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Chapter One

 

My name is Chalcon, and I am a Spartan, the son of a Spartan. These simple words set me apart from all other Greeks; indeed, from all other men. This is the story of my life and, more importantly, my death. For the sake of the reader’s comprehension, I shall tell of my life, but do not forget that the manner of my death is more important to the story than that of my life.

            For the entirety of my life I have been preparing for death. The men of my family have distinguished themselves for years as being the paragon of what it is to be a Spartan. I am proud of this record. My father Alexarchos was killed in action against the Corinthians not long after I was born. My elder brother Arsenio speaks of him sometimes, but I do not remember him.

When I was born, I was submitted to the Elders of the city to be inspected. It was not clear at first whether I would be allowed to live. The Elders were divided as to whether I was healthy enough to be spared. In the end they chose to give me my life, probably in some small part due to the insistence and pleading of my mother Amarante.

In sharp contrast, my brother Arsenio was strong at birth and was cleared immediately to live. It would become clear later that my brother would exceed me in every endeavor he undertook. Whether in wrestling, feats of arms, running or stealing, Arsenio was my better.

I entered the agoge, or training, at the age of seven just like any other Spartan boy. I would spend the next thirteen years of my life here, until at the age of twenty I would take my place among the Spartiates as a warrior. When a young boy enters the agoge, he comes under the control and discipline of a senior Spartan. This man must be a Spartiate – the top class in the Spartan way of life. The man that I was assigned to was named Talaemenes. When I was assigned to him, he was only about thirty years of age, but he bore many scars - as did most Spartiates who lived to see thirty. He often told me bits of wisdom that he had gathered over the years along with the scars. When I was first assigned to him, still young and not yet having learned the virtue of propriety, I asked him about his scars. Giving me one of his rare smiles, he replied,

“Men in other cities of Hellas (for so we Greeks call our country) earn money and recognition for their deeds of valor on the battlefield. Spartans get scars.”

I will begin the story of my life with the recounting of an event that took place when I was eleven.

 

*     *     *

 

It was very early when I scrambled off my bed of rushes to present myself for the morning count. Today was going to be a very long day; I could tell. Our instructor, a tall, wiry man named Ophelos, was in a particularly foul mood already and the only thing that made him happy was watching us grunt and strain and sweat. We quickly lined up, but it was not quick enough for him.

“Form up, you worthless worms! The enemy won’t wait for you to yawn and stretch before they kill you! Form up!”

One unfortunate boy, a distant friend of mine named Nicanor, was a half step too far to the right in his column. The instructor immediately saw his mistake and halted menacingly before the boy, who had now recognized his error but dared not correct it in front of Ophelos.

Ophelos looked positively dangerous.

“Tell me, useless boy, what have you done?” he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Nicanor straightened imperceptibly. He knew already he had a whipping in store for his mistake.

“I have left my comrade on my left unprotected, lord.”

In battle formation, each soldier guarded the man to his left with his round bronze hoplon shield, and similarly could find protection from the shield of the man on his right.

“And what will he have to do to compensate?”

“Move right, lord.”

“And what will the man on his left then have to do?”

“Move right, lord.”

“You have single-handedly made the line fold in on itself, haven’t you?

“Yes, lord.”

Ophelos leaned in and said more softly, but loud enough so the whole platoon could hear.

“If this was an engagement, this mistake would cost lives.”

Then he suddenly wheeled upon the spot.

“You!” he bellowed at the boy to the left of Nicanor.

“You’re just as worthless as he is,” motioning at Nicanor, “Why didn’t you make him move left? Do you care about your life? I don’t care about it, but I certainly care about mine. And if I ever fight beside you, you’d damned better not get me killed ‘cause you’re too stupid to pull your comrade back into formation.”

Ophelo paused, clearly considering the punishment that our platoon would sustain for allowing one of our members to mess up so royally.

“No breakfast. Impact drills till noon, and then you worthless jackasses will receive your lashings,” he said clearly and slowly. There were no groans of disappointment or discontent; it could have been much worse.

Nevertheless, I wasn’t very happy with Nicanor as I was taking my place in the defensive line a few minutes later. But I knew that even if Nicanor hadn’t been out of place, Ophelo would have found fault somewhere else.

Here’s how the drill worked: We would form up five shields deep and five across and brace ourselves. The other half of our platoon would form up similarly and charge at us. More than one young Spartan lost a tooth from the impact that followed. Half a platoon of boys charging at another half platoon, each wearing 50 pounds of bronze armor, is like a small earthquake. It was supposed to simulate the shock of a heavy infantry clash. The dirt we shoved and strained upon would invariably turn to mud after a few minutes of churning feet, no matter how rock-hard it was at the beginning of the exercise.

