The visit to the baths did him good, and one of the slaves even bound up his foot after applying a heavy poultice. Feeling much better, Nikostratos went to his office behind the Ephorate, and started searching through the records for some precedent that would help Chilonis. By late afternoon, hungry and frustrated, he had to concede to himself that he had not found anything. He had hoped he would. He had looked forward to taking the good news to Chilonis. Maybe he should drop by and tell her what he had found? At least she would know he’d tried. It wouldn’t be right for her to think he had not made an effort. She might feel hurt or slighted if she thought that.
Having convinced himself that he had a good reason to seek out the queen mother, he combed his beard with his hands and patted at his braids to be sure they were still tidy. Then he wrapped his himation around himself carefully and set off, limping painfully.
It took him a long time, with many pauses, to reach the Agiad palace. Outside the palace Nikostratos took the steps one at a time, reaching the shade of the portico with relief. Here he paused to adjust his himation and pat his braids again before requesting admittance. The meleirenes on duty opened the doors to the city treasurer without question, and once inside, Nikostratos simply stopped the next household servant he saw and asked him to fetch Chilonis. He then eased himself down to sit on the bench running around the entry hall. As he waited, he started to feel ridiculous. Why was he bothering the queen mother with the news that he had found nothing?
A moment later she was coming toward him, smiling so sincerely that he forgot his own embarrassment. “I’m afraid I don’t have particularly good news,” he started at once, lest she thought his appearance meant something it did not.
Chilonis did not smile any less. “The news that you are here is good enough for me. Come, join me for some refreshments and we can chat. How is your ankle doing?” She looked down at it.
“It feels much better,” Nikostratos lied.
“Did you see a doctor?”
“Not necessary. A bath slave was more than good enough.”
Chilonis looked skeptical, but held her tongue. She led him to a chamber with a central grate in which a fire glowed more than burned. There were benches around the walls, and small tables on wheels. Chilonis bid Nikostratos make himself comfortable, then took one of the tables and disappeared. Nikostratos was left to contemplate the room with its ancient murals. They must be hundreds of years old, he calculated, dating to an age before Lycurgus and the Great Reforms. It was a sobering reminder of how ancient the Spartan royal lines were. Cleomenes was the fourteenth king in his line; and if one assumed an average reign of twenty-five years, that took the Spartan kings back 350 years. It was not wise to break with something that had worked so well for so long, was it?
In Athens nowadays, he reminded himself, the Council of Five Hundred was selected by lot rather than elected. This meant the Council, which both prepared bills for debate and implemented laws passed by the Assembly, was chosen at random. Furthermore, no man was allowed to serve more than twice in the Council, so even those randomly chosen were not given a chance to learn their duties and exercise them professionally. Finally, the chairmanship changed daily to prevent anyone from abusing power.
Two aspects of these reforms unsettled Nikostratos. On the one hand, the concept of appointing people to positions of power by lot suggested a fundamental belief that all men were equally capable, or that the Gods would always ensure that the lot fell to the most suitable. Nikostratos did not believe in either circumstance. The Gods were always fickle, and it was patently obvious that not all men were equally capable of deliberation, reason, and governance. Thus the idea of a lottery for government seemed ridiculous to Nikostratos. No one would choose a cook or a physician by lottery, either. Yet neither a cook nor a physician could do as much collective damage as a bad government. Nikostratos considered this latest Athenian innovation an insult to the concept and profession of government itself.
The other aspect of the reform, however, unsettled him even more. If, as he suspected, the selection by lot degraded the importance of the Council of Five Hundred as a whole, then there would be a corresponding increase in the importance of the Assembly. The older he became, the more Nikostratos distrusted the Assembly. The larger the crowd, the more easily it could be manipulated—as if some herd instinct took over, enabling a demagogue to harness the majority to any cause, no matter how foolish or dangerous. Too often in his life, sensible ideas had been ignored and foolish plans acclaimed just because a clever speaker or some other kind of irrational influence swayed opinion in the Assembly.
On the other hand, Nikostratos found himself intrigued by a third aspect of the Athenian reforms, namely an extension of the franchise. As a man who had many dealings with the perioikoi, Nikostratos found himself wondering whether Sparta would benefit from giving them a voice in government. By restricting the franchise in Sparta to the Spartiates, who were by law hoplites, they cut themselves off from their economic power base and so from the wisdom, common sense, and vast experience of men of trade, industry, and finance.
Nikostratos was shaken from his reverie by the reappearance of Chilonis, pushing a little table laden with grapes and olives, fresh-baked bread, goat’s cheese, yogurt, and honey. The sight of it made Nikostratos realize how hungry he was. His face lit up, and Chilonis smiled.
“I see the old wives are right: the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
“Why would any woman want to find her way to my heart?” Nikostratos countered, first helping himself to the bread and then folding cheese and olives into it before popping it into his mouth.
“Curiosity?” Chilonis countered.
“Dangerous. It kills cats.”
Chilonis only laughed. She sat down beside him and helped herself to the grapes. “So what news did you bring me?”
