The Queen of Sparta (6 page)

“Prince Sherzada, it is a rare honour you are being offered. Should you decline my invitation, I shall have no choice but to remove your head from your body.” Two of Mardonius’ guards moved their hands to the hilts of their sheathed swords.

Sherzada arrived with his men at the marshalling grounds, surprised to see several regiments had already formed up. Was Mardonius being unexpectedly generous? But he soon discovered that was not the case. Mardonius had forbidden native Persian cavalry from joining the raid, preferring to send foreigners to die in such a mission. Nevertheless, the Dahae insisted that they would follow Sherzada. Though Persian-speaking, by blood they were of Scythian stock and they preferred to serve under the command of a Scythian prince than one of Persian blood. Artabaz had added his indomitable Parthian cavalry to Sherzada’s force. The Parthian too spoke Persian, but considered themselves a separate tribe. These men were clothed from head to heel in chainmail, even their faces hidden behind a veil of iron; a visage almost as fearsome as that of the Greeks.

And some of the Greeks on the Persian side also came to join the raid. Asopodorus was there with his Dark Riders. The famed lancers from Thessaly joined them too, with their shiny wide
petasos
‘sun helmets’, and long capes. They were led by the rather large-framed Thorax, the bravest of the sons of Aleuas, their ruler. Then came the Carian light horsemen – proficient with both the bow and the javelin – led by the dashing and handsome young Dardanus, the favourite of their Queen, and Sherzada’s friend, Artemisia. Before returning to Asia with Xerxes, Artemisia had instructed Dardanus to offer his support to Sherzada as and when he needed.

Finally came the troops of Sherzada’s own blood – the Scyths. Among them the Amarygian Sakas – Central Asian Scythians who lived across the Amur River, or the Oxus at it was known to the Greeks. Then there were the Tigrakhaudas, the Scyths of the European steppe – named after their pointed caps. And finally came a single squadron of Sarmatian lancers, European kinsmen of the Scyths, wearing heavy fish-scale armour and round metal helmets. In spite of his misgivings about the whole operation, it was an exhilarating feeling as Sherzada raised his sword to order the advance. He turned and looked the horsemen behind and could not help but swell in pride. He was leading arguably the best cavalrymen from all of Greece and Asia against the finest infantry in the world.

And indeed before him, spread across the plains of Plataea, stood the very pride of Greece – armoured foot soldiers from two dozen cities. The Greek army was a veritable sea of shields and spears all melded into one long solid mass, with beautifully crested helmets and colourful metal-covered circular shields glistening in bright sunshine. With their eight-ranked phalanx stretching right across the valley, their appearance was even more formidable than it had been on the day of Cithaeron.

Sherzada scanned the ocean of shields before him; from the Athenians bearing the letter
Alpha
or the image of
the Owl and the Olive
, deployed on Sherzada’s extreme left to the Spartans with the emblazoned
Lambda
s – for ‘Lacedaemon,’ the official name of the Spartan state – on the extreme right. In between, Sherzada could recognize individual contingents from various city states by their shield insignias – the Greek alphabet
Tau
of Tegea; the winged
Pegasus
of Corinth; the
Far Seeing Eye
of Eretria; the
Flying Eagle
of ancient Sicyon, and the
Flashing Thunderbolt
of Hermione. The Greek army was a magnificent and fearsome sight to behold.

As Sherzada’s men began to ride along the river parallel to their lines, the Greek ranks became animated. Men began to shout at the top of their voices as commands went up and down and across lines. The front ranks of the Greeks brought down their spears towards the enemy while the other ranks in the rear pointed their spears to the sky in increasing angles. Sherzada knew the purpose was to deflect incoming enemy missiles, but this gave the phalanx an appearance not unlike that of a hedgehog – not very appetizing to cavalry on the hunt, he thought.

