A Peerless Peer Page 6

  “The situation is very similar now. We gain nothing by forcing the allies to fight. If their hearts aren’t in it, they are worthless militarily, and each casualty will become a grievance against us that will fester and swell into bitter hatred. Hatred is dangerous.”

  Leonidas pictured the faces of the men in the Corinthian camp and remembered his own fear; but in the agoge they had been taught that hatred, like any violent emotion, was more dangerous for him who had it than for him who provoked it. He had been taught that hatred was like “taking poison and expecting someone else to die of it.” At last he ventured to ask, “But isn’t it more dangerous for the allies than for us?”

  Kyranios cocked his head and considered Leonidas. There was no question: the young man was growing on him. “In the first instance, yes. If, for example, the allies in their outrage over this unjust war were to attack us tonight or in the morning, what do you think would happen? They would fling themselves upon us, screaming hysterically like barbarians—and be cut down like wheat as we, relying on discipline and drill, form up and fight as a unit. And then what? The survivors would return home, abrogate the treaties of alliance, and start negotiating with one another. The next thing we know, we would be ringed by enemies who share the common goal of humiliating us. Argos would gladly join them, and the Messenians could be counted on to stab us in the back. We might still win every battle, but not without losses. And since each battle would be an unnecessary one—one we could have avoided simply by not forcing the allies to fight now—each casualty would be for nothing. In the long run, we would be weaker, and all for nothing.”

  “How do we stop that from happening, sir?” Leonidas asked.

  Kyranios smiled. “Good question; and thanks to you, we are a step nearer than I thought an hour ago.”

  Leonidas looked puzzled.

  Kyranios reached for his helmet and then his himation and announced, “I’m going to see Demaratus.” He paused. “Do I need to arrest you, or can I trust you not to warn your brother?”

  “If you arrest me, you can be certain that I do not betray your trust—and I won’t have to answer to my brother for being disloyal.”

  Kyranios laughed. “I’m beginning to like you, Leonidas. You are welcome to stop by my kleros when we get home. I can’t for the life of me understand what Eirana sees in that sour-faced seer, and maybe this incident with the boar will lend you a little more glamour in her eyes. Meanwhile, you’re under arrest. The wine is over there, and there’s some leftover bread, too. Help yourself.”

  Kyranios then ducked out of his tent.

  It was rapidly turning into the rowdiest Assembly Leonidas had ever witnessed. According to the Spartan constitution, laws had to be introduced by the Council of Elders, or Gerousia, but no law could be enacted without the ratification of the Assembly. This gave the Assembly the final say over legislation. The fact that the Assembly could not introduce amendments or riders to the proposed laws did not mean there was no discussion. On the contrary, the very fact that the proposed legislation had to be accepted or rejected in its entirety made the discussions on controversial laws fierce.

  The majority of Sparta’s citizens, those who had not participated in the campaign against Athens because they were already full citizens and in the reserves, were appalled to discover that behind their backs, the entire structure of their alliance system had suddenly changed. Before this bungled campaign against Athens, the allies had been required to “follow wherever Sparta led.” Now, it seemed, the allies were to be given the right to vote on whether to campaign—or not. Representatives from all alliance members would decide by majority vote whether a campaign would take place, and Sparta—like all other cities—would have just one vote. A majority vote against Sparta could result in the allies thwarting Spartan ambitions and undermining her policies.

  Men were shouting “Shame!” and even the usually popular Kyranios was shouted down with shouts of “Coward!” and “Traitor!” when he tried to speak.

  Leonidas was shocked and unsettled by the uproar. First of all, Kyranios had convinced him that the proposed changes, which effectively turned the loose alliance of cities into a more formal “League,” made sense. Second, he thought it was unbecoming to shout insults at men who had so often proved their worth and loyalty. Most importantly, this kind of shouting and insulting did not further discourse. As boys in the agoge, they had been taught silence, respect, and economy of speech—and here the whole citizen body was acting riotously.

