A Peerless Peer

by Helena P. Schrader

  He set the wine down and reached for the bowl, brimming with barley and beef stew, in which carrots and leeks floated enticingly. He stirred it once with the spoon provided and nodded. He resolved to work on changing the way the agoge fees were collected, but to do so he had first to get elected to public office. If he were Paidonomos, for example, he could waive the fees of the poorer boys. If he were an ephor—but that was getting ahead of himself. He took a spoonful of stew and savored it before meeting Phormio’s eyes and agreeing: “Expand the sawmill and start building your fleet.”

  Officially the festival honored Helios, and the series of sacrifices and choral performances was meant to coax Hellios back to Hellas. At some point in the distant past, however, the Spartans started advancing the age cohorts at this time of year. While the boys and youths of the agoge moved up one grade, the eirenes received their shields, and the oldest age cohort of young men gave theirs up and retired to the reserves. With ball games between the best teams of each age cohort and dances performed by the girls of the agoge, this festival appealed particularly to youth; but it climaxed in a torchlight ceremony in which each graduating eirene, called by name, went forward to receive a cloak and shield as a symbol of their citizenship.

  Usually Gorgo loved this particular festival, but this year she felt depressed and lonely. Her parents had an official role to play, of course, presiding at the ceremony from the steps in front of the Council House along with the Eurypontid king and queen, the ephors, and the Gerousia. These dignitaries stood behind the line of retiring men and faced the eirenes, taking their salutes when they accepted the shield. But there was no place for a king’s unmarried daughter among the city’s notables.

  That had been true in other years, of course; but then she and Phaenna had together cheered their favorites in the ball games, and mingled in the crowd to buy themselves votive offerings, sweets, and ribbons for their hair. But Phaenna now had a sweetheart, one of the graduating eirenes, and of course they were trysting after his graduation. That made Gorgo a fifth wheel, and she felt like it.

  In fact, as the sun slipped behind Taygetos after its shortest journey across the sky for this year, and the city was gripped with subdued anticipatory excitement for the final event of the season, Gorgo felt as if no one would notice if she went and hanged herself, or wandered off into the mountains and was set upon by wolves. She felt completely useless.

  She picked up the silver mirror her mother had given her and looked at her reflected image on the polished surface of the metal. No, young men were never going to come from all over the world to compete for her hand. Her mother said they’d be lucky to find anyone to take her, while her father insisted she didn’t have anything to worry about because “They’ll come for the sake of commanding the Spartan army no matter what you look like.” Somehow, Gorgo reflected, that didn’t make her feel any better.

  Listlessly, Gorgo combed out her auburn hair and pinned it up first one way and then another. She checked the results in the mirror, but nothing could please her. Maybe some of her mother’s rouge? She looked for it—another gift long ignored—and rubbed a little on her cheekbones and lips, turning her head this way and that in the mirror. What was the point?

  She stood and went over to her bed, where her maid had left out a lovely saffron-colored woolen peplos with a broad border representing green palms. The material had been very expensive, imported from Syracuse. She slipped the peplos over her chiton and her maid entered, apologizing for being late, to help her pin it at her shoulders. She used big bronze pins with suns on them. Her maid then helped her drape a rich green himation, with yellow suns woven across it, carefully over her shoulders. Gorgo enjoyed the softness of the wool and the way it flowed gracefully when she moved. Lastly, she slipped a jade bracelet with gold filigree lions’ heads on her right wrist and hung golden lions’ heads from her ears. The jewelry had been a gift from her father, and she treasured it. It seemed like such a long time since he had last given her anything. He was withdrawn and dissatisfied these days. She often saw him consulting with Asteropus or closeted with Leotychidas, the heir to the Eurypontid throne. She sensed that he was plotting something; but since that horrible incident with Aristagoras, her father didn’t draw her into his confidence anymore. Gorgo sighed.

