The End of Sparta (22 page)

Proxenos frowned. “Perhaps. But you are the smarter one. You work with what you have rather than dream and idle about something you haven’t. Why, you can turn out more oil with this beam than four or five of the old-style rollers and hand-pressers in town. Still, your neighbors will gossip. They hiss that you’ll have no need of slaves with this machine. Without work, what will slaves do—set up a democracy with Epaminondas and walk as free as us?”

Ainias likewise teased his host. “You are no longer our friend—but instead act like some god who lives here on your Olympos with his henchman Chiôn. First a recluse, then a town-monger, and now what are you, my Proteus?”

Mêlon laughed. “A little of both. At least I know you are not another muster officer here to take us down to battle. Every time some stranger from the flatlands hikes up, one of the Malgidai dies.”

“Or goes into song.”

“Or rather you mean into Hades.”

Ainias turned from the fire, got up, and kicked the press, “We come to say good-bye. Our year after Leuktra here in Thespiai is over. The archons of the city are glad we are finished with their tiny walls—and the townsfolk won’t carry the stones any longer. Phrynê bade us hike up here. She never sees you in town as before—and wondered whether you had taken sick with the fever of the highland swamps, or had grown tired of her yapping. Or was it that you thought this toad’s big breasts had sagged to near her belly and were no longer worth the hike down?”

“Oh no, it’s the olives. Even this short crop proved too much. Now that Chiôn has one arm only, I have to pull the lever as I used to. I must finish before the muster.” He ignored the question of Phrynê below in Thespiai, whose breasts hardly sagged and which he, in fact, had never felt. Instead, she had turned foul in his eyes not because of her looks, which never dulled, but because of her slurs and her boasts and her hatred of helots and Epaminondas—and his suspicions that she was plotting against Epaminondas. Besides, she asked only about the missing Gorgos and talked only of Lichas, and seemed to praise Sparta more than Thebes.

“As I meant to say, we are heading south—to killing and to war, before Epaminondas,” Ainias offered. “Or at least as far as my lake at Stymphalos and then maybe down to the plain of Mantineia. The archon of the city, Lykomedes, promises to deal with the Spartans there. They are just sorting out Leuktra down there, and eager to get something back of what they lost up here.”

“Both of you?” Mêlon was puzzled, especially by the mention of Mantineia, the great killing-field of the Hellenes where the Spartans had once crushed Argos and her democratic friends. “What’s a Plataian doing heading across the Isthmos to Mantineia? Are you tired of the low wages of the Boiotians? Has it come to that already—an invasion into the south and in midwinter no less?”

“The whole countryside is not afire just up here. So it is too down there,” Proxenos said. “We know it. Hear it. See it. The end of Sparta is near. The men of Mantineia barred entry on the borders to King Agesilaos. He and Lichas are hobbling about the countryside trying to spear enough rural folk to settle them all down. The empire of the Spartans to the south is unraveling as we speak. It is for us to rip it finally apart.”

Ainias broke in with his thick Doric, tapping the broad beam of the press. “Proxenos goes south to build cities of my Arkadia—to oversee their rising. To finish two citadels that he has designed. They are not small. Not circuits like Plataia or Thespiai. No—vast and new, at Mantineia, with all the villages of the plains and hills inside. The first is done, or almost. Hellas has seen nothing like it since the days of the Cyclopes that stacked up the stones of Mykenai. He weaves the stones,
emplekton
they are. The walls in turn weave over the ground.” The Stymphalian pointed to Proxenos, who on that prompt pulled out of his leather bag a long papyrus roll. He spread it carefully out along the floor of the shed. But first Proxenos scattered straw beneath to keep the oil away. On the map there was a circle with carefully drawn small boxes and lines. A plan of sorts, of a round city of stone, but topped off with mud brick. Proxenos promised that this citadel was to have walls twenty-five stadia in circumference, with more than a hundred towers.

