The Spartan mind did not flirt with regrets. It would have been easy for him to blame Epitadas and his flawed strategy. (The Athenians shifted to press en masse against Frog’s men, trying to overwhelm them there. The defenders shifted with them, and the tactic failed.) Doubts notwithstanding, Antalcidas had made a thousand choices since the beginning—choices of when to fight and when not, when to speak or stay silent, that had made him complicit in everything that followed. (Frog took an arrow in the calf. He tore it out and jabbed the bloody point into an Athenian’s neck.) These things he had done would make incomprehensible any change he might imagine now, pragmatic and sensible though it might be. True, there was many a Greek who would understand if he defied Epitadas now. Those Greeks were not Lacedaemonians, however, steeped in a tradition of loyalty that transcended reasonableness. To rule men and to be ruled: these were the things that were in the bones of every Spartan, well-born or half-helot. (An enemy peltast, bearing a wicker shield, pushed through the line.)
Before he was conscious of willing it, Antalcidas confronted the intruder. “You’re a brave man to come here with a shield made of sticks!” he told the Athenian. Timon, looking at this spattered, wild-eyed Spartan bristling with arrows, took fright and ran. Antalcidas brought him down with a slashing attack to the tendons in his leg. He then slaughtered Timon as he would an animal, making a small slit in his throat to let his blood pour on the ground. “For the glory of the goddess, an offering,” he said to the dying oarsman. “And for Doulos.”
And then, with the sounding of horns, the Athenians pulled back. After a few more arrows fell, the archers behind them also stopped shooting. The cooing of the wild pigeons in the cliffs rose again over the abrupt silence. Suddenly bereft of opponents, the Lacedaemonians stood around, bewildered; by all honest account the day was nearly lost for them, yet the enemy had flinched. “Spartans, we’ve broken their nerve!” proclaimed Frog, waving his sword above his head. His companions cheered, but Antalcidas didn’t believe it. Such a miracle could only be the work of Artemis Herself.
A more worldly explanation soon presented itself. A voice from behind the Athenian lines asked for a meeting between the captains of the two sides. It took a while for Antalcidas to register that they were calling for him, not Epitadas. As he went, Frog called out to him, saying, “Serve your men well by what you do, Antalcidas!”
13.
He emerged barehanded, helmet dimpled from glancing arrow hits, arms and legs smeared with blood, nose and eyes caked with the residue of fire. On his appearance the Athenians fell silent, staring wide-eyed at him as he strode from between the ramparts of enemy dead.
Demosthenes and Cleon, by contrast, looked as fresh as when the day began. The former had not wanted a parley at all; the notion that the Lacedaemonians would negotiate a surrender was absurd. Yet Cleon had insisted on it, thinking that the mere possibility of crowning his victory with captives was worth the attempt. Demosthenes indulged his foolishness as best he could—the men could at least be given water as the futile act was done.
The antagonists met midway. Antalcidas eyed the Athenians with more than a crease of disdain. In victory or defeat, it would always be in his nature to despise foreigners. The squat one standing before him was shifty, with flesh as soft and flaccid as a woman’s; he doubted the man had ever spent a day risking his life in the line. The taller man, whom he took to be Demosthenes, had a certain aristocratic severity, but his eyes betrayed the uncertainty in his mind. Antalcidas said nothing, allowing the Athenians to speak first.
Cleon was delighted with this display of laconic primitiveness. If it was up to him, Antalcidas would be brought back to Athens just as he was, elbow-deep in gore. What a trophy the rustic warrior would make! What a triumph awaited the People’s champion!
“Do you know who I am?” asked Cleon.
“You are my enemy,” replied Antalcidas.
The other smiled. “They say the Lacedaemonians are stupid, but I’ve never believed it. So I’ll address you frankly—what is your name?”
“Antalcidas, son of Molobrus. But I’ll thank you not to sully my father’s name by speaking it.”
