The End of Sparta

by Victor Davis Hanson

  The myth floated away in a blink with a shout of “Liar!” Nêto shrieked again, “Liar!” She may not have looked any more like the helot maiden of Helikon, but her voice was the same and she dragged her foot and closed on Kuniskos. “Liar. Dogfaced liar. You killed Lophis as if with your own hand. I know your hands that snuffed the life out of Erinna in the house of Antikrates. You can tell the jurymen all that—even more when we get down the mountain, about the dead Messenians hung up on trees, and their women sent to the Kaiadas after your play. You will drink the hemlock poison or they will throw you into the pit alive, as you did to hundreds of our own—or you will hang for the buzzards. We will stone your poisoned corpse, then hang it from the new north gate before throwing it as bora to the dogs and crows.”

  Kuniskos now stared her down. “Jurymen? Trial? Aren’t you talking of your own day in court to come in Thebes, you renegades who are this year outlaws, the real lawbreakers of Boiotia?” Kuniskos shouted and all the pretense of the old good Gorgos vanished now for good. “Such hypocrites you are. You slave-owning liberators of helots.” Kuniskos could not stop. The spell was broken once his tears had not swayed any of his guests. “How do your helot folk govern themselves or keep the Spartans out without hiring Epaminondas each season? When you are through with your fun under Ithômê and all go home, who will clean up this mess, govern these wild tribes? Who gives you the power to free anyone, you who owned me, the better man, the helot who wants freedom from the likes of you and your kind? Do you plan to move down here to watch them, as if parents who must change the soiled clothes of their half-grown children?”

  Nêto cut him off. “Liar, liar you are, old man. Liar on our Helikon. Traitor of your own kind, sell-out to the killers of Agesilaos.” Then she stepped up and slapped the palm of Kuniskos, thinking how these hands had squeezed Erinna and tightened the bonds on her neck. The other four went silent as they watched instead the right arm of Kuniskos, who was now up and out of his chair. As Mêlon knew from the weak lamplight, the long narrow cottage was far larger than it seemed to the eye when outside. Maybe twenty or thirty paces to the rear, eyed again the second door of his dreams—now noticed in the dark shadows as well by the sharp eye of Ainias, who usually scanned all rooms on entry as if he were on a crest over the battlefield.

  Suddenly three tall shapes appeared there at the back of this single room. They swung the rear door wide open. At the same time, before Melissos could yell out, a spear tip pushed him back off the front threshold as another two men and a woman came in from the front door. Mêlon’s band had Gorgos in front of them and Spartans on both their right and left, altogether seven to their five.

  Melissos grabbed the hand of Mêlon. “The cave, master, the cave, they came out of the cave.” The rescuers were trapped. Both doorways were barred by tall men in armor—Spartans who were veterans of the kryptes, and raven-haired Elektra herself, who stood blocking the light without entering all the way into the hut.

  “Meet, Master Mêlon, my Spartan friends.” Kuniskos laughed and waved with each hand to the six Spartans at the two entries. “And you, my Lakonian friends, this is my master of the long whip, lame Mêlon. He is the killer of our king Kleombrotos. Over there is his new lackey Ainias, another rat in our trap who smelled some sweet cheese up here on Taygetos. They claim this mercenary thought up the ruse of attacking you from the left at Leuktra. That other wild boy from the far north does not matter. Forget the skinny helot—the one they call Nikôn. He will run when the blood flows, like all helots. Nêto over there who barked this winter under my table for a bone, whether rabbit or mine, why she prides herself the mouthpiece of the helots—yes, that brand-face in rags that stands there across the table. I doubt this time she will find a way out of my hands as before.”

  The Spartans ignored the big talk of their Kuniskos and watched instead the hands of Ainias and Mêlon. There was not much room to move. Mêlon clinched his spear. Ainias backed against the wall. All five bunched up. The two hoplites shielded Melissos and Nikôn behind them, who had only their blades. Nêto in the middle of the tiny phalanx picked up the walking stick of Kuniskos. Ainias also drew his cleaver, and quickly handed his spear to Mêlon, who had Bora in his other hand. Like the Stymphalian, Mêlon had dropped his shield outside on the path before the threshold—not because either one trusted Kuniskos, but thinking they would have no room in the hut for the wide swings of the willow shield that had brought so many low at Leuktra. There was a pause before the fighting. A gruff, harsh voice of a man in the shadows took over and stepped into the lamplight of the hut, speaking more like an Athenian than an ephor of Sparta. It was Lichas himself.