Below it, farther down the roll, Mêlon recognized sketches that looked like the new towers of Thespiai. But they were drawn to such a size that they were more like the ruins of Troy. Or maybe they were the old parts around the Kadmeia of Thebes that the Titans had built. As he looked at these charts of Proxenos, Mêlon scoffed, “These walls of your southern cities look Boiotian. Your corner drafts, and gates and towers, all are like ours. You’re building a Thespiai all over again, bigger, and many of them, to my eye—all for the southerners to keep out the Spartans?”

Ainias pointed to the towers. “Why else would he stay here for months in your one-whore town, Mêlon?” Then he looked at Mêlon again. “No, we can finish this new city in Mantineia in months, not years—and then head on for even more.”

“More? And finish what else?”

Proxenos ignored him. “For a man so smart you have become so dense. The Peloponnesos is on fire, in open revolt against Sparta now that its hoplites were crushed at Leuktra and Boiotia is filling up with hoplites. Just as Epaminondas knew it would be after the victory. Do you ever think why we are up here at all? Ainias and I are wall-builders—or rather fencers who are encircling Sparta with fortified free cities.”

“To keep them in or out?” Mêlon was puzzled since he had only crossed the Isthmos once to fight at Nemea, and even then knew nothing of what was really down south.

“To keep them inside their own land and out of everyone else’s. The days of the Spartan kings coming northward up here are over. Leuktra proved that. What happened in Boiotia will eddy into the Peloponnesos. Once more, we will crush the head of the serpent and leave free people to surround Sparta. There will be Leuktras all over the south.” He was almost childlike in his ramblings, a real
nêpios
—and sounded suspiciously like Nêto in her zeal. But Proxenos went on still. “We didn’t start all this. A free city in new Messenia and a free Mantineia and a free Megalopolis would be the locks that keep Sparta chained—forever.”

Ainias broke in, “You see, Arkadians have plans for something even more grand still. They will build a second ‘big city,’ a
megalê polis
that will rise with walls higher than even those at Mantineia. Proxenos promises me he has drawings on those other newer scrolls wound tight in his pack.” Ainias went on. “Mantineia is not more than five days, maybe six with the winter mud and rains, from this farm. We have no fear to get there. The Korinthians let us through at night. We started the tenth course of the city circuit last month. The people are also waiting all the days for news of Epaminondas, waiting for him to lead all these new men into Sparta itself. Mantineia will be the great way station for the armies of Epaminondas before they make the final descent into Sparta itself, the gateway to our new Hellas.”

Proxenos interjected. “Mêlon, Mêlon. I don’t understand it all myself. We are caught in a divine madness to mount ladders and hammer in the iron clamps. Thousands of free men, maybe fifty thousand and more, are at work south of the Isthmos. They bring their towns into one fortress, a walled circle in the plain, the greatest
synoikêsis
of our age. We are living in the great age of stone. Build a city on a grid and the people will at last think like right angles.”

But Mêlon asked the two, “How can you bring your goddess Dêmokratia by force, if men there won’t do it themselves as we did? And I doubt most of these bounders outside our walls here are following Epaminondas for democracy.”

“Who cares what they think, only that they will march and they will free the unfree. And when has democracy not come from force, and with help from others? At Athens? At Thebes? Please. My friend, name one polis.” The shed grew quiet as Proxenos finally calmed. Ainias took a quick glance to see if anyone was about, since the dogs had started up again. It was only Chiôn. He had seen the light and come down with his big knobbed stick in his good hand. He said nothing as he walked in and sat down. The two seemed to have feared his presence and worried that he had been listening outside to their talk of maps. Both ignored the blood that spattered his cloak and was smeared on his stick.

Chiôn murmured, but bolder now as the free man and lord of Helikon that he had become, “Was hunting. Go on. I came here to press. But don’t you two waste our time. Not with your big cities and freedom and all that in the south. Just kill the Spartans. Then leave. Build nothing. Put away your maps. Kill the bad before they kill the good. Then go home. If southerners are worth being free, let the Peloponnesians get their
eleutheria
themselves.”

Proxenos ignored him and backed out, facing Mêlon. “We are leaving tonight on the big road over the pass of Kithairon and then down to Eleusis. We came to part, not to drag you off again.” Ainias interrupted Proxenos. “We have not seen Epaminondas in days. He was up in the north, where good men boast of a great march. For the better souls, the promise of this new attack is to free those from Sparta in the south. For the worse you already see them in the fields drifting in hopes of profit and plunder.”

