“What do you mean?”
Alkander took a deep breath. “Your niece told the ephors this morning that her father is thinking of marrying her to a foreigner. To one of the Ionian tyrants, to be precise, in order to have an excuse for intervention in the Ionian revolt.”
“He’s mad! Whoever marries Gorgo will claim the regency—if not the throne—as soon as Cleomenes dies! He can’t marry her to a foreigner!”
“There doesn’t appear to be any law against it,” Alkander pointed out.
“Then the Gerousia can damn well make one up!” Leonidas snapped back. “We can’t put the Agiad heir in the control of some tyrant. If nothing else, Brotus would use it as an excuse to stake his own claim to the throne! And then we would have civil war! Cleomenes can’t be serious!”
Alkander was pleased that Leonidas was so worked up about the topic. Most of the time he pretended to be completely indifferent to dynastic affairs. Gently Alkander remarked, “Gorgo was very wise to draw the attention of the ephors to the impending crisis.”
“She’s not stupid. In fact, she probably the best brain in the family—after Chilonis, of course.”
“Um,” Alkander agreed. “The ephors, of course, suspected that she had only raised the issue because she wanted to marry someone her father didn’t approve of.”
“As long as he’s Spartan, why shouldn’t she?”
“Oh, he is that,” Alkander agreed.
“So why don’t they just let her marry whomever she pleases, and eliminate the risk of Cleomenes marrying her to someone unsuitable?” But even as he spoke, Leonidas remembered how Alkander had opened the conversation.
Alkander saw his friend’s eyes widen a split second before he answered steadily, “She named you, Leonidas.”
There was a second of silence. The two friends gazed at one another. Then Leonidas spat out, “The little bitch!” before he sent his stallion galloping down the road furiously.
Alkander let him go, holding his own fretting colt at a standstill until the dust had settled. Then he eased up on the reins and let the colt stretch out his neck. Leonidas’ reaction was not going to please anyone, and Alkander wondered if he should have handled the situation differently. Unfortunately, the damage was done …
Chilonis was weaving. The doors facing the terrace were open to let in the fresh air and light, but she had not moved the loom outside as she sometimes did. There seemed too much risk of a shower later in the day. Through the open doors and windows came the twitter of birds and occasionally the clang of a cowbell. She heard the hooves pattering on the drive, but she did not leave her work. She let Gorgo come to her.
“Grandma!”
“Come in.”
“Did Nikostratos tell you?”
“My dear, the whole city is talking of nothing else.”
“Grandma!” Gorgo stepped up beside her, and Chilonis looked up at her granddaughter. She had evidently ridden over rather than taking a chariot, and her hair was coming free of the thick braid. Furthermore, her peplos was dirty with dust and horse sweat. She smelled of horse. And yet she was lovely: straight as a spear, with well-muscled arms, a long, proud throat, and a symmetrical face with wide-set, intelligent eyes. “I don’t understand why everyone’s so upset! All I said was the truth!”
“Um hum.” Chilonis turned her attention back to her loom.
Gorgo sank onto the bench beside her. “What did I do wrong?”
Chilonis drew a deep breath. “My dear child, you are only seventeen and can’t be expected to think everything through, but if you want to know what you did wrong, I will explain it to you. First, you have turned the whole city against your father. I concede that he was being very irresponsible, and even cruel, to speculate about marrying you to Aristagoras—or was it Histiaeus? But you and I also know that your father often talks nonsense after a couple of cups of uncut wine, and that he has often speculated about marrying you to one man or another without any intention of actually doing so.” Gorgo took a breath to speak, and Chilonis held up her hand to silence her.
“I quite agree that it is cruel of him. Indeed, he does it to provoke you, because sometimes he is very angry with you and it is his way of getting even. You do provoke him, too, you know?”
Gorgo frowned; part of her wanted to protest, but she was honest enough to know that what her grandmother said was not all wrong. She did provoke her father sometimes, and sometimes she even did it intentionally, because it drove her crazy the way he played with one idea after another, but never really kept to any course of action for long. He was ambitious and she knew he loved Sparta, but sometimes he seemed so lacking in principle and so cynical! And she hated it when he claimed that anyone—even the Gods—could be purchased. And sometimes she just craved his attention and affection, which had become rarer and rarer, especially since her encounter with Aristagoras four years ago. So in answer to her grandmother’s question, Gorgo looked down and rubbed absently at the bench for a moment. They she looked up and asked anxiously, “But what about Leonidas?”
“Ah, yes. That was the second point I was going to make. You have probably ruined any chance of marrying him by your direct assault, so you had better start thinking about alternatives. The ephors and Council will now be very keen to see you safely married to a Spartiate at the earliest possible date, because you have alerted them to a danger they had ignored up to now. In short, your maiden days are numbered. I would say you’ll be cutting your hair before the winter solstice—”
“But why not Leonidas?”
Chilonis sighed, stopped weaving, and turned to look at her granddaughter. There was a pity in her eyes now. “My dear child, if you would try to put yourself in his skin, I think you might understand. But if you can’t do that, then take it from an old woman: no young man likes to have a girl publicly lay claim to him. You have robbed him of the status of hunter—and that is vital to a man’s pride. If he were to marry you now, he would appear to be giving in to the whims of a mere girl—bad enough if he were a young man of twenty-one or twenty-two, but unthinkable for a full citizen and company commander! You really haven’t left him any choice but to indignantly and forcefully refuse you.”