As he approached the river, he saw a small detachment of Greek cavalry ride off in a hurry. However, there were around three hundred Greek
peltasts
– javelin-wielding light infantrymen – blocking their fording point on the Asopos. At Sherzada’s signal, a shower of arrows found their targets. His Saka royal guardsmen rode forward and fired at the peltasts at close range. Their high-speed arrows punched through the peltasts’ light crescent-shaped shields with deadly effect. Those who survived this barrage tried to throw their javelins at their assailants but were checked by the lancers of Thessaly and Sarmatia, who tore through their ranks. Realizing the danger, some of the peltasts turned and began to run away. It mattered not whether they stood or fled, all were cut down by lances and arrows. In moments, three hundred Greek peltasts lay dead by the Asopos ford, right in front of the entire Greek phalanx. This was a salutary lesson to the Greeks, for none of them now dared to challenge Sherzada’s advancing horsemen.

The hoplites in the Greek phalanx began to brace themselves for they must have expected to be the inevitable contact. But, instead, Sherzada ordered his force to make a hard right, and led them in parallel to the Greek phalanx down towards their left flank. Soon the loud human voices, singing battle hymns, began to be drowned out by noises of wind, wood and metal. The shrill blaring of pipes filled the air, as well as mass clashes of the Greek spears against their shields. The cacophony was unbearable. Sherzada recalled how noisy a place a battlefield could be.

At his signal, his force broke from a trot into a gallop. Sherzada’s heart started beating faster, at first in time with the hooves of the horses, and then faster still. He had deliberately chosen to go around the Athenians on the Greek left flank, because the Spartan flank was protected by an excessively large number of Helots. The Athenians, by contrast, had only a company of archers and a single regiment of cavalry to protect theirs.

A swishing sound as shafts of arrows flew about him. Instinctively, Sherzada raised his shield a split moment before two arrow shafts smashed into it. Sherzada raised his right arm in the air and then pointed it to where the arrows were coming from. His horse-archers fired their arrows at full gallop. Athenian archers, unprotected by shields and heavy armour, fell where they stood. And then seeing their opportunity, the armoured Parthians rode down the survivors. The few who tried to escape were cut down by Asopodorus’ Dark Riders following up behind. The Thebans were thirsty, as ever, for Athenian blood.

The rest of Sherzada’s force poured through the gap created by the Parthians and the Dark Riders, the exact place where the Athenian archers had earlier stood. But then, out of nowhere, the Athenian cavalry. The Parthians wheeled away to avoid them. But not Asopodorus’ Thebans, who took them on with relish. Athenians and Thebans raised battle cries and insults as they charged into each other. Sherzada noticed that the commander of the Athenian cavalry wore no helmet. He was a young man, with his curly red hair waving in the wind. Sherzada suspected this might be the fiery Cimon, son of the famed Miltiades.

The battle hung in the balance until the Royals followed Sherzada against the flank of the Athenian cavalry. Cimon first ordered his men to turn and face them but then he must have seen the Sarmatians and Carians following up behind. He ordered his men to disengage and withdraw. Unlike the Athenian archers who had fallen to a man, Cimon had saved his horsemen to fight another day.

After that there was not much between Sherzada’s force and the Spring of Gargaphia. Most of the defenders fled as they saw the enemy horsemen bearing down on them. The few who tried to make a stand were driven off by a barrage of arrows. The Dahae were first to reach the spring and their horses began to churn up the water and the mud. The Parthians arrived next and quickly dismounted, rolling down rocks to block up the water supply. And just to make doubly sure the Greeks would not make any more use of the water, scores of fully armoured Parthian cavalrymen relieved themselves into the clean spring water.

Sherzada had been keeping any eye on the Greek lines, watching how they would react. The Athenian infantry was closest. He noticed that they were being directed by a lone rider. The Athenian leader was dressed in golden bronze armour and wearing a long black cloak and tunic. The horse-hair crest of his helmet was painted in alternating thick stripes of black and gold – like those on a tiger – matching the colours of his clothing and armour. Because of his helmet, Sherzada could not see his face. But his posture and mannerisms left Sherzada in no doubt that this was Artisteides, the new War Archon of Athens.

