Gates of Fire (25 page)

“What could be more contrary to female nature, to motherhood, than to stand unmoved and unmoving as her sons march off to death? Must not every sinew of the mother's flesh call out in agony and affront at such an outrage? Must not her heart seek to cry in its passion, ‘No! Not my son! Spare him!' That women, from some source unknown to us, summon the will to conquer this their own deepest nature is, I believe, the reason we stand in awe of our mothers and sisters and wives. This, I believe, Dienekes, is the essence of women's courage and why it, as you suggested, is superior to men's.”

My master acknowledged these observations with approval. At his side Alexandros shifted, however. You could see the young man was not satisfied.

“What you say is true, Ariston. I had never thought of it in that way before. Yet something must be added. If women's victory were simply to stand dry-eyed as their sons march off to death, this would not alone be unnatural, but inhuman, grotesque and even monstrous. What elevates such an act to the stature of nobility is, I believe, that it is performed in the service of a higher and more selfless cause.

“These women of whom we stand in awe donate their sons' lives to their country, to the people as a whole, that the nation may survive even as their own dear children perish. Like the mother whose story we have heard from childhood who, on learning that all five of her sons had been killed in the same battle, asked only, ‘Was our nation victorious?' and, being told that it was, turned for home without a tear, saying only, ‘Then I am happy.' Is it not this element—the nobility of setting the whole above the part—that moves us about women's sacrifice?”

“Such wisdom from the mouths of babes!” Dienekes laughed and rapped both lads affectionately upon the shoulder. “But you have not yet answered my question. What is the opposite of fear?

“I will tell you a story, my young friends, but not here or now. At the Gates you shall hear it. A story of our king, Leonidas, and a secret he confided to Alexandros' mother, Paraleia. This tale will advance our inquiry into courage—and will tell as well how Leonidas came to select those he did for the Three Hundred. But for this hour we must put a period to our salon or the Spartans, overhearing, will declare us effeminate. And they will be right!”

Now in camp at the Gates we three youths could see our
enomotarch,
responding to dawn's first glimmer, take leave of the king's council and return to his platoon, stripping his cloak to call the men to gymnastics. “On our feet, then.” Ariston sprung up, snapping Alexandros and me from our preoccupations. “The opposite of fear must be work.”

Drill-at-arms had barely begun when a sharp whistle from the Wall summoned every man to alert.

A herald of the enemy was advancing into view at the throat of the Narrows.

This messenger drew up at a distance, calling out a name in Greek, that of Alexandros' father, the
polemarch
Olympieus. When the herald was motioned forward, escorting a single officer of the enemy embassy and a boy, he cried further by name after three other Spartan officers, Aristodemos, Polynikes and Dienekes.

These four were summoned at once by the officer of the watch, he and all others in hearing astonished and by no means uncurious about the specificity of the enemy's request.

The sun was full up now; scores of allied infantrymen stood watching upon the Wall. Forward advanced the Persian embassy. Dienekes recognized its principal at once. This was the captain Ptammitechus, “Tommie,” the Egyptian marine we had encountered and exchanged gifts with four years previous at Rhodes. The boy, it turned out, was his son. The lad spoke excellent Attic Greek and served as interpreter.

A scene of warm reacquaintance ensued, with abundant clapping of backs and clasping of hands. Surprise was expressed by the Spartans that the Egyptian was not with the fleet; he was, after all, a marine, a sea fighter. Tommie responded that he only, and his immediate platoon, had been detached to duty with the land armies, seconded to the Imperial Command at his own request for this specific purpose: to act as an informal ambassador to the Spartans, whose acquaintance he recalled with such warmth and whose welfare he wished above all to succor.

By now the crowd surrounding the marine had swelled to above a hundred. The Egyptian towered half a head over even the tallest Hellene, his tiara of pressed linen adding further to his stature. His smile flashed brilliant as ever. He bore a message, he declared, from King Xerxes himself, which he had been charged to deliver to the Spartans alone.

