“Of course, sir,” came the almost insulted answer. That was obvious.
They were admitted through a small door in the wall beside the gate. Both Leonidas and Oliantus looked up, carefully and professionally estimating the height and width of the wall. They looked instinctively for weaknesses.
They were met at the other side by a troop of six fully armed hoplites with their helmets down over their faces. These men looked fit and determined, Leonidas noted; and although each man was self-equipped with armor and arms of his own choosing, there was nothing rusted or ill-kept in their appearance.
This escort led up a narrow street with a number of modest temples. Leonidas noted one to Eileithyia, depicted holding out her hands to a smiling infant. Leonidas saw Agiatis’ features on the child, and he felt a sharp stab of homesickness. From inside came the keening of women, apparently in mourning or prayer for some young mother even now struggling in childbed.
They reached a modest agora, flanked by stoas on three sides that fronted small shops. On the fourth side, a large and elegant fountain house with a double row of columns housed an expansive room with deep marble basins fed from nine bronze spouts. It reminded the intruders that the Perseia Fountain provided this citadel with ample and perpetual supplies of water, making sieges more difficult. But there was no way of judging the state of their other supplies, as the shops were closed up and the agora deserted.
They turned a corner and passed an impressive temple evidently dedicated to Zeus. The pediment depicted Zeus handing a sword to Perseus. It was quite new, with an encircling colonnade, and the painted figures of the frieze and pediment stood out in sharp contrast to the dark blue of the background. That suggested considerable wealth, Leonidas noted.
At last they stopped before an old building with a narrow porch raised some five steps above the level of the street. They were taken up the steps and into a chamber with tiers of benches on three sides, evidently some kind of council chamber or assembly room.
Leonidas hadn’t a clue what form of government this obscure, secondary city had, except that it was unlikely to be a monarchy. He presumed it was also less democratic than Athens, and that made it an oligarchy of some sort. At all events, he was facing ten old men.
“You wished to speak with us, Spartan?”
“Who are you?”
“The Governing Council of Mycenae. And you?”
“I am the commanding officer of the Lacedaemonian army surrounding this city. My orders are to subdue the Argolid and render it incapable of threatening us for another generation. Those orders could be interpreted to mean I should seize and raze Mycenae.” Leonidas was watching the faces of the men opposite him very carefully. He had the impression he was not telling them anything they didn’t already know. They, too, had spies.
“So why are you here, Spartan? Do you want us to surrender our freedom without a fight?” The man who said this was trembling slightly as he spoke. Leonidas considered him. He was not trembling from fear. Possibly it was just a frailty of age—or the power of his emotions. His eyes were milky with cataracts, but he sat very straight, wrapped in a soft woolen himation with a wide border of mythical beasts in rusts and greens.
“I know little of your city, but I was told you pay homage to Argos.”
“Argos takes from us one-third of our olive-oil harvest, one-fourth of our wine, 100 head of cattle, 200 sheep, and 166 goats each year—and it led 116 of our finest young men to their deaths at Sepeia.”
That did not sound like a declaration of loyalty.
“And what do you get in return?”
There was a long pause. The old man just sat with tears dripping slowly down his face, and finally one of the other men admitted, “Nothing.” The man seemed to think about it and then added, “Nothing at all.”
“You call that freedom?” Leonidas asked.
Another man spoke up, more hotly than the other two. “We still live by our own laws. We have our temples, our festivals and customs. We can sacrifice at the graves of our fathers. Our daughters go intact to their marriage beds, and our sons learn the use of spear and sword.”
“That is true in Tegea, Corinth, and Elis as well.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” the hot-headed man demanded; but the older man stirred himself and hushed his younger colleague. He focused his not entirely blind eyes hard on Leonidas while explaining to his impatient colleague, “Tegea, Corinth, and Elis are allies of Lacedaemon.”
“We don’t require tribute,” Leonidas reminded him.
“Just obedience. To follow wherever your kings lead.” Yet another member of the council spoke up.
