Tides of War (66 page)

Upon the bench he set a coin.

I protested that he offended the farm’s hospitality.

He smiled. “It’s from Pommo, Cap’n. He thought you might find the piece of interest.”

I picked it up. It was a gold daric of Phrygia, a month’s pay for an infantryman. The reverse bore a trireme and a winged Victory; the obverse Athena Triumphant framed by an owl and olive branch.

The coin was called an “alcibiadic,” Telamon reported. It was a favored piece, good across all Asia.

The lane passing out from the farm bisects the central compound. The hands’ kitchen and service stalls mark the west, as you know, adjacent several cottages and a transients’ barracks. Equipment sheds stand across, with that steading upslope we call the Crease, and the stock pens beyond. As the mercenary trekked down toward the gate, a huddle of gawkers tracked him with their gaze, arrested by his appearance and his kit. This following was comprised not alone of lads but of maids and even husbandmen and dames breaking off at their labors. As he approached the gate, two boys dashed ahead, that he not be put to trouble by the latch, and would have trailed him a distance down the lane, or to the sea itself, had not their fathers hailed them back.

I, too, was held by this apparition, unable to turn apart until he had vanished along the avenue of holm oak, whose blossom yields that scarlet dye which ever colors the soldier’s cloak of war.

For persons and places which have been widely known in the English-speaking world through their Latinized versions, I have respected the tradition. Thus Alcibiades does not become Alkibiades, or Jason Iason. Similarly Piraeus is not Peiraieus and Potidaea is not Potidaia.

However, for less well known names, and in particular Greek terms, I have retained the Greek spelling transliterated into English; thus
homoioi
does not become Latinized to
homoii
, or
toxotai
to
toxotae
.

ACHARNAE
    A
deme
or district of Athens, about seven miles north of the city.

AEGOSPOTAMI
    Site on the Hellespont (Goat Creeks) where in 405
B.C.
the Spartan navy under Lysander defeated the fleet of Athens, sealing victory in the Peloponnesian War.

AGEMA
    The elite corps of king’s defenders in the Spartan army.

AGOGE
    “The Upbringing”; the Spartan educational regimen.

AGON
    Contention; competition.

AGORA
    Political and social center of Athens and other Greek cities, housing the marketplace, civic buildings, temples, etc.

AKATION
    The smaller “boat sail” of a trireme, as differentiated from the mainsail.

ALPHITA
    Barley bread.

ANASTROPHE
    Countermarch.

ANDREIA
    Courage; manly virtue.

APAGOGE
    Summary arrest.

APATURIA
    Festival of the Brotherhoods at Athens.

APELLA
    The Spartan Assembly.

APOSTOLEIS
    Senior administrators of the Athenian Fleet.

ARCADIA
    Region of the Peloponnese noted for producing great fighters, particularly mercenaries.

ARCHITECTONES
    Architects.

ARCHON
    One of nine senior magistrates at Athens, elected each year for a one-year term.

AREOPAGUS
    The senior Council at Athens, composed of ex-archons. Also the hill west of the Acropolis, the “Hill of Ares,” upon which they met.

ARETE
    Excellence; virtue.

ARGIVES
    Men of Argos.

ARISTOI
    The nobility, “the best.”

ARTEMIS ORTHIA
    Temple of Artemis Upright at Sparta.

ASPIS
    A shield of the heavy infantry; pl.
aspides
.

ASSEMBLY
    The sovereign body of Athens, open to all adult male citizens. Also,
ekklesia
.

ATTICA
    The region of which Athens is the principal city.

“THE BARBARIAN”
    To a Greek, any non-Greek; usually in reference to the Persians, whose speech sounded like “bar-bar” to Greek ears.

BASILEUS
    The “King Archon” at Athens; his duties were primarily to officiate at religious events.

BOXER’s STONE
    Olympic pugilists fought tethered to a heavy stone so they could not duck away from opponents.

BRASIDIOI
    Helot troops who had won their freedom fighting under the Spartan general Brasidas.

“BREAKTHROUGH”
    Naval maneuver, the
diekplous,
in which a warship shoots the gap between enemy craft advancing in line abreast, then wheels to attack from the flank.

CANTHARUS (KANTHAROS)
    The Goblet; the main harbor of Piraeus.

CATHEAD
    On a trireme, a stout beam structure projecting laterally just aft of the prow, supporting the outrigger.

CHOMA
    The ceremonial jetty at Piraeus from which a fleet embarked to war.

CIMON
    Athenian general, son of Miltiades; his victories in the mid-fifth century drove the Persians from the Aegean and established Athens’ hegemony at sea.

“CONCENTRIC”
    A naval tactic,
kyklos
or “circle,” whereby one fleet literally rowed rings around another, probing for a weak spot to strike.

COUNCIL OF 500
    At Athens the deliberative body which prepared business for the Assembly.

CUIRASS
    Armor breastplate.

“CUTBACK”
    Naval maneuver,
periplous,
whereby a warship shoots past an opponent to get astern of her, then turns about to strike from aft or abeam.

DAIMON
    Inhering spirit; in Latin,
genius
. Socrates’
daimon
always warned him when he should not do something, but never when he should.

DARIC
    A Persian gold coin called after King Darius.

DEAD MAN’S PIT
    The
barathron
at Athens, into which criminals were thrown. Scholars are divided over whether the condemned were precipitated alive, to be killed by the fall, or simply dumped as corpses, having been executed at another site by other means.

DECELEA
    A site in Attica which the Spartans fortified during the latter, or Decelean, phase of the war.

DEME
    A ward or district of Athens.