  Well, not really, he reflected, looking around the stoa again. The outrage was loud and vehement where it was voiced, but it was not dominant. Leonidas could see many older men putting their heads together and muttering. Many middle-aged men were also frowning and shaking their heads—although it was hard to know if they disapproved of the proposed League charter, or just the ruckus caused by the opponents of it. Most of the noise was coming from the younger full citizens, those just out of the army, and a sprinkling of vocal older men.

  The chairman of the ephors was calling for order so he could give the floor to the city treasurer. Nikostratos was a man now in his midfifties, with thinning hair and an increasingly frail body. His shoulders had become rounded and his skin pale from hours spent over accounts rather than on the drill fields. Leonidas knew him well because he was the chairman of Leonidas’ syssitia, or dining club. He knew that Nikostratos had a sharp mind, a delightful sense of humor, and a profound understanding of what was good for Sparta, but he feared Nikostratos’ virtues were not as widely recognized as they ought to be. He waited tensely as the treasurer stepped forward to stand at the front of the stoa and face the Assembly.

  “Peers,” Nikostratos opened. “What is more valuable? A free man or a slave?”

  The question could have been rhetorical, since no one in this forum was going to claim a slave was worth more than a free man; but the shouts of “Free men!” came loudest from the same party that had opposed the League charter.

  “Then the value of our alliance system has just increased dramatically,” the treasurer concluded, adding before anyone could object, “What angers you is not that we now have free men as partners but that this campaign, for which you voted, had to be called off—”

  “We came home like a dog with its tail between its legs!” Lysimachos shouted. Lysimachos had been Leonidas’ eirene when he was ten—and a singularly selfish and self-serving one at that. He was now thirty-one and had just gone off active service. He had not been with them on this campaign.

  “That is because you did not secure the consent of the allies before marching,” Nikostratos started to point out.

  Someone else shouted, “No! Because our kings were seen to be bickering! We were exposed as internally divided!”

  Leonidas had to lean forward to see who had said this, and recognized a certain Orthryades. Orthryades had been a company commander in the army, but he had failed to be appointed lochagos when a position became vacant earlier in the year. He had immediately retired in evident protest. He was proud, ambitious, and popular with a faction of the citizen body that felt Sparta was “going to the dogs” and needed to “remember her roots.” Nikostratos claimed Demaratus had prevented Orthryades’ promotion because he distrusted the “aggressive conservatism” of Orthryades. Now, Leonidas surmised, Orthryades was getting his revenge. In a voice that sounded like a clarion call he shouted, “This debacle is one man’s fault! Demaratus’!”

  Orthryades was echoed at once by Lysimachos, who called out: “Demaratus showed the allies we were weak and divided!”

  Leotychidas, Demaratus’ bitter rival, worst enemy—and heir—joined the attack, raising his voice to ask mockingly, “How much gold did Athens have to pay you, Demaratus, to buy your—”

  Demaratus was on his feet, shouting furiously. His reaction was so violent that it made Leonidas wonder for a moment if the accusation were true. But what use did Demaratus have for gold? He already had more money than he could use in a society that proscr
ibed displays of wealth. Leonidas believed that the Eurypontid king’s opposition to the war was personal, not venal; Demaratus hated Cleomenes even more than he hated Leotychidas. And just as they had learned in school, the hatred was eating away at Demaratus more than at his object. Even now, as though the whole debate had nothing to do with him, Cleomenes was sitting coolly on his throne, unperturbed by the heated debate around him. He looked as if he were above it all, as if it were no concern of his whatsoever.

  Orthryades had evidently struck a chord, however—not in attacking Demaratus personally, but with respect to the humiliation of revealing internal divisions to strangers. Within moments the debate had shifted focus, with many arguing it was fatal to have “two captains on one ship.” This debate was more general, with many more citizens participating. While old men whined about this being Spartan tradition, the divine origins of the dual kingship, and so on, the men in their prime, joined by many from the younger age cohorts, were insisting that there should be only one supreme commander on any campaign. This, however, was not the law that had been introduced. Eventually the chairman of the ephors managed to quiet the Assembly enough to vote on the League Charter.