“You must see that your position is desperate today. Though you have fought well, we both know the fate in store for you. I must tell you that many of the Athenians would just as well see you all slaughtered. But as we are all Greeks here, I have prevailed on them to allow me to make this offer: surrender yourselves and your arms now. You will be well treated. Provided your masters behave responsibly, you will live to see home again.
“Now I know all about you Lacedaemonians and your lust for death. You all see yourselves as part of the gallant Three Hundred, itching to die to defend the pass from the barbarians. But understand this, my friend: we are not barbarians, and you are not Leonidas. You were beaten here today not by Asian profligacy with lives, but by the superior leadership of fellow Greeks. I suspect that even Spartans must give up their childish fantasies one day; they must confront facts just like the rest of us do. I implore you, then, with respect—think of your men. Think of your wives and children. Consider our offer.”
Antalcidas looked at him as if expecting him to say more. When Cleon didn’t, he raised an eyebrow. “I think you must be right. I must be stupid, because unlike you wise Athenians, I cannot see the difference between surrender and humiliation. So if that is all you have to say—”
He turned to walk back to the fort. Cleon looked to Demosthenes with alarm. The latter, for his part, would have been glad to see the conference end. In his experience, addressing a Spartan was as useless as talking to a rock; he had once heard Aristophanes quip that although Athenians and Lacedaemonians had Greek in common, they used opposite halves of the language.
“Before you go,” Demosthenes spoke up, “you should know something.”
Antalcidas paused.
“Be aware that your masters have been treating with our Assembly very hard for an end to the siege. So it seems that a few hundred dead Spartiates is a matter of some concern in Sparta. They want you back alive, not dead and covered in glory. Personally, I’m happy the negotiations have failed. I have not worked these months for you to walk free of here—I’d prefer to see you humbled, once and for all. But even if I care not a spit for you or the wishes of your elders, perhaps you should.”
Antalcidas regarded Demosthenes with something close to approval. “So it seems that some Athenians are capable of speaking plainly,” he said. “It is good to know. As for what you say—it is your ignorance to suppose that Spartan mothers do not care for their sons. And so, because you are a soldier, and have spoken honestly, I’ll make you an offer: allow us to send a messenger to our superiors ashore. If they order us to surrender our arms, I will not disobey them.”
Cleon was about to agree, but Demosthenes spoke first. “We have no objection. But we will deliver the message for you—none of you will leave this island.”
The truce persisted for several more hours as the Lacedaemonians consulted. As they waited, Antalcidas checked on Epitadas’ condition: with the arrow still lodged near his spine, he had lost a lot of blood, which in addition to his dehydration kept him sunk in semi-consciousness. If they didn’t soon find a way to remove the arrow safely, he would die. Then again, was that not the fate to which he was resigned for some time now?
Antalcidas did not think the ephors would give the Athenians the satisfaction of a speedy reply. He was therefore surprised when the Athenian ship soon returned with a message, shut with string and a wax seal with the mark of Zeuxippos. Unscrolling it, he found a single, uncoded line, unmistakably in his old mentor’s hand. It read:
ó του Àντ λκιδου τρ φετ ι
The message pleased and puzzled him in equal measure. It was the first word he had heard of Andreia in months, and it was good. No Lacedaemonian could receive news that he had fathered a son and be displeased.
And yet—what did it mean? Were his superiors inviting him to return home, wit
hout prejudice, and raise his son? Or did they wish to imply that, with his legacy assured, he should see now to preserving the honor of his name?
The son of Antalcidas grows.
The Athenian generals watched as he stood there, reading the line again and again. Cleon immediately discerned the uncertainty on his adversary’s face. “Does the answer surprise you?” he asked.
Antalcidas ignored him. He had been too long away from Laconia—that Zeuxippos could expect anything else than the traditional sacrifice was unlikely. What proof did he have that Demosthenes was telling the truth, that the ephors had bargained hard for the garrison’s release? Nothing more than his word. And what was the word of an Athenian worth, when they dispensed so many of them, to such little effect?