DEMOS
    The electorate of a democracy, “the commons.”

DEMOSTHENES
    Athenian general (
not
the orator of the fourth century), victor over the Spartans at Pylos/Sphacteria; leader of relief expedition to Sicily.

DIKE
    Civil lawsuit.

DIKE PHONOU
    An indictment for homicide.

“DOLPHIN”
    A heavy weight elevated upon a spar or boom, to be dropped onto an enemy warship’s deck to hole her.

DRACHMA
    Coin, a “handful,” about a day’s pay for an armored infantryman.

EIRENOS (EIRENE)
    A youth-captain of the Spartan
agoge,
twenty years old, in charge of a
boua
(“herd”) of boys.

EISANGELIA
    A formal procedure under Athenian law for making a variety of grave charges, often treason, before the Council or Assembly.

EKKLESIA
    The Assembly of the people.

ENDEIXIS
    A type of indictment or denunciation at law.

ENDEIXIS KAKOURGIAS
    At Athens an indictment for “wrongdoing,” a category covering everything from petty theft to murder.
Kakourgoi
= criminals.

EPHEBE
    At Athens, a youth in military training, eighteen to twenty years old.

EPHOR
    A senior magistrate of Sparta. A board of five was elected each year for a one-year term; they were the real power, superseding even the kings.

EPIBATAI
    Marines; armored infantrymen who fought from the decks of ships.

EPIMELETAI TON NEORION
    At Athens the Overseers of the Port and Naval Establishment.

EPINIKION
    Victory ode.

EPIPOLAE
    “The Heights” overlooking Syracuse.

EPISTATES
    At Athens the chairman of the executive committee of the Council, chosen by lot to serve for one day only.

EPITEICHISMOS
    Military tactic of establishing a fort in enemy territory, from which to ravage the countryside and to which the foe’s deserters and slaves could flee.

EUROTAS
    The river of Sparta.

GRAPHE
    A public lawsuit or indictment.

GYLIPPUS
    Spartan general; victor over the Athenians at Syracuse.

“HEDGEHOG”
    A sunken stake, part of a naval palisade, meant to tear the bottom out of an attacking ship.

HELLAS
    Greece.

HELLENE
    A Greek.

HELOT
    A Spartan serf.

HERMAI
    Blocky stone statues of Hermes—messenger of the gods and benefactor of voyages—which stood before private homes and public buildings. Hermai usually sported erect phalluses. Regarded as good-luck pieces.

HETAIRAI
    Courtesans.

HOLY TWAIN
    At Athens the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone, the Kore. At Sparta the Dioscuri or “twins,” Castor and Polyduces.

HOMOIOI
    The officer class of full-citizen Spartans; Peers or Equals.

HOPLITE
    Armored infantryman, from
hoplon
meaning “shield”; one who owned a full
panoplia
.

HYBRIS
    Hubris, pride. Also “outrage,” punishable at Athens by death; an act of willful and malicious abuse intended to humiliate someone irreparably.

IMPIETY
    At Athens a crime punishable by death; the charge under which Socrates was condemned.

IRONHEAD
    Arrow.

KATALOGOS
    Roll of citizens at Athens, from which men were drafted for military service.

KEELSON
    Keel timbers of a ship.

KHOUS
    A liquid measure; about 31/2 liters.

KLEROS
    At Sparta, a Peer’s agricultural landholding. The ancient lawgiver Lycurgus divided the state into nine thousand equal allotments, each to support one warrior and his family.

KOPPA
    The archaic letter
Q.

KYRIOS
    Legal guardian. At Athens a male citizen who protected the interests of the women, children, and slaves of his household, since they did not have political rights.

LACEDAEMON
    The region of Greece of which Sparta is the principal city; Laconia.

LAMBDA
    Greek letter
L.
Lacedaemonian infantrymen bore a
lambda
on their shields.

LENAEA
    An annual festival at Athens.

LEONIDAS
    King of Sparta and commander of the Three Hundred who sacrificed their lives defending the pass at Thermopylae against the Persians, 480
B.C.

LOCHOS
    A Spartan regiment; pl.
lochoi
.

LONG Walls
    Fortifications linking Athens to the harbor at Piraeus.

LYCURGUS
    Ancient lawgiver of Sparta.

MEDES
    Usually a synonym for Persians; actually another warrior race, of the kingdom of Media, conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia and incorporated into the empire.

MILTIADES
    Athenian general, victor at Marathon against the Persians, 490
B.C.

MINA
    100 drachmas.

MONTHS
    The Athenian year started in midsummer: Hecatombaion, Metageitnion, Boedromion, Pyanopsion, Maimacterion, Poseidion, Gamelion, Anthesterion, Elaphebolion, Munychion, Thargelion, Sciriphorion.

MOTHAX
    A “stepbrother” class at Sparta, often bastard children of Peers, permitted to train in the
agoge
under sponsorship of full citizens; pl.
mothakes
.

MYSTERIES of ELEUSIS
    Festival of Athens, lasting nine days, in honor of Demeter and Kore. Each year during the month of Boedromion (September) neophytes and initiates made the pilgrimage to Eleusis. During the war, Spartan occupation of Attica compelled the procession to travel ignominiously by sea, until restored by Alcibiades.

NAUTAI
    Sailors; oarsmen.

NAVARCH
    A Spartan admiral.

NEMESIS
    Goddess who personified divine retribution, usually for the human sin of pride,
hybris
.

NEODAMODEIS
    “New citizens”; Spartan helots manumitted as a reward for military service.

NEORION
    The works and administrative establishment of a port or naval base.