A Heroic King Read online

THE DESCENDANTS OF HERAKLES

  “A BASTARD?” THE CHAIRMAN OF THE ephors exclaimed in horror. “You’re saying that the ruling Eurypontid king of Sparta is a bastard?”

  “I’m saying more than that,” Leotychidas replied coolly. Leotychidas was a tall, lanky man with the large nose typical of the Eurypontids. He was the ruling king’s closest male relative, albeit only a second cousin. He was also officially his heir―because Demaratus, at forty-nine, had yet to produce a son. Leotychidas continued in an aggressive and self-satisfied tone, “I’m saying he does not have a drop of Herakles’ blood in his veins and has no right to sit upon the Eurypontid throne.”

  “That’s impossible!” a second ephor protested, no less outraged than the first. “He was born to King Ariston’s queen in the royal palace and immediately acknowledged as heir. He never attended the agoge, and at his father’s death, almost seven Olympiads ago, he ascended to the throne without question. He has no brothers. He is the only child King Ariston ever sired.”

  “Ariston never sired anyone! He was as sterile as a mule!” Leotychidas sneered. “Have you forgotten he had three wives and the first two, maidens of good stock, gave him no sons, but produced children by their subsequent husbands?”

  There was dead silence in the Ephorate, the small but venerable building adjacent to the more imposing Council House and backed up against the Temple to Fear. The five men sitting in the throne-like marble chairs at the center of the chamber were just ordinary Spartan citizens. They had each been elected by the Assembly to a one-year term as ephor. Each man owed his election to a combination of a distinguished career in public service, an effective election campaign among his fellow citizens, and the endorsements of influential members of Spartan society. Once elected, however, these ordinary citizens collectively became extremely powerful, which was why the law prohibited a second term. Each man served for one year and one year only. While in office, however, their duties included receiving and dispatching ambassadors, issuing fines to citizens found guilty of breaking the law, and the dismissal of magistrates or commanders convicted of wrongdoing. The ephors also served as advisers to the kings, and in extreme cases could bring charges against them.

  The men gathered in this room were prepared for these duties. They were not prepared to hear that one of the kings, one who had reigned for a quarter-century already, was illegitimate. Yet what Leotychidas said was true: Demaratus’ father Ariston had had three wives, all of whom had had children by subsequent or previous marriages, but only one of whom had ever given Demaratus a child.

  Technarchos, the chairman of the five ephors, was a man respected for his hard work and common sense. In the army he had risen to the rank of enomotarch, but was passed over for promotion to company commander. On attaining full citizenship, he had been appointed deputy headmaster of the public school―the agoge―with responsibility for the twenty-year-old eirenes. For twenty years he had fulfilled this demanding position with firmness and fairness, but he was not credited with particular subtlety or wit. Recovering from his shock, he protested simply, “Demaratus was Ariston’s issue by his third wife.”

  “Indeed!” Leotychidas agreed eagerly. “A woman who had been the wife of Agetus, son of Alcides, and had borne him children. There was no question of her fertility―but she produced only one child in her entire long marriage to Ariston, and that son―Demaratus―was born too soon to have been sired by the king. He was the son of Agetus.”

  “That cannot be!” a third ephor protested. This man had benefited from Demaratus’ patronage, and he asked rhetorically: “Why would Ariston raise another man’s son as his own?”

  “Because he was ashamed to admit his impotence, and because he wanted to deny me my rightful place,” Leotychidas retorted, adding in a tone of beguiling innocence: “But you need not take my word for it. I have a witness, a man who was ephor the year that Demaratus was born, and he can testify to the fact that King Ariston knew Demaratus was not his son.”

  The ephors looked at one another in astonishment. It was forty-nine years since the birth of Demaratus. Since the legal minimum age for election to the office of ephor was thirty-one and ephors were usually men in their forties or fifties, any surviving ephor from the year of Demaratus’ birth would now be close to ninety years of age. None of the men present were aware that such an ancient citizen still lived.

  Leotychidas opened the door leading directly into the Temple of Fear, and called into the darkened temple. He held the door open while a very decrepit old man, bent with age and clutching the arm of a young helot, entered the chamber.