Eventually the instructor would call a halt, but only so that we could switch places. Those that had withstood the attack now became the attackers, and vice versa.

After a few hours of impact drills, Ophelos stopped us. It wasn’t noon yet, so I knew something was up. Nicanor, two ranks ahead and one column to the left of me, was dripping blood from beneath his helmet.

“Run,” spoke Ophelos, pointing towards the range of hills to the north. He said nothing of taking off our armor.

We ran hills for a couple of hours or so in full armor. The felt cap underneath my helmet, designed to save my skull from blunt trauma, was soaked with sweat. The salty fluid was running down my neck in rivulets. I was thirsty beyond belief, yet we were not allowed to stop to rest or drink. The enemy, after all, would not call a potty break in the middle of a fight.

My best friend, Argentos, died this day. He collapsed when we were almost done; when there was only one hill left to charge up. I helped to bear his shaking body back to the city on his own shield, used as a stretcher. It was the last time that I would see my friend alive, and the hallucination-induced babbling he was spewing would be the last words I would hear from him. He died in a matter of hours.

Since I was 6, we had wrestled and played together. It had always been our intentions to fight beside each other one day, perhaps even get married at the same time. Now all the things that we had dreamed of doing together as friends and comrades would be left to me to do. Alone.

I think this one death had more of an impact on me than any other event in my life. I knew, of course, about death. Soldiers failed to come back from campaigns all the time; my own father had been just such a case. But until this day I had never undergone the death of anyone truly close to me. I felt grief, despair, sadness – but most of all I felt angry. Angry at the whims of the gods, who had arbitrarily chosen my friend for the afterlife before his time. If he had been killed in battle I probably would have felt differently. Then, I felt, perhaps his death would have been worth something. Perhaps he would have spent his own life to save someone else – such a death is worthy of any man. But to be killed by the heat of the sun seemed to me to be a useless death.

Before Argentos died, I was an eleven-year-old boy playing at soldier. The day he died I became a man; I grew up in an afternoon. Now, looking back, I see that Argentos’ death was not in vain. Had he lived, I never would have grown up. Oh, I would have become a soldier and I would have done my duty, like any Spartan, but I would not have gained the composed temperament that I retained after his death. We would have grown up together, two boys in men’s’ bodies.

I see now that this event cannot have affected me alone. Certainly, many a boy became a man on that hot August day when I lost my friend. Or perhaps this is only my mind playing tricks on me, me trying to convince myself that his death was not in vain; that there was a purpose or plan behind it. Somewhere deep inside me, I was not concerned. Argentos and I had been the strongest of friends and I knew that one day when I too took the ferry across the river Styx to Hades, as all men eventually do, that my friend would be waiting on the other side. Nevertheless, I was never the same afterwards.

Spartan justice did not, and does not; halt, even for the death of Argentos. We received our whippings that night for Nicanor’s mistake.

 

*     *     *

 

It was the summer of my 12^th year on this earth that there was a mobilization of the army. Of course, there were always mobilizations and campaigns, but this one I remember more clearly for a different reason. My brother Arsenio had just turned twenty, the age at which soldiers are eligible to be sent into combat, and his lochos (battalion) had been one of the ones mobilized. The campaign was against the Argives, our mortal enemies. This was a fairly massive call-up, not such as had been marshaled in previous years. It was no force to be laughed at. Four entire lochois, about 2000 men in all, had been mobilized along with about 8,000 helots, the serfs who worked the land for Sparta. More troops, periokoi, or allies, would join the army on the way to Argos. Cleomenes, one of our two kings, was leading the expedition.

The reason for the campaign was, to any mind but a Spartan one, foolish. It was a training exercise, no more. This was why a larger force was not called up; if we wished to wipe the map clean of the Argives we could do it in two weeks’ time. There were no valuable metal deposits or really fertile soil in Tiryns (the region being marched upon), so it was clear that the only real reasons that could be given were for the sake of spite and for the sake of training.

King Cleomenes was no fool. He knew that someday, when Sparta was in desperate need of seasoned veterans, she would have them at her disposal. He felt, as did most others, that it was better to spend a few lives now and save more lives later.

Being only twelve, I was not allowed to go. I would have been extra baggage, and in any case I had my own training and responsibilities at home. My mother and I witnessed the send-off of the army and said goodbye to my brother. As the flute sounded for the troops to fall in, my mother lifted his shield from the ground, resting against his knees, and said the customary words that Spartan mothers have spoken for a dozen generations.

