The End of Sparta: A Novel (28 page)

“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.

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.