Years ago, Sherzada had told Aristeides of the day the two would face each other on the battlefield. Now he watched Aristeides order his foot soldiers to advance against Sherzada’s force. Aristeides had made a mistake when he had left his archers unprotected, but Sherzada could not expect him to make another. At Aristeides’ command, two battalions of Athenian infantry broke off from the phalanx and started rushing toward Sherzada’s men. To slow them down, Sherzada signalled his horse-archers to open fire. But the Athenian foot soldiers merely raised their shields in response as they continued forward. Some of the arrows found their marks; most fell harmlessly. In all of this, the Athenians lost neither speed nor cohesion. Evidently, Aristeides had trained them well.

So, Sherzada reckoned, it was time to leave.

CHAPTER 6

HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER

Sparta

Two days later

The Queen settled at the dining table and unfolded a parchment, waiting for everyone to leave before she started to work on it. Again, she found Euro’s cryptography atrocious. Though a shorter message, it still took Gorgo a while to decode it.

Afterwards, Gorgo put down the parchment and shook her head. Things were clearly not going to plan. But at that moment, she recalled her father’s words, “It is only in the midst of adversity, that we can test the greatest of our strengths.”

She heard a slight knock on the door, and called out, “come in, Agathe.”

A small voice called back, “it is me, Mother,” and Pleistarchus came in, dressed in his rough grey tunic. His left eye was slightly swollen; his arms covered with bruises and scratch-marks, presumably from the day’s combat training. Her first instinct was that of alarm. But Gorgo had told herself again and again that she had to accept the brutality of the Upbringing.

The boy seemed fine, and a little excited. He had the same look his father had whenever he won a battle. Gorgo wanted to know what had happened, though like his father, Pleistarchus often kept his victorious feelings to himself.

As Pleistarchus came up to her, Gorgo ran her hand through his hair, clearing it from his big brown eyes. He gave her the same look he always did when he wanted his mother to tell him a story, to inspire him, to encourage him. He wanted to be, tried very hard to be, like his father, the greatest hero Sparta had known.

Usually, Gorgo would tell him a story about his father, about some act of courage, some battle his father had won. Sometimes she told him about true events and sometimes she made up stories. The Queen wanted her son to feel proud of his heritage, of his kingdom, and that one day he would take the place of his glorious ancestors and lead Sparta’s armies to great victories. She got up, holding her young son’s hand, and led him outside towards the courtyard.

“I suppose you would like me to tell you a story?”

He nodded with a slight smile.

“About the battles your father won?”

The boy shook his head. “Not today, Mother,” he said, sitting down beside her on the steps. “I want you to hear about your father, rather than mine.”

It was the first time he had made such a request.

“Today, my team won the competition. I used strategy instead of force. Old Admiral Eurybiadas was there. He laughed until he cried. Apparently, Grandfather had used a similar trick to win a similar competition. He wiped his tears and said I reminded him of Grandfather.”

A smile came across Gorgo’s face. Her son had finally asked something she had been dying to tell him all along. But she had refrained. Pleistarchus had so recently lost his father and no one in Sparta wanted him to forget that he was the son of a hero. But though Leonidas was the quintessential warrior, he was not a statesman, and not a politician. Certainly, for Gorgo, her husband was not the king her own father, Leonidas’ half-brother, was.

Gorgo remembered her father, Cleomenes, as the most brilliant king Sparta ever had – and also the most unconventional.

“Well,” she began, “your grandfather excelled at everything he did, in war as well as in politics, in everything … except, perhaps, ethics. But he was flawed, as all of us are.”

It was a day she still vividly remembered. She had been sitting on these very steps by her father’s side. She was eight, or maybe nine. There was a pleasant aroma of the cinnamon and baking bread wafting out of the house, when Aristagoras, the Tyrant of Miletus, a city-state across the Aegean, came looking for her father. The exiled ruler had been hounding her father for several days; and he now come to their home with an enticing proposition.