Gorgo sat very still, and it took a moment for Chilonis to realize that her lips were quivering as she tried to keep from crying. “Oh, child, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news; but someone had to tell you,” Chilonis rationalized, and then opened her arms and pulled Gorgo into them as the teenager broke into heart-rending sobs.
“But I love him,” Gorgo gasped. “I don’t want to marry anyone else …”
The entire syssitia fell silent as Leonidas entered, and they looked at him expectantly. He frowned. “If you’re gossiping about me, I’ll leave again so you can carry on.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” Nikostratos countered.
Leonidas turned on his heel to leave. Nikostratos nodded to two of the youngest members of the mess, and they sprang to their feet to block the door.
“You’ll come in and sit down with us and behave like an adult!” Nikostratos told off the younger man.
“I’m not going to talk about this nonsense.”
“Calm down and have your soup!”
Warily Leonidas eased himself down on the couch and held out his hands to the mess-boys. One boy held the bowl while the other poured water over his hands, and then handed him a towel. Leonidas watched the entire ritual intently as if he were seeing it for the first time. The boys, both eight-year-olds, were very diligent, but just as they finished, one of them risked glancing up at him. Leonidas recognized the look of boyish delight at the prospect of hearing something worth telling their friends. Frowning, he sent the boys scampering back toward the kitchen.
A moment later they were back, rolling in the soup in a deep cauldron. The boys filled individual bowls with the thick stew while a loaf of warm bread was passed around. Leonidas tore off a chunk of bread and dipped it into the steaming-hot soup. Only after he had put the b
read into his mouth did Nikostratos open his attack. “You realize your elder brother has outmaneuvered you, don’t you?” he asked casually, not even looking at Leonidas—but there was no question to whom he was talking.
Leonidas looked up furiously, his mouth too full to retort, while Nikostratos continued, “King Cleomenes was called in to explain himself to the ephors, and he swore solemnly that you were his first choice for his beloved daughter—but that you wouldn’t take her. It was only because you’d already turned him down—”
Leonidas swallowed what was left in his mouth and insisted, “That’s complete nonsense. He’s lying!”
“Oh, I don’t doubt he’s lying, Leo. That’s not the point. The point is, he has now publicly gone on record saying that you were his first choice as husband for his daughter, and only because you refused has he been forced to look for alternatives. He insisted that his daughter is too intelligent, independent, and precocious—all of which is patently true—to give to anyone but a prince or, short of that, a ruler. He suggested that a Persian satrap would be more suitable than an ordinary ranker.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Leonidas scoffed.
“Maybe, but he has neatly shifted the blame for seeking a foreign bridegroom from himself to you,” Nikostratos pointed out. “And made you look doubly bad, since you are well over thirty, unmarried, and childless, and so in open violation of the law already.”
“Meanwhile, your other brother is talking divorce, so he would be free to marry Gorgo,” Euryleon joined in.
“Brotus?” Leonidas asked, incredulous. “Brotus wouldn’t last a day with Gorgo—she’d dissect him!”
Euryleon laughed, but retorted, “But she’d do it so intelligently, he might not even notice—thick as he is.” The remark harvested a general laugh from their mess-mates.
Nikostratos, however, insisted seriously, “Well, as next in line to the throne, there is a certain logic to Brotus marrying Gorgo.” He wiped the bottom of his bowl clean with bread.
“There is no logic to it at all!” Leonidas retorted hotly. “Besides, Brotus has no grounds for divorce—and Sinope will kill him if he even mentions it!”
“Well, in that case, for an Agiad prince there is always the precedent of two wives.”
“That would only perpetuate the entire nightmare of two rivals for the throne. Pausanias would naturally claim the throne as firstborn, and any child by Gorgo would claim it by right of his double-royal blood. The ephors can’t be that stupid!”
Nikostratos shrugged and signaled for more soup. “Leonidas, you may very well be right. I admit the situation is unprecedented. Ever since the sons of Herakles came to this valley, there has never been a situation exactly like this. But you can’t just look on this as a personal affair. There will be consequences to your refusal to marry your niece, and not all of them will be to your liking.”
The ephors took much the same tack. The afternoon of the very next day, Leonidas was summoned to report to them. After morning drill he bathed and dressed in his bronze armor, and dutifully reported to the ephors with his helmet in the crook of his left arm.
The Ephorate was a relatively small building, not as imposing as the Council House, but it too was located on the main square. The Temple to Fear backed up against it. Some people claimed the juxtaposition of structures was because the ephors were supposed to fear the Law, and others that the citizens were supposed to fear the ephors. Leonidas suspected it was just an accident of indifferent city planning. Sparta was not a planned city, but rather one that had evolved haphazardly over centuries.