“With this or on this.” Her gray eyes were like steel, her mouth set in a firm line. She thrust the hoplon into his outstretched arms. No weeping from this woman, not so much as a sniffle, for Spartan women were just as strong emotionally as their husbands and sons were physically. The saying’s meaning was clear. Arsenio was to return carrying his shield in victory, or being carried upon it in death.

Down the line, I could see similar transactions taking place. My brother reached out and ruffled my hair up, which he knew I hated.

“See you in a week, little brother,” he winked at me with a grin. A second later, he had fallen in with his platoon and was indiscernible from the myriad of other red-cloaked figures. My mother, along with every other mother, stood in stony silence as she watched her offspring march off, maybe to his death.

Not until the last swirling cloak had passed did my mother move or speak. Suddenly she seemed to have lost her iron determination.

“I watched your father march off,” she spoke softly.

I looked up at her questioningly, not sure of her meaning. She was a tall woman who exuded an air of command wherever she went and whatever she did. Arsenio had inherited her height; I had not.

“Someday I will watch you march off, my son,” she whispered, not because she feared others hearing her, but because her voice was in danger of breaking.

 

*     *     *

 

“Hey.” It was Nicanor.

I had just risen and was preparing for my stint on the second watch when he approached me. I did not usually consort with Nicanor, mostly because my family was a rank higher than his and to a lesser degree because in my young mind I still held him responsible for Argentos’ death, so my response was curt.

“What do you want, Nicanor?”

“Just to talk,” came the innocent reply.

I glanced at him warily as I picked up my spear and headed for the steps of the temple of Athena.

“If you speak of treason or treachery I shall report you without a seconds’ thought,” I warned him.

“I don’t wish to speak of such matters as all that,” he said amiably, trying to keep the conversation friendly.

“Speak away, then,” I muttered, trudging through the tall grass.

He hurried to keep pace with me; I hoped that when I got to the temple and took up my post he would leave me alone.

“Our brothers in Ionia still resist the Persians.”

I glanced at him again.

“I thought you didn’t want to speak of weighty matters?” I arched my eyebrow quizzically.

“Oh, I only said I would not speak of treason,” he replied cheerfully.

I sighed and sneaked a look at the moon. I still had plenty of time before I had to relieve my comrade at his post. I stopped and turned to face Nicanor.

“What about the Ionians?” I asked, my curiosity starting to get the better of me.

The Greeks in Ionia, across the Aegean, had been subdued by the Persians a few years back, but they had revolted and had won a few minor victories. An Athenian-led army had even sacked Sardis, a major Persian stronghold in Ionia, but had consequently been defeated and forced to withdraw.

Nicanor shot back a question in answer:

“Why aren’t we helping them?”

I looked at him as though he was crazy.

“We are fighting with the Argives! How can we fight the Argives at home, become embroiled in a foreign war, and still keep the helots under control?”

The helots were constantly on the edge of rebellion and it was all that could be done to keep them out of arms and in the fields. This was another reason why a larger force had not been mobilized for the invasion of Argos; the troops were needed at home.

“Still,” he said softly, “They are Greeks as we are.”

“My loyalty is to Sparta, first and always. Other Greeks can handle their own problems,” I said more coldly than I meant.

“As is mine, as is mine,” Nicanor reassured me, “But even the Athenians managed to send troops to help.”

“The Persians beat the hell out of the Athenians,” I said contemptuously; there was not much love for Athens in most Spartans’ hearts either. More than for Argos, but still not much.

“Ah,” said Nicanor wisely. “But here is the real question: would they have been beaten if Spartan troops had been there?”

“Rhetorical question,” I replied instantly. “It didn’t happen that way, so there is no use talking about it.”

“You are right, of course,” he answered graciously. “But still, doesn’t it make one wonder?”

“You need to stop wondering about things you have no control over and get some sleep,” I said, starting again towards the temple. Then, thinking of something, I turned to him again.

“Think about this,” I said shortly. “If we did send troops to Ionia to fight alongside the Athenians, and we got our asses handed to us on our own shields, how long would it take for the helots to revolt when they found out their masters aren’t invincible like we’ve got them believing? They outnumber us fifteen to one, you know. It is only the myth of our invincibility that keeps them in check.”

This time, Nicanor had no response.

“Look,” I began again, trying to end the conversation on a good note, “I would like to help every Greek in trouble just like you would. And if it was happening in the Peloponnesus, or even northern Greece, I have no doubt that Sparta would march to their aid. But Ionia is far away and only accessible by sea. And we have no navy, anyway.”