Gorgo could tell that Artistagoras did not know what to make of her father’s appearance. Unlike the long-haired, bearded Spartans Aristagoras had encountered all over Sparta, King Cleomenes of Sparta was clean shaven. He wore his hair much shorter than most Spartans, simply because he liked being different. Like all his brothers, he was unusually good looking, and had a pleasant wry, almost mischievous, smile combined with a dry gravelly voice.

Rather than seeing a king on a throne in an opulent palace surrounded by courtiers in glittering attire and fearsome guards, the Tyrant of Miletus found a man in simple clothes sitting on his doorstep, playing with his little daughter. Cleomenes invited his guest to sit beside him –

a task Aristagoras clearly found hard, accustomed as he was to sitting on high thrones and luxurious cushions. Ignoring Gorgo’s presence – after all, she was only a child and a female one at that – he immediately engaged Cleomenes in conversation. Gorgo continued to sit quietly by her father’s lap, pretending to play. But her keen ears were taking in every word.

Aristagoras was one of the leaders of the revolt of the Ionian Greeks against Persia at the time, and the war had not been going well for the rebels. So he had come to Sparta to ask Cleomenes for military support not only to evict the Persians but also to rule Ionia. As the Miletan Tyrant offered immense riches for this endeavour, Gorgo saw her father’s eyes glisten. It was no doubt a risky venture, all the way across the sea, but the more Aristagoras spoke, the more Cleomenes became interested.

And the more interested he became, the more Gorgo became concerned. She pulled at her father’s arm. He did not react, and so she rose and tapped him hard on the shoulder. ‘Father,’ she said.

‘Please let our guest finish, my darling,’ said Cleomenes, giving her a quick glance.

‘But Father,’ Gorgo said, trying to regain his attention.

‘Shhh … sweetheart,’ Cleomenes responded, motioning Aristagoras to continue.

Frustrated, Gorgo got up, walked over and stood between the two, her back to the guest. ‘Can’t you see this man is promising you what he does not have … And his words are making you greedy, Father.’

Aristagoras went red, and then white. ‘Surely your Majesty does not think that. This is a private conversation, would you mind sending the child away?’ he asked.

It was a long time before Cleomenes spoke. ‘No, my Lord. I shall not send my daughter away. Instead, I must ask you to leave.’

‘Surely, Majesty, you do not believe the imaginings of a child?’

‘Lord Aristagoras,’ Cleomenes responded. ‘What you are offering is a very risky proposition and one that might not be in the best interest of Sparta. You are trying to inveigle me with your promises. If you will excuse me, I and my daughter have more important things to do, as do you, my Lord. You will be wasting your time by spending any more of it in Sparta. I wish you a safe onward journey.’ That was the end of the audience with the Tyrant of Miletus.

And as he left, somewhat in a huff, Gorgo’s father turned to her, kissed her forehead and said, ‘You were right, my darling. The greed of kings must never be confused with the interests of the State.’

As an only child, Gorgo was doted upon, but it was not simply indulgence. Even though she was not a boy, her father had decided that he wanted her to be his heir. To Cleomenes, it mattered not that it would be her husband that might one day become king and Gorgo only a queen. He knew from the start that his daughter was much a political animal as he.

For the average Spartan, it was bad enough that Cleomenes made no effort to look like them, it was worse that he chose not to think like them either. Spartans resorted to diplomacy and politics as a last resort, and only a poor substitute for the warfare they excelled at. For the Spartans to see their king prefer politics to war was perplexing.

But Cleomenes was, after all, a descendant of Chilon, Sparta’s greatest political thinker since Lycurgus, the legendary founder of the state. Long ago, Lycurgus had built Sparta’s state and society around security and military survival. But, much later, around a hundred or so years before Gorgo’s birth, Chilon came along and challenged this very notion. At a time when Sparta found itself fighting wars along all of its borders, against multiple enemies, Chilon said, ‘He who tries to defend everywhere, defends nowhere.’ Instead, he urged Sparta to ally herself with friendly neighbours and to use those alliances to contain or dominate potential rivals.

