Philip II of Macedon, with key Greek city-states in submission, turned his attention to Sparta and sent a message:
"If I win this war, you will be slaves forever."
In another version, Philip proclaims:
"You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city."
According to both accounts, the Spartans sent back a one word reply:
"If."
Sparta
September 21
477 BC
12:55
There are times in a warrior's life when has to back down. No matter how deeply ingrained upon him it has been to never give, to never bow to the enemy, no matter that it is the law. There are foes so formidable, so merciless no wise men would fight them.
Spartan women are one such relentless adversary, so when my mother tells me that I will volunteer to go in Athens, I do not ask why, I do not try to argue; I take one last spoonful of soup, get up and throw on my cuirasse.
She laughs, "You can finish your meal first." Good, there are very few things in life I genuinely enjoy, and my mother's 'Black soup' is one of them, so I sit back, cuirasse unfastened and dangling around my neck, and resume eating, considering what I am about to get into.
Athens, the city of wisdom and paperwork… Last time I saw its walls was two years ago, after King Leonidas' death in the Thermopylae, the Persians had pushed all the way to the Athenian fields and were… Doing persian things, I assume. I was told they devised wooden shields on sticks in there, to shield themselves from the flimsy but abundant persian arrows as they went about their daily lives. Some even say the shields were made of these same arrows and are now used by labourers as protection from the sun. The folks of Athens are nothing if not clever.
I could not confirm these rumours, however; my mora and I were stationed at the Peloponnesian Peninsula, tasked with defending it from the invaders while letting refugees through -Athen would owe us a huge favor for this-.
Except the enemy never came.
I took us quite some time to realize that and much less to punish the Persian ground forces' arrogance while the Athenian navy did the same with their ships.
A year after the death of our king, the last Persian on Greek soil was turned into ash atop a burning pile of his kind. It has been a year since my brothers and I have known battle and now the Athenian messenger finally convinced the ephors to send a few warriors investigate strange lights in the sky, lights said to be abducting people at night.
I will not go alone, even though Plataea proved to everyone how deadly Spartans were even outside their phalanx, it was decided a group of thirty warriors should be sent with a few helots and provisions for two weeks.
Marcus will be Enomotarch and I will act as his Phylearch, which means I will be in charge of half the phalanx. Will be strange to serve under him again after so long, the only occasion he had to give me orders were during our daily war games and training. He is a strong and careful leader, wise beyond his years, whereas I am "Smart enough to argue with Pythagorean disciples, dumb enough to do so during an inspection, a spear's throw away from the barracks.", as Marcus puts it.
Behind me, Dionae enters the house, moving slowly in a futile attempt at stealth. Her tiny feet barely make any sound at all, but I was trained not to let anyone take me by surprise and have the scars to prove it. A normal man's mind filters out unimportant sounds when it believes itself safe. My training redefined "unimportant" and taught me I am never safe.
She pounces and I spin off my chair in time to grab the back of her head and dip her face in the bowl of cooked blood and liver. There is not much left, but enough for her to get it in her ears.
"Hello, little one." I greet, and she immediately answers;
"Hewo Ashos!"
"Athos, stop it…" I immediately let my sister go and take a step back just as my mother emerges from the kitchen, clean rags in hand.
That woman should have been a prophet, she can always tell what I am doing sometimes before I think about doing it.
I once asked her about it and she answered that she had been trained just as thoroughly as I was, just not for the same purpose.
My little sister is thirteen years old and just tall enough to kick a man in the groin, which I saw her do on many occasions to some of her more annoying… Suitors? Men of various ages dead set on being the first ones she'll hear "I'm sorry, this usually never happens!" from.
She's pretty, she's had her first blood and she is the daughter of a war hero. Mother and I know she's sweet on a boy barely older than her, but the lad is not through training yet, not allowed to take a wife for another five years.
She take my mother's towel and wipe the soup off her face. I can tell she came back from visiting him. It's mostly harmless, they sneak out in the fields or in the woods and talk for the boy's entire rest time...
"I'll get you some day!" She vows.
