Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae

by Steven Pressfield

  It was just getting to be evening when I spotted him approaching me again, beside the Big Ring, as I was finishing training. You know the lady Arete and her tongue. She had had a talk with him.

  'You are blind, Iatrokles,' she had said. 'Can't you see that your brother has feelings for me? That is why he declines all invitations to visit with us. He feels shame to experience these passions for his brother's wife.'

  My brother asked me straight out if this was true. I lied like a dog, but he saw through me as he always did. You could see he was profoundly troubled. He stood absolutely still, in a way he had since he was a boy, considering the matter. 'She will be yours when I am slain in battle,' he declared. That seemed to settle the matter for him.

  But not for me. Within a week I found excuse to get myself out of the city, assisting on an embassy overseas. I managed to keep away for the whole winter, returning only when the Herakles regiment was called up for Pellene. My brother was killed there. I didn't even know it in the advance, not until the battle was won and we remustered. I was twenty-four years old. He was thirty-one.

  Dienekes' countenance grew even more solemn. All effect of the wine had fled. He hesitated for long moments, as if considering whether to continue or break off the tale at this point. He scrutinized my expression until at last, seeming to satisfy himself that I was listening with the proper attention and respect, he dumped the dregs of his bowl and continued.

  I felt it was my doing, my brother's death, as if I had willed it in secret and the gods had somehow responded to this shameful prayer. It was the most painful thing that had ever happened to me. I felt I couldn't go on living, but I didn't know how honorably to end my life. I had to come home, for my father and mother's sake and for the funeral games. I never went near Arete. I intended to leave Lakedaemon again as soon as the games were over, but her father came to me.

  'Aren't you going to say one word to my daughter?' He had no clue of my feelings for her, he simply meant the courtesy of a brother-in-law and my obligation as kyrios to see that Arete was given to a proper husband. He said that husband should be myself. I was Iatrokles' only brother, the families were already profoundly intertwined and since Arete had as yet borne no children, mine with hers would be as if they were my brother's as well.

  I declined.

  This gentleman could make no guess of the real reason, that I couldn't embrace the shame of satisfying my deepest self-interest over the bones of my own brother. Arete's father could not understand; he was deeply hurt and insulted. It was an impossible situation, spawning suffering and sorrow in every quarter. I had no idea how to set it right. I was at wrestling one afternoon, just going through the motions, plagued by internal torment, when there came a commotion at the Gymnasion gate. A woman had entered the precinct. No female, as all know, may intrude upon those grounds. Murmurs of outrage were building. I myself arose from the pit-gymnos as all were, naked-to join the others in throwing the interloper out.

  Then I saw. It was Arete.

  The men parted before her like grain before the reapers. She stopped right beside the lanes, where the boxers were standing naked waiting to enter the ring.

  'Which of you will have me as his wife?' she demanded of the entire assembly, who were by now gaping slack-jawed, dumbstruck as calves. Arete is a lovely woman still, even after four daughters, but then, yet childless and barely nineteen, she was as dazzling as a goddess. Not a man didn't desire her, but they were all too paralyzed to utter a peep. 'Will no man come forward to claim me?'

  She turned and marched then, right up in front of me. 'Then you must make me your wife, Dienekes, or my father will not be able to bear the shame.'

  My heart was wrenched by this, half-numb at the sheer brass and temerity of this woman, this girl, to attempt such a stunt, the other half moved profoundly by her courage and wit.

  What happened? I asked.

  What choice did I have? I became her husband. Dienekes related several other tales of his brother's prowess in the Games and his valor in battle. In every field, in speed and wit and beauty, in virtue and forbearance, even in the chorus, his brother eclipsed him. It was clear Dienekes revered him, not merely as a younger brother will his elder, but as a man, in sober assessment and admiration. What a pair latrokles and Arete made. The whole city anticipated their sons. What warriors and heroes their combined lines would produce.

  But Iatrokles and Arete had had no children, and the lady's with Dienekes had all been girls.

  Dienekes gave it no voice, but one could readily perceive the sorrow and regret upon his face.

  Why had the gods granted him and Arete only daughters? What could it be but their curse, that divinely apportioned requital for the crime of selfish love in my master's heart? Dienekes rose from this preoccupation, or what I felt certain was this preoccupation, and gestured down the slope toward the Avenue of the Champions.

  Thus you see, Xeo, how courage before the enemy may perhaps come more easily to me than to others. I hold the example of my brother before me. I know that no matter what feat of valor the gods permit me to perform, I will never be his equal. This is my secret. What keeps me humble.

  He smiled. An odd, sad sort of smile.

  So now, Xeo, you know the secrets of my heart. And how I came to be the handsome fellow you see before you. I laughed, as my master had wanted. All merriment, however, had fled his features.

  And now I am tired, he said, shifting upon the earth. If you will excuse me, it's time to deflower the straw maiden, as they say.

  And with that he curled upon his reed groundbed and settled at once into sleep.