Ainias finished with, “Mêlon, send one of your boys to Thebes with our message to Epaminondas. Tell him as promised we are marking a winter trail for his army with tall stakes with red paint on the tops, all the way to Isthmos—among the friendly towns that set aside food and more when the army comes.”

Mêlon turned to his guests. “Be careful as you hike out from Helikon, since there is some man-beast out there that took Dirkê’s Thrakians, and maybe Hippias as well, the master who wanted back my Myron. Though at least this forest bear strangely kills the right men.” Then he raised his voice in further warning. “Remember as you dream in this shed of cities and battles, the king, the better of the two kings, Agesilaos, is on the acropolis of Sparta. He remembers his dead weak partner Kleombrotos. He stalks. He limps. He knows who killed his favorite Kleonymos. And cut down Deinon. And ended Sphodrias. He plots to tear the work of Proxenos down, of outsmarting the next plans of Ainias. Always the hated Epaminondas must be on his lips—our Epaminondas that he must kill if he himself is to survive. To win a war you must always imagine how your
enemy
thinks to win it.” Mêlon went back over to the press before the two left. “Remember the good warnings of Nêto. But enough—farewell and go safely.”

“Farewell, hero of Leuktra. You are on the lips of Hellas—and yet sit in the wilds of Helikon, in filth at the press. But not for long, not for long.” The two left down the trail with torches that Chiôn had provided. They trampled out heading to the south, despite the warnings of Mêlon and the prophecies of Nêto.

Chiôn looked at Mêlon. “I was a better hoplite than I am a husband—and a better killer than I will be a father. The fury of revenge Elektô flies above my head. She won’t let me alone—ever. I saw one of the Kêres as well. The hag was perched up in the high orchard, waiting, waiting.”

Mêlon caught the flash in his eye. “You cannot even hold your shield chest high—and you talk of walking to the end of Hellas to kill yet more Spartans and our Gorgos? No, stay here with your son to come and the boys of Lophis to finish the harvest. But I’ll take your Xiphos if you will spare him for a few days. Tomorrow I ride to Thebes to learn news of this muster, and when these strangers will leave Thespiai and head south. I have half a mind that our crazy Epaminondas really does plan to march in the winter.” Then Mêlon pressed on, “In the meantime, you hike over to the farm of dead Staphis. Learn from his Theanô when or even if Nêto left.”

“I saw Theanô this morning,” Chiôn sheepishly offered. “She says in two days there will be a word fight, a real
ôthismos logôn
, at Thebes. Bigger than we saw before Leuktra.” Then he spoke more softly. “One last thing—did you know that months ago our Nêto left Boiotia? Not long after she left our farm. Gone to that city on the map of Proxenos. That new Mantineia. At least if it’s really there. Theanô promised to keep silent about her leave. Now all word of her is lost.”

“I feared as much,” Mêlon said. He did not add that he had already decided to go southward to find her. “Don’t pull so hard, Chiôn, it is a press, not a trireme.” Mêlon shuddered as his friend with one hand yanked back ever farther on the lever of the windlass, in worry that either the lever or the stone itself would shatter before the strong arm of his friend gave out.

Chiôn stepped back. He had two long scars from Leuktra on his jaw to match the brand mark on his cheek. His forearms were all torn and creased. His good right arm was malformed from overwork, though stronger than ever from its stacking and terracing. His scars and wounds appeared more a storybook of the Boiotians’ fate, both good and bad, past—and future. And now Chiôn pulled harder on the lever still to remind Mêlon that his one arm was stronger than two of most hoplites, and that he could break man or machine as he pleased.