  The old man had so little hair left that he could not plait it from the forehead in the Spartan fashion; it was simply combed back over his scalp until it could be bound into a single, thin, wispy braid at the back of his neck. The skin on his face and neck was discolored with age spots and sagged on his fleshless bones. His eyes were gray with cataracts, and his mouth seemed to cave into his toothless mouth. He shuffled forward until the helot holding him up came to a halt in front of the five city officials. There he waited.

  Technarchos cleared his throat and asked politely, as was appropriate when faced with a man of such venerable age, “Who are you, father? And why are you here?”

  “I am Diophithes, son of Paidaretos,” he said in a surprisingly firm voice, although his words were slurred somewhat by the lack of teeth. “I am almost one hundred years old, but I am here to be heard.”

  “We are listening, father,” Technarchos assured him politely.

  “Then listen well! I was ephor in the reign of King Ariston. On the very day that Demaratus was born, we ephors were attending upon King Ariston in the palace when a messenger burst in upon us to announce the birth of a child to Ariston’s new queen. Ariston was most astonished. In front of us, he counted on his fingers the months since his marriage and―with an oath―declared: ‘The child cannot be mine.’”

  “But he accepted Demaratus! He brought him to the Council of Elders! He doted on the boy!” protested the ephor who owed his post to Demaratus’ patronage.

  “That may be,” the old man admitted, pressing his lips together so that they completely disappeared into the cavity of his mouth. “But that does not change what he said,” he added stubbornly, repeating, “He counted on his fingers and declared Demaratus could not be his child!”

  “But why did you and the other ephors keep silent about this?” a fourth ephor asked skeptically. Although this man owed Demaratus no particular favors, he found it hard to believe such a significant utterance would have been ignored for half a century.

  “We did not! We told the Gerousia, but they were displeased. They were all Ariston’s men!” the old man spat out bitterly, and his foul breath made the ephors recoil involuntarily. The old man continued passionately, “They said the Eurypontid king had need of an heir, and if the Gods had seen fit to give his queen a healthy son, then a month or two did not make any difference.”

  Since a man had to be over sixty to be eligible for election to the Gerousia, all members of this body at the time of Demaratus’ birth were long since dead. No one could prove or disprove the accusation of the old man, but there was no denying that there had been a period when the Gerousia was dominated by supporters of King Ariston. They had been elected when the Agiad King Anaxandridas was still too young to have much influence with the citizens. Only after they died off one by one was Anaxandridas able to get some of his own candidates elected to the Gerousia.

  “I say the Gods have made it perfectly clear that Demaratus was not meant to become king, since he too has failed to produce an heir,” Leotychidas took up his appeal. “I, in contrast, have three fine sons. That alone should tell you where the Gods stand in this dispute!”

  The ephors looked at their fellow citizen with varying degrees of alarm and discomfort. Although Leotychidas was not without his supporters, he was far from popular, and he had never distinguished himself either at arms or in other forms of public service. What he
was asking seemed utterly impossible to these five ordinary men, who for more than a quarter century had seen in King Demaratus a descendant of Herakles and representative of the Gods on earth.

  The situation was particularly delicate because the Agiad King Cleomenes was clearly mad. Last year, after a decisive victory over Argos, he had mindlessly slaughtered captives, burned down a sacred wood, and ordered the army to withdraw rather than follow up the battlefield victory with the sack and humiliation of the city of Argos. If Cleomenes was no longer sane, Demaratus was effectively Sparta’s only king. If Demaratus were not a rightful king, than Sparta had no mentally competent king. Since only Sparta’s kings could command Sparta’s armies outside of Lacedaemon, Sparta’s army could not take the field even if attacked.

  The more he thought about the implications, the more Technarchos felt as if his head were spinning. He was a man with an acute appreciation of his own limitations, and he recognized that this dilemma was beyond him. He resolved to speak privately with the one living descendant of Herakles who had repeatedly demonstrated good character and leadership capabilities: Leonidas. Out loud he declared, “We must consult with the Gerousia.”

  Leotychidas smiled a crooked, sinister smile and shrugged as he replied, “Of course. Consult the Gerousia. But I am the rightful Eurypontid king, and when I have been recognized, I will remember who sided with me―and who tried to stand in my way.”