“You are right, Chalcon. But it does not bode well for Greeks to stand by idly while other Greeks are enslaved.”

And with that, Nicanor turned and left and I continued toward the temple.

 

*     *     *

 

It was not long after my conversation with Nicanor that we received terrible news: The Ionian Greeks’ revolt had been crushed terribly. In a naval engagement off the island of Lade, the Persian navy had crushed the last remnants of Greek resistance. The bitterest pill to swallow, however, was that the Persians had not earned their victory through skill of arms, incompetence of the Greeks or even by a fluke of nature. Some of the Greek admirals, their pockets lined with Persian gold, had fled the scene and the remaining fighters had been annihilated. I was in the presence of my master Talaemenes when a courier delivered the news.

Even though the Ionian Greeks were not allies or even necessarily friends of Sparta, I could see that it still pained my master to learn of their enslavement.

Turning to me, he looked me square in the face, his eyes hard and cold, and said,

“Chalcon, now you see the price of disunity in the face of danger. If the Ionians had stayed fast, they probably could have won. But some of them chose to earn a little spending money,” he spat, “And in so doing sentenced their friends and their cause to death. Would you desert your comrades for gold?”

“Of course not, sir.”

“And neither would any true Spartan, Chalcon. These traitors have bought their lives and sold their souls.”

For the next week no Greek talked of anything but the crushing of the Ionian Revolt. Even Spartans, usually stalwart in the face of adversity, were frightened. These Greeks that had been beaten were formidable warriors in their own right. Their defeat and enslavement could be only a taste of that to come. Athens, for the help she had given the Ionians, had earned the wrath of Persia. Athens was arguably the greatest city in Hellas. Could it be possible that the same fate that had befallen the Ionians could also eclipse the mainland Greeks? Could even Sparta, the greatest land power in Greece, fall prostrate before the invader?

But not only bad news came from abroad. Cleomenes had led our army to a decisive victory over the Argives, slaughtering by some accounts as many as 6,000 of them at Sepeia. The news of this victory helped to draw attention away from the disastrous news from abroad. Also, and maybe even more importantly, it helped cement that weapon which Spartans wield even better than spears and swords: the myth of our invincibility. The other Hellenes saw this as a good omen: as long as Sparta stood unconquerable in defense of Greece, the Hellenic cause could not lose. Such optimism would not last long, but it helped for the moment.

There was no time in my life that I wished I could be anyone else more than when I saw my brother marching home in triumph carrying the shining bronze hoplon engraved with the lambdas, or “L”, for Lakedaemon. All Lakedaemon, as we Spartans call the area that we have power over, celebrated that night. I was not alone in my jealousy. Every boy below the age of twenty burned in envy of the returning heroes.

The following day the dead were buried. It is always said that Spartan women are heartless, that they must not truly love their husbands and sons because they do not weep for them when they perish. On the contrary, they celebrate (or at least pretend to) when their husbands and sons spend their lives in service to Lakedaemon, because to us there is no more noble way to leave this world than in defense of our city. To all but Spartans, this seems cold, merciless and even ludicrous. I disagree. Spartans cultivate such rumors because they make us seem superhuman. But underneath the iron façade, Spartans are no less human than any others. Each mother, inside where none but the gods can see, is weeping her eyes dry as she buries her son. Each wife is on her knees in grief in her heart as she stands dispassionately before the body of her husband.

There is a story that I have been told since I was very small, of a Spartan mother who was informed that all five of her sons had perished in the same battle. Without a tear or sign of grief, she asked the bearer of this unfortunate news whether Sparta had won the engagement. When the answer was in the affirmative, she immediately rushed to the temple to thank the gods.

My brother was spared from such a fate, at least this time. Our city was in such a constant state of warfare, both small skirmishes and full-scale campaigns such as that against the Argives, that no one’s life was guaranteed. But, considering the way that we are and were raised, this is not to be unexpected. It was against the law for any male Spartan to engage in any business except for that of war. And, just as other cities excelled in pottery, woodworking, metalworking or whatever the case may be, Sparta excelled in her chosen art: war. And like any other business, war must be practiced at to be effective. For this reason there was no peace.

 

*     *     *

 

If you enjoyed this first chapter, please be patient; I'm working as hard as I can to write new material. When and if I can get it published, I will post the good news here, and make it available for purchase. Also, if you wish, you can email me at josh_carpenter@hotmail.com and request for me to send you an email when it transcends the electronic and becomes the printed page.

 

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