Olympieus, who had been senior envoy during the Rhodian embassy, now assumed that position in this parley. He informed the Egyptian that no treating would be done on a nation-by-nation basis. It was one for all among the Greeks, and that was that.

The marine's cheerful demeanor did not falter. At that moment the main body of Spartans, led by Alpheus and Maron, was running shield drills immediately before the Wall, working with and instructing two platoons of the Thespaians. Tommie observed the brothers for a number of moments, impressed. “I will alter my request, then,” he said, smiling, to Olympieus. “If you, sir, will escort me to your king, Leonidas, I will deliver my message to him as commander of the Hellenic allies as a whole.”

My master was plainly fond of this personable fellow and delighted to see him again. “Still wearing steel underpants?” he inquired through the boy interpreter.

Tommie laughed and displayed, to the further amusement of the assembly, an undergarment of white Nile linen. Then, with a gesture friendly and informal, he seemed to set aside his role as envoy and speak, for the moment, man-to-man.

“I pray that armor of mail need never be employed between us, brothers.” He indicated the camp, the Narrows, the sea, seeming to include the defense as a whole in the sweep of his arm. “Who knows how this may turn out? It may all blow over, as it did for your force of Ten Thousand at Tempe. But if I may speak as a friend, to you four only, I would urge you thus: do not let hunger for glory, nor your own pride in arms, blinder you to the reality your forces now confront.

“Death alone awaits you here. The defenders cannot hope to stand, even for a day, in the face of the multitudes His Majesty brings against you. Nor will all the armies of Hellas prevail in the battles yet to come. Surely you know this, as does your king.” He paused to let his son deliver the translation and to study the response upon the faces of the Spartans. “I beg you hearken to this counsel, friends, offered from my own heart as one who bears the most profound respect for you as individuals and for your city and its wide and well-deserved fame. Accept the inevitable, and be ruled with honor and respect—”

“You may stop there, friend,” Aristodemos cut him off.

Polynikes put in with heat: “If that's all you came to tell us, brother, stick it between the creases.”

The Egyptian maintained his level and amiable demeanor. “You have my word and His Majesty's upon it: if the Spartans will yield now and surrender their arms, none will exceed them in honor beneath the King's banner. No Persian foot will tread the soil of Lakedaemon now or forever, this His Majesty swears. Your country will be granted dominion over all Greece. Your forces will take their place as the foremost unit in His Majesty's army, with all the fortune and glory such prominence commands. Your nation has but to name its desires. His Majesty will grant them and, if I may claim to know his heart, will shower further gifts upon his new friends, in scale and costliness beyond imagining.”

At this, the breath of every allied listener stoppered in his throat. Each eye stood fearfully upon the Spartans. If the Egyptian's offer was bona fide, and there was no reason to believe it wasn't, it meant deliverance for Lakedaemon. All she need do was forsake the Hellenic cause. What now would be these officers' response? Would they at once convey the envoy to their king? Leonidas' word would be tantamount to law, so preeminent stood his stature among the Peers and ephors.

Out of the blue, the fate of Hellas suddenly teetered upon the precipice. The allied listeners stood nailed to the site, awaiting breathlessly the response of these four warriors of Lakedaemon.

“It seems to me,” Olympieus addressed the Egyptian with barely a moment's hesitation, “that if His Majesty truly wished to make the Spartans his friends, he would find them of far greater service with their arms than without.”

“Further, experience has taught us,” Aristodemos added, “that honor and glory are boons which cannot be granted by the pen but must be earned by the spear.”

My glance scanned in this moment the faces of the allies. Tears stood in the eyes of not a few; others seemed so undone with relief that their knees threatened to give way beneath them. The Egyptian clearly discerned this. He smiled, gracious and patient, not abashed in the least.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen. I trouble you with matters which should and must be debated, not here in the marketplace so to speak, but in private before your king. Please, if you will, conduct me to him.”

“He'll tell you the same, brother,” Dienekes declared.

“And in far cruder language,” put in another Spartan among the crowd.

Tommie waited for the laughter to subside.

“May I hear this response, then, from the king's own lips?”

“He'd have us whipped, Tommie,” Dienekes put in with a smile.

