The dust had become a noxious cloud, coating their throats and stinging their eyes. The Lacedaemonians kept their silence, but the Athenian hoplites were hooting and shouting, and the peltasts screwing up their courage with wild cries as they pressed the attack. All the while the arrows kept dropping from above, the tumult muffling the snap of the bowstrings, the gloom hiding the volleys until they struck. Under the circumstances, even the Spartans, who credited themselves for their calm in the face of battlefield chaos, turned with worried eyes to Epitadas.
And still he did not concede. Instead, the phalanx was ordered forward at a half march, inching along like a man groping for something in the dark. The enemy hoplites were somewhere ahead-certainly as encumbered as the Lacedaemonians were, perhaps equally as contemptuous of men who fought at a distance. Perhaps they might meet in the center, and give each other someone to kill in the time-honored way. There was still a chance a battle might break out in the middle of the massacre.
But they never saw the Athenians. Though they marched for an eternity, the hoplites seemed to recede from them, as if Demosthenes had somehow compelled the island to serve his purpose by stretching longer. Antalcidas was now stepping on or over his comrades, the finest troops in the world, now reduced to gray lumps on the gray earth. As losses mounted and the men closed ranks, and the phalanx seemed to contract on itself, Antalcidas felt he could no longer keep silent. “Epitadas!” he shouted, packing the magnitude of his despair into the one, desperate word.
Through the haze he saw the shadow of a horsehair crest-the badge of his brother’s office-turn toward him. Somewhere far beneath the unceasing clang of Attic vowels, he felt a Laconian marching command that he did not hear as much as feel in his bones. The order, relayed by the platoon leaders to all the men, reached him just as he saw the forward ranks pivot.
There was no time for fancy countermarches now, no stepping in place to wait for the officers to lead the way back. Everyone just spun on their heels and retreated up the hill. The reversal of direction was missed by the Athenian bowmen, who went on pouring arrows through the cloud to where the Spartans would have been. When the phalanx was spotted it was halfway up the slope and barely in range; as bad as the advance had been, Antalcidas saw no one fall during the retreat.
9.
The Lacedaemonians were safely inside the old fort when the sun was at its highest. With nostrils caked by dust and ashes, lungs burning, and wounds begging for care, they were desperate for water. The island’s main well was, alas, now in Athenian hands. The new one by the fort, beyond the bones of the old cyclops, had so far produced little more than a trickle. Epitadas allowed the men to take turns crawling down to wet their lips.
The Athenians made another series of landings, swelling their contingent on the island. Xeuthes, Timon, and the rest of the crew from the Terror were on the left, having advanced as close to the Spartan lines as Demosthenes dared. The heat tortured them too, as months of confinement on ships and crowded beaches had ruined them for marching, and their commanders had not yet organized distribution of water to troops that far up the slope. They had hoped, after all, that the longhairs would be crushed on the flats, in the first hours of the battle. That the enemy had escaped to the high ground was the first thing to wipe the smile off Cleon’s face that morning.
With almost a hundred well-born Spartiates lying dead below, it was already an expensive day. At that point, with more fighting ahead, it would have been unseemly to remind Epitadas of his misjudgments. Antalcidas made nothing of it, contributing only what he could to help secure the fort. At least a defense was feasible: with no way to approach the Spartan position except from the south, they could not be enveloped. The men guarding the helots also kept watch on the steep ground leading down to the Sikia Channel. So far the Athenians had made no attempt to land there, though they could easily have swum across the channel from Koryphasion.
Meanwhile, against widely held expectation, the helots took scant pleasure in their masters’ difficulties. There was no cheering as they watched the disaster unfold before them, no uprising when the Spartans returned exhausted and fewer. Antalcidas caught Doulos’ eye as he walked by on inspection: the latter smiled, as if glad to see his master alive. Something in Antalcidas’ face caused his good feeling to fade, however. As a rule, Antalcidas was seldom aware of what expression was on his own face.
In a rare feat of personal discipline, Frog also kept his tongue. He would not meet Epitadas’ eyes as the latter issued his orders for the defense of the fort; he was heard to mutter as he stalked between the old stones. Yet he made no outward challenge for the leadership. It was too late for that.
Epitadas made a final inspection of the defenses. They were safe from arrows and infantry where the walls remained intact up to three courses. Their remaining front against the enemy was short enough to place one man every few paces. If the attackers managed to drive his men off the blocks and clamber over, he kept a reserve squad of his best fighters, including Antalcidas, to deal with them.
Then they waited. From his vantage at the very top of the island, Antalcidas could look out at the Lacedaemonians on the other side of the bay. It was impossible they would not be aware of the Athenian attack, yet the allied ships remained stuck on the beach. Why?
As if overhearing this question, Epitadas appeared at his side. “No use looking for help over there. The Peloponnesians are too terrified to come out.”
“Then they should let our men take the oars.”
Epitadas laughed. “They need more reason than a few trapped Spartans for them to risk their precious ships!”
10.
By nightfall, the Lacedaemonians were still in possession of the heights. Demosthenes had sent his men up in continuous waves, hoping to wear out the defenders by weight of numbers. The Lacedaemonians fended them off with spears, and if those broke, with swords. Some lost their swords too, and fought with shields or stones; most had spent so much time striking at metal armor that, for hours after, their hands vibrated like struck bells.
At sundown Demosthenes called off the assault. He had already sacrificed more than a hundred men to inflict only a few enemy casualties. He couldn’t use his archers when his infantry attacked the fort, and when they weren’t attacking, Nestor’s tough old walls gave the Lacedaemonians cover.
Cleon, unmussed and undaunted, demanded a night attack. Demosthenes restrained the temptation to laugh in his face, calmly explaining that the Spartans were masters of night fighting. “We have the advantage,” he said, “and so we must have the strength to be patient.”