He rolled up the message. “The answer is clear,” Antalcidas replied. “It is what we all expected. I bid you return to your men now, and ready your arms—for the Lacedaemonians choose to die.”
14.
The scroll was still in Antalcidas’ hand when he returned to the ruins. All the surviving Spartiates glanced down at it, as if curious over what it said, but too proud to ask outright.
Frog had no such trouble. “So what do our elders require of us?”
Antalcidas gave it to him. Reading the words, Frog grimaced.
“What does this mean?” he asked. “Is it some kind of code?”
“The men will prepare themselves for the attack.”
Pushing their helmets down low on their heads, the men settled down in their positions. Antalcidas saw that a few had used the reprieve to stack several small blocks at the back of the fort, making a small stretch of cover from the bowmen behind them. But this position offered no refuge from arrows shot from the other side.
Frog had not finished his interrogation. “Tell me, Antalcidas, why are you so sure they expect a sacrifice?”
“I’m not sure. When in doubt, the Spartiate will always make the most honorable choice.”
“There are many good men here,” the other persisted. “If there’s a chance to them to serve again in the line—we should be sure. You might petition the ephors to clarify.”
Antalcidas rounded on him, sneering, “Would that make your father proud? For us to prattle back and forth like women? No—I will not embarrass our elders by begging them to make our choice for us. If you must know, that is the duty of the command you wanted so desperately. Now leave me alone.”
Frog stared at him with eyes wide. Then he bent at the waist in a mocking bow.
“Well, then! Let us all hail our lord Antalcidas, third king of the Spartans!”
Before the other could straighten up again, Antalcidas shoved him to the ground. Looking back, Frog wore a face of such undiluted hatred that it might as well have been a theatrical mask.
“You’ve made a mistake, Antalcidas.”
Antalcidas reached for his sword. “And you’ve plagued your commanders for the last time. Get up.”
Frog rolled to his feet, his blade at the ready. Facing each other, a fight was inevitable, with Frog whipping himself up into an emotional froth and Antalcidas staring back, expressionless but with every intention of making the other suffer before he died. He had not fought another Lacedaemonian since that day on the Plane Stand, and never killed one. He found himself strangely attracted to the prospect: his love of country, which was unshakable, had somehow made him more contemptuous of certain Spartans than he knew. It was nothing so simple as resenting those of modest talent but legitimate birth. Instead, he felt a powerful need to purify and ennoble his love by removing irritants like Frog from the life of his city.
Suddenly the scream of wind through bowfeathers descended on them. Antalcidas looked up—and saw the sky again filled with Athenian arrows. He and Frog crouched together next to a wall as the volley hit the ground; neither of them was struck, but a handful of the other men were caught in the open without their shields.
“You men get your equipment!” Antalcidas cried. “Forward positions, prepare to receive the enemy—”
But the Athenians had changed tactics. The wounded Lacedaemonians were limping and crawling to where their shields lay, or injuring themselves further by ripping the arrowpoints from their flesh, when another volley came on. More went down as missiles tore through their flimsy piloi. Desperate, some of the Spartans darted out to strip a few of the heavier, closed helmets from the Athenian dead.
Demosthenes had decided to send no more human waves against the breaches: he would no longer gratify the Spartans by offering them the sort of death they preferred. The conference with Antalcidas, whom Demosthenes took to be a petulant fool, had relieved him of all chivalric scruples. He would now grind the Lacedaemonians down constantly, mercilessly, and from a distance.
Reading this fury, Cleon saw there was no longer any chance for live prisoners. Looking to sea, he visualized bringing a severed human head—perhaps Antalcidas’—to the Squeezing Place. No, the institution’s traditional decorum would never allow it. Yet would they not talk about that day forever, when Cleon brought such vivid evidence of his newfound military prowess?
“The archers are running out of arrows,” Leochares reported.
Cleon supposed that this was bad news. He looked to Demosthenes, who spared him only a glance before turning to Leochares.
