The words cut deep into Antalcidas. Closing his eyes, he replied, “By the gods, I swear that I kept my word. It is not my choice that we are here.”
Frog perked up at this exchange, anxious once again that his role not be overlooked. “I can barely see you, Epitadas, but your ignorance marks you well enough.”
“I don’t remember leaving Frog in command, but you, Brother,” said Epitadas.
“I was in command.”
“Then the fault is yours. There is nothing more to say.”
“No, keep talking!” interjected Cleinias, the hold man, who was listening the whole time. To hear dissension among Spartans was most entertaining during long, dull days at sea.
Antalcidas tried to appeal to Epitadas through the day and later that night, when the ship was beached southeast of Methone and the prisoners were unshackled for a brief turn on the top deck. Epitadas did not rise when Stilbiades removed his chains; after trying to rouse him with his boot, the bosun said, “Suit yourself,” and shackled him again. In his haste to escape the stench, Stilbiades missed the six-inch long shard of wood Epitadas had torn from the post during the few moments when his hands were free.
The next day his brother’s silence began to weigh on Antalcidas. He spoke to him in monologues, hoping he might stumble on some combination of words that would unstick Epitadas’ tongue. He tried reminiscing about good things, such as the beauties of Laconia, better days on the battlefield, stories from the Rearing, and the joy of festival days. But as time passed, and Epitadas persisted in his silence, Antalcidas’ tone became more bitter. At last, when he thought he could stand it no longer, he flung the rebuke he had longed to make for more than twenty years:
“So this is the thanks you give for the favor I did you!” he cried. When Epitadas’ eyes shifted to him at last, he went on, “Yes, you remember, don’t you? The way you killed that other boy, and how you got away with it because Thibron took the blame. And why was he exiled? It was on my word!”
The other gave nothing but a sour smile and a chuckle, a little contemptuous hack, as he turned his face away.
“As you sit there you may ask yourself how many brothers would take such a risk. And yet here you are, stinking with a murderer’s pollution, presuming to pass judgment on other men! Isn’t it you who should feel shame, Epitadas?”
Frog jerked his chains with his excitement. “Yes, I had always wondered about that story! So Thibron was innocent, was he? Poor fellow!”
The oarsman, Cleinias, stuck his face down below his seat again, declaring, “Betrayal, recriminations, regrets… this stuff is precious! Pure gold!”
Epitadas was dwelling on his shame, to be sure, but not over Thibron. He was mulling instead over the fate of old Cleomenes I, the Agiad king from before the time of the Persian Wars. Cleomenes was one of the great kings in Spartan history-the scourge of the Argives at Tiryns, shrewd manipulator of Lacedaemon’s enemies. When Darius of Persia demanded tokens of earth and water to signal Sparta’s submission, Cleomenes had the Persian emissaries thrown in a pit, bidding them find their earth and water there. The king suffered his downfall shortly after, when he bribed the Delphic oracle to proclaim illegitimate his rival, the Eurypontid king Demaratus. When the sacrilege was uncovered, he fled the country and attempted to organize the Arcadians against Sparta; word of the revolt moved the Gerousia to invite Cleomenes back, but a life of intrigue had already taken a toll on his mind. The king went mad, lashing out with his staff at anyone he could reach. His family was at last compelled to imprison him.
Cleomenes decided he could not live with his shame. He was guarded by a helot with a knife. The king, using his natural talents of command, compelled the weak-minded man to hand it over. After ordering the helot from the room, he used the blade to flay himself alive, cutting the skin from his legs, working his way up his body until he carved bolts of flesh from his abdomen. When he had half disemboweled himself, Cleomenes called the guard back, returned his knife, and died.
Cleomenes’ end was a popular story among the boys of the Rearing, presenting as it did both a gory tale and an implicit challenge: under similar circumstances, would any of them have the courage to make his end just as emphatic? Epitadas had always declared that he had. Branded now by defeat, locked in the bowels of an enemy ship, surrounded by tremblers and low-caste Athenians, his time now seemed at hand.
He grasped the wooden stake in his sweaty palm, cherishing the prospect of his release. Until then, he would refuse every comfort, shut his ears to the words of friend and foe, and wait for the dark to prove his virtue.
X
Ekphora
1.
No effort of Cleon’s was necessary to spread word of the surrender at Sphacteria. It swept by horseback over the breadth of the Peloponnese, by foot messenger, and donkey deep into the roadless hills of Phocis, Aetolia, and Epirus, and by ship all the way to Italy, the islands, and Asia Minor. Wherever Greeks lived, men stood in the marketplaces and shook their heads-how could such a thing happen? Laconian wet nurses, who were popular amongst the nobility everywhere, were summoned to explain the news to their puzzled masters; where the Lacedaemonians fought the allies of Athens, such as in Thrace and Sicily, they found renewed spirit on the part of their enemies, who now saw them as fallible, even beatable. Some dismissed the story, preferring to believe it was Athenian propaganda. But the skeptics were hard put to explain how, if the story was a lie, Cleon was in a position to dedicate thirty full Lacedaemonian panoplies-a tenth of the spoils-to Apollo at his sanctuary in Delphi, and another thirty to Zeus at Olympia.
In Laconia, word of the disaster plunged the people into a common funk. The quiet orderliness of Sparta became a stifling silence, as if a great, invisible blanket had been laid on everything. The Gerousia met in emergency session, but no resolutions were passed, and no word of the deliberations leaked out. The Spartiates, meanwhile, kept watch on the helots, anxious for any sign of revolt. But most of the helots knew better than to display their true feelings. Instead, among those with a temperament for it, there was a deep, hidden flush of spiteful satisfaction.
Matters took a bizarre turn when a foreign trireme approached the Spartan port at Gytheion, its sail bearing the insignia of the Athenians,???. The sight of it pulling into the roads sent the town into a panic. Had the enemy decided to capitalize on their victory at Pylos by burning down the port? The population-composed of mostly Nigh-dwellers and helots-rushed to find any Spartiate from whom to take instructions.
But it soon became clear that this was no invasion; the trireme was not the vanguard of a fleet, but came alone. Closer, and a flag of truce could be seen flying from a jackstaff. The helmsman worked the tillers with an expertise rare among the Peloponnesians, picking his way through the crowd of merchantmen and penteconters, turning the hull broadside just as the crew withdrew their oars from the water. By force of momentum, the ship came to rest against the wharf with a gentle bump.
The Acharnians on the Terror’s outriggers kept their seats, eyeing the Lacedaemonians with smoldering contempt. The latter glowered back, hands on their spears and swords, until their attention was diverted to activity on the deck. Xeuthes leapt ashore first, wearing a leather corselet and boots but weaponless. After surveying the crowd around him, he turned to receive the handles of a stretcher that had been carried up from the hold. The stretcher had the figure of something like a man on it, covered with a blanket soaked through with blood.