The End of Sparta (30 page)

“Alkidamas urged me to help you. But I can see that you are queer folk, both of you. Why, look, you carry men’s weapons, and have a man-dog with you and are looking for phantoms in some mythical city of Messenê to come. Still, I give you leave of our polis to find your helots—for a day.”

Then the boar-tooth stuck his finger into Erinna’s breast. “But you are only to find the visiting helot Nikôn—then leave. Stymphalian Ainias for all his promises may not come back here to new Mantineia. I believe our builder Proxenos will abandon us before the walls are finished. Neither has returned of late. So we want no charge brought on us by the Lakedaimonians that we are stirring up their runaway helots. Find your troublemaker Nikôn before I do. Just follow your nose to that tanner. Then leave. Cleanse all the helots from the city. I do not trust your Alkidamas and all his wild talk of revolt and helots and a huge army from the north—not while my walls are half-done and our Proxenos is missing, and the Spartans on my borders are restless.”

The women nodded, smiling that the silver of Alkidamas had bought them safety, or at least time to round up the helots for the trek into Messenia. So they left Lykomedes. Nêto and Erinna covered their noses. It was the black pond, where open ditches dumped the public toilets and the butchers threw in the carcasses of their sheep and goats, among them an occasional corpse of a hanged thief. By early evening the two women had returned to the straw of the public stalls, and they talked late into the night about how to scour the city to find the Messenians. But before dawn they woke to an image at the doors. A tiny man in a rough cloak of wool riled the horses. Then he burst into the barn. Neither had time to reach for a blade. Nêto grabbed her cloak and covered up. Erinna jumped out of the straw and faced the intruder naked, ready to jump at his throat. Both then heard a husky voice in thick Doric yell “
lykos,
” and without warning Nêto answered in turn “
lykos
.”

“Calm down and get your cloak on, woman. Your Alkidamas sent me. So Nêto here knows our password “wolf.’ ” Then the shadow man hesitated and stepped into the torchlight. “We are to take you to Ithômê, Nêto. We leave this morning. Pack. We have twelve from free Messenia here. Another eight helots will join us on the trail. We march due west, with the warm sun at our back. I say I am Nikôn. But you knew that from your night dreams long ago.”

“We do know you, Nikôn—from our dreams.” Nêto nodded to Erinna. “I heard you from the hill in far-off Messenia calling me. I even hear you on your cliff in my sleep. I don’t believe you’re the killer they say you are. I learned that in my visions.”

Erinna glared at him and scoffed, once her hawk eyes saw a small band at the barn door. “This is your army of freedom, Nêto? I mean you no ill will, helot Nikôn. But I had heard your band is the fiercest of the rebels, and yet I see just a handful of men in rags and with the smell of cow hide and pig fat. And when we two women are taller than any of your army, well … well. I worry that the Spartans will not worry.” She kicked the straw and pulled her cloak over her head and finally picked up her bow.

Nikôn frowned. “No tall Spartan helmet crests here to scare you women. No tricking your eye with our false height. We’re not Spartans. But laugh at us, and then see if we can’t hit a cow’s eye at thirty steps with the javelin, or follow that throw with the knife to split the shaft. Ask Antikrates. Ask even black Kuniskos just how many hoplites of Sparta they have found rotting in the passes from Ithômê. Ask him why they all stay barricaded in Ithômê, and why he fears us.”

Erinna put down her bow. Good. This Nikôn was a bit mad himself—and armed, and might show her why his name brought terror even to the
kryptes,
the helot killers, of Kuniskos. The growing light showed that at second look these helots seemed a tough lot, with blades and worn quivers, and cornel javelins as well. Most had a savage look about them. Some of the men were pointing at the big breasts of the poet herself and beginning to smile.

Erinna laughed as she took two steps back. “We will go safer for your company—at least until we can see the peak of Ithômê.”

Nikôn turned and pointed his sword at Erinna. “Our trip is for us, woman, to decide—since we hear only a trace of bad Doric in your talk. Nêto we know of. She knew the password. But as for you, Amazon, only Alkidamas pledges his word. Where is he now? We watch—so you don’t earn silver from a Spartan
krypt,
or any other helot hunter. Don’t bristle; plenty of Messenians have done just that. Kuniskos was once a helot, we hear. We have been killing Spartans, lots of them, while you sing of our fights from a distance. Our fifty have become five hundred. And then again five thousand. Soon ten times that.”

