maintain a blockade on a distant island and to defend our position there, deep in enemy territory. Many minds have been concerned so far wi
th how to accomplish this—minds far more subtle than mine, grappling with problems many of us cannot begin to fathom. Through their efforts, we stand today on the brink of the victory so loudly anticipated by some. It is something to savor on its own, the nearness of our victory! That we cannot yet make a final celebration is unfortunate, perhaps, but hardly an emergency.

  “But now we hear the question posed, I suspect more in impatience than in disrespect, of what plans we have to subdue the enemy before autumn. With equal respect, then, allow my reply to be just as abrupt—there are many plans. Plans, after all, are cheap; they cost nothing, and have no consequences. They are as plentiful as pebbles on a beach. What is rare, though, is the wisdom to know which plan to use.

  “Allow me to answer the esteemed Cleon with another question: how many Spartans are on the island today? Or to put it another way, how much force need we apply to defeat them, without leaving the fleet too weak to fight its way home? For surely, given our friend’s confident turn of rhetoric on this issue, he has the kind of deep strategical knowledge to allay the concerns of minds so much simpler than his! How many Spartans, Cleon? The People want to know.”

  Nicias’s sarcasm, so uncharacteristic of him, struck the Assembly like a bolt of lightning, electrifying the left and deadening the tongues of everyone else. But in the midst of it all Cleon was calm, even amused. With his right hand, he patted the place on his chiton where he had tucked the dispatch. In the letter, his informant had described the final consequences of the fire: with Sphacteria denuded of most vegetation, the enemy was exposed to the Athenian lookouts on Koryphasion. There were precisely 582 Lacedaemonians on the island. Of those, no more than 420 were hoplites, and the rest shieldbearers. This was a lower number than anyone had supposed—and far too few to defend an island twenty stades long.