I smile and ruffle her hairs, "You will; once I'm old and senile!"
The lad she fancies is willing to trade sleep for a little time with her. I went through the same training, believe me, that means he really likes her.
"You're already old!" she laughs once I sit back, taking he own seat to my right.
"I turned twenty-one last month, Dio, that's not old by any standard…"
The instructors wanted to do something about it. I caught wind of it and advised them to reconsider. If I wanted to hurt them, the only people who could do anything to stop me, well, these people like me more than they like our former teachers.
"It is by mine!" She counters, before taking a bite into the piece of meat our mother puts in front of her. Cooked perfectly, although there is no way she could have known when the little girl would be home. See what I mean? This woman is terrifying.
But one battle at a time; "It is barely over a fourth of my military career…" I tell my sister, beginning to indeed feel slightly old. I'm not even a full citizen, not for another eight years, but with the war's casualties and my mora's distinguished service, we act and are treated as veteran soldiers nonetheless. Some of us are even openly married...
"That you spend sitting here and playing with your friends."
"Well," I begin, trying to find a fault in that, the training has become more lax recently, as have the restrictions imposed on us, because we're the ones tasked with enforcing these rules (And we don't.), and I'm about to offer a rehearsed excuse about adapting to a new kind of war and so on, before remembering the main topic, "Regardless, I am not yet old."
"And if he is, then what am I?" mother points out, faking indignation.
"You're my mother! Mothers don't grow old…"
"We just shrink and wrinkle?"
"Exactly!"
I scoff at the outburst but a lifetime in the military has taught me when to keep quiet.
Before the conversation can be carried further, however, I hear Marcus call his men to form up in the city center.
We are leaving, it seems.
I take a few seconds to put on my armor and helmet, then find my swords and finally take my shield from my mother.
"With it or on it," She reminds me, "And please try not to bring back any… Mementos, this time."
I laugh and nod. "This time I shall bring you flowers, then."
At Plataea, I used my shield to crush a Persian's skull and a large chunk of skin and hair got caught in a tiny crack, on the side.
I tried to get the thing out after the battle, but it was too slippery for me to get a good grip.
By the time I made it back to Sparta, the flesh had almost rotten away and smelled, let's say, quite strongly.
I sling the thing in my back and kiss my mother, ruffling Dionae's hairs some more on the way out.
Outside, in the center of town, Marcus is fighting with his spear, trying to find a soft spot on the ground to dig it in.
I pick up my own spear from against the wall and walk up to my comrade and commander.
He smiles upon seeing me and gives me a solid warrior handshake that almost huts my wrist.
Marcus is the strongest Hoplite I ever met, but also the slowest, which means by the time I had earned seven kills at Plataea, he was still in mid charge.
He quickly compensated, however, and finished the fight with his two swords shattered, his spear destroyed beyond any use and his shield bent inward.
By the day's end, Marcus had scored a hundred and seventy-two kills. Marcus is a Spartan warrior and we're not the humblest bunch. The real figure is most likely an impressive yet reasonable forty.
I barely got to half that number myself, but it is not important. We won.
Aeimnestus, Kratos and Demetrius are the only others I fought with, the rest are fresh warriors who just graduated from the reserve.
They are young and have never faced battle, but every Spartan has had to fight for survival from the moment we were capable of doing so. They can take care of themselves.
I throw my spear on my back and hang my arms to it while watching the helots load our provisions in backpacks. Half the slaves are female and scrawny, crumbling under the huge packs. The ephors gave us whatever they could spares and I am not complaining, but these helots will not survive the trip this way.
Now, I do not feel bad for the weaklings, but I cannot fight and cook at the same time… Well, I can, I just really don't want to.
"Men!" I order my part of the phalanx, take as many bags as you can carry."
No discussion; they grab the provisions and imitate me when I hang four of the bags to my spear. In addition to my armor and weapons, it becomes quite hard to move, but I love challenges.