  Book Two. Alexandros

  Chapter Eight

  The preceding interviews were transcribed over the course of I several evenings as His Majesty's forces continued their still-unopposed advance into Hellas. The defenders at Thermopylae having been vanquished, the Hellenic fleet suffering further severe losses of ships and men at the naval battle fought simultaneously opposite Artemisium, all Greek and allied units, army and navy, now fled the field. The Hellenic land forces retreated south toward the Isthmus of Corinth, across which they and the armies now massing from the other Greek cities, including the forces of Sparta under a full call-up, were constructing a wall to defend the Pelo-ponnese. The sea elements withdrew around Euboea and Cape Sounion to unite with the main body of the Hellenic fleet at Athens and Salamis in the Gulf of Saronika.

  His Majesty's army put all Phokis to the torch. Imperial troops burned to the ground the cities of Drymus, Charada, Er-ochus, Tethronium, Amphikaea, Neon, Pedies, Trites, Elateia, Hylampolis and Parapotamii. All temples and sanctuaries of the Hellenic goo's, including that of Apollo at Abae, were razed and their treasuries looted.

  As for His Majesty Himself, the Royal Person's time now became consumed, nearly twenty hours a day, with urgent matters military and diplomatic. These demands notwithstanding, yet did His Majesty's desire remain undiminished to hear the continuation of the captive Xeones' tale. He ordered the interviews to proceed in His absence, their verbatim record to be transcribed for His Majesty's perusal at such hours as He found free.

  The Greek responded vigorously to this order. The sight of his native Hellas being reduced by the overmastering numbers of the imperial forces caused the man severe distress and seemed to fire his will to commit to record as much of his tale as he could, as expeditiously as possible.

  Dispatches relating the overrunning of the Temple of the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi seemed only to increase the prisoner's grief. Privately he stated his concern thai His Majesty was growing impatient with the tale of his own and other individuals' personal histories and becoming anxious to move on to the more apposite topics of Spartan tactics, training and military philosophy. The Greek begged His Majesty's patience, stating that the tale seemed to be telling itself at the god's direction and that he, its narrator, could only follow where it led.

  We began again, His Majesty absent, on the evening of the ninth day of Tashritu, in t
he tent of Orontes, captain of the Immortals. is Majesty has requested that I tecount some of the training practices of the Spartans, particularly those relating to the youth and their rearing under the Lykurgan warrior code. A specific incident may be illustrative, not only to impart certain details but to convey also the flavor of the thing.

  This event was in nowise atypical. I report it both for its informative value and because it involved several of the men whose heroism His Majesty witnessed with his own eyes during the struggle at the Hot Gates.

  This incident took place some six years prior to the battle at Thermopylae. I was fourteen at the time and not yet employed by my master as his battle squire; in fact I had at that time barely dwelt in Lakedaemon two years. I was serving as a parastates pais, a sparring partner, to a Spartiate youth of my own age named Alexandras. This individual I have mentioned once or twice in other contexts. He was the son of the polemarch, or war leader, Olympieus, and at that time, aged fourteen, the protege of Dienekes.

  Alexandros was a scion of one of the noblest families of Sparta; his line descended on the Eurypontid side directly from Herakles. He was, however, not constitutionally suited to the role of warrior. In a gentler world Alexandros might have been a poet or musician. He was easily the most accomplished flute player of his age-class, though he barely touched the instrument to practice. His gifts as a singer were even more exceptional, both as a boy alto and later as a man when his voice stabilized into a pure tenor.

  It chanced, unless the hand of a god was at work in it, that he and I when we were thirteen were flogged simultaneously, for separate offenses, on different sides of the same training field. His transgression related to some breach within his agoge boua, his training platoon; mine was for improperly shaving the throat of a sacrificial goat.

  In our separate whippings, Alexandros fell before I did. I mention this not as cause for pride; it was simply that I had taken more beatings. I was more accustomed to it. The contrast in our deportment, unfortunately for Alexandros, was perceived as a disgrace of the most egregious order. As a means of rubbing his nose in it, his drill instructors assigned me permanently to him, with instructions that he fight me over and over until he could beat the hell out of me. For my part, I was informed that if I was even suspected of going easy on him, out of fear of the consequences of harming my better, I would be lashed until the bones of my back showed through to the sun.

  The Lakedaemonians are extremely shrewd in these matters; they know that no arrangement could be more cunningly contrived to bind two youths together. I was keenly aware that, if I played my part satisfactorily, I would continue in Alexandros' service and become his squire when he reached twenty and took his station as a warrior in line of battle. Nothing could have suited me more. This was why I had come to Sparta in the first place-to witness the training close-up and to endure as much of it as the Lakedaemonians would permit.