One entered the Ephorate by going up only a handful of steps and passing through a simple colonnade composed of four Doric pillars. The interior of the Ephorate was lit by windows set high in each of the three remaining walls or, at night, by a large, hanging lamp. Steps or seats lined the walls on the three sides facing the entrance. Five stone thrones occupied the center, facing two thrones just inside the door. There was also a sandpit toward the front of the chamber with a tripod on which entrails could be examined for signs. Blood in the sand suggested that the ephors had already consulted the Gods before calling on Leonidas to report.
The ephors themselves were all citizens more than half a century old. They had been elected at the last spring equinox and were due to step down at the next. Leonidas had voted for three of the five of them. The other two had been elected without his vote, as he had preferred other candidates, but he had no particular dislike or ill opinion of any of them. They were all solid, decent citizens with honorable service and grandchildren to their credit.
They sat on the thrones in a semicircle at the back of the chamber, while a Spartiate clerk was seated to one side to take minutes if called upon. Although most clerks in Sparta were perioikoi, perioikoi were not allowed in the Ephorate, because the decisions of the ephors were considered too sensitive to be shared with even one outsider. The Spartiate clerk was a man who had lost both legs in a horrible accident and had been exempt from military service ever since. He was now bent with age, and his face wore a permanent frown of pain and dissatisfaction.
The Chairman of the ephors opened: “Leonidas, son of Anaxandridas, you know why we have summoned you.”
“I can guess.”
“Then let us come straight to the point. We fully support your brother King Cleomenes, and it is our firm conviction that for the good of Lacedaemon, you should marry your niece Gorgo.”
The man paused as if expecting a response. Leonidas refused to be drawn.
Another man took up the case. “Such a marriage would reunite the two branches of your house, healing the wounds of your father’s double marriage.”
Leonidas remarked sharply, “That double marriage was forced upon my father by the ephors of the time, and the evil it produced suggests that the ephors would do well not to meddle in the marriages of the kings! Had you not meddled then, my brother Dorieus—who was an exemplary young man and the best of his age cohort—would now be king, and would probably have male heirs in abundance.”
“There’s no way to know that. Besides, he was a hothead and too full of his own importance.”
“Oh? And Cleomenes is not?”
“This arguing about the past serves no purpose. The proposal is a very reasonable one. You are a widower. Your niece is of marriageable age. There is a tradition of Agiad princes marrying their nieces; your own father did. What can you possibly have against the practice?”
“I have nothing against the practice, although it tends to produce dim-witted offspring, as Cleomenes has reminded me throughout my life.”
The ephors ignored the remark. “Then what have you against the maiden herself? Has she offended you in any way? Has she conducted herself in an unworthy manner? We have heard nothing derogatory about her; but if you know some reason to think she is not suitable to be your bride, then tell us now and we will not press you any further.”
“If Gorgo were a youth, she would be the most splendid scion the Agiads had ever produced.”
“Then what have you against her?”
Leonidas shrugged. “Nothing in particular; but I’m not heir to the Agiad throne, and so there is no reason why I should choose my bride for dynastic reasons.”
“It is good that you raise the issue of your bride; because, you know, we have been very lenient with you. It is two years since you lost your wife and children so tragically. You are now thirty-two, going on thirty-three. If you do not marry soon, we will have no choice but to subject you to the humiliations prescribed by the laws for men who fail to meet this most important of civil obligations. You will be fined, and you will have to parade naked through the streets and allow the women to taunt you, and henceforth you will be prohibited from attending the Gymnopaedia.”
“It is not my fault my wife and children are dead,” Leonidas retorted bitterly.
“We know. That is why we have been lenient up to now. We have not pressed you these past two years. But the time for mourning is past.
You, Leonidas son of Anaxandridas, should have sons in the agoge by now. We cannot allow you to neglect your civic duties any longer. You are too popular, Leonidas. You are too much an object of admiration among our young men, youth, and boys. If you set a bad example, then it will have worse consequences than if someone else were to do so.”
“That is to say: if I were a less exemplary citizen, you would turn a blind eye to my bachelor status? I can start neglecting my duties and adopt bad habits at once.”
“Don’t mock us!” the chairman barked, and a second stated firmly, “We are agreed: you must marry before the spring equinox, or you will be subject to sanctions.”
“Anything else?”
The five officials looked at one another, baffled by so much stubbornness.
“Not at the moment.”
Hilaira’s tactics were gentler. She took Leonidas by the arm and walked with him along the banks of the stream that ran beside her kleros, Beggar stiff-legged but content at their heels. “You know I’ve tried to draw your attention to one maiden or another over the years. Sometimes I feel as if I have worried about matchmaking for you every bit as much as I have worried about my poor brother Prokles, or even my own children!” She laughed as she spoke, but Leonidas knew there was some truth in what she said. “And you must know that I don’t care about dynastic politics or even your civic duty to procreate. All I want is for you to be happy.”
“I know you mean well,” Leonidas conceded. It was precisely because Hilaira had been so consistently concerned about finding him a bride that he did not take offense now. “But what you and Alkander have is rare,” he told her. “Most married couples don’t have it. Look at Sperchias, or Cleomenes and his poor queen. My own parents fought like cats and dogs for as long as I can remember, and my father completely neglected Chilonis as soon as she had served her dynastic purpose.”
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