A Boy of the Agoge Read online

  Behind him, to the north, the valley narrowed rapidly between the foothills of the Taygetos and the Parnon ranges. The lower slopes of these steep hills were covered with olive and almond orchards, while the upper slopes were dotted with grazing sheep and goats. To the west, beyond the acropolis and city of Sparta, the Taygetos range reared up majestic and haughty, rising rapidly to 8,000-foot peaks. To the east, just beyond the river, were the drill fields at the foot of the comparatively moderate slopes of the Parnon range. Here the vineyards gradually ascended toward these mountains, lost in purple haze.

  Leonidas brought his eyes back to the drill fields. These were being used at the moment by youths of the agoge. Nearby was one of the younger cohorts of the upper classes, identifiable by the fact that they were using wooden weapons and were still very inept at manoeuvres. In fact, they could hardly keep their lines and files straight when they advanced, much less perform any reverses or turns. There was nothing shameful in that. There was only one way to learn, and that was drill, drill, and more drill. It was odd the way foreigners seemed to imagine the Spartans were uniquely made for war, when in fact, one on one, they were no better than other men. It was only practise that made them good soldiers—hard, gruelling, boring, unrelenting drill. How he had hated it most of his life!

  Leonidas left the bridge, heading toward the drill fields. He had barely started along the road between the fields and the river, heading for the oldest of all Sparta’s sanctuaries, the Meneleon, when the eirene in charge of the boys on the drill field recognised him. With a shout, he ordered his charges to halt and come to attention. The youths drew themselves into a semblance of order. Leonidas halted and waited. The eirene came and presented arms in front of him respectfully. “Sir!”

  “Oh, it’s you, Simonidas.” Leonidas recognised him with a smile.

  “Would you do us the honour of reviewing us, sir?” the eirene asked.

  “If you want,” Leonidas agreed. With Simonidas a respectful pace behind him, he walked along the line of youths standing at attention. They were a skinny, bony, dirty lot, and with their shaved heads they looked very young. They were at an awkward age—rebellious, sullen, overconfident, impudent. The Persians might decide either to kill them as potential troublemakers or to enslave them in some capacity where they could be best controlled—the galleys and mines sprang to mind. Leonidas again told himself that if his death could spare them such a fate, he would die smiling.

  “How old are your charges, Simonides?” he asked the eirene.

  “Fourteen, sir.”

  That made them only two years older than his own son. He held his breath for a second as, with a sharp stab of regret, he realised that Pleistarchos would never stand here like this. He would not be given the chance. He would be king before the year was out, and they would yank him out of the agoge after that.

  The thought made Leonidas’ throat dry as he, out of respect for the youths, pointed out every one of their faults, one after another. There were many, and not one of the youths escaped unscathed. Then he nodded to Simonidas, and continued on his way.

  The Meneleon stood on a steep hill that loomed up quite abruptly from the floodplain of the Eurotas like an advance sentry of the Parnos range. It was built in honour of the Mycenaean king made famous by the Iliad, and was said to stand on the foundations of his palace. Certainly there were ancient graves in the area. Leonidas felt certain that, whether or not this had been the exact site of Menelaus’ palace, it had been part of the Achaean city of Sparta. Leonidas leaned forward into his stride to make it up the steep road to the ancient sanctuary. Half way up the road he realised he had come without any kind of offering, and faltered. But then he remembered that he was the sacrifice, and there was no need for any surrogate at this stage.

  The temple was very ancient, with no windows, only the entrance fronted by two columns. It seemed dark as Hades after the bright glare of the sun. Leonidas paused for his vision to adjust, and his ears registered before his eyes that someone else was also here.

  “The news must be bad,” a voice said from the darkness.

  “Gorgo?” He couldn’t quite believe it—and then again, he did. It was his wife. She was, as always, one step ahead of him.