Nikôn, as the light confirmed, was a dark sort, with an eye that gave off bad intent to anyone it caught. Still, once he started, it was hard to quiet him down. He was a runner as well as a cutthroat, who flitted about Taygetos with messages for plotters and firebrands. Nikôn went always with this short fellow Hêlos, who carried a long scroll and wrote down orders and messages, one of the few of the helots who could write the block letters and yet believed his illiterate master was far smarter than any of the bastard helot leaders who in private boasted of red-caped fathers. Nikôn wore no helot leather, no fur cap. But he had a black wool cape on his shoulders—and a looted Spartan breastplate beneath.

In silence Nikôn and his helots at last set out of the main road from Mantineia with the two women. As they neared the western gate of the city, Nêto was already staring at the cut square stones and bull-nose-edged corners of the foundations, and at a new course of rectangular stones that had been freshly laid. They were just like those at new Thespiai—and what she had seen at Plataia. So the proud aristocrat Proxenos had not heeded her warnings but had long been down in Arkadia supervising the finishing of the ramparts, even after her visions at the generals’ tent before Leuktra. The scent of the stone-man Proxenos was already spreading all over the Peloponnesos, as if he had stamped a beta for the Boiotians on every wall that rose. Without Proxenos, Nêto reminded her travelers, there would be no freedom here in the south.

In another day on the trail westward, Nikôn’s band passed through the stones of the sprawling Megalopolis farther down the Arkadian road, heading south over the low mountains to ford the Alpheios. They refreshed at Lykosoura. Then they all went up the side of Lykaion to the cave of Pan for the night. Soon Nêto could see the dark, gloomy shape of Ithômê, the mountain of myth, home to the gods of Messenia. At dusk on the fourth day from Mantineia they crossed into Messenia toward Andania, with a larger throng of armed helots of Nikôn’s band—maybe a hundred now, the first invaders of the great war to come. “Look at it, Erinna. Black Ithômê at last, home to Aristomenes of legend, the great refuge of the helots. The mountain rises as the beacon to all Messenians, of all helots for a thousand stadia in every direction.” Nêto had not noticed the bands of helot rangers who had been shadowing them from the woods.

These new companies of Messenians were wearing Spartan breastplates and carrying heavy willow hoplite shields with double grips. The helots had come to welcome the newcomers and escort them to the ruins of Thouria. They had often trailed the Spartan
kryptes
to harvest the stragglers and strip their panoplies up on the higher passes. The Eleans had sent breastplates and shields as well, so this was no
ochlos
but a well-outfitted phalanx of hoplites. Finally Erinna, as she neared the slopes, found her voice and began chanting her own new poem of her Epaminondas. She had added a new line about this second great city, holy Megalopolis that they left behind as they headed farther west still: “By the arms of Thebes, Megalopolis was girded with walls.”

Nêto asked, “Sing of Messenê, my Erinna. It is past time to look for the third, the greatest, the tallest of all the fetters of Sparta to rise.”

Erinna smiled. “Not yet; not until the city of our helots is free.”

PART THREE

The March Down Country

CHAPTER 22

The Great Muster

With the vote to go south before the new year, and the breakup of the Theban winter assembly, Mêlon made his way through the noise and elbows to a small shrine on the Theban Kadmeia. Still in the high city he stopped by two laurel trees that grew out of a stone outcropping, a viewing place with benches and a fountain. For the first time as he gazed below he understood just how many thousands of winter fighters were camped outside the walls of Thebes. A myriad? Or were there two and more ten-thousands?