Cleomenes, of course, went a step further by interlinking the defence of Sparta to the politics of Greece. But all of this was lost on most Spartan men, who could not see beyond their own spear-points. They did not understand politics, nor want to. But for Gorgo’s father, politics was war by other means. He taught Gorgo that Greece was in constant state of conflict with itself and its neighbours. The only way to save Sparta was through the alliances which ensured Sparta’s military superiority and security. That is why King Cleomenes felt the need to intervene politically all over Greece.

Just before her birth, Gorgo’s father sent Spartan troops to help Athens liberate it from clutches of cruel tyrants. He also helped Athens expand its influence in central Greece, even at the expense of its rival Thebes. He provided the catalyst that gave birth to Athens’ proud Democracy. And still the Athenians hated him.

One evening, Cleomenes arrived in Athens with a small band of armed men, intent on overthrowing yet another regime. The wags in Athens claimed that he was doing it because of a woman, the beautiful young wife of an opposition leader. The Athenians said that he wanted to replace the existing regime in Athens with a friendlier one headed by his lover’s husband. But the truth was very different.

The young King Cleomenes had come to overthrow this government not because it was unpopular or because it was unfriendly towards Sparta – it was neither – nor indeed for the sake of any woman. It was because this new Athenian government was trying to negotiate an alliance with Persia. Cleomenes saw the rising power of Persia as a threat to Sparta’s existent and he did not want Athens to become its beach-head in Greece. He had arrived in Athens confident that his intervention would have support from the Athenian opposition, if not the Athenian people themselves. In reality, it did not. Nor for that matter did he have any support from Sparta for this Athenian adventure of his. The
Gerousia
refused to authorize a campaign to overthrow an Athenian government that had thus far done nothing hostile to Sparta. But Gorgo’s father went in any case, taking with him a small band of armed men, mostly his faithful Helots along with some non-Spartan mercenaries whose wages he paid himself.

The regime was easily overthrown and its leaders expelled. Cleomenes set himself and his followers up on the Acropolis as he went about reconstituting a new government for Athens. The Acropolis was located at the highest point in Athens and it was the home of the sacred complex of the temple of Athena Parthenos, where all the city’s sacred and public business was conducted. The Spartan King invited the citizens of Athens to witness the inauguration of its new leaders. And thus the Athenian people came, and in large numbers, but not in the way Gorgo’s father had expected. He had grievously miscalculated.

Angered that a Spartan king would try to impose his will on Athens, the Athenians rose up against Cleomenes and stormed the Acropolis, forcing him and his followers to take refuge in the Temple of Athena. Refused entry by the priestess because he was not of Achaean blood, he told her that all his followers whether Helots or mercenaries were, in fact, of Achaean descent, thus securing their entry into the Temple. Cleomenes then secured his own admittance by confusing history itself and blurring the difference between Dorian and Achaean Greeks.

So, for several days, Cleomenes and his followers remained besieged in the Temple on the Acropolis while an angry crowd frothed outside. Finally, in flagrant violation of their own laws regarding the sanctity of the holiest shrine of their city, the Athenian crowd stormed the Temple complex. The Spartan King, already exhausted and starving, was brought out and put in chains. However, as he was presented before them in this piteous state, the mob threw down their weapons and clubs, remembering him as the man who had earlier rid Athens of tyranny. The people of Athens hastily called to session what was to be their very first Democratic Assembly to try my father and his followers. Though the Assembly pardoned him and allowed him to return home in safety along with his Helots, all his non-Spartan followers, including sons of the noblest families of Greece, were executed as a warning against future attempts of this kind. But this did not deter Cleomenes. Upon his return to Sparta, he continued to hound the Athenians until they finally agreed to abrogate the treaty of submission they had concluded with Persia and ally with Sparta.