“The Lacedaemonians welcomed the helots into the army like long-lost brothers. All 211 were given crimson cloaks and shields, and led on a procession to make soldiers’ dedications at the local shrines. After this they were feasted in the town crossroads in full view of their families. The wives wept to see their husbands treated like men at last, instead of like animals. The sons of the elect went about boasting that their fathers were warriors in the Spartan army. The next day they were formed into platoons and paraded out of town. They said they were going to receive their training in Laconia. The echo of their voices singing the marching song, ‘Castor’s Air,’ was heard in the village for a long time after they were gone.
“Not one of those 211 Messenians was ever seen again. Some say all were killed in the mountains and tossed into a chasm; others that they were locked in a pen and starved to death. What is very clear is this: the Lacedaemonians feared these men, and lured them out with challenges only the strongest would accept. And when they had taken an oath before the gods to serve their former masters loyally, these Spartans, these honorable and pious Spartans, had them killed in secret. Not a pinch of ash or a fragment of bone was left for their families to honor.”
The Messenian turned to the peltast he had meant to speak to before. “You ask, can they do that? The Lacedaemonians have nothing if not long memories. If Fortune is with us, they have only evacuated-not killed-the women and children. But they’ll slaughter more than sheep to prevent another revolt.”
Since a pyre would give away their presence, Leochares forbade the exiles to give the victims the proper rites. There were too many bodies, in any case, to do anything more than cover them up and consign them to Hades. That night, the party went upstream as far as they dared, mounting hills and climbing trees as occasion demanded, looking for any sign of human habitation. Over the entire expanse from the Messenian highlands to the sea, not a single torch was burning except in the billets of the Lacedaemonians-no hearths in the towns, no lamps in the farmhouses, not the campfire of a solitary shepherd. When they had gone their farthest east, Leochares thought he saw a knot of lights twinkling in the foothills; in the moments when the night air settled, the luminous mass sorted into a cluster of points too haphazard to be a military camp. Had the surviving helots all been banished to that place, as far as possible from the corrupting influence of the Athenians?
The party had started on its way back when one of the pickets heard a noise to the south. He ordered all the exiles and peltasts to ground, signaling they should do nothing but hug the earth. More sounds: the snap of a fennel stalk, an exhalation that might have been the wind-or an outburst of whispered commands.
Nobody trained for night fighting like the Spartans; rivals all over Greece had learned to concede the dark to them. The suspicion that they were being stalked robbed the Messenians of all confidence. They jabbered at each other, rattling their panoplies in their alarm. Even with the burlap covers, the din of their shields against the rocks became truly alarming. Leochares turned back at them.
“Shut your traps you dogs! If you make me give away my position again-”
He meant to leave the threat unspecified, but the exiles only laughed.
“And you’ll do what?” said a voice behind him.
Leochares responded in as deliberate a tone he could manage at a whisper: “I’ll hobble you and leave you here.”
The party retreated to the sea by the light of a low crescent moon that cast faint raking shadows on the ground. The sight of their own tramping silhouettes had the effect of accelerating their pace, until they were careening at a run, stumbling over rocks and their own feet. As the sound of the water rose to meet them Leochares thought he heard the thud of bare knees against stone. Someone cursed in what seemed like a Dorian drawl.
“They’re behind us!” a peltast cried, practically running up his commander’s back in his haste to escape.
Leochares thought of pausing to make sure one of his Messenians had not fallen, but was distracted by the sight of the warship riding offshore. Leochares gave the recognition signal, three cracks of his spear shaft against his shield, and listened for the response. He heard the voice of the boatswain ring out in much-welcome Attic, and the rip of oar blades in the water as the ship pressed inshore. His men couldn’t wait: slinging their shields across their backs and dropping their spears, they hit the water en masse, reaching for the ship’s stem, for oar shafts, for anything they could lay their hands on.
Then came the moment when Leochares, alone, watched from the beach as a knot of exiles accumulated on the ship’s ram-a ball of panicked men clinging there like bees swarming on a tree-and the captain hissed for them to take turns lest they upset the ship on her keel. It was a moment in which he thought he glimpsed the end of a war that was for so long unimaginable. Athens would be defeated.
It was near dawn when they approached the stockade on the Sikia Channel. With distance from shadowy threats the men regained their composure; the captain had them divided in two groups now, squatting in balanced numbers along each rail. Casually, almost in boredom, Leochares counted the exiles and peltasts-and then, his alarm rising, counted them again.
“We left with sixteen, didn’t we?” he asked Protesilaus.
“Fifteen plus yourself,” came the answer, and after his eyes danced over the heads strung out behind him, the Messenian added, “Fourteen now. We’ve left someone behind, I think!”
5.
The Acharnians of the Terror took the oars the next day for their eighteenth circuit of Sphacteria-the most of any ship in the fleet. There were almost fifty other vessels at Demosthenes’ disposal, but after two months it was clear which crews were good at blockading and which not so good. On none of its previous trips had the Terror run aground, gotten rocks dropped on it, or lost rowers to oar shafts snapped back by submerged obstacles. Sphaerus, the steersman, had neither orbited the island in wide, lazy circles, nor taken undue chances coming in close. The captain, Xeuthes, had not sought undue shore privileges, but had beached his vessel only as much as necessary.
Yet the effort was taking its toll on Philemon’s investment. The limited laying-up time had saturated the hull’s wood, causing leaks. What supplies they had shipped for repairs were long since gone, forcing the carpenters to beg for replacement blades, unsplit oar sleeves, and intact sheets from the rest of the fleet. “Don’t look, but here come the Acharnians again!” the other captains would complain; though the quality of their patriotism was well-known, the fact earned them no sympathy from their fleetmates. All of them would ultimately confront a long voyage home, very likely out of fair-sailing season, when-if ever-the accursed siege ended.
Xeuthes was therefore in a foul mood as he watched the familiar serrations of the island slip by. He was tired of these waters and these rocks. He was tired of being tired. He had never lost a vessel in his time, but might yet see one rotted out from beneath him. And it was all on account of a pack of stubborn Lacedaemonians who refused to accept they were beaten! In his gloom he could imagine his enemies starving themselves, eating dirt, consuming their dead companions-going to any extreme to outlast the summer, to see the Athenians scattered by the autumn storms. He envisioned them as grinning, cock-sure skeletons, taunting him from the beach as the Terror, down to one bank of patched oars, waddled away on its waterlogged strakes.