How could Menekleidas with his two-pointed shoes prance around the hall as if he could stop what already was started? As the rhetoricians had been warning that very morning, thousands below were sharpening their blades and oiling their shield blazons a stone’s throw from Iphikrates and his thugs in the assembly—and all this at the onset of winter. They looked more like mercenaries than liberationists, scarred with blade nicks, lame from spear jabs, clad in leather and bronze, eager for pay, more eager still for Spartan booty, with not a worry about their icy breath and sleeping on snow. These islanders and northerners cared little whether the Boiotarchs voted for their war, only whether Epaminondas was to be at their head with plunder promised. All had their grudges with Spartans. All could claim that a harmost or a Spartan admiral had ravaged their land or killed a cousin or friend in battle.

The law of Boiotia or the freedom of the helots meant not so much to them; the hatred and loot of Sparta everything. Mêlon saw tents and midday smoke rising all the way to Kithairon to the south and then even more camps northward up to the spurs of Parnassos and even toward the gap at Chaironeia. As he left his lookout point, the Thespian fought his way through the crowd. Then Melissos finally caught him on the back of his cloak. The boy had just tied Xiphos nearby to a plane tree. He was in high spirits due to the wild eyes of the delegates that had filed into the assembly—and what he had heard from the grove above the theater, where the poor and slaves listened in.

For all Melissos’s bad sight, the boy was counting tents below and already numbering loudly the size of the army to be. “Two myriads,” he gasped, “maybe more still if we could see all on the foothills to the south. Even our armies to the north are not this size.” Suddenly the two were called over by Pelopidas. The general had a bright green cloak on, and a heavy leather tunic beneath. He was allotting scrolls in leather pouches to a group of young ephebes. By prearranged signals, well before the actual voting, the Theban already had sent out runners throughout Boiotia. The general was ordering more messengers to the marshes to ensure that the tardy and stubborn Boiotians of Orchomenos and Helikon showed up in the morning as they had promised. The eleven districts had had less than two days to send in their allotted
lochoi
—five hundred hoplites each and as many light-armed were the orders. The tribes in all the districts were to fill their quotas by daybreak, as the army would be on the passes outward within two days.

Pelopidas turned to Mêlon. “If we can get even a half-myriad of those Boiotians who stood firm at Leuktra, we will be doing well enough. That would give us altogether on the morrow almost two ten-thousands, with these volunteers from Euboia, Thessaly, Lokris, the islands, and even the men of Phokis who are still trailing in. And, of course, there are mobs in the south that will join us. So your Thespiai will send troops this time, even if they are not like those of the Malgidai or Chiôn?”

“Yes, some Thespians may march in. I am a Thespian, and pledge I will go south with you, and then over to Messenia to find my servant girl, whether alone or once again at the van of the army of Epaminondas. The fame of Chiôn and the big talk after Leuktra count. But mostly they will be the hill folk on Helikon, those in the backcountry all the way to Parnassos. Together with all these foreigners, I reckon that we may set out from Boiotia with more than Kleombrotos had when he came up here, at least.”

Then Pelopidas continued. “You know that the larger the army is, the larger it will become. That’s why you see out there wagons pulling in from over the pass. The mob has decided it is a fine thing to march southward. But that’s not the half of it. We will need more than even these two myriads. If Proxenos and Ainias have done their work, if they keep that slippery Mantineian Lykomedes in line, maybe more than two ten-thousands are already mustering to the south at Arkadia.” He paused and spoke slowly, as if Pelopidas himself could not quite believe the numbers of Hellenes on the move toward Sparta. “Altogether I’d wager sixty thousand and more will pour into Lakedaimon, with us and them combined. Don’t forget the firebrand Epitêles and his Argives. There is no better friend of the
dêmos
. He will bring Dorian hoplites with him. These are the sorts that will continue over Taygetos into Messenia if they have to. King Agesilaos can’t thwart us. We know Alkidamas with his Nêto has stirred up the helots. So the Spartans will have enemies in every direction.”

Pelopidas waved at the throng below. “Ainias promised me that thousands of Arkadians will join us in the south, all with the club of our Herakles—the
ropalon
of Thebes—painted on their shields. I think before we’re through, all of Hellas will be on the road. Ten myriads, and from every polis in Hellas.”