  Gorgo left the palace by a side entrance and found herself out in the street. It was dusk now. The sky behind Taygetos still had a faint hint of purple streaked with fingers of black cloud, but to the east the stars were blotted out by light reflected from the big bonfires on which the sacrificial cattle were being roasted. The streets were crowded with people dressed in their best and warmest clothes. They streamed toward the Dancing Floor, where the final graduation ceremony would take place. Gorgo set off in the same direction, hoping to run into her grandmother. Nikostratos would be on the stairs with the other councilmen, so her grandmother would be on her own, too—if she came. Unfortunately, Chilonis had been suffering from a bad head cold this past week, and she had told Gorgo she wasn’t sure she’d make it.

  Here and there, youths and boys were singing. It was the disorganized, spontaneous singing of small groups of friends rather than that of formal choral performances. Sometimes the boys clapped in time with their songs; sometimes a soloist carried the song, supported only at the chorus by the others. The boys and youth were always in good spirits on this holiday. It meant the successful completion of a whole year, a step closer to citizenship—and ten days of holiday before meeting a new eirene and starting on the next stage of their long ordeal.

  Gorgo envied the clusters of youths laughing and singing together. Why hadn’t she been born a boy? If she had, it wouldn’t matter whether she were pretty. She was sure she would have been good at something. If not a pan-Hellenic victor like her Uncle Brotus, at least an all-round good athlete like Uncle Leo. As far as she knew, Uncle Leo had never been first in anything, but everybody liked him just the same.

  Gorgo found herself looking for her uncles. They were both going off active service, and would symbolically hand a shield with the lambda on it over to one of the graduating eirenes. Searching the line of young men taking their places at the foot of the steps, she found her Uncle Brotus first. He was getting stocky these days, and he scowled a lot. As always. Gorgo tried to remember a time when he had ever taken any notice of her, but she couldn’t.

  Uncle Leo was different. He was chatting and laughing with several other young men whose names Gorgo couldn’t remember at the moment. Gorgo thought his laughter looked forced, however, and she wasn’t the only one to have noticed that Leo wasn’t really happy anymore. Gorgo had heard her grandmother remark on it, and Nikostratos, too. They attributed it to the loss of his wife and babies this past summer, but Gorgo thought it had started before that. Eirana hadn’t been good for Uncle Leo. She had never made him happy. He deserved better.

  “Oh, my, aren’t we all dressed up!” A voice sneered at her, and Gorgo looked over at her Aunt Sinope, Brotus’ wife. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that a good Spartan woman doesn’t tart herself up with jewelry and fancy imported fabrics? Oh, but I suppose you think you’re a princess and so above our laws.”

  Gorgo was unprepared for the attack. It took her by surprise, and she didn’t have a ready answer. She said the first thing that came into her head: “What makes you think you can interpret our laws better than my father? We have the blood of Chilon in our veins!” Gorgo then ducked into the crowd, conscious that she had been rude to an elder and done herself no favor. But it made her so mad! Why did Brotus’ stupid wife think she had a monopoly on the interpretation of Sparta’s constitution?

  Still fuming inwardly, Gorgo sought to lose herself in the masses, as from the back side of the agoge administrative building came a rousing cheer. The sound was muted by distance, and yet the emotion was deafening: another class of eirenes had just had their last lecture from the Paidonomos and were forming up to march here and collect their shields.

  It was so unfair! Gir
ls didn’t have anything like this. A girl’s transition from girlhood to womanhood occurred not in public view, with proud parents and adoring sweethearts cheering, but in the dark of night and all alone, when a man stole her from her father’s house. That wasn’t the same at all! In fact, it was frightening and humiliating.

  Gorgo particularly disliked the thought of someone abducting her because she had heard her mother talking about how it was time for Gorgo to marry. “The sooner she’s settled,” her mother had argued to her father, “the sooner you’ll have a powerful ally against Brotus’ ambitions. And the sooner Gorgo produces a male heir, the sooner you can put an end to Brotus’ claims to the throne altogether.”