  The youth half-raised his hand to signal surrender, but the boxing coach pretended not to see it and shouted to the boy who was winning, “Don’t let up on him! Go for him! Beat him down!”

  The victor needed little encouragement. He lashed out with renewed fury, confident of victory, pummeling with both fists as his opponent sank down into the sand, dazed and bleeding from his nose and one ear. Only when he fell face forward into the sand with a dull thud did the other youth let up and turn to grin at the coach.

  “Well done!” Cleombrotus praised. “You have potential, Philocyon.” Cleombrotus, known better as Brotus, was an Agiad prince, half brother to the ruling king Cleomenes and twin brother to Leonidas. In his youth he had won the honors at the Feast of Artemis Orthia by running the gauntlet of cane-wielding seventeen-year-olds the greatest number of times. At eighteen he had followed up this local victory with a crown in youth boxing at the Pythian Games. Although an incident as an eirene blemished his record and disqualified him for officer rank, his athletic prowess was confirmed when he took Olympic laurels as a youth of twenty. Three years later he triumphed in boxing at the Isthmian Games. At twenty-five he was selected for the corps of Guardsmen, Sparta’s three-hundred-strong elite unit. At thirty he won the laurels in boxing for a second time at Delphi. Now, at thirty-six, Brotus filled his free time coaching the next generation in boxing, while biding his time for an opportunity to bring down his half brother Cleomenes.

  “I thought I saw Maron signal surrender, sir,” one of the younger spectators ventured.

  “Spartans don’t surrender!” Brotus retorted with a sneer. “So you must have been mistaken, Alpheus.”

  Alpheus was only fifteen. He glanced at Brotus, but his thoughts were carefully masked. He stepped into the sandy exercise pit and knelt beside his brother. When he realized Maron was unconscious, however, he looked up, alarmed. “He’s out cold! Can somebody bring me water?”

  Unfortunately, an exciting wrestling match was taking place in the next courtyard of the palaestra, and this had drawn the attention of the helots who were supposed to attend the athletes. At fifteen, Alpheus had no right to give orders to any of the older age cohorts, much less any of the citizens, and he couldn’t spot anyone younger than himself. To his surprise, however, one of the citizens, who had been watching the wrestling from the back of the crowd, heard his appeal and walked over to the fountain, took one of the waiting jugs, and scooped water up to bring to Alpheus.

  Brotus, who had been chatting to the victor as he unbandaged his hands, glanced over as the citizen slowly poured water over Maron’s head. He laughed and called out, “Temenos! I knew you slept with helot sluts and sired helot brats, but I hadn’t realized you’d started acting like a helot as well!” The boxing coach laughed loudly at his own joke, echoed by his admiring juvenile pupils.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Alpheus muttered to Temenos, taking the jug from him.

  Temenos shook his head to indicate it didn’t matter and used the end of his himation to wipe the blood off Maron’s face, holding the youth’s head gently as he inspected the damage done to his nose and jaw.

  “He makes a good helot, doesn’t he?” Brotus continued jovially, enjoying the success his joke was having with the nineteen-year-old meleirenes, who had come to watch the fight between their colleagues, Maron and Philocyon, and had not yet dispersed. “Makes you kind of wonder if his mother didn’t―you know―enjoy the dick of one of her household helots a little too much just about nine months before our friend Temenos was born.”

  This kind of remark was guaranteed a good reception among the nineteen-year-olds, so Brotus again harvested laughter, while Alpheus gasped and glanced again at Temenos. Although the young citizen’s face was rigid, he still refused to acknowledge the provocation.

  “Not even willing to defend his mother’s honor! That can only be a helot for you,” Brotus continued, although by now the joke was getting old and some of the meleirenes had turned to watch the wrestling instead.

  Maron’s eyes fluttered and then opened. Remembering where he was, he tried to sit up, but fell back dizzily onto the sand. “Just relax a moment,” Temenos recommended.

  “Helot! Clear that coward out of the sand pit so we can get on with the boxing!” Brotus ordered.

  Alpheus looked nervously over his shoulder. Two eighteen-year-olds had stripped down and bandaged their hands in preparation for a round. Alpheus whispered, “Sir, we’d better get him over to the side.”