CHAPTER 17

On the Road to Thebes

The next day Mêlon put a stouter lever on the machine for the one shattered the evening before. He was careful to tell Myron to keep Chiôn from it. His three grandsons were gleaning the trees for the last remnants of the olive harvest in the upper orchard. At last he made ready to ride over to Thebes—just for a day or so—to learn of the great march to the south. Perhaps if they could get to the south and kill Lichas, then would come real peace? Not likely, since Lichas was symptom of the Spartan malady, not its cause. Mêlon shrugged as he reflected that the iron laws on the farm are the same that govern men. Pride and honor are deathless and deep within the hearts of all men, who always find those to convince them that the taking of what is not theirs seems easy. Those who would stop them are few and weak. Even when Epaminondas freed the Mantineians, these friendly Arkadians would turn on their liberators in new worries that Thebes was too strong, and Sparta too frail. So often do good deeds earn bad ones. So often is magnanimity seen as weakness that earns contempt, rather than appreciation and gratitude.

Once again this moment marked another of Mêlon’s great changes in his heart. Indeed, this desire to go to Thebes—and beyond to the south if that were to be the decision of the assembly and if he heard word of Nêto—was his third turn of mind and heart since Leuktra, from the recluse to the new Thespian busybody to now something in between. He worried whether that blow by Lichas had addled his wits and made him wander off the path of wise counsels of
to meson
—the constant, sober way of farming. Still, the worst thing for any man, the new Mêlon figured, was not dying at Leuktra or being spurred to the south in Lakonia with Epaminondas to burn out the nest of the Spartan wasps, but letting weaker others try what he could do far better.

No, he feared most to live idly, like the horse lords of Thespiai—risking nothing, enjoying their wine, bending over their flute girls and slave boys, watching their bellies fatten and their arms shrink as they aged and passed into oblivion, mere shadows of men that were forgotten by their sons. Instead, most good demanded risk; most bad was always without it. He wanted nothing of such a soft peace that wrecks as often as war the cities of men. After having talked with Ainias and Proxenos on their way southward, Mêlon was once again reminded that he could stomach the Pythagoreans and their talk of helot freedom—if they at least acted, and risked their all for some great thing. Mêlon cared not so much for what this great thing Epaminondas planned was in the south, even if it were as wild as freedom for the helots. Although a sort of Pythagorean himself, he had no real philosophical interest in freeing the Messenians—only that it should be great and big and lasting, something on a grand scale that Malgis had once attempted with the farm on the slopes of Helikon. Of course, he would now follow Epaminondas mostly because he wanted vengeance for the death of Lophis and the maiming of Chiôn. And Mêlon was convinced that he somehow alone could bring back—or save—Nêto when others would not. All that urged him to leave the farm a second time and in hopes of going southward to Sparta and to Nêto in Messenia. He would go to Thebes, not to enjoy the city, but only to endure the evil as a means to his end of finding Nêto and settling up with those in the south.

All this Mêlon mused over, as he led Xiphos down the hill to Thebes. He left at midmorning for the ride of eighty stadia. If he pressed, he would be at the hill of the Kadmeia in Thebes not long after noon. But Mêlon did not take the main road to the capital. Instead he went south on a detour for a while on the Thisbê way, the same wagon path he and the two slaves had taken to Leuktra. He didn’t like passing on the busy path by the sanctuary of the Kabeirioi anyway—those eerie priestesses who floated about the roadway and sometimes shook down offerings from the lone wayfarers. Shrieking women with masks they were who came out of the brush and pointed their bony fingers in the face of the traveler. He had hit two before and didn’t wish to strike a third when time was short. On the main road he used to shout as they came into the middle of the path. “Leave the road, foul harpies. Make way before I put fire to your masks and shrouds and ride you down.” They parted, feebly throwing pebbles in his wake, screaming “You will all die with Epaminondas, you who forsake the old gods.” No, he would miss the Kabeirioi and gaze instead at holy Leuktra.

After a bit, Mêlon took the next fork and the narrower trail south and eastward to the field of Leuktra. He trotted Xiphos over a low rise, where he could see the battlefield among the rolling hills. There he stopped at the new marble monolith of the Boiotians—planned by Proxenos of Plataia. Scaffolding and a winch stood alongside it. So did piles of pig bones and ash from the masons who had camped out by the battle trophy. The column was almost finished save for the moldings. A bronze statue of Epaminondas was planted on the plinth high above, sculpted by Xenon, the apprentice of Aristides himself.