“He'd tear the hide off our backs,” spoke the same man who had interposed a moment earlier, “even to propose such a course of dishonor.”

The Egyptian's eyes swung now to this speaker, whom he perceived to be an older Spartan, clad in tunic and homespun cloak, who now stepped into the second rank, at the shoulder of Aristodemos. For a moment the marine was taken aback to discover this graybeard, who clearly bore the weight of more than sixty summers, yet stood in infantryman's raiment among the other, far younger warriors.

“Please, my friends,” the Egyptian continued, “do not respond out of pride or the passion of the moment but permit me to place before your king the wider consequences of such a decision. Let me set the Persian Majesty's ambitions in perspective.

“Greece is just the jumping-off point. The Great King already rules all Asia; Europe now is his goal. From Hellas His Majesty's army moves on to conquer Sikelia and Italia, from there to Helvetia, Germania, Gallia, Iberia. With you on our side, what force can stand against us? We will advance in triumph to the Pillars of Herakles themselves and beyond, to the very walls of Oceanus!

“Please, brothers, consider the alternatives. Stand now in pride of arms and be crushed, your country overrun, wives and children enslaved, the glory of Lakedaemon, not to say her very existence, effaced forever from the earth. Or elect, as I urge, the course of prudence. Assume with honor your rightful station in the forefront of the invincible tide of history. The lands you rule now will be as nothing beside the domains the Great King will bestow upon you. Join us, brothers. Conquer with us all the world! Xerxes son of Darius swears this: no nation or army will surpass you in honor among all His Majesty's forces! And if, my Spartan friends, the act of abandoning your Hellene brothers strikes you as dishonorable, King Xerxes extends his offer further, to all Greeks. All Hellenic allies, regardless of nation, will he set in freedom at your shoulder and honor second only to yourselves among his minions!”

Neither Olympieus nor Aristodemos nor Dienekes nor Polynikes lifted voice in response. Instead the Egyptian saw them defer to the older man in the homespun cloak.

“Among the Spartans any may speak, not just these ambassadors, as we are all accounted Peers and equals before the law.” The elder now stepped forward. “May I take the liberty to suggest, sir, an alternative course, which I feel certain will find favor, not among the Lakedaemonians alone, but with all the Greek allies?”

“Please do,” responded the Egyptian.

All eyes centered upon the veteran.

“Let Xerxes surrender to us,” he proposed. “We will not fail to match his generosity, but set him and his forces foremost among our allies and grant to him all the honors which he so munificently proposes to shower upon us.”

A laugh burst from the Egyptian.

“Please, gentlemen, we squander precious time.” He turned away from the older man, not without a hint of impatience, and pressed his request again to Olympieus. “Conduct me at once to your king.”

“No use, friend,” answered Polynikes.

“The king is a crusty old bugger,” Dienekes added.

“Indeed,” put in the older man. “He is a foul-tempered and irascible fellow, barely literate, in his cups most days before noon, they say.”

A smile now spread across the features of the Egyptian. He glanced to my master and to Olympieus.

“I see,” said Tommie.

His look returned to the older man, who, as the Egyptian now discerned, was none other than Leonidas himself.

“Well then, venerable sir,” Tommie addressed the Spartan king directly, dipping his brow in a gesture of respect, “since it seems I am to be frustrated in my desire to speak in person with Leonidas, perhaps, in deference to the gray I behold in your beard and the many wounds my eyes espy upon your body, you yourself, sir, will accept this gift from Xerxes son of Darius in your king's stead.”

From a pouch the Egyptian produced a double-handled goblet of gold, magnificent in craftsmanship and encrusted with precious gems. He declared that the engravings thereupon represented the hero Amphiktyon, to whom the precinct of Thermopylae was sacred, along with Herakles and Hyllus, his son, from whom the race of the Spartans, and Leonidas himself, was descended. The cup was so heavy that the Egyptian had to hold it out with both hands.

“If I accept this generous gift,” Leonidas addressed him, “it must go into the war treasury of the allies.”

“As you wish.” The Egyptian bowed.