“If a majority in the League Assembly approves,” Leonidas reminded them. Leonidas was acutely aware that the changes in League leadership imposed upon his brother and characterized as “humiliating” by Leotychidas, Brotus, and others might prove decisive in avoiding bloodshed today. He pressed the point. “Your vote would be equal to ours.”
The Mycenaeans exchanged glances and then put their heads together, to whisper among themselves. One cut the others short and asked the Spartans to step out into the street while they discussed the proposal.
On the porch, Oliantus murmured, “Are you sure you have authority to offer this?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Only the ephors can sign treaties, and the Assembly has to ratify.”
“Do you think they would reject an application by Mycenae to join the League?”
“You never know what the Assembly will decide,” Oliantus warned. “Especially not when Leotychidas and his clique start their whisper campaigns!”
The Mycenaeans, however, were finished with their internal discussion and called the Spartans back inside. The spokesman asked, “Are those your terms? That we become an ally of Lacedaemon?”
“That you break with Argos and join our allies, yes,” Leonidas clarified.
The Mycenaeans again looked at one another, and then the spokesman asked, “What is your name, young man?”
“Does that matter?”
“It does. You seem very young to have so much authority, and you offer us something that seems quite unimaginable. We came here expecting demands of abject submission. We thought you would want us to hand over our daughters and humiliate ourselves in front of you. We thought you would take away our youths for your own pleasures and demand tribute that would leave us nothing at all but the naked walls of our homes.”
“You were wrong.” Leonidas insisted.
“But how can we know this is not just a trick—a way to make us let down our defenses and open our gates to your brutal troops?”
“I am Leonidas, son of Anaxandridas, brother of Cleomenes. I am a direct descendant of Herakles through my father and my mother both. My word is good. And I give it to you.”
It frightened Leonidas a little to realize how much he enjoyed saying that—and it surprised him even more how effective it was.
The arrival of Demaratus, with the active Kastor Companies of each lochos, marked the end of Leonidas’ independent command in the Argolid. He regretted that a little, because he had talked Tiryns as well as Mycenae into abandoning their traditional alliance with Argos and joining the Peloponnesian League. But it was almost two months since he had seen his wife and daughter, and he was ready to go home.
Demaratus invited Leonidas to dine with him. “You’ll want to hear the news,” he surmised.
Leonidas did, so he accepted. To his surprise, they dined alone, attended only by Demaratus’ helots. There being no couches, they sat on folding stools next to a low table. “You know we put your brother on trial for treason because he failed to take Argos?” Demaratus opened, once the pleasantries about families had been perfunctorily exchanged.
“I know Leotychidas wanted to.”
“Ah, yes. Leotychidas.” Demaratus said the name with a twisted smile of hatred. “The unscrupulous are capricious.”
“Meaning?”
“Y
our brother bought his loyalty back—though I don’t know the price. The charges were brought by Orthryades, Lysimachos, and Talthybiades—backed stubbornly and none too cleverly by your other brother Brotus. Brotus tried to dig up the old issue of Cleomenes having no right to the throne in the first place. He claimed his madness was the Gods’ way of telling us we had picked the wrong man. He was so convinced by his own arguments that he was already planning his move into the royal palace. I think his wife had even started packing.”
Leonidas laughed shortly at Brotus’ expense, remembering that his mother and Dorieus, too, had singularly failed to see that their view on Cleomenes’ legitimacy was not shared by the rest of the polity. The three citizens were the real danger, not Brotus. Brotus was just their tool. The first two men were bitter malcontents, and the latter a man of driving but dubious ambition. “I gather my older brother was acquitted—or is Brotus now the Agiad king?”
Demaratus shrugged and narrowed his eyes at Leonidas. “Brotus would make as bad a king as Cleomenes.”
Leonidas held his tongue—feeling it was disloyal to make disparaging remarks about his twin to the Eurypontid monarch, but not prepared to perjure himself by defending Brotus, either.