  Gorgo shuddered at the thought of giving birth. She could remember her mother’s screams, and she’d heard horrible stories about women dying in agony and in pools of blood. It was so unfair! Young men didn’t have to face anything like that when they became citizens and husbands!

  A hush had fallen over the crowd as the eirenes marched into the square and started to take their assigned places. They looked splendid, as always. Gorgo looked for Phaenna’s boyfriend, but couldn’t find him. She wondered if Phaenna was really going to let him take her this year like she said, or if she would make him wait a little. She seemed in a terrible hurry.

  The names were being read out. Gorgo watched her uncles turn a shield over to an eirene one after the other, still wishing she were out there in the square rather than wandering around on the fringes of the crowd feeling superfluous. She was so on the edge, in fact, that she did not even notice when the last name was read out.

  Suddenly everyone was cheering, and then the whole crowd burst out into the Ode to Kastor. Gorgo noted that an old man nearby was weeping openly, though she couldn’t know why. Memories of his own youth? Joy for a son or grandson? Or mourning for a youth who hadn’t made it? There were always one or two of those: boys who were killed in accidents, youths who committed serious breaches of the rules and were forced to repeat a year, and—increasingly—young men whose families could not pay their agoge fees and so were forced to drop out.

  The crowd was breaking up, dispersing. Younger boys were running to join their families, swept into the arms of mothers and sisters. Youths were going off in groups or swaggering proudly in front of younger siblings and admiring sisters. Young couples were disappearing around the corners into the darkness. Gorgo felt like going back to the palace and curling up in the straw beside her mare and hound, as she had done when she was a little girl.

  “Gorgo! What are you doing? Come here!” The voice cut through her misery, and she looked up to see her Uncle Leo waving to her. He was with his friends, of course, and he was smiling, even though his tone was admonishing. As she joined his little group, he put his arm around her and drew her into his circle, asking in a low voice, “Is something wrong? You look so unhappy.”

  “I’m just jealous,” Gorgo admitted. “I wish girls got to go through the agoge and graduate like that in public.”

  One of Leo’s friends laughed outright, and another shook his head and remarked, “Believe me, it’s not as fun as it looks!”

  But Uncle Leo seemed to understand. He said, “You’re right. At least in other Greek cities girls are the center of attention at their weddings, but we don’t ever celebrate you, do we?”

  “Better less celebration and more freedom,” one of the women in the little crowd noted rather sharply.

  “Of course,” the other woman agreed, then smiled at Gorgo and added, “but what would be wrong with both? I’m Hilaira, by the way,” she introduced herself to Gorgo, and then the others introduced themselves as well. Gorgo noted the names of Leonidas’ friends Alkander and Sperchias and Euryleon. The latter suggested they go to the banks of the Eurotas, where the cattle had been roasting for hours, and join the feast. Since the other men were with their wives and Leo had none, Gorgo naturally fell in beside him. He chatted with her, asking about Jason and Shadow as if she were still a little girl, but that was better than being left out.

  She asked him, “What are you going to do now that you’re in the reserves?”

  “I’m going to work in the agoge,” Leo announced.

  “Leo! You can’t do that to us!” Euryleon protested, stopping dead in his tracks and gaping at his enomotarch.

  “I can and have. I informed Diodoros this morning.”

  “Leo! You’re mad!” Sperchias exclaimed.

  “Why? You want a career in civil administration or diplomacy, not the army! Why is it wrong for me to want something similar?”

  “Because you’re a good officer, Leo—and an Agiad.”

  “What does that have to do with anything? Kyranios himself said that war is the failure of diplomacy. You do a good job as a diplomat, Chi, and we won’t need a strong army.”

  “I’m not a diplomat yet; and the minute we lose the capacity to fight better than everyone else, the Messenians and Argives will crush us.”

  “We’ll have a strong army whether I’m in it or not. Now, let’s enjoy the food,” Leonidas ordered; and the others knew better than to try to argue with him when he was in one of his mulish moods, as he obviously was.

