The fox, p.52
The Fox, page 52
The man was allied to Thebes. That meant they did not want to fight. But, with only slightly more than a thousand citizens in all Sparta, could we risk another fierce action.
“What do the Thebans want.”
“They want a good deal. I think they would settle on having you out of their country.”
I asked the shade of Sphodrias to forgive me, and voted to accept the truce. There was more important work to be done in Sparta.
We had withdrawn to Megaran territory when we saw an army marching towards us. For the first time since leaving Sparta, we broke in disorder. Their step told us who they were before we saw the lamda on their shields. Friend rushed to embrace friend. Brother to brother. Father to son, and son to father.
As Meleas examined his son’s leg, I thought of that boy in Helen’s courtyard stalking a butterfly. He would march again, but he would never take an olive crown in the long race.
Hekataios bounded up. We spoke at the same time, barraging one another with questions. Pityas embraced the pale Magpie, and took some of his weight from Kallias. Not far behind Pityas, I spotted the black head of Aristeas, touched now with grey at the sides.
Aristokrates held out blistered hands. “We turned rowers for you,” he said. “Aristeas, show them your hands.”
The Corinthian’s elegant hands bled like a melleiren’s after breaking rushes. “Herakles took an oar for Jason.”
“Why didn’t you leave it to the younger men?” I asked.
“Archidamos wanted them fresh in the van.” The Corinthian’s eyes went to the Spartan commander. Archidamos stood a bit apart from all the joy of reunion.
“There will be no fighting,” Kallias said. “We agreed a truce. I’ll explain it all later. Some of the men are saying the gods maddened us, but I would not blame it upon the gods.”
“Kleombrotos?” Aristokrates asked.
“Certainly not Kleombrotos. By the gods, he was the best commander I ever had. Sphod’ is dead.”
“I know,” Pityas said. “They read out the names of the slain in Sparta. What great pride you have in Dexippas, Kallias,” he spoke formally “his name will be–”
“No. No. No.” Kallias interrupted. “His name will not be written. That was all a mistake. Don’t you see him over there, telling Anaxandros’s nephew what war is all about? And embellishing his own part, no doubt. How go things in Sparta?”
“Leonidas won the eiren’s boxing in the Leonidia. Leo’,” Aristokrates said.
“Antalkidas is going to stand for ephor,” Pityas supplied. With each piece of news, the void that was Sphodrias intruded.
Kallias looked towards Archidamos. “Someone had ought to tell him how well Kleonymos died. It is his right.” And when no one moved, “Leo’, you are the only survivor of the lad’s tent companions.”
I went to Archidamos. We sat down and talked quietly. The son of Agisilaos concealed his fox manfully.
“I went to the Gymnopaidia with Argileonis and Meleas,” Kleonike said. “We were waiting for the men’s chorus to come on.” My wife’s haunting, singing voice was quite ordinary, but pleasant in speech. Now she spoke in a flat monotone. “A bird flew on to the dancing floor, and started singing. Everyone smiled and looked at each other, the way people do in crowds when something amusing happens. Even the foreigners.
“Eurydame did not smile. She looked ill. She knew. We did not, but they told her. Your mother was with her. She is splendid, your mother. I could never be like her–”
“The gods are merciful. Sorry, I interrupted–”
“I asked Argileonis and Meleas to excuse me, and went to Eurydame to ask her whether she was all right. Then the men came on to sing. I thought she hadn’t heard me, because she did not answer. When the men finished singing, the chief ephor walked on to the floor. He told us about the battle near – Leuktra, is it? Then he called for silence, so that he could read out the names of the slain. First. He said that the King was dead. Eurydame started to get to her feet. Your mother pulled her down, and said, ‘Put a smile on your face, Sister. Show these foreigners how Spartans behave.’ The foreigners started to leave, but the chief ephor told everyone to remain where they were. He regretted having to interrupt the festival. It would continue when he had done. He read out the names. Name after name. So many. Polydora looked as though she had been struck by a thunderbolt. Oh, Leotychides, Kleonymos! And Sphodrias too. That good, kind man. When they came to Dexippas, Gorgo called out, ‘Doriska, what a proud woman you must be!’ Doriska smiled and called back. ‘Share my pride, Gorgo. For I know you loved my son as a nephew, although he was but your cousin.’”
