The End of Sparta

by Victor Davis Hanson

  Even the glum ones such as Philliadas were stunned silent once they heard that the violated virgin ghosts of Leuktra were to be in the skies floating above them in battle, tearing at the red-capes. They would keep away the winged demons of death from the Thebans. These were the Kêres, the blood-sucking goddesses who appeared, at one time or another, at all the battles of the Hellenes, drawn from afar by the shouts of battle and the smell of gore—with their craws full of man-flesh and sharp claws plucking up any who were tottering—assured that the life-threads of these victims were already spun by Klôthô, measured by deathless Lachêsis, and then cut by their partner Atropos, and that all three of the divine Moirai had nodded to their flying henchwomen that the doomed could now be stripped, their carcasses feasted upon, their souls whisked off to Hades.

  In battle, the untouched hoplites saw none of the Kêres of this netherworld. Only the blood-spattered and dying were given the sudden vision of these feathered vultures, who grew fat from the carnage. When sated, the women of the night landed in weariness among the flies and dung to walk off their meal, and vomit and crap out tooth and bone, and then fly up for more. They flapped off cackling and farted out the fumes of human blood. Yes, on oaks around the battlefield the Kêres perched and fouled the ground with their red pus dung. They stank, as they always dove back, eye-level over the battlefield, with their pale breasts, bloody tunics, and long white fangs—eyeing any falling hoplites that could be grabbed and torn apart before the souls went down into Hades. The foolish among the dying saw their female full-white breasts and long red nipples, and paused—only to find fangs in their necks and talons under their arms as they were snatched up. All these would fly above the battle tomorrow—and yet the hoplites were encouraged that perhaps the good ghosts of the virgins of Leuktra might keep the black daughters of night away from them.

  Nêto quickly covered up and looked around for Mêlon. Then she jumped down and took her place with the servant girls who scurried about the tent to clean up the mess of eating and loud men. Finally she went over to Proxenos, and amid the commanders, Nêto whispered despite the din of the tent. “I had a shudder. The Olympians speak through me, even if I damn them and instead worship Pythagoras. Yes, you and I claim we understood these signs, but not all of them. If there is truth to the prophecy of the mêlon—there is also truth to another warning that Proxenos, son of Proxenos, lord of Plataia, shall not cross south of the Isthmos.”

  He laughed. But she only grabbed harder on the arm of the Plataian. “The gods on Olympos hate our arrogant Pythagoras, who has stopped so many of their sacrifices and the burnt meats men offer up to their greedy tastes. I hear these old ones, petty, spiteful, and full of envy, at night. Yet they do not always lie to me, especially when I sleep. They hate him and his logos.” She was weeping in this, the moment of her joy that the army was about to fight and would win, she knew—and then would go south and free her Messenian kin after all, even if thousands of helots down south as yet knew nothing of Thebes, of Pythagoras, or the idea of democracy.

  But then Nêto frowned and grabbed the cloak of Proxenos. “Listen, again. Do not go south after our victory tomorrow. We will win. But you lose if you do not stay north of the Isthmos. You are no Mêlon, who even in his age is stronger than you, and is the god-loved. Nor are you an Ainias who can oversee your walls to the south. There are no black clouds above that man, either, and yet he cannot keep you safe. I see only corpses of enemies at his feet, never his own. He will die with a white beard and a walking stick at his own choosing.”

  Proxenos the architect laughed, this time even louder. He was young and tanned more than he needed to be from his days fixing the walls of Plataia. Birth and money, and his white teeth and black beard, gave him a certain arrogance that comes when a man feels bigger and stronger and richer than those around him. He had been born into wealth and bred to think less of slower wits. Women, he knew, he could always persuade. Nêto would be no different: No doubt she was entranced by his vigor, looks, and silver, and now worried that she might lose the chance to enjoy them all the more when the war ended.