  Gorgo wasn’t sure what to think, except that she wanted her uncle to be happy. Maybe he was right and he would be happier outside the army; but only, she thought, if he could do good for Lacedaemon. Uncle Leo was more like her father than he—or her father—liked to admit. Behind his façade of humility, he was actually very ambitious. What was more, she realized with a kind of awed surprise—even more than her father, he cared about Sparta, not just himself.

  Chapter 17

  The Grain Fleet

  The emergency meeting of the Council ended in midafternoon, at the very hottest time of the day. Nikostratos was thirsty and tired, but he wasted no time. He left the Council House with the others, and while they dispersed, he struck out across the square to the main administrative building of the agoge. Here he inquired where he might find Leonidas, and was told to wait in the Paidonomos’ office while a boy was sent to fetch him.

  Nikostratos waited in the anteroom until the two eirenes who were with the Paidonomos departed; then he stepped into the doorway and paused, leaning on his walking stick. Epidydes was absorbed in reading something and did not realize he had a visitor, so Nikostratos had a moment to consider him in peace. Sometime in the last decade, the headmaster had gone completely gray. Just like me, Nikostratos thought. We are getting old.

  At last he interrupted the other with the words, “So, what’s this I hear about you wanting to retire?”

  Epidydes looked up, smiled at the sight of the treasurer, and retorted, “I’m only a year younger than you are.” He gestured for Nikostratos to come in, close the door, and sit down. Nikostratos settled down on a bench with his walking stick between his knees.

  “I’m too old for this job,” Epidydes continued bluntly, adding, “I think I would be more use in the Gerousia.”

  “You’ll have my vote,” Nikostratos assured the headmaster at once. “But who do you see filling your shoes? Are any of your three deputies up to the job?”

  Epidydes evaded Nikostratos’ eye. “They’re not bad men, but unimaginative. They want to do everything exactly the way they remember it when they were little. They lack vision and courage—especially Alcidas.”

  “What about the younger instructors? Leonidas, for example?”

  “Aha!” The Paidonomos leveled his eyes at the treasurer with a reproving look, softened by a slight smile. “So that’s why you’re here. Because of Leonidas.”

  “True. I was wondering how he is doing.”

  Epidydes leaned back in his chair and considered the councilman warily. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Oh, curiosity. I’m fond of the young man.”

  “Why is it that I don’t believe you?” the Paidonomos asked rhetorically, but then reported willingly enough: “When Leonidas came to me before the solstice saying he wanted to join th
e agoge staff, I was delighted. Alkander had been here before him, you know, and Alkander is a good man. But everyone knows how Alkander struggled in the agoge, that he stuttered and that he was a mothake. Any attempt he makes at serious reform here—which we all know is his intention—will be blocked by the conservatives. They will discredit everything he tries to do because of who he was.

  “Leonidas, on the other hand, is not only an Agiad, he’s proven himself repeatedly. He’s an exemplary citizen. He makes Brotus look like a dwarf and Cleomenes like a lightweight. He has Cleomenes’ strength of intellect and his father’s strength of character. In my opinion, Leonidas is without question the best of his entire generation, and he is popular. Whatever Leonidas decides he wants to do—in any field he chooses—he can count on support and assistance. I don’t just mean the support of his friends. I mean he can genuinely sway public opinion; because even those who don’t know him personally, know he represents something positive in our society.”

  “But?” Nikostratos prompted the headmaster, because clearly this whole exceptionally long speech was leading up to a reservation.

  “But, he has a lot to learn about teaching. He is too softhearted, and the boys take shameless advantage of him. He believes any crazy story they tell him, and he hates disciplining them.”

  Nikostratos was astonished. “He did well as an eirene and had a good reputation in the army.”

  “Indeed; but as an eirene he had eighteen-year-olds, and in the army he was dealing with young men more or less his own age. He’s good enough with the older boys, but he’s soft on the little ones. Alkander is a much better instructor. He’s patient but firm and knows when to use the cane. The boys respect him—and they adore him.”