  “Old Chôlopous. So we meet again, the half-dead Mêlon, son of the long-dead Malgis. You are the father of the dead boy at Leuktra? All has turned out as promised. Or do you remember me? We first met on your farm when you had your first set of teeth, when you ran under your arbors before I could cut off your tiny head—and at Koroneia, and yet once more at the fight at the Nemea. On that night at Leuktra, and then on your recent visit to burn my farm at Sparta. My, my, my friend, how we’ve grown old together.”

  This tall but stooped Spartan stepped even farther forward near Kuniskos while the others stayed put by the doors. Lichas was ageless like his Kuniskos, and likewise he felt no burdens of age or time. In similar fashion, Lichas felt freed by his long years and the end of Messenia and the idea he could do at last whatever he wished—which for Lichas always meant to kill without penalty whoever he wanted. Lichas continued. “I speak for a bit before you bleed. I wanted Pelopidas and Epaminondas to visit our hut and maybe Alkidamas as well, so with a clean cut today we could finish this Messenian mess once and for all and get our boys back down over there where they belong. Only the hungriest rats scampered up here, I see. Even the best trapper must put up with the rodents who clutter his nets. I brought today my son Antikrates, who killed so many of yours at Leuktra. More of our friends are here as well. You say you will take our helot back down the mountain? Oh no, no. Not this time, Master Mêlon. You will go down no mountain—not even a hill, not even dead. Where is your proud Epaminondas or Pelopidas—or even one of those brutes from the islands here to rescue you? We had soup here for both. Your islander, we hear, has gone feral. He flees the blood guilt on your Helikon. If he comes up here—and he won’t because he’s dead—by now he would have met our man-bear who bites the throat of all lone wanderers on Taygetos.”

  Then his wife Elektra stepped to his side, proud with her long hair, some tresses braided and some dangling out the sides of her helmet. She boasted, “Too much talk, my Lichas. Kill them before that branded helot over there puts a chant or spell on us. Let me cut her tongue out before this Nêto bewitches us all. Or let my boy Thibrachos have a taste of her first.”

  The Spartan had drawn his sword, a shiny xiphos with both edges gleaming in the candlelight. Elektra had a black pelekus, a battle-ax given to her by the king himself, and she swung if far better than did her son Thibrachos. The outnumbered band crouched and made ready for the rush, Mêlon and Ainias still covering the flanks, Nikôn and Melissos between them three steps back with drawn long knives—and Nêto in reserve with an oak staff. She put both hands on the shaft and looked for an opening. The five had backed flush against the wall, as the Spartans by the two doors covered the escapes. They could at least take down Gorgos, and maybe even Elektra before their deaths. These were armored men, Sparta’s best; and Mêlon’s side was without bronze—and with boy and a lame woman.

  “Come over here, Mêlon. I want you to join your father and son, so you can all boast in Hades that Lichas sent you there.” Lichas talked more than a Spartan should, talked more than he ever had, as he shifted his weight from foot to foot to find the right moment to stab. “If you throw down your weapons, I promise a good enough burial. Antikrates over there, my best son, took out that fool of yours who built walls. What was his name, boy? Yes, yes, the soft Plataian rich man Proxenos? The grand thinker whose belly you
cut open when that mob of northerners stormed our tower.”

  There was to be no parley with Lichas. He meant to cut them all down and wanted them to know it before they fell. No quarter. Elektra started her ululation. Still Mêlon called out, “If you have an ax, swing, Spartan woman, don’t talk.”

  Lichas had a final word. “You have it wrong, all of you. God has made every man a slave. Only a man, if he’s worth anything, makes himself free.” Lichas wanted to get closer, to cut with the sword and taste the blood flying in the air as it dotted his face. Kuniskos pulled from the rafters a cleaver and backed aside to let his friend charge through. The blade had been hidden above the table right near his head. He had taken the idea of hiding it from the dead Erinna. He had hoped to place it at the throat of Nêto and drag her outside for some final sport—or to strangle her slowly and give her his death whisper.