“Dexippas was an error, and I wish they would stop all that, before he thinks he must get himself killed to live up to his glorious death.”
“Is it true that Kleombrotos might have lived if they had not drawn the spear?”
“A few days, perhaps. No more.”
“When the chief ephor finished the list, people crowded about Eurydame, praising Kleombrotos.”
“Where was the young Queen?”
“She sat a spears-length from us. There was a crowd about her, too. Eurydame still did not speak. I doubt anyone noticed. Your mother spoke for her, saying how proud her sister was.”
I was certain everyone would have noticed, and said how splendid Queen Timaia was; but it was true my aunt’s silence would have been forgotten, in all the praise of my mother. Few noticed my aunt when my mother was with her. Age may have finally defeated her beauty, but her presence she retained.
“She spoke about her pride in her nephew, and, when someone mentioned that you had been wounded, she looked shamed that had been all–”
“Wounded? I was not wounded.”
“I could put an apple in the hole in your thigh.”
“Well, don’t. It is still painful.”
Usually, Kleonike’s smile was easily tindered. But the familiar laughter in the corners of her eyes, and the almost inaudible sound that accompanied it, did not materialize. Her face was expressionless as her voice.
“I went with Eurydame to her litter, and walked beside it back to Sparta after the festival. She kept saying ‘Only boys, Timaia and I. Sons and grandsons.’ I don’t know what she meant. I doubt she did, either. We passed your mother on the road. She walked between Leonidas and Agis. She was smiling. Her eyes sparkled, so that her face reminded me how beautiful she had been. The next day, mourning for Kleombrotos began. I beat the cauldron lid, but kept to the house to hide my shame for having lost no one, and I thank the gods for that shame. I did slip out after dark to visit Eurydame. She was sitting in that chair of hers alone. When I came in, she said, ‘Kleonike, Agisilaos murdered my son. Pray the gods not to let you outlive your sons.’ Leotychides, why did so many die?”
“Let it pass, Kleonike. It is over.”
Of course, it was not.
BOOK FOUR
Chapter 23
It was the day the Council meets.
Chairon detached himself from a group of his fellow elders, who stood near the agora shrine of Zeus. His straight back belied the pure silver of his hair. He wore his elder’s gown as if it were a warrior’s short cloak.
“Fancy a stroll, Leotychides?” he asked.
That meant that he wanted a private word. There were many ears in the agora these days.
We turned into Leaving Street, speaking of trivial matters, passed the Cattle Price House, and came to a dead halt. I looked towards the acropolis.
“What’s the matter?” He laughed. “Think I’m too feeble to make it up that hill? Or is your leg giving you trouble?”
“It has healed well. If it weren’t for the indentation, I’d be quite unaware of it.” We started the ascent. “Did the Inspector of Boys ever decide who won that mock battle? Your son’s army or mine?”
“He gave the decision to Doreius. I understand Agis argued that a fatally wounded man can still kill.”
He was right. I wondered who had told him. “Well, the rules are, when you’re stuck in a vital spot, you are dead. The Inspector was just.”
It was high summer. The wild cherries were ripe, and the olives beginning to be tinged with purple. The rounded peaks of Taygetos stood guard over the City. Safe. Solid. Eternal.
“Pity that disputes between cities can’t be settled by mock battles.” Chairon reflected. “Accursed shame about Kleombrotos. He would have been another Archidamos.”
“War is something of a gourmet, Chairon. It devours only the best.”
He started to say something, but a number of people were coming from the Bronze House. We did not turn that way, but went past the temple of Aphrodite of War and the shrine of Zeus to stand at a quiet edge of the hill. Alone, Chairon became brusque and purposeful.