  To Leonidas’ astonishment, after all the protests it passed by a large majority. Henceforth, Sparta could not take her allies to war without the consent of the majority, and a law to prohibit more than one king campaigning outside of Lacedaemon, and then only under the supervision of two ephors, was put on the agenda for the next Assembly.

  Leonidas thought this was a good outcome, but as the crowd dispersed he noticed his twin brother Brotus barging his way through the crowd to Orthryades and Leotychidas. It crossed his mind that they were an evil pair, and it would be a bad thing for his brother to become friendly with them.

  Chapter 3

  Domestic Affairs

  Winter was the season of the year in which men devoted themselves to their families and their estates. For the reserve units, drill was reduced to just an hour a day; and even the young men, those on active service and required to live in barracks, drilled only half-time. More welcome still, the army was kept at only two-thirds strength. One pentekostus, or company, of each lochos was granted a month’s leave each month. This gave every man the time he needed to visit distant estates, take care of family matters, or attend to other private affairs.

  Leonidas was not slated for leave until the second month of the winter, but he was quick to use his greater free time to visit Kyranios’ kleros and resume his courtship of Eirana.

  The first time after the army’s return that he ventured to call on her, his arm was still in a sling. Eirana’s mother greeted him enthusiastically, drawing attention to his arm and requesting that he tell them what had happened; but Eirana clearly wasn’t interested, so Leonidas kept his answer short. He tried to turn the conversation to Eirana herself, asking what she had done over the summer, but she just shrugged and said, “The usual.” Her mother frowned and tried to make up for her daughter’s rudeness with a flood of gossip. Leonidas appreciated what she was trying to do, but it could not salve the wound that Eirana’s obvious indifference toward him had reopened. Discouraged, he turned to go, and Eirana’s mother ordered her to “see Leonidas to the gate.”

  Alone with her as they walked down the drive past the paddocks (Kyranios, like many of the Spartan elite, was a horse breeder), Leonidas collected his courage and remarked, “I never see you in the city. Why don’t you come more often?”

  Eirana shrugged. “It is too far to walk.”

  The answer made no sense to Leonidas. “But you can ride or drive.” He gestured to her father’s powerful horses grazing on either side of the drive.

  Eirana had wrapped herself deep in a wool himation and clutched it around her with her arms crossed over her chest. She gazed at the lanky horses grazing on the brown, brittle grass in their shaggy winter coats, and shook her head. “My father breeds horses for their height. Look at them! There isn’t one that isn’t taller at the withers than the top of my head. And they are all so temperamental! I cannot drive them, and I’m not a child anymore who just clings to the back of some aging warhorse and lets him carry me where he wills. I want a gentle mare that heeds what I want of her. My father does not know what that is.” She sounded bitter.

  Leonidas stopped and looked at her as she gazed across the pasture, clutching her himation around her. Her expression struck him as one of infinite sadness. “I expected you to be married by now,” he told her bluntly.

  She started and looked over sharply. “And I would have liked to be!”

  “What has stopped you, then?”

  She shrugged and looked away, her lower lip trembling as if she were trying not to cry. Leonidas waited for her to get control of herself. After a moment she swallowed and took a deep breath, but her voice was strained when she answered. “That is the worst thing about being a woman: you have to wait on men for everything.”

  Leonidas was left not knowing if she was waiting for her father’s permission to marry—or waiting for Asteropus to ask for her.

  Of course, some women waited longer than others. It was not long after this trip to Kyranios’ kleros that Brotus started bragging about having taken a bride. Since he was barely twenty-two, like Leonidas, he could not actually live with his wife yet; but he had, as custom required, snuck out of his barracks after curfew one night, “broken into” his bride’s father’s house, and claimed her, before returning to his barracks and morning roll call.