“Unfortunately, the only precedent I could find was the queen of Archelaos, who appears to have had her own household for much of her son’s reign; but the properties she possessed then transferred to her younger son, and they may in fact have been his portion. Your husband did provide for his younger sons, after all.”
Chilonis’ face said it all.
“Obviously, I didn’t mean that you should ask Cleombrotus or Leon—”
“I wouldn’t ask either of them for as much as a bale of hay!” Chilonis interrupted sharply. “We threw them out of their home like rubbish when their father died. I’ve felt guilty about it ever since.”
“They were both in the agoge,” Nikostratos reminded her reasonably.
“That’s immaterial. This was their home—and it still isn’t mine.” She got up and started pacing. Her hand reached out to the faded but once bright-colored murals with their rather heavy-handed depictions of battle scenes—the siege of Troy, Achilles and Hektor, Kastor and Polydeukes …
Nikostratos considered the proud woman and wished that he had someplace to offer her.
She seemed to intercept his thought, turning to look at him with a sad smile. “I will ask my son. He should not begrudge me one farm when he has so many. He may even be glad to get rid of me.”
“Do not speak ill of one of my kings,” Nikostratos countered.
The sound of shouting from far away made them both start and look toward the outer courtyard. They looked at one another, puzzled. “An Argive attack?” Nikostratos wondered out loud.
They could now distinctly hear someone asking for Chilonis personally, in agitated tones. A moment later a helot burst into the hall. Chilonis looked at him expectantly, recognizing her grandson’s servant. Before he could speak, she guessed. “Agis. What has he done now?”
“Madam.” The man was breathing heavily and he was sweating. He looked frightened. “There has been an accident.”
“Has he been hurt?” Chilonis asked anxiously, and her hands curled in distress.
The man held his breath. “I—yes—he has been hurt. We must send for the king.”
�
��My son is in Messenia,” Chilonis countered. “Where is Agis? What happened to him? How is he injured?”
“He—he insisted he wanted to see the wrestlers better, madam.” The man was licking his lips, and the sheen of his sweat was sickly. Nikostratos could smell him, and he smelled of fear. “I tried to talk him out of it.”
“Out of what?” Chilonis pressed him, her expression increasingly alarmed but her voice firm.
“Climbing onto the roof of the palaestra, Madam.” The man’s voice fell away as he said it.
“He’s fallen from a roof?”
There was no chance for the man to answer. From behind them, more voices announced the arrival of a large body of men. Nikostratos was on his feet. He hobbled toward the doorway behind Chilonis. He could see a large crowd—mostly citizens, a couple of whom were still naked and covered in sand—apparently they had been exercising in the palaestra when the accident occurred. They were carrying something between them on a stretcher.
Someone, apparently one of the women of the household, had fetched Queen Gyrtias. She rushed out of the peristyle into the courtyard and bent over the limp body on the stretcher. Nikostratos’ view was partially blocked by the crowd of servants that were gathering around the cluster of men already escorting the stretcher. But Gyrtias’ piercing shriek made his hair stand on end.
Chilonis plunged into the crowd.
The queen was hysterical. She was screaming inarticulately in a high-pitched wail, and then she started literally tearing at her hair and scratching her face. Chilonis was giving orders. Nikostratos stood and watched in horrified admiration while she ordered the queen’s women to take her away and the men with the stretcher in another direction, and then started questioning the witnesses. They told what had happened with wide, expansive gestures, looking up over their heads and indicating a fall.
Suddenly a small voice piped up, making Nikostratos jump in surprise. Nikostratos looked down and found little Gorgo standing beside him. She was wearing only a short chiton that revealed dirty knees and feet. Her bright red hair was coming out of its braid, and her freckles were very evident on a pale face that looked up at him with wide hazel-green eyes. “What’s happened?”
Nikostratos took a deep breath, instinctively stroking the back of her long, bony neck. “I fear something terrible has happened to your brother, Agis.”
“Agis?” She looked at the commotion in the courtyard, standing on tiptoe and craning her neck to see more, but the stretcher had already disappeared. She looked back up at Nikostratos. “You mean he’s done something really terrible?”
“In a way, yes,” Nikostratos agreed. “I think he has hurt himself very badly.”
Gorgo was frowning up at him.
He took a deep breath. “I think he is dead.”
The word reached Leonidas at the baths. Someone coming straight from the gymnasium where the accident had happened broke in, telling everyone within hearing. Although Leonidas was in the next room, someone who knew he was there rushed to tell him, “Your nephew Agis was killed in an accident!”
Leonidas, who had been sitting comfortably in the warm water to counter the muscle aches from drill, sat up sharply and turned to look at the messenger. But already other men were spilling into the chamber, chattering. Some were still talking about the accident itself—that the boy should never have been allowed to climb up onto the roof, that the boy was too willful, that the roof was slippery with mist. Others were asking where Cleomenes was and speculating what he would do.
Leonidas splashed out of the water and searched for a towel, which Mantiklos hastened to hand him. He rubbed himself dry as fast as he could. Alkander burst in: “Leo, have you heard?”
“Of course! Where’s Brotus?”