Mêlon wondered how many Spartans would meet them. Maybe a myriad red-capes, from the allies and the Spartiates who had survived Leuktra, together with some more in the south and the home guard. Some Lakonian helots who wouldn’t bolt over—be sure to count on those. Then there were the loyal
perioikoi
and the other half-citizens of Lakedaimon. Put them all together and Agesilaos might have thirty thousand with spears to guard his acropolis. If Epaminondas and his invaders had twice that number, or three times the army, the odds still were with the Spartan defenders, who only need not lose, not ford the icy waters of the Eurotas and break into the city.

Mêlon thought that even if they did not storm into the streets of Sparta, at least they could claim this horde might make it alive into the borders of Lakonia. That would make them the first invaders to have done so in nearly twenty generations of the Hellenes—not since the sons of Herakles of the myths and stories depicted on the pots and temple stones. Then Mêlon quit his dreaming and checked his pack. If the army were to leave in less than two days, he would have to send Melissos over to the farm for provisions. As an afterthought Mêlon had roped his own battle gear on Xiphos for the trip from the farm to Thebes, so it was just a question of food, not armor, and to let Damô know that he was marching south.

Melissos came up closer. “Master, I’ve already fetched Xiphos, fed from the stables. There’s food right now. On the back of our stallion I’ve got dried fish, cheese, and wine—and our bronze breastplates and helmets. Last night Alkidamas had me empty his house of provisions. He has already left.”

Mêlon laughed, “
Our
armor?”

“That’s right. I have my breastplate, and the shield of Kalliphon, that dead son of Alkidamas. I fetched that with the food from the house of Alkidamas. So we are ready to march? I’m eager to see what you Hellenes can do in a day.”

“So we will, boy, first to Sparta with Epaminondas and then on to Messenia, alone, if need be, to find my Nêto.” With that, Mêlon patted the northerner’s head, as he led Xiphos behind them.

The two of them walked the horse out through the gate to find the field camps of Epaminondas, a half-morning march to the south, where they would spend the first night. As they walked, Mêlon repeated what his father Malgis had once taught him before his own first outing at Haliartos. “There is an art, Melissos, to a muster. It’s not like a pack of dogs that snarl and sprint out after the first hare that crosses their paths. Epaminondas is already forming up the columns, right over there under the clouds of Kithairon. The first thousands will leave in the morning, over the pass with us at the van. Then the hamlets from the eleven districts drift into Thebes. Their officers will have these late-coming regiments fall into line by companies, six men wide along the road—all the baggage in the middle of their column. We at the head will be over the mountain and halfway to Megara by nightfall tomorrow.”

“Or by midday, master,” piped up Melissos. He went on as he gazed at the long columns behind. “We are a snake then, Master Mêlon. A long snake, always ahead as its coils unwind to the rear. We’re getting longer even as we get farther from Thebes?”

“Longer? I’d say when we head down the pass our tail will just be leaving Thebes, seventy stadia back. Who knows, Melissos, it may be snowing on us on the pass yet sunny on those behind in the plain—and all in this same winter army.” Later, near the foothills of Erithryrai, Mêlon got word that Epaminondas was waiting for him at the head of the column. The generals were already high on the Plataian road, camped outside the walls of the city that Proxenos had rebuilt years earlier. This was where Mêlon wished to go anyway, since Alkidamas had told him that one of his agents would be meeting him there by nightfall. Before sunset the two slipped into camp. They tethered Xiphos beside a fire. Maybe a half-myriad of northerners were busy around them, and at least that many Thebans all along the road back to the Kadmeia. Officers kept the road clear. The winter rains were late here. The road was free of the deep red winter mud of the valleys of northern Boiotia.

Mêlon grabbed Melissos by the shoulder. “Stay close. These northerners, folk like your own, can’t be trusted, especially the riders. The Lokrians would run us down for play. The Phokians, well, the Phokians, they’re worse than any Spartans I know. I’ve seen some outlaws from Thessaly, too. Temple robbers and shrine looters, all of them, neighbors of yours. Still, our Epaminondas can’t be choosy in his allies. And he wasn’t.” The two got directions. They were soon in among the tents of Epaminondas, on a rise with a view of the distant hills above the battlefield at Leuktra. Mêlon noted that from the slopes above the river Asopos they could see the last light of the short winter day flickering off the white marble monument where he had met Alkidamas only two days earlier, not far from where Lichas had taken Lophis down. To the west along a bank three stadia away they could see the majestic hilltop estate of Proxenos, son of Proxenos of Plataia. Its torches on the portico above the river were blazing before the sun even fell, perhaps the household’s eager beacon to guide their master home—as if he were not somewhere already far distant, wandering down in the Peloponnesos.