Demaratus understood him perfectly and sipped from the heavily watered wine. He nodded, apparently to himself, and then resumed the conversation. “Cleomenes was acquitted. He managed to convince the ephors that he had a clear and unambiguous sign from Hera that the attack on Argos was opposed by the Gods. They believed him.”
Again, Leonidas thought silence was the only prudent response.
“You know,” Demaratus remarked, sipping again without taking his eyes off Leonidas’ face, “if you were anyone other than who you are, I might start to like you.”
“Likewise.” Demaratus laughed.
“Then let us pretend we are not who we are,” Demaratus suggested.
Leonidas shrugged agreement; but he wasn’t drinking even the light wine now, just waiting tensely to find out what this was all about.
“Cleomenes is a dangerous and unstable man. He has led us into one adventure after another—and he very likely would have gotten us embroiled in the futile Ionian revolt if it hadn’t been for his daughter—your wife.”
Leonidas acknowledged that with a nod. He was proud of Gorgo’s role in the incident.
“He is unfit to be king in dangerous times.”
Leonidas shifted uncomfortably. This was very definitely treason.
Demaratus appeared to sense his discomfort and changed the subject. “You’ve heard that the Persians are not content with defeating and punishing the Ionian rebels?”
“What more can they do?” Leonidas asked angrily, remembering the bay full of little corpses.
“They plan to punish Athens for providing support early in the rebellion,” Demaratus explained. Leonidas stirred uneasily but said nothing, forcing Demaratus to continue. “If they send a fleet and army to take Attica, they will not stop there. The Persians are nothing if not greedy—and thorough.”
“The Isthmus is eminently defensible.”
“Indeed; but the army that lands in the Laconian Gulf will have already burnt our farms, slaughtered our livestock, and raped our women before they meet us at the Isthmus.”
There it was again, the need for a fleet—a real fleet, not the handful of triremes Lacedaemon could launch now. Leonidas nodded, and asked, “So what do you think we should do?”
“Well, let me put it this way: the Persians can certainly overwhelm us if they want to. The key, therefore, is to convince them they do not want to. In short, to convince them that the conquest of Greece is more expensive and troublesome than it is worth. That will mean allying ourselves with Athens; but Cleomenes, with his history of interference in Athenian affairs, is not the best man to pursue such a policy.”
“My brother is unpredictable. He might just decide to support Athens because it is what no one expects him to do.”
Demaratus considered this with raised eyebrows and then conceded, “Perhaps,” without sounding convinced. Then he went on: “And, of course, Athens itself might decide to submit to Persia. After all, there is nothing more fickle than the Athenian Assembly—a few more potters, tinkers, or cobblers bought by this speaker or the next, and their policy changes from black to white. Like a school of fish, one minute they’re swimming one way and the next another—and all for no apparent reason!”
Leonidas laughed at the vivid and apt image.
Demaratus did not join him, but looked thoughtful. “You’re a good man, Leonidas, and respect for you is growing. You are credited with the decision to keep at least one lochos in the field here, which is why the Council put your name forward to the Assembly as Kyranios’ successor to the post of lochagos of the Mesoan Lochos.” Leonidas nodded; he had received this news officially more than a month ago.
“Furthermore, bringing Mycenae and Tiryns into the League was greeted with genuine enthusiasm by the Assembly,” Demaratus continued. “More and more people think you would be a better king than either of your brothers. But you have one serious flaw.”
“Namely?”
“You lack ambition.”
Not as much as you think, Leonidas noted mentally, but answered with, “Ambition did not bring my brothers either honor or glory.”
“True. And Dorieus had enough ambition for the lot of you, didn’t he?”
It seemed a rhetorical question, so Leonidas left it unanswered.
“Sometimes, Leonidas,” Demaratus observed, scratching his beard thoughtfully, “we cannot escape our destiny, but sometimes we have a hand in shaping it. Your brothers have tried too hard to make the world dance to their tune, but you might be better advised to try a little harder. When the Gods give a man a gift, they are insulted if he discards it carelessly.”