  She had been sitting on a bench. Now she rose and came towards him. She walked with the surefooted self-assurance that had scandalized all of Athens when he took her there a few years back. Gorgo had never been deemed a beauty. Her mouth was too wide, her jaw too prominent, and her hair too red. Now she was 33 and there were smile lines running from her nostrils to the corners of her mouth, crows’ feet around her eyes, and a certain sagging about her neck. But she had bright, well-spaced eyes that met his now, knowing as much as asking.

  Leonidas opened his arms and she walked into them. That was all. He held her. After a long time he answered her question. “No. The news was not bad. Lacedaemon can—and will—be spared. We will not suffer the fate of Troy.”

  “At what price?”

  “Blood.”

  “You don’t have to be a seer to know that!” Gorgo retorted with a short flash of annoyance. She pulled back from him to look him in the face again. She was almost as tall as he. Their eyes met and she understood. “You mean your blood.”

  “Yes.”

  She stared at him mutely.

  He felt obliged to explain. “I can’t remember the exact wording, but the gist of it was that either Sparta would lose a king in battle or the city itself would fall.”

  “In that case, Leotychidas would do just as well.” Her tone was endearingly tart.

  Leonidas pulled her back into his arms. She tried to resist, angry with him; but he was stronger, and she did not want to be angry with him. The thought that she would soon lose him made her stop struggling and cling to him instead.

  As soon as she had surrendered, Leonidas lifted one hand and shoved back her veil so he could run his fingers through her thick, tangled hair. Then he bent and kissed her on the lips. They were trembling from the effort not to cry.

  “It had to be me, Beloved, because I am superfluous. I always have been—from the very day I was born the younger twin to a father with two wives and two near-grown heirs. My whole life, if you like, has been nothing but marking time in order to be ready to fulfil this destiny of losing it.”

  CHAPTER 1

  THE FIRST SEVEN YEARS LEONIDAS RARELYsaw either of his parents. In fact, when he was still a toddler it had surprised him to learn that the exalted personages who occasionally swept in and out of his life, surrounded by an elaborate entourage, had anything particular to do with him. He and his twin brother Cleombrotus were fed, clothed, washed, and disciplined by their respective nannies, Dido and Polyxo. These were buxom, sturdy girls with black hair and eyes, and apparently sisters.

  Polyxo and Dido competed as fiercely as mothers with regard to their charges, each claiming to have the finest boy. Polyxo had all the obvious advantages, because Cleombrotus weighed a pound more than Leonidas at birth and he grew faster. By the time the twins were two, Cleombrotus could knock Leonidas over with relative ease—which he frequently did. Dido, however, insisted that her little charge was nevertheless the better of the brothers because while Cleombrotus had brute force, Leonidas had tenacity and cunning. He might get knocked down, but he did not let that defeat him. Quite the contrary, he would at once seek to drag his brother down on top of him. He did not always succeed; but like a good hunting dog, once he had hold of his prey he could not be shaken off easily.

  Polyxo and Dido had once rushed after the sound of high-pitched screaming to find Cleombrotus trying to run down a long flight of stairs to escape Leonidas. But Leonidas clung to his leg so fiercely that he tripped his brother. They both fell all the way down the marble stairs, Leonidas still clinging grimly to Cleombrotus’ leg, to land at the scandalized feet of their mother, Taygete.

  Taygete was a regal personage. She was tall and slender, and despite her 50 years of age, she was as straight as a battle spe
ar. Her hair, pulled back behind a diadem of ivory, was the colour of iron. And so were her eyes. Leonidas never forgot the way she levelled those merciless grey eyes on him and then lifted her head to demand in an icy voice of Polyxo and Dido: “What in the name of the Dioscuri is going on here? Are these not princes of the Agiad house? I will not have them rolling about in the dirt like helot brats. If you cannot raise your charges in a befitting manner, I will find better nurses for them. The likes of you can be found in any marketplace of any perioikoi town all across Lacedaemon!”

  The girls were terrified—and so was Leonidas. He staggered to his feet, bruised and bleeding, and tried to grab hold of Dido. His mother reached out and yanked him free of the nurse with a single gesture. Taygete’s hands and arms were as hard as her eyes. She had trained at the bow and javelin all her life. Leonidas went flying halfway across the hall to land with an audible thump. Dido gasped in sympathy but did not dare move.