“Tell the line officers that a ship is already on its way from the stockade,” he said. He then added—more to gall Cleon that to inform Leochares—“I called for resupply hours ago.”
15.
The bombardment went on as dark clouds appeared over the Ionian and spread east, glowering over Sphacteria. Showing bottoms of grayish purple, the clouds seemed to groan with moisture; Doulos would have called their arrival the best evidence of rain in months. Sure enough, a thin, desultory mist fell, increasing the Spartans’ misery as they clung to whatever crevices gave them refuge. The mist became a downpour; rivulets formed immediately in the thin soil, scattering the cyclops bones Doulos had so carefully fit together. Meanwhile, some of the men removed their helmets, so useless against the arrows, and used them to collect precious rainwater. Antalcidas didn’t bother. For rain to fall now, when their fate was sealed, could only be some sort of divine joke at his expense.
The Athenian bowmen kept shooting. Those arrows that didn’t hit a Spartan were now sticking upright in the mud; looking at one of these, Antalcidas noticed that a message had been cut into the wooden shaft. It read, in clumsy letters, For the Acharnians, against the Lak—. The writer appeared to have run out of room before he could finish the taunt.
“Is this your virtuous stand, Antalcidas?” Frog called through the storm. “Tell us, do you feel like Leonidas now?”
“Shut up, trembler!”
“I’ll show you,” replied the other. “You and your brother have insulted me for the last time. I’ll show you. . . .”
The rain fell for only a brief time. Soon an uncertain sun shone through, making the water beads gleam on the masonry and the ground with slicks of blood-soaked mud. A cry went up behind the Athenian lines, answered by another from the Messenians. Antalcidas did not always understand the Attic lingo, but the command sounded like an order to stop shooting.
The volleys ceased. A voice came to them then from below—one he did not recognize as belonging to either Cleon or Demosthenes.
“Lacedaemonians, this is your last chance!” the voice cried. “Surrender now, and we will let you carry your shields to the ships.”
So they would allow the Spartans to go down with their shields, thought Antalcidas. How desperate they must be to make trophies of us! And yet, how long before they confiscate those arms as they push us into the hold? He looked to the under-thirty who shared cover with him behind a block. He was making a brave face of it, but his fear was there to see, in the subtle trembling of his lips.
“Take heart, son,” Antalcidas told him. “It will be over soon . . . and your family will have the honor of cutting your name into your tombstone.”
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There was more murmuring from behind the enemy line. He heard the archers draw back their bowstrings—an act that was individually silent, but when done in numbers made a distinct sound, like a sharp intake of breath. Antalcidas put a reassuring hand on the under-thirty’s back: this, at last, would be it.
A memory seemed to seep out from within, from the core of his bones. Antalcidas was alone, hungry, trapped between blackness and a damp rigidity pressing against him. His brothers and sisters were whispering to him now from their stony cradles, dressed in only bits of scalp, fine hair, residues of blood scattered across the gorge. As their mothers lived their days on the plain, weaving their shrouds of forgetting, the children of Sparta collected in rising numbers against that hard teat. . . .
Frog’s detested voice suddenly called out again.
“By the gods, Antalcidas, must all the Spartans die for your vanity?”
Then Frog did the inconceivable: breaking cover before the arrows flew, he waved his arms and shouted, “The Lacedaemonians will bear their shields!” The words pierced Antalcidas deeper than any arrow. Yet he did nothing at first, preferring to believe that he had misheard. There was also the possibility, as sweet as the memory of Andreia’s face, that the Athenians would do them all the favor of shooting Frog down.
There was no snap of the bowstrings. Instead, the other Spartiates around Frog gave up too, and more around the fort, until the post dissolved in confusion, with some of the men wandering around the ruins and asking, “Have we surrendered?” and others not waiting for confirmation, but throwing up their hands unsolicited. Before long most of the garrison had stood up, exposed in a way that made the Athenians stare up at them, openmouthed.
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