  “In good time,” Temenos answered.

  “Helot! Didn’t you hear me?” Brotus bellowed, stepping nearer to loom over the trio in the bloody sand. The eighteen-year-olds flanked him ominously, evidently enjoying the opportunity to intimidate one of their elders in the guise of supporting their coach.

  Maron rolled over onto his side and tried to crawl away. Alpheus had hold of one arm and was trying to help him by pulling him to the side, but Temenos turned and looked up at the man looming over him. “I never knew twins could be so different.”

  “You’re right!” Brotus retorted smugly. “Little Leo may be as timid as a kitten and as easily led astray as a helot bitch, but I’m not like him at all.”

  Temenos got slowly to his feet and stood eye to eye with the stocky boxing coach before agreeing profoundly, “No, you’re not like Leonidas at all.”

  Brotus had always been compact and now he was very square, with massive shoulders over a flat but far from slender waist and thick legs that were a little too short for the rest of his body. His dark hair was already flecked with gray, as was his black beard―which he wore longer than most men to cover up an ugly chin scar from a broken jaw he received in his one Olympic defeat.

  “Get out of my way, helot!” Brotus dismissed Temenos, with a contemptuous back-handed flick of his fleshy hand.

  Temenos saw the blow coming and drew back his head enough for Brotus’ hand to glance off him harmlessly, but he stood his ground. “I’m no helot, and if this youth was seriously injured―”

  “Brotus!” The voice calling his name came from behind, and Brotus recognized it as Orthryades, one of his intimates. He looked over his shoulder, and the expression on Orthryades’ face made him forget about Temenos altogether.

  “What is it?” he asked, pushing the two eighteen-year-olds aside.

  Orthryades didn’t answer verbally. He grabbed Brotus by the elbow and pulled him to the far side of the courtyard, away from the crowd still cheering the wrestling match. “Leotychidas just laid claim to the Eurypontid throne!”

  “What?” Brotus barked, his brain onl
y slowly able to shift focus.

  “He’s found a man who swears King Ariston denied Demaratus at birth. The old man claims Ariston said outright that Demaratus could not be his son!”

  Brotus thought about this for a moment, his eyes narrowed and his jaw working unconsciously. Then he looked hard at Orthryades. “Did you know about this? Did you know he was going to do this? Why didn’t he warn me?”

  “Does it matter?” Orthryades counted. “This is what we’ve been waiting for! First Leotychidas replaces Demaratus, and then he will help you bring down your mad brother Cleomenes.”

  “Where’s my twin? Where’s Leonidas?” Brotus asked.

  “How should I know, and what does it matter? We’ve got Demaratus at last!” Orthryades believed he had been passed over for promotion because Demaratus opposed his appointment. He had hated Demaratus ever since and had worked for years with Leotychidas and Brotus to see Demaratus discredited.

  “Leonidas is an ass!” Brotus insisted. “He will try to find a way to protect Demaratus!”

  “What can he do against evidence like this?” Orthryades countered, full of excited triumph. “Ariston himself declared that Demaratus could not be his son! Demaratus is nothing but an ordinary citizen, sired by Agetus on his wife before she was forced to marry King Ariston.”

  “How should I know what Leonidas will do?” Brotus retorted, frowning. “But I tell you, he will try to interfere.”

  Hilaira was in the stables on her husband’s kleros. Her father had raised racehorses and even now, as a matron of thirty-two and mother of three, she was transported back to her childhood whenever she spent time with the few horses her husband Alkander kept. Alkander could afford only four, and they were not spoiled racehorses but working horses that had to perform many tasks, from serving as riding horses for Alkander and chariot horses for Hilaira to hauling produce to market in the cart. Today they were providing new hair for the crest of Alkander’s helmet.

  Rich people, of course, could afford to go to the crest-maker in the agora. He produced very fine, stiff crests, waxed to perfection, and sometimes stiffened with bronze or silver wires to make them gleam. But Alkander was just an ordinary ranker, and he could not afford such crests. In the decade and a half since their marriage, Hilaira had become increasingly adept at fashioning Alkander’s crest herself.