  “Have I made myself clear?” Taygete asked the terrified helot girls.

  “Yes, ma’am,” they answered in unison.

  Taygete turned on her heel and departed, her magnificent purple silk peplos billowing out behind her.

  Dido came and collected Leonidas into her arms. She was weeping, and he soon found himself comforting her, rather than the other way around. It was then that she tried to explain things to him.

  Taygete, his mother, was the neice and wife of King Anaxandridas, Leonidas’ father. She had been barren for many years after her marriage, and she reached the age of 30 without her womb quickening once. By then King Anaxandridas was in his mid-forties and the ephors and Council of Elders became increasingly concerned. They searched the heavens for a sign, and the stars said that the Agiad King must marry another woman or the Agiad house would die out. So the ephors had demanded that King Anaxandridas put aside his barren wife and take a new bride.

  “Your father,” Dido explained, “being very fond of your mother, flatly refused to do so. He called the suggestion improper and pointed out that his wife was without blame. After much thought and discussion, the ephors and the Council of Elders agreed that the stars had advised only that King Anaxandridas need marry another woman, not that he must divorce his current wife. They decided to make an exception to the law to allow him to take a second wife. Although your father at first resisted this suggestion, after some time he gave in and submitted to the will of the Council and ephors. The ephors then selected a maiden descended directly from the wise Chilon himself. (When you get older and go to the agoge, you’ll hear all about him.) And to your mother’s great dismay, your father not only married her, but bedded her as well.

  “In fact, within a very short period of time, your father’s second wife, who is called Chilonis after her famous ancestor, became pregnant. One year after your father had taken her to wife, she produced a son, your half-brother Cleomenes.” Leonidas thought: oh, no, not another brother!

  Dido continued with the story, “but no sooner had Cleomenes been presented to the ephors and found sound and healthy, than your mother found herself pregnant, although she was nearer to 40 than 30 by this time. There were many people who did not believe her. They thought she was making it all up and would try to deceive the people by putting another woman’s child into her bed and presenting it as her own. So the ephors insisted on being present at the birth – right in the birthing chamber!

  “But perhaps it was a good thing after all, because the ephors saw for themselves that there was no deceit, and your mother had indeed produced a fine son. In fact, she presented them with a bigger and healthier son than the boy of the other wife.”

  “What about me?” Leonidas asked, hurt and distressed that even his own Dido would speak only of his bigger, stronger brother.

  “Oh, this was more than ten years before you and Cleombrotus were born!” Dido explained with a little laugh and a hug. “I was speaking of your brother Dorieus.”

  Yet another brother! Leonidas thought in despair.

  “After that, your mother felt she had been vindicated of all blame in the affair, and no one ever expected to her to have another child, but ten years after Dorieus was born, she became pregnant again. And at the end of her time, you and Cleombrotus came into the world.”

  “Why don’t I ever see my other brothers?” Leonidas asked, rather hoping that they lived on the far side of the Taygetos, or beyond the Pillars of Herakles, or anywhere where he would never have to encounter them. Cleombrotus was trouble enough.

  “Dorieus is already in the agoge, but he visits his parents on holidays. Cleomenes lives in his mother’s household on the far side of the Eurotas. Your mother will not let him or his mother cross the threshold of this house. When your father wishes to see them, he must go to them.”

  At age seven, Cleombrotus and Leonidas were enrolled in the agoge. Dido had warned him this would happen, and she had always looked sad when she told him, but she hadn’t been able to tell him very much about it. She was a helot, after all, and no one in her family had ever been allowed to go to the agoge. Nor could Leonidas’ father tell him much – if he had dared ask him - because the heir apparent to the throne was exempt from attending the agoge and so King Anaxandridas had never gone. As for Dorieus, he didn’t waste time talking to his youngest brothers, so neither of the twins had any idea what to expect except that it meant leaving home and living in the agoge barracks with other boys their age.