Mêlon helped Melissos unload their packs. “Sleep, Makedonian. Tomorrow we talk as we march. This twilight let the young bloods put our
lochoi
in their order. The
peripoloi
and the rangers rouse the countryside, as they search for the stay-in-beds and the hide-a-ways. Anyone is fair game that the muster officers can’t find on the first go-around. We strike out at dawn. They say we will be at the flatlands of Mantineia in five days or six. Then two more on to Sparta.”

Then from his back a familiar voice took over from Mêlon. “Maybe seven days for our tail end. The full muster won’t even pass out of Thebes until tomorrow night.” It was Epaminondas. He had no helmet but wore a leather broad-brimmed hat that nearly covered his face. “A bad habit of walking up behind you, Mêlon. No worry. You are no snoring sentry. So in peace sleep, Thespian. All is planned.” With that Epaminondas passed on by their camp with four or five hoplites. “Come to the head of the march at daybreak. We will be waiting for you.”

Mêlon and Melissos were drifting off to sleep even before full darkness and the Great Bear had yet taken over the sky. How had he ended up here on the ground at Plataia? Just three days earlier, he had been at work at his olive press, promising Proxenos only that he might ride over to see things at Thebes. From that sudden urge, he had fallen in with the stranger Alkidamas, taken on a new servant, watched the great debate in the council hall of the Boiotians, and been called to the head of an army on its way into the frontier of Sparta. Suddenly Mêlon jolted up. Someone had kicked him. The voice was Boiotian. He recognized the tongue as well. “Sleeping so soon? But it is not even full dark—the moon is still in hiding.”

Chiôn was standing over him.

“This sapling next to you, what is it? A slave boy? A helot? You were never a boy-lover, Mêlon. How did this mushroom clamp onto your trunk?”

“Careful to kick the sleeping dog, Chiôn, he may bite yet.”

Mêlon rose to greet Chiôn. “This Melissos comes as the hostage servant of Alkidamas. That man’s own son Kalliphon was cut down near us on the left at Leuktra. So he lent me a spare Makedonian hostage that General Pammenes brought back to the men of Boiotia. He is a truce pledge from the Makedonians of the north. If the peace holds, he goes back to the north after the barley harvest. Then we get our own captives back in the bargain. He claims he’s royal. But he won’t tell us more. In the north there every tribe boasts they have queens and kings. He watches more than he talks.”

Chiôn nodded. “I know, I know of those two. I met both in Thespiai and sent them after you. But so they found you. I had Eudoros and Neander show them the road, and where to find you at the trophy of Leuktra.”

Mêlon was puzzled. “Chiôn, are you here from Alkidamas? He was supposed to send me a messenger. Why you? Why leave Damô, even if she’s with the dogs and the boys? She’s with your child. The country is swarming with bad sorts.”

“But Master, forgive me. I come for a reason you won’t like. Your coins in the well are yours. I’ve never drawn the boxes up without you. You know that.” Now Chiôn looked up and talked bolder to his former master. “But a strange helot from the south met me when I was pruning in the red grape vines two days ago. A Nikôn, he said his name was, as he ran up. A proud label for a slave, this man called “Victory.” But Nikôn could hardly stand. His sandals were worn to the soles, and he was about through and shaking. Even if he had been fresh, he was a scarred and leathery sort, an ugly one with whip scars on his neck and back, and with a stink of hides on him. Begging for money, he claimed, so that he could ransom our Nêto. In chains to the south, he swears, she was. A prisoner in the log fort of Lord Kuniskos, he swears. He hands me a note, with the block letters scratched on bark from a woman who wrote the Attic way—why in the south I don’t know. At least that’s what he said. He looked like he’d run the whole way. But he was at least a Pheidippes, an iron legs.”