  Brotus was the first of the age cohort to take a wife, and he clearly thought this gave him some distinction. He even predicted that he had gotten his wife pregnant on this first night. “You know what they say. The more pleasure a woman has in sex, the more likely she is to conceive! And you wouldn’t believe how eager she was!” he bragged in the gymnasium, loud enough for those who were not particularly interested to hear. “She could hardly wait for me to get out of my clothes. I can’t wait for curfew!”

  Leonidas pretended he hadn’t heard his brother’s bragging, and so did many others. Brotus’ bride Lathria had a reputation. She had been a wrestler as a maiden, and she had challenged more than one youth to a match. Leonidas had once been trapped into one, and it had left him in no doubt that she wanted more intimacy than the sport accorded. He did not believe that Brotus was the first to satisfy her sexual cravings. But if Brotus didn’t care, what did it matter to him? Moreover, he supposed there was a certain justice in the marriage: Leonidas believed, though he had no proof, that Brotus had been instrumental in the “accidental” death of Lathria’s brother Timon.

  Alkander was another young man who had no intention of keeping his bride waiting. Alkander had been in love with Hilaira for years, indeed since before they knew what being in love was about. As she was the younger sister of their friend Prokles, Leonidas and Alkander had cheered her at the maiden races, applauded her performance in dances and choruses, admired her attire at festivals, and comforted her when her brother was sentenced to exile. At some point, however, it had become clear that while Hilaira loved Leonidas as a brother, she loved Alkander as a man.

  Because her father seemed to blame Leonidas and Alkander for his son’s disgrace, Hilaira and Alkander had been meeting secretly for more than a year—which generally meant in the city. Whenever Hilaira could find an excuse to get away from her father’s kleros, she did so, sending a helot to Alkander’s barracks with word of where to meet her. Leonidas found it hard to believe her parents didn’t know what was going on; but then again, they lived a withdrawn life since their elder son’s disgrace. Nor was it always true that the older age cohorts knew what their juniors were up to. Although Sparta was a close-knit society, the lives of young and old were sufficiently segregated for something that was common knowledge among young men to sometimes surprise the older men.

  Not long after Brotus announced his marriage, Alkander informed Leonidas that he, too, intended to marry soon.

  They were both in the steamy massage
room, lying side by side on the marble benches. “What does Philippos say?” Leonidas asked about Hilaira’s father.

  “I haven’t dared ask him,” Alkander admitted, while a bath slave rubbed oil into his back. After a pause, he added, “Hilaira says she’ll go with me even without his permission.”

  Leonidas didn’t answer. He didn’t doubt it. He was envious of it. If only Eirana loved him like that! But there were risks in it, too. Lathria’s father had been more than pleased to have an Agiad prince, second in line to the throne after Cleomenes’ young son Agis, take his daughter to wife. Furthermore, Brotus’ wealth was equaled only by Leonidas’ own and that of a handful of other families. Alkander’s situation was different. He had only his state kleros and his ties to Demaratus—which were tenuous. Alkander’s sister Percalus, beautiful as she was, had yet to give Demaratus an heir. If she failed, the Eurypontid crown would fall to Demaratus’ cousin Leotychidas—who had been Percalus’ betrothed and had never forgiven Alkander for letting her marry Demaratus in his absence. In short, Philippos had good reasons not to favor Alkander’s suit for his daughter.

  “You aren’t against us, too, are you?” Alkander pressed Leonidas.

  “Of course not! It’s just that if Philippos makes a fuss—calling it rape or abduction—and hauls you up before the magistrates … You could get into real trouble.”

  “They’d have to at least listen to what Hilaira says. We’re not in Corinth or Athens, where women are chattels with no say over their fate!” Alkander countered defensively.

  “Of course they’d listen to her; but you know as well as I that the judgment of the magistrates—much less the kings—is not always just.”