  Proxenos had met this Nêto the previous year at the shrine of Eurynomê on the Asopos River below his red grape vineyards. A chance occurrence, he had thought, to see a naiad alone in the wilds of Boiotia. But now he was not so sure of that long-ago accident, as Nêto had come often for most of the past spring. She had taught him of Pythagoras, and soon no longer was he the bored aristocrat lamenting that the capitals of his atrium were Doric rather than new Ionic. Instead the new Proxenos became a devotee of her Pythagoras when she told him that his genius could raise walls of new cities to the south taller than those of Troy—his work for thousands rather than for a few aristocrats who wanted a new portico on their mansions. He could draw the plans in the north, and let others follow them to the south.

  Now, in reply to her warning, Proxenos’s soft words flew out as pained concession, or more condescension from lord to master. “Nêto, Nêto, my Nêto. We go to all the trouble to consult these fat priests. If that is not enough, we give heavy silver to the virgins of the temple to tell us of their signs and visions. And now you tell me to go home to the Asopos? Some day, if the One God wills, we will march into shadowy Messenia and at last live up to our divine logos that says no one is born a slave—and just as we start, you tell me all that reason, that faith in numbers is but a lie?”

  Nêto grabbed the arm of Proxenos. “But my Proxenos, reason or not, don’t press too hard the dying gods who like to give short lives to those too certain of themselves. Run from Nemesis.” She was almost ranting again. “Because we ignore some of the omens does not mean we are smarter than the old gods—or the duller mortals who believe in them, much less that they no longer exist and cannot hear us right now. They grew old, yes, but they were here before the wisdom of Pythagoras dethroned them. That is why the reason of our god Pythagoras may explain what exactly saves our souls and what not, maybe nine tenths of what we do each day, but not always the last tenth part of our lives. Only faith and belief do that. The other voices tell me. I warn you, if you cross the Isthmos this year or next, it will go badly for you, Proxenos—as badly here as it will be square and good for your soul with the One God later on. The others, they can or cannot come back. Their fates are their own. But not so Proxenos, son of Proxenos, of youth, and riches and bottomland on the Asopos, who has the most to lose of us all. Epaminondas can win here and in the south without you. You were to build the ramparts, and you have drawn up such plans, but you were not to cross spears—or so said Pasiphai to me.”

  Proxenos felt a sharp pain across his flank. It burned right below his navel on the lower left, as if cut by iron. She had the powers of a witch. But the aristocrat and the rationalist forced a second laugh. “Why ruin tonight with words of gloom and darkness? If you believe in our One God, if you really do, then you know nothing bad ever happens to the good man who lives his life according to reason. Did you not see, woman, that I was dead when I was idling on my farm, wondering whether I had the good number five thousand forty or the bad number five thousand forty-one of olive trees after all? I am not here to save Epaminondas. I am here to be saved by him, just like you persuaded me once.”

  Nêto turned and headed out of the tent before Chiôn and Mêlon could scold her for having snuck to the battlefield.

  CHAPTER 4

  Helikon

  Hold up, man.” Chiôn and Mêlon yelled to the approaching riders. The two Thespian hoplites had beaten the throng out of the assembly. Now both were looking for a place to sleep near the tent of Epaminondas. They had decided to let Gorgos stay back by himself at the wagon up on the hill. As they spread out their gear, four horsemen galloped up—Thespians like themselves. “Lophis is here.” Chiôn immediately yelled to his master.

  Lophis pulled his reins and tossed his head up. “We rode out yesterday and camped on the water by White Creek across from the Spartans last night.” He teased his father, “I figured you three had gon
e back in your old men’s wagon to Helikon to hunker down in the farm tower and wait all this out.” He had his helmet off. Lophis liked riding bareheaded around the camp. His hair was braided Spartan-like for show. He was taller than his father, thinner as well, with fairer skin.

  The hoplite grabbed the saddle cinch of his horse, Xiphos, as his son slid off to greet Chiôn. “Hoa, you! Well, here we all are in the Thebans’ cauldron, it seems.” Chiôn nodded and looked to see if the hooves were cracked. Mêlon did not wait for the slave’s answer but walked around Xiphos, his eye checking the leather flank guards that Nêto had stitched, worried that his son could afford no lapse if he were to survive the charge into the Spartans. “Your lance, son, does it go well with Xiphos?”