This was foul country for Mêlon. Lophis must have fallen not far from where Mêlon sat at the base of the
tropê.
Yes, it was near the spot perhaps where the Spartans had first been turned. His body had been dumped not far away at Kreusis, where the road led on down the cliffs to the gulf and the shrine of foul Kallista. Mêlon walked over the ground where he had killed Kleombrotos and picked up relics that had been missed by plunderers well more than a year after the battle. Here was the butt-spike of a broken shaft, Spartan from the look of it. Had it gone into Chiôn, Lophis, or Staphis? Mêlon sat for a bit. He drank some vinegar water, with sharp garlic and white cheese that Damô had packed. Then, feeling sleepy, he lay down near the monument’s base and drew his fleece cloak over him for a brief nap out of the winter wind. Closing his eyes, the farmer immediately was on that mountain again, in that now familiar stone cottage. More dreams came of bowls of hot food on the table. But the diners with him were huddling by the wall or in the corner and the soups were foul to the smell. All were ready with raised weapons as shadows came to the door. He never seemed to find out what followed from all that. Then suddenly a voice, one he should know, jeered him.

“
Euia
,
euia
, there.”

A jolt or something loud woke him. But it was a shrill, raspy, and unfamiliar voice in the world of sun, not dreams, “Wake up, sleepy man. We hear you snoring even from here.”

Mêlon jumped up at the sound of what he took to be Lichas. He had his hand on his spear, grabbing his sword scabbard with his left hand on his shoulder should he need to throw first and then close with the blade. He would hit the first of them, then stab the second in the hand-to-hand.

But the two figures that approached him could not have been sadder to the eye. They halted as they saw the Thespian hoplite plant his feet for battle. The caller proved to be an older man, far more wrinkled than Mêlon. He hobbled up on a walking stick. He was helped by a young boy. If the elder one had once been broad at the shoulders and showed that in his youth he might have been a stalwart fighter in the first rank, the younger other gave no sign that he ever could do such a thing, so thin he appeared as he neared. And he was a bit audacious as he spoke first: “We found you at last, the hero of Leuktra. You must tell us how the Thebans won here at Leuktra. They say the Stymphalian Ainias fooled the Spartans with his
loksên
attack and left wing and fifty shields and all that. And did Epaminondas really spare the allies of Kleombrotos so that they would join him in the south? Is it true that the Pythagoreans always attack from the left, or was that again the smart work of Ainias, the drill master from Stymphalos? Tell us, please. We are all ears now. But first, how can Epaminondas plan a march this last month when his tenure ends at the first of the year? Is he a renegade? An outlaw? How will he come back in time or does he not fear the noose? Oh, and how many bushels of grain will it take his army to get to Sparta, and how fast do you Hellenes march, and do the Boiotians spear as well as the men of Arkadia? And do …”

He would have continued, had not his old master slapped him twice to silence him. “Keep still, my little barbarian, before strangers. Quiet unless you want three welts on your cheek. We have not yet introduced ourselves to our sleeping lord. And down here in the civilized south we do not speak so rudely without a warning first of who we are.” Then the old man continued. “Stranger, he tries, this Melissos does. But be careful. As I now warn, and as you just heard, he may not be as dull as he seems; his bad eyes dart about even if his mouth stays shut, and see more than mine or perhaps yours as well.” Then the man finally extended his arm, “But my apologies. I am Alkidamas, student of Gorgias, born in Elaia, a man of Asia. I need no introduction to you or to your clan. I hear that you are to stay in Thebes during your trip, which I don’t think is as sudden as you thought.” He paused, as if he had said too much, but then went on, far more slowly. “I am often a Theban, it seems. Though Athens is now my home, and, as I said, I claim Ionia as my birthplace as you can tell from my speech—so I am an itinerant.”