“What gift would that be?” Leonidas asked.
Demaratus tipped up his kothon and drank deeply, covering his face for a moment. When he finished, he tossed the dregs aside with a quick flick of his wrist and looked hard at Leonidas again. “I think you know exactly what I mean, and your pretense of being thick is wearing thin.”
Leonidas looked down into the broad bowl of his own kylix. Demaratus traveled with the finest of Lacedaemonian pottery and the best Laconian white wine. Leonidas could see right through the white wine to the beautifully painted image of a smiling female sphinx with spread wings on a white field. She seemed to share his secret. Leonidas had no intention of letting Sparta fall into the hands of Brotus—much less the likes of Talthybiades, Lysimachos, and Orthryades. But until he had a son, he did not see how he could lay claim to a regency. No one was going to recognize Agiatis as heir to the Agiad throne any more than Gorgo herself.
“We could work together, Leonidas,” Demaratus spoke, so softly not even the helots could hear. “For Lacedaemon’s good, we should work together; because, I warn you, I cannot work with your elder brother much longer. If I must, I will find a way to bring him down.”
“And have Brotus take his place?”
“The number of citizens in Sparta who do not want either of your brothers to command our army—particularly in time of crisis—is growing daily. You didn’t become the youngest commander in the Spartan army without strong support in the Council, in the army, and in Assembly.”
“That may be true, but if so, I won respect for being just what I am: a law-abiding Spartan Peer. I have not bribed or begged, threatened or flattered. Why should I change now?”
Demaratus looked at him hard, and Leonidas met his eyes. What Demaratus clearly wanted was for him to set his father-in-law aside and seize control of the Agiad throne in his own right. Were he a ruling king, and were the kings working together (rather than against one another, as was so common in the history of the two royal houses), they could together easily defeat the machinations of Leotychidas against Demaratus. But Leonidas did not feel it was his duty to save Demaratus from his cousin.
Demaratus shrugged, an
d looked around for a helot to refill his kylix. “Well, I guess you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” Then after a pause he added, with narrowed eyes, “Or are you even cleverer than I have been giving you credit for?”
Leonidas did not feel clever. He could see that beyond Leotychidas’ determination to destroy Demaratus, the madness of one brother and the ambitions of the other were providing sinister individuals with a constellation of forces they could exploit for their own purposes. Cleomenes’ madness was making even those most loyal to the Spartan constitution question whether Sparta could afford a madman at her helm.
Leonidas could see that Sparta was teetering on the edge of crisis, but he could not see what he could do to prevent it without breaking the law. Since he had been a child, obedience to Sparta’s laws had defined him. As long as he had no son by Gorgo, Brotus was the heir to the Agiad throne, and in consequence any move against Cleomenes benefited only Brotus—not Sparta.
“What are you thinking, Little Leo?” Demaratus asked, bringing him out of his thoughts. The Eurypontid king was watching him with narrowed eyes over the lip of his kylix, and Leonidas was reminded of the humiliations Demaratus’ father had subjected him to as a boy and of Demaratus’ arrogance when he was younger.
Leonidas stood so he was looking down at Demaratus. “You do your case no good by calling me ‘Little Leo,’ son of Ariston. If you had made fewer enemies in your long life, you would not find yourself so threatened by the likes of Leotychidas.”
Demaratus sprang to his feet. “I didn’t invite you here to submit to impudent lectures from the likes of you!”
“Then I will leave you,” Leonidas answered calmly, and stepped through the tent flap out into the balmy night.
The camp was still, the fires out. The men had stretched out to sleep under the clear sky, and the sentries paced on the periphery. A dog howled in the distance, and the wind rustled the needles of the pine trees on the slope behind them. Leonidas looked to the stars and found the constellations: the Bears, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Leo …
A Peerless Peer Page 57