  The army was at the Oaks, in the Otona valley, a blistering late summer afternoon, on an eightnighter, what they call in Lakedaemon, the only city which practices it, an oktonyktia. These are regimental exercises normally, though in this case it involved a division. An entire mom, more than twelve hundred men with full armor and battle train including an equal number of squires and helots, had marched out into the high valleys and drilled in darkness for four nights, sleeping in the day in open bivouac, by watches, at full readiness with no cover, then drilling day and night for the following three days. Conditions were deliberately contrived to make the exercise as close as possible to the rigor of actual campaign, simulating everything except casualties. There were mock night assaults up twenty-degree slopes, each man bearing full kit and panoplia, sixtyfive to eighty pounds of shield and armor. Then assaults down the hill. Then more across. The terrain was chosen for its boulder-strewn aspect and the numerous gnarled and low-branched oaks which dotted the slopes. The skill was to flow around everything, like water over rocks, without breaking the line.

  No amenities whatever were brought. Wine was at half-rations the first four days, none the second two, then no liquid at all, including water, for the final two. Rations were hard linseed loaves, which Dienekes declared fit only for barn insulation, and figs alone, nothing hot. This type of exercise is only partially in anticipation of night action; its primary purpose is training for surefootedness, for orientation by feel within the phalanx and for action without sight, particularly over uneven ground. It is axiomatic among the Lakedaemonians that an army must be able to dress and maneuver the line as skillfully blind as sighted, for, as His Majesty knows, in the dust and terror of the othismos, the initial battlefield collision and the horrific scrum that ensues, no man can see more than five feet in any direction, nor hear even his own cries above the din.

  It is a common misconception among the other Hellenes, and one deliberately cultivated by the Spartans, that the character of Lakedaemonian military training is brutal and humorless in the extreme. Nothing could be further from the fact. I have never experienced under other circumstances anything like the relentless hilarity that proceeds during these otherwise grueling field exercises. The men bitch and crack jokes from the moment the salpinx' blare sounds reveille till the final bone-fatigued hour when the warriors curl up in their cloaks for sleep, and even then you can hear cracks being muttered and punchy laughter breaking out in odd corners of the field for minutes until sleep, which comes on like a hammerblow, overtakes them.

  It is that peculiar soldiers' humor which springs from the experience of shared misery and often translates poorly to those not on the spot and enduring the same hardship. What's the difference between a Spartan king and a mid-ranker? One man will lob this query to his mate as they prepare to bed down in the open in a cold driving ram. His friend considers mock-theatrically for a moment. The king sleeps in that shithole over there, he replies. We sleep m this shithole over here.

  The more miserable the conditions, the more convulsing the jokes become, or at least that's how it seems. I have witnessed venerable Peers of fifty years and more, with thick gray in their beards and countenances as distinguished as Zeus', dropping helpless with mirth onto hands and knees, toppling onto their backs and practically pissing down their legs they were laughing so hard.

  Once on an errand I saw Leonidas himself, unable to get to his feet for a minute or more, so doubled over was he from some otherwise untranslatable wisecrack. Each time he tried to rise, one of his tent companions, grizzled captains in their late fifties but to him just boyhood chums he still addressed by their agoge nicknames, would torment him with another variation on the joke, which would reconvulse him and drop him back upon his knees.

  This, and other like incidents, endeared Leonidas univer-sally to the men, not just the Spartiate Peers but the Gentleman-Rankers and perioikoi as well. They could see their king, at nearly sixty, enduring every bit of misery they did. And they knew that when battle came, he would take his place not safely in the rear, but in the front rank, at the hottest and most perilous spot on the field.

  The purpose of an eight-nighter is to drive the individuals of the division, and the unit itself, beyond the point of humor. It is when the jokes stop, they say, that the real lessons are learned and each man, and the mora as a whole, make those incremental advances which pay off in the ultimate crucible. The hardship of the exercises is intended less to strengthen the back than to toughen the mind. The Spartans say that any army may win while it still has its legs under it; the real test comes when all strength is fled and the men must produce victory on will alone.

  The seventh day had come and gone now, and the army had reached that stage of exhaustion and short-temperedness that the eight-nighter was contrived to produce. It was late afternoon; the men were just rousing themselves from some pitifully inadequate catnap, parched and filthy and stink-begrimed, in anticipation of the final night's drill. Everyone was hungry and tired and drained utterly of fluid. A hundred variations were spun out on the same joke, each man's wish for a real war so he
could finally get more than a half hour's snooze and a bellyful of hot chow.

  The men were dressing their long sweat-matted hair, griping and bitching, while their squires and helots, as miserable and dehydrated as they, handed them the last dry fig cake, without wine or water, and readied them for the sunset sacrifice, while their stacked arms and panoplia waited in perfect order for the night's work to begin.

  Alexandras' training platoon was already awake and in formation, with eight others of the fourth age-class, boys thirteen and fourteen under their twenty-year-old drill instructors, on the lower slopes below the army's camp. These agoge platoons were regularly exposed to the sight of their elders and the rigors they endured, as a means of rousing their emulative instincts to even greater levels of exertion. I had been dispatched to the upper camp with a message stick when the commotion came from back down across the plain.

  I turned and saw Alexandros singled out at the edge of his platoon, with Polynikes, the Knight and Olympic champion, standing before him, raging. Alexandros was fourteen, Polynikes twenty-three; even at a range of a hundred yards you could see the boy was terrified.