  “Well enough,” and the three young longhairs at his side assented. Mêlon knew none of them. But he grabbed his son’s lance to test its balance. As Lophis watched his father jab with the huge shaft, he was reminded that none of us knows the whole past of even those we see each day. But arise a chance moment, a move, a word, perhaps just a gaze, and a keyhole opens to a hidden, larger life on the other side. It both frightens and excites us to see that one so dear to us has another, an unknown, perhaps a deadly side.

  Lophis watched Mêlon take up his clumsy lance as if it were a light spear. As he stabbed about, even Lophis cowered a bit. His father’s round shield was larger than most, closer to four than three feet in width, with stains of Spartan blood and brains soaked deep within its grain. The breastplate was one of Malgis’s and had patches of tin and bronze and layers of paint that hid cracks and dents. Bora, his spear on the ground, had notches at its head, thirty and more, to mark all the Spartans who had fallen from it at the hands of Malgis and Mêlon. His father, Lophis could see now, handled a cornel spear as if it were not much more than a pruning hook.

  Lophis then felt even smaller as he tried to stop his father’s shadow jousting. “Epaminondas has told us that he has about three hundred of the horsemen of Boiotia. We will hit the Spartans first. We will give you hoplites some summer dust for your surprise. No doubt Sparta will send its horse first out as well. We’ll have a real mix-up for all of you to see. The Spartans are not mounted folk. We will kill them for sport. All can watch. They will have no warning that you with fifty shields are on the left about to cut down their king.”

  “If only it were so plumb and square,” his father replied, unsure what would happen when his son learned that battle was an awful thing, a deinon, nothing like the stabbing and romantic spearing of the stone Amazons and Lapiths far above on the friezes and pediments of the high temples. Still, it was good that young men like Lophis talked so—without fear and ready to go to blows for a bad look or less. Stout hoplites and daring horsemen were needed to face the Spartans. Who would otherwise if they knew such killers firsthand? Without the innocent Lophises of the world no one would fight for anything—but instead would count the risk, the gain and loss, worried more about the coins in the strongbox that might not be spent if he were gutted in the fields of Boiotia. Lophis had never seen the Spartans in battle, had only as a boy watched them cross Helikon to Koroneia from the mountain vineyard. He had never been in a melee with thousands of longhairs bearing down on him. When he got his down beard, he had stayed put during the killing at Tegyra to guard the farm while Mêlon took along Gorgos and Chiôn to the battle. He had been left behind to watch in case the Spartans sidestepped the patrols and raided the mountain. Now he resented that he had been the one son, the only son, to be saved at all costs—and thus had been deprived of just those ordeals that make fathers proud of their boys. Men with brothers have more freedom, since fathers know that a death in battle does not kill the entire line.

  Still, Mêlon was trying to show his pride in Lophis when all the other mounted rich men of Thespiai either had hidden or had gone over to the Spartans. “Perhaps, Lophis, it will be as easy as you say, since you and Nêto first taught me of the thinking of Epaminondas. But we left orders for your wife Damô all the same to prepare for the worst, should we fall. Nêto came here to Leuktra as well. But after her oracle-mongering is done, she is to go home to guard the farm with our Sturax. They are supposed to go up into the tower and bar the door. The only Spartans who will reach Helikon are a bone or two of them that we bring back for the dogs.”

  Mêlon was surprised at his own confidence. But he was feeling better with this plan of fifty shields, left wing, and attack at the slant—except for a final thought as he looked over his son. “One last thing, Lophis. Trade breastplates. Trade now. Mine is the heavier. Its flared bottom stops the downward jabs. You won’t mind its heavier weight on Xiphos. It is dull and patched, but it can turn any blade made by the Spartans and covers the shoulders far better. Let me wear my father’s gaudy inlaid plate. On you I fear it will be the magnet stone for any who think they can kill one of the Malgidai. It’s bright with too much gold inlay. Remember Malgis stole it at the battle near Haliartos. It is Spartan and foul. He should never have brought it home, though the metal is worth five hundred olive trees if not more. Did I tell you that the plate was once worn by the demon Lysander? Lichas and his folk miss it dearly. All that will only make you a bigger target, when the sun soon breaks through and the shine draws Spartan eyes to your chest.”