“Look here, Leotychides. I know that you and Kallias, and my wife are up to something...” I did an about turn, as if I were looking at the Victories in the western collonade. No one was within earshot. I turned back. “I don’t know what it is,” Chairon continued, “because I told them I did not want to know. But, by the gods, the man has gone too far.”
“The man?”
“Agisilaos. Even his moderation is excessive.”
I replied this or that. I would have trusted Chairon with my life, but we had agreed no one would be taken into confidence until all voted so.
“I should have joined you after the matter of the Leuktra deserters.”
The men who retreated, when they saw us retreat in order to carry the King to safety, were lawfully deserters. There was a great number of them, and they had not fled the field in fear. The Council could not bring itself to condemn them to a lifetime as outcasts, and had passed the decision to Agisilaos.
“He made the right decision, in my opinion.”
“I have no quarrel with that. But what sort of Council is it that delegates its decisions to a king? And one who made us the laughing stock of the Peloponnesos, at that?”
Athens was again showing two faces. She had refused aid to the Thebans, but she gave the mercantile party in Mantinea enough arms and money to put itself back in power. The first thing it did was to break the alliance with Sparta. Walls started rising about the four villages again.
Agisilaos led an expedition against the Mantineans. It was a failure. Were any state in Hellas in doubt about our weakness after Leuktra, he made it clear to them – by offering money to the Mantineans to rebuild their fortifications, if they would defer the work until it was less embarrassing to him. They refused.
“That was afterwards.” I was still evasive. Chairon’s eyes glittered. “He showed the weakness of his own position, as well as Sparta’s, by that offer.”
I returned to the safety of the original topic. “Agisilaos was right to suspend the law that once.”
“I have said I have no quarrel with that. But it sticks in my throat to see him treated as a little law-giver. Leotychides, you are clearly bound by secrecy. Tell your colleagues, or your band, or whatever you call yourselves, that you can count on the support of twelve old men, who voted against giving that power to Agisilaos. Dare say I could tell Gorgo and Kallias myself – but, at my age, it is hard to climb down.”
There were few citizens who came back from Leuktra without having resolved that something must be done. That something was a nebulous determination in my mind for weeks. When I clarified my thoughts, I spoke to Kallias. Who burst into laughter. “We considered you, Leo’,” he said. “But we ruled you out as too lawful.”
A group already existed. As well as Anaxandros, Pelles and the commander of a decimated regiment, there were men who had not fought at Leuktra; two Polemarchs, an immediate past ephor, and a former chief ephor. Several such groups existed, but it took some time before we discovered one another, and merged into a single movement.
The movement grew so large that it became unwieldy. Leaders were elected. We met in numbers of six, and not always the same, so as not to draw attention to ourselves. Our meetings took place in one another’s houses at the midday meal. An early autumn made it seem natural to sit long over our wine, after dismissing the servants.
We were not seasoned plotters. Even after Chairon brought in the Elders, we sometimes found that what one meeting agreed was contradictory to a decision taken by a simultaneous gathering. Generals who had made rapid decisions, which won us victories in the field, argued about petty details barely relevant to the plan. Nor were we even agreed upon that. Some saw it merely as a way of ridding Sparta of Agisilaos – whilst others, like myself, saw the removal of Agisilaos as a step towards bringing back the whole of the Law of Lykourgos.
Events pressed. The Corinthian traitors failed in their attempt to return to power, but Athens promoted similar moves in Megara, Sikyon and Phlias. These were Peloponnesian cities; and Sparta, citadel and shield of the Peloponnesos, must be prepared for the intriguer.
“We need Meleas, too, Leo’.” Kallias said, after one particularly embattled session. “He’s a good negotiator.”
“With Athenians. I don’t know whether he could manage Spartans, who are all on the same side.”
I broached the subject with Meleas one afternoon, as we threw the discus.
“I know what you are going to say, Leotychides, and I do not wish to know.”