  One day just after the winter solstice, their father came for them dressed in his armour and scarlet cloak. He was already a great age by then, much more than three score. He had white hair that he wore braided in the Spartan fashion, but it was so thin that his plaits were tiny little strings, and his scalp was almost completely bare. The skin of his scalp was flecked with brown. He could no longer stand upright; the weight of his breastplate appeared to be too great for his shoulders and dragged him forward. He kept himself partially upright by using a T-shaped walking stick that he propped under his right armpit.

  Without a word he signalled his twin sons, who had been told to be ready for him, and with one on either side of him he walked out of the palace. At once they were caught in the cold wind that blew down off the Taygetos. Leonidas clutched his himation tighter around him, but his father shook his head. “Better get used to the cold, boy. You’ll not be allowed to keep such a thick himation in the agoge.”

  Leonidas gazed up at the old man, who he knew was his father but who was still a stranger to him, and started to become alarmed.

  The king led his sons to an imposing building standing directly on the Agora, opposite the dancing floor and at right angles to the Council House and the Ephorate. Although given the same prominence as these buildings, it lacked the lovely colonnade and elegant portico of the government buildings. Instead, the entrance was supported by three ancient Kouros. All had once been painted but were now naked stone, except for some remnants of colour in the curls of their hair. Boys of various ages with shaved heads and rough, black himations came and went in groups. Leonidas noticed that despite the snow lying in the shadows, the boys were all barefoot. This was going to be terrible, he registered.

  They entered an office. An elderly man in Spartan scarlet sat behind a desk. Several middle-aged men stood about discussing things earnestly. At the sight of King Anaxandridas, the others fell silent, and the elderly man behind the desk got to his feet respectfully.

  “Here they are,” the king announced simply. “My youngest boys.”

  All eyes were drawn to the two boys, whom Anaxandridas now pushed forward.

  “You’d never know they were twins!” one of the men exclaimed.

  Hardly a brilliant observation, Leonidas thought. Brotus was dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a stubborn set to his jaw and a compact body that—as one of the men immediately observed—made him look a good year older than his twin. Leondias was not blond, just brown, but he was much lighter in colour than his brother and his eyes were hazel. He was also ten pounds lighter and t
wo inches shorter than Cleombrotus.

  “Who’s this fine fellow here?” They all focused on Brotus.

  “Cleombrotus,” the king said.

  “Then this is Leonidas.” The oldest of the men walked around his desk and stepped closer to look intently at Leonidas. Leonidas wanted to step back, but he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. In a vice-like grip it held him in place. Leonidas stared rather terrified up into the headmaster’s face, but Leonidas decided that whatever the man thought of him (and he did not say), he did not seem hostile.

  The king took his leave. It was the last time Leonidas ever saw him up close. A little more than a year later he was dead.

  The two boys were left in the cold room, surrounded by strangers.

  “I think we best separate them, sir, at least at first.” one of the younger men suggested. “Twins have a tendency to be dependent on one another.”

  The Paidonomos, or headmaster, nodded. He looked from one boy to the other, evidently considering something, and then nodded. “Put Cleombrotus in Herripidas’ and Leonidas in Gitiades’ unit.”

  Leonidas was taken out of the administrative building and down the street to an even less assuming building. Here he was taken along a long corridor to a simple room furnished with what looked liked shelves running around the perimeter at knee and shoulder height—except there were ladders leading up to the upper shelves. There were wicker bins or baskets under the lower shelves. Already there were a half dozen other boys his own age in the room. All looked as bewildered and uncertain as he felt. There was also a young man there. He was tall and well formed, but not a citizen yet because he wore a black rather than a scarlet cloak. Also, his face and head were shaven. Leonidas knew enough about the agoge to know this young man must be one of the so-called eirenes. The eirenes were 20-year-olds who had just graduated from the agoge themselves. They were required to spend one year as a unit leader of younger boys before being enrolled in the ranks of the citizens and army at age 21.