  At the back of the cottage, facing his father on the far side, Antikrates pointed his spear with the underhand grip. He and his two henchmen had been hiding in the cave when Mêlon arrived and had quietly sneaked out to block the rear door once the visitors were inside. Lichas, Elektra, and his retainer had come around through the forest path to plug the main entrance.

  “That damn Scorpas and his phantom goat-man—and without a helot patrol to be found,” Nikôn cried. “We are surrounded, with nowhere to go.” Then Melissos pointed toward Lichas. “Spartans fight in the sun. Let us out. Duel in the open air. Kill or die face-to-face like men should.” Melissos could have run, having no part in war against the tall Spartans. But no words of retreat or surrender came out. Instead, he decided to stand his ground, blade in hand, here with Mêlon, Ainias, Nêto, and Nikôn—and for something more than the love of gore or a Spartan scalp.

  CHAPTER 34

  The Old Breed

  No way out, Melissos knew. Still, if the henchmen of Lichas thought to kill a royal of Makedon, a son no less of Amyntas, then they would at least learn it was no easy thing. Mêlon covered Melissos to keep the youth safe until the last. The five Spartan men wore full armor. The near-naked Kuniskos was more than a match for the staff of slow-foot Nêto. Elektra would have to fight him for her head, or, better yet, let her Thibrachos have first claim on her.

  Lichas paused at the Makedonian boy’s plea and scoffed, “Leave, foreigner. You are nothing to me. We kill the rest as they are, and burn them up. You go down the mountain and tell all of the funeral smoke you saw.” Melissos stayed quiet and right by his master Mêlon, no longer the hostage but the loyal man of the Malgidai, as much a Boiotian as any in Thebes.

  The long talk ended and finally Lichas raised his slashing blade of black iron, to cut down this Makedonian upstart first. “You, you …” Then came a loud crash, as if the rafters had been ripped off the house. Lichas was cut off before “humeis” fully left his lips. The Spartan tottered, blood spurted out his nose. Then only for a moment he let out a wild shriek as he vomited more blood. His helmet flew off his head as he fell face first to the stone floor, with a long spear stuck firm into the base of his skull, cast from twenty paces outside the door. Just like that, Lichas, of forty years in the first rank, killer of a hundred and more—he just fell over, a man, not a god, after all.

  The spear throw had come from outside the threshold. Was Ares or Apollo in his armor roaming Taygetos? No mortal with mere blood in his veins could fell such a peer with a single throw, surely not tall Lichas, whom the prophets said was sacrosanct and immune from the blades of free men. There he lay in a growing pool of red, on the ground gurgling and twitching about, a spear point gone almost out through his mouth. A moment later his killer was at the threshold and leapt over the fallen Lichas. The Spartans were frozen in place, stunned as the stranger burst upon them. Then he stabbed the retainer of Lichas, tall Lakrates. That Spartan too toppled over. The sword stroke hit well above the shoulders and came out through the upper throat. Was the house under attack by Pelopidas and the Sacred Band?

  No. A sole figure had come through the front doorway and stood over the two bodies. He was deliberate in his sword and spear work, and now almost motionless as he looked about. A wild dog barked behind him. The stranger still paused and then finally stomped on the corpses and let out a piercing war cry as he at last turned toward Elektra. He picked her up by the back of the neck with his good right arm, and then swung her head against the hut wall—three, four, and five times before she quit her pleas. “Lichas! Help, Lichas. My Lichas!” So ended the granddaughter of Agesilaos. She had come to kill the leashed Nêto and earn five hundred silver owls from the strongbox of Phrynê—and yet never got in a single swing of her grandfather’s black ax. Chiôn of Taygetos finally stopped slamming Elektra into the mud brick, as he looked up at the three Spartans at the other end of the cabin turning to flee. Should he first deal with Kuniskos, and then go after the other assassins? He yelled to Nikôn to the side as he threw down the pulp of Elektra and carefully stepped ahead. “Kill Gorgos. Kill him now—and I’ll get the others.” As he stopped, Chiôn punched Gorgos in the gut and sent him stumbling backward.

  So broke in Chiôn of the good right arm, long thought dead here in the south in the tumult of liberation, always on the scent of his Nêto whom at last he found to be alive in the remote hut of Gorgos. He for weeks had followed Gorgos’s trail on Taygetos, waiting for this moment to finish what he had promised. Now Chiôn lumbered on through the room, half-crouching to avoid jabs to come if the three Spartans ahead should choose to turn back and fight. The wolf-dog followed to guard his Nêto. Mêlon immediately turned to take on the Spartans at the rear door and kept himself between their spears and Nêto.