Mêlon was relieved they were not robbers. He found the old man a good sort and was struck by the boy’s spirit, even as he kept noticing that the boy’s dark arms and legs were like the thin reeds of the lowlands by the Euripos. His long nose was sharp and bony even without much flesh. All that was made even funnier by being stuck between squinting eyes that were not so much crossed as half-closed and bleary. This boy seemed to have suffered from the blurs. That was the curse of Zeus that made men squint with their weak eyes that could see little more than the palm before their face. He had some fuzz on his chin as sign of his age. But it gave no sign that it would ever be any more than that. He didn’t look quite Hellene at all. Instead the youth had a darker, barbarian look to him, with low bushy brows, like a northerner, maybe Epiriot or even a Makedonian with the short forehead. Before he replied to this strange boy, Mêlon paused in his approach. For a bit he was thinking how the gods sometimes bedevil men. They put into one Thersites like this, Homer’s ugliest man at Troy, all the physical lapses that others abhor. Only with difficulty are these eyesores to be endured if such ugliness can be trumped by cunning, or at least by spirit. The more Mêlon stared at him, the more it seemed that a strong wind off Helikon would have blown this boy into the marshes. His hair was like chaff in the wind, sticking in all directions and not to be combed. How could such a fellow ever amount to a man of any worth? Through audacity? Luck? Cruelty?

The older man Alkidamas had seen Mêlon smile at Melissos. So he now saw an opening and continued nonstop, “As I said, please excuse the boy, you won’t see northerners like him here in the south. He is young and not one of us, and knows too much for his own good. But now I will tell you more about him—a barbarian, as you have guessed. Maybe ten and three. Or at least between fourteen and fifteen years, though he claims he knows less about how old he is than we do.” The man went on still more, as Mêlon listened to his word-flood dumbfounded. “Our Pammenes got him as a hostage for Thebes to ensure those lying kings of Makedon up above Tempê keep their oaths about the peace. This boy Melissos is a pledge: If they invade, he dies; if they keep north, then after his year he goes back untouched. They say he is of royal blood. But who knows? Even if he is as important as they think, he still looks more like a Thrakian beggar than a Makedonian royal to me. He has a name I suppose. But I forgot it long ago and so call him Melissos—a honey gift from the general Pammenes to carry my bags, at least for the rest of his year. Those sticks he has for legs and arms, I’ve also learned, are of solid oak. Stronger than yours, old man, I wager. But then he is not quite what he stutters he is. I’ll be sad to give him back when the hostages are returned in the spring. Yes, he says little, watches everything, cares for nothing. I’d say he was a spy, but the blockhead has nothing to spy for. But enough of me. I know you are Mêlon, son of Malgis, of the line of Antander on Helikon, killer of King Kleombrotos. How fine finally to catch you here at the scene of your
aristeia
of last year.”

Mêlon at first did not like the sophist in him, and thought,
rhêtôr
. Another wind bladder. He earns his silver by not working. Then he made plans to leave them both, or so he thought. “Old man. I was just leaving this ghost field. I have another half-day or so on the road. I’ve decided for the rest of the way to lead my Xiphos. The pony has not been off my farm on the hard stone for a year or more. So forgive me for leaving now, but I don’t go in with strangers on the road, whether old men or the infernal Kabeirioi.”

“No bother at all,” the sage cast back with his wide smile as he pointed to Melissos to follow. “We are going your way to Thebes. No doubt Thebes you head for—even by your roundabout way? Your Zeus on Olympos apparently guides us where we should go, since we saw your servant Chiôn this morning in Thespiai, not far from the house of Phrynê. We were going to walk up to your farm until he told us to head you off on this detour.” Mêlon had not yet said a word in answer, and the man continued. “I’ve wanted a word with you for some time. But some such thing always bars my path to your vineyards—whether that cold wind on Helikon or these bony legs that tire from the hike. The battlefield is so much nicer for talking than catching you on the main road to Thebes by those dreadful Kabeirioi that even we Pythagoreans fear. And with all these bounders in the countryside it will be safer for three of us than one.”

Mêlon paused and at last said his first word of greeting. “Did my Chiôn talk to you now? But he—like my Nêto—was freed by decree of the people of Thespiai, and so can say what he pleases. After Leuktra I have no slaves. But you, our architect of liberation, apparently do? Your boy here has a pack on his back large enough for the two of you.”