“Brotus?” Alkander looked at Leonidas as if he were mad. The twins rarely had anything to do with one another.
“Brotus just became heir to the Agiad throne, and it would be just like him to start gloating! I’d better find him and sit on him for a while! Mantiklos!” he shouted at the helot, who was returning the towels he’d just used to a bin. “Take word to my section!” Turning to Alkander he asked, “Coming?”
“Coming where?”
“To find Brotus, of course.”
“You can’t stop him from gloating, Leo. He’s—”
“I can try to keep him from being obvious about it until the funeral is over. Where are my things?” He was looking around irritably, unable to identify his own clothes on the partitioned wooden shelves on which the bathers left their bundles. At last, finding his stuff, he pulled his chiton on over his head and tightened his belt before reaching for his sandals.
Outside it was already dusk, and Leonidas calculated that it was no more than an hour to dinner. Leonidas decided he would check the gymnasium where Brotus often practiced boxing, and if he wasn’t there, try to intercept him outside his syssitia. He started through the city with Alkander and Beggar at his heels.
There were half a dozen gymnasia around the city and although all were opened to all citizens, each also had its own clientele, largely determined by the trainers available at each. Leonidas usually avoided Brotus’ favorite gymnasium, the one at which a former Olympic boxer trained young men most attached to that sport, but he made straight for it now.
Naturally everyone here had already heard the news, too, and they were standing about in a cluster, spilling out of the entrance into the street. As Leonidas had expected, Brotus was grinning in the center of the crowd.
“Come to pay homage to the crown prince, have you, little brother?” he called out at the sight of Leonidas.
“No, I’ve come to close your trap!”
The crowd parted instantly before Leonidas. If the Agiad twins were about to fight with one another, no one wanted to be in the way—but they waited avidly on the sidelines.
Brotus’ face drew together into a scowl at his brother’s retort, and he thrust out his lower jaw belligerently. “You can’t stop me from doing a damn thing!” Brotus told his twin.
“Watch me,” Leonidas countered; and in the same instant that Brotus lashed out with a fist, Leonidas sidestepped, twisted, wrapped his arms around the boxer, and flung him down to the ground. Brotus was partially winded by the maneuver, but he still struggled furiously. Leonidas took a blow to his face that broke his lips on his teeth and set his nose to bleeding, but he had his knee on Brotus’ groin and pressed down hard, while using his hands to pin Brotus’ throat to the earth until he started to choke. Brotus’ eyes bulged in his head and he flailed with his arms and legs in ever greater panic. Leonidas just held him down, the blood from his own nose dripping on Brotus’ face and neck, until Brotus’ arms flopped down in exhaustion. Then he let go and stepped back and up in a single motion.
His brother stared up at him, gasping, his hands unconsciously holding his throat. There was absolute silence around them.
“You may be crown prince until Cleomenes has another son, but there is no need to remind anyone of how little they want to see you become king,” Leonidas told him bluntly—eliciting protests from Brotus’ friends. He then turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving them to pick up his brother.
Alkander caught up with Leonidas several strides up the street; and after they were out of hearing, he ventured to ask, “Why did you do that? Brotus hates you enough already.”
“Better that he hates me than Cleomenes.”
Alkander thought about that. “You can’t seriously think he would try to challenge Cleomenes?”
Leonidas stopped in his tracks and turned to face Alkander. It was almost dark and the pipes were whining, signaling dinner. “Don’t you know what they found at his kleros this morning?”
Alkander shook his head.
“Lathria at the foot of the outside stairs—stone dead.”
“Dead?”
“Just like Agis.”
“But Brotus wasn’t anywhere near the palaestra this afternoon!”
“No, and of cour
se he says he was in his barracks last night—but the helots tell me otherwise.”
“Leo! Are you sure?”
“About Lathria, yes. He came to his kleros in the night long after curfew, and he quarreled violently with Lathria. Brotus called her a whore. She called him various unsavory names in return, and he started hitting her. She ran out of the bedroom and started down the stairs. He caught up with her and hurled her off the stairs onto the flagstone courtyard a good ten feet below. The helots came running and he ordered them away. He told them if any of them told what had happened, he’d see to it they disappeared.”
Alkander was staring at Leonidas in horror.
“He killed her brother, too, remember?”
Alkander opened his mouth to speak, but found no words. He shook his head. Finally he asked, “What are you going to do?”
“What can I do? I was not there. I did not even find the corpse. The helots are terrified. They will never tell a magistrate what they said to me in private. They only confessed to me because they have known me all my life, and they were in shock over what had happened. But they are terrified, Alkander. My brother has bullied them too long. And you can be sure his friends and superiors will verify his alibi. Officially he was in barracks last night, miles from his kleros.”
“But are people going to believe it was an accident or suicide?”
“People will believe what they want to believe. And someone has to bring charges. After the rumors about her sleeping with a helot, she had hardly any sympathy in this city. Her own parents disowned her, while people like Talthybiades, Lysimachos, and Alcidas were calling on Brotus to divorce her, afraid that a helot brat might be raised as a Spartiate. No one is going to look into what happened last night on my brother’s kleros.”
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