  Lophis laughed. “Wars are not won by worries, old man, you know that better than I. The bigger the target, the better, Father! I will ride right into their ranks. I will break them like Malgis did. Those around Kleombrotos will fear these men that wear without shame the armor of their dear Lysander.” With that final exchange, Lophis climbed on Xiphos, tipped the end of his spear to his father, and galloped down the hill to battle. He was a man with everything to lose. Damô, his wife, was known on Helikon as Helen for her beauty. He had three boys and would inherit the finest farm in Boiotia. And he rode off to be among the first of the Boiotians to collide with the Spartans—galloping to ensure he was at the fore of the cavalry attack. Mêlon turned to Chiôn and sighed. “My dull plate would save him. His shine may well kill him. He is brave—but I fear that it is the bravery of the noble ignorant. My boy forgot that Malgis never broke the Spartans at all. I wish he were here beside me in the ranks, between my right arm and your left. No Spartan, not even Lichas there, could touch my son. And I wish I had never heard the name Leuktra.”

  Chiôn said nothing. He assumed that he would kill enough Spartans on their right wing himself to keep both his masters safe, even if Lophis were mounted and in front of the phalanx. As Lophis disappeared, the two lay down beneath a mountain oak and soon were asleep for the few hours left before the sunrise draw-up of the phalanx. Chiôn and Mêlon, as if by consent, were alike dreaming of the farm back on Helikon. Both were pruning and talking in these dreams before battle—as if they would soon have no more chance to meet again in this life.

  Where was this high farm of Mêlon and Chiôn that drew them home in their last sleep before battle? Mêlon’s ground was not far from Leuktra, high up the eastern side of the massif of Mt. Helikon, two stadia above the floor of the valley. The farm was right below the hard frost line, at an elevation at which olives can thrive. It was a good, safe place to grow things, to keep away from the Thespians and all the other Boiotian villagers below—mostly hidden as it was from the invaders from the north or south, and too hard a hike up for the raiders on the coast. The slopes of Helikon itself were a divine place, the center of Hellas—a place where the Muses could speak directly to a man. Helikon was south and to the east a little of snowy Mt. Parnassos. Along these mountains the clouds piled up to hide Apollo when he visited his oracle Pythia beneath at Delphi, navel of the world.

  For his part this night at Leuktra, Chiôn could see the land almost as if he were floating above it, like Ikaros with waxen wings. From the farm it was an easy gaze at the mountain passes of Parnon to Attika and Athens. To the south were the high woody crests of ill-omened Mt. Kithairon, on whose backside the Spartans this morning, if they lost, were going to sneak away along th
e cliffs above the sea. Farther in the distance rose peaks of Pentelikos and Akonthion, the ridges that kept out of Boiotia the bad Athenians, the false democrats whom the Boiotians hated more than any of the Hellenes. Chiôn for his part could see craggy Ptôon and the green island of Euboia lying far off into the west. The farm of Mêlon was right above the great plain of Boiotia—“cow-land,” those arrogant Athenians called it. Few went up to Helikon. Even fewer on Helikon wished to go down.

  Over fifty crops before this morning’s battle, the founder Malgis, father of Mêlon, had staked out his plot on Helikon. He cleared virgin ground from the mountain. Hyacinth, amaryllis, and wild Attic orchids followed. Once the sun hit the land shorn of thousands of strawberry trees, dense beech, and poplar copses, tulips sprouted. “I did it,” the hoplite Malgis used to yell to the skies. When he patched broken tiles on the farm’s high tower roof, he could take in the view of his thirty years’ worth of work. “All this—it came off of my back, with help from the prophets of the One God, all led by Pythagoras who set me right on my course.” Farming, Malgis the founder said, was a lot like war. It needed the same order and discipline if you were to survive it. He came to worship Pythagoras, the god of order and reason, rather than the overgrown child-gods on Olympos. All they wanted were libations and burnt offerings, just like babies in diapers who cry when the teat slips out of their mouth.