  Behind Chiôn in the din, Kuniskos stood up again, still off balance from the blow to his midriff. “Get the slave one-arm. Where is my Lichas? Lichas. Lichas. Lich—.” He too was cut off. Nikôn and Melissos in near unison slammed their blades—wide choppers that were hard to poke with, but made a larger hole if they got through flesh—into Kuniskos’s lower gut. The man had been made dizzy by Chiôn’s blow, and his head was still crackling with fire, when he had turned to his left to warn the Spartans on the other side and fell to the floor cursing them. Nikôn was then atop the dying helot even as he tumbled to the dirt. He plunged his knife five more times into the back of Gorgos to keep him silent. At the same time Nêto, weak, lame, and dizzy still, took up her stick with both hands and clubbed the bald head. Melissos jumped on him as well. He had no beard, but he had once learned in Makedon to kill with a careful jab to the big neck vein, and his thin arm was as strong as any ephebe’s in Boiotia.

  In a wild frenzy, her stick now broken, Nêto kept thrashing with her nails and fists at the backside of the dying Kuniskos. She was tearing his two braids right off the sides of his head. “Helot to helot, old man,” she kept repeating as Nikôn rolled her off. “Helot to helot. For Erinna and all the rest. For Erinna. For Erinna. For Chiôn. For Lophis. For our Proxenos.”

  Here ended the helot Kuniskos, once the terror of the Messenians, who had taken off so many heads and was about to lose his own. He was once the good servant of the Malgidai, but now pierced by Nêto, the freed woman of Helikon, and by Nikôn and Melissos, he bled out his life force on the floor of a dirty hut where the goats and cows of Taygetos sought shelter. Nêto had known, even with rope and chain these many months, that he was to die by the hand of a Messenian, but the goddess had told her only that—not that Nikôn or she herself would strike. Gorgos had wanted his way one last time with Nêto, but she got hers with him instead.

  Kerberos, splattered in the gore of Lichas, took over and tore at the neck of the Kuniskos whose scent Keberos he now remembered from Helikon, along with the kicks he had endured. The wolf-dog locked onto him hard and bit so hard on his neck that the hound ripped off the head of Kuniskos from his body. Nêto stumbled up and let out a shriek—or was it laughter? “Pull it off for your dead Sturax. Look. The head cutter has his own cut by a dog, by a dog like him.” She let out her war cry and like a Bacchant grabbed the
head of Gorgos and threw it over at the battered corpse of Elektra.

  Amid the killing of the four Spartans, Ainias and Mêlon had turned to stab their way through the back entrance. They were eager to catch the three remaining Spartans who had backed out into the open pen and were turning to run through the stockade. Chiôn now was heading to the rear of the hut to join his friends for the final fight, but Mêlon first hit the backpedaling Spartan, a stab below his war belt into the groin. He was a youth of twenty seasons or so on his first patrol—Thibrachos by name, son of Elektra herself from her first marriage to the brother of Lichas.

  This fool Thibrachos for a moment had turned back around to fight after all, once he saw the brains of his mother splattered over the flat stones of the opposite wall. He had his eye on the slashing sword of the approaching Chiôn in the distance and never saw in the shadows Mêlon’s jab with Bora that went in above hip and brought out the black blood from his insides, along with his guts as well. Though the thrust was underhand, Mêlon sent the sharp iron right under the bronze, three palms deep into the Spartan’s midriff. Thibrachos died too, not more than twenty paces from Kuniskos—the fifth of the ambushers to fall before any had a chance to strike back.

  As Thibrachos crumpled, the last two Spartans had tried to turn and flee out to the courtyard beyond. Ainias was quick with his blade and stabbed the second Spartan from the side. The doomed hoplite had tripped over his cloak and for a moment only flashed his unarmored flank. That was enough for Ainias, who sent the iron right into his armpit, and the sword tip up toward the heart, lifting him off the ground. This second Spartan was a better man than young Thibrachos and was known as the chopper Klôpis, son of Deinon, and the enforcer to Lord Kuniskos in Messenia. As he fell back from the spear-thrust of Ainias, Mêlon came up behind and jabbed his spear butt through the back of his neck, and the Spartan hit the floor.