“It will achieve more than shouting defiance at members of the secret police.”
“Perhaps. But I draw the line at regicide.” His throw went awry.
“Meleas, I am nearly forty-three. Not a hot-headed youth of seventeen. This is lawful. We are moderate men.”
“You? Moderate?” He laughed. “Your nature is two wild horses that you kept in tight-rein all your life.” he appeared to consider. “Well, perhaps that is a moderate man.”
His fears were calmed when he saw a former grand admiral, and a distinguished member of our own hall, at his first meeting.
The rich Mantinean, whose activities had so amused Sphodrias, partially succeeded in realizing his monster city. Work on the public buildings of this Megalopolis was well-advanced.
The Arkadians are the oldest people in Hellas. Its cities the most ancient. Not unnaturally, they rejected the proposal of this madman to bring the whole of Arkadia under the rule of his upstart city.
Lykomedes responded by the slaying and abduction of rulers who defied him. Sparta, shield of the Peloponnesos, did nothing except give asylum to the exiles who fled to Lakedaimon in hundreds. Lykomedes called on Athens to crush the Arkadian cities that still resisted. Athens refused. He then turned to Epaminondas, who agreed to support him with Theban arms.
In a pathetic attempt to regain esteem, Agisilaos led another expedition against Mantinea, but did nothing more than waste some of the countryside. The ruse was unsuccessful. Everyone in Sparta knew he dared not waste Spartiate lives in a major assault. Nor was he in danger from the Mantineans, who were waiting for the Thebans to do their fighting for them.
“I wonder if we’re not wasting our time,” Kallias speculated. “Agisilaos may put the poisoned cup in his own hand.”
“To pass to another.” Anaxandros scoffed. “He is the withered tree that lightning never strikes.”
Leuktra had changed Anaxandros. His wounds healed, but the careless rest he carried into this middle years was gone. He was no longer the Magpie.
“So we have agreed,” the past grand admiral said. “It will be during the Hyakinthia, when most people are in Amyklai.” We were meeting in the Menelaos House that day.
“Should it be during a festival?”
It was on this point that we dissented.
“There will be no blood shed. It is best done when the City is not full. Then, when Agisilaos has been abducted–”
“Not abducted.” The polemarch cut in. “Mistress Gorgo will have a party of youths and maidens waiting outside his house with garlands, to accompany him to the sanctuary of Herakles; to honour him. Then Leotychides’s men will respectfully escort him to his lands and detain him there, while the Council prepares the accusation.”
The former chief ephor frowned. “The Council can try a king, but it is not empowered to arrest anyone.”
“We’ve been through all that.”
“Not while I was present.”
“The emergency committee of the Apella will agree the arrest. Leotychides, you are not thinking of using Lesser Spartiates, are you?”
“He has already said he is not.” Chairon snapped.
A servant announced Chief Ephor Antalkidas. A shocked silence ensued. Eyes swept about, searching for the traitor.
“Show him in.” Meleas spoke, with his usual composure.
Antalkidas took his place amongst six people discussing the Persian wars, and exchanged a brief glance with the gods. His short ephor’s cut hair broadened his now fleshy face.
“You know,” he said. “If you were all trying to draw attention to yourselves, you couldn’t have gone about it better.”
“I do not take your meaning, Antalkidas.” Meleas put a slight chill in his voice.
“My dear Meleas, you have denied Sparta the sound of your lyre for months. Admiral, that bad leg of yours, that precludes your teaching, doesn’t prevent you from walking briskly to your hall. Leotychides gave his training-chariot to his son. Mistress Gorgo no longer judges maidens’ games, and so on and so on. No, you all forsake your usual activities for the pleasure of the midday meal in the company of friends.”
“That is not unlawful.” The polemarch barked.
“No,” Antalkidas replied coolly. “But conspiracy is. Do you think prominent people go unnoticed by the secret police?”
“And what have they to report?” Chairon scowled his dislike of the man. “That we had black broth today and none yesterday? What is there to notice?”