Marcus does the same thing, taking five bags. Most of his men follow suit, but there is not enough provisions for all of them, so many hurry and fetch maintenance tools, spare javelins, spears and swords, a few even bring spare shields. Two of them grab portable smithing equipment that usually requires a horse or mule to move. One sees this and fetches mining tools and a tiny smelter from his own house.
We are carrying supplies for an occupation force twice our size, rather than a light patrol, a risk we would not take on a serious mission, but this is nothing of the sort, just a show of force to ease our neighbor's fears.
With that in mind, we set off, already grunting and sweating as we make it up the first of many hills.
To ensure this enthusiasm does not falter, with Sparta fading from view as we crest the hill, "Spartans, the first one to fall from exhaustion earns the honor of sanitary duty."
There's actually a few uneasy chuckles at that and Marcus bumps my shoulder, his helmet now off, leaving sweat soaked braids to flutter around his face.
"You realize none of them will stop until we get to Athen?"
I nod, "If the battle does not make it into history, the way we got to it surely will."
The Enomotarch smiles and re-assure his grip on the spear before jogging to the front of the formation. His load is so heavy, it dented the neck guard on his helmet. Marcus just hung the thing to the spear along with the supplies.
0
0
0
Athen's Outskirts
477BC
September 30
00:55
I suppress a yawn and massage my painful neck.
Ahead, Marcus and his men are belly-down in the tall grass, ready to rush at the first sign of trouble.
My men are waiting thirty paces back with javelins and a few bows, ready to bring the rear and cover the phalanx's advance.
Then, once we're out of javelins, the plan is to rush in and flank the enemy formation by forming a pair of micro phalanx.
Then we kill anything that's not a Spartan…
Except the slave we use as bait, anyway… She doesn't seem so scared, just sitting there next to the fire and knotting blades of grass into tiny baskets that she burns as soon as they're done.
Maybe she knows having Spartans watching over you means that you WILL see the sun rise again.
Some soldiers take the yearly war on slaves a bit too seriously; they go around, killing children, women and pets. Marcus was amongst them for precisely ten minutes, gleefully cutting through the ones brave enough to take up arms, but he has a gentle soul and the moment we reached the terrified mothers and sons, all standing their ground against desperate odds, I saw my brother's blood leave his face. He did not wait for the one sided battle to be over with, he came to me for answer immediately. His main question was why the slaves did not just escape in the confusion. Some of them do, as I've learned, only to return later, having nowhere else to go. Some die or actually find a place in the world, most of the time, that's what happens, we give them a good scare, the rebellious ones leave and we end up with just the docile and idiotic slaves. So we made a lot of noise, knocked down some doors and made a record number of war prisoners. Our bait was one of those. Hunched over a stranger's children to shield them from a blow that wouldn't come, she actually stabbed and bit Marcus' arm when he tried to pry her off them, definitely a rebellious one. I can't see why he let her live… Actually, Marcus is a man and she's a pretty girl, I can easily see why he let her live, I'm just not sure how he rationalised it.
Suddenly, she gets up and spins around to face us, the shadows from the campfire exaggerating the terror in her face..
"It's in the grass!" Is all she manages before being dragged away in the night, screaming.
The moon is very bright and I manage to pick out the trail she leaves in the grass. My javelin whistles angrily on its way.
It hits something and sticks at an agrle of forty-five degrees, a meter above the ground and half of it sticking out from the grass..
Light ripples along its shaft for a few seconds, then the weapon disappears.
Marcus and his group begin their organized charge, ducking behind their shield as they approach the area where the javelin was last seen.
A tall, pale and emmaiated figure appears in the middle of the field an my heart skips a beat. It's the helot, javelin in hand. She stumbles a bit, then stabs at something on the ground. She then gives it a hard kick that causes a loud metallic sound and a lot of pain, judging from her ensuing curses.
Marcus orders her to come back to my line and to retrieve the javelin, before continuing his charge, a dozen spears held ready and twice as many sandals crushing the grass.
The helot does not wait for an invitation and is by my side in five seconds, despite the fifty meters between us.
She hand me my javelin and I look at the tip. It has been bent by whatever armor the enemy wore, almost pointing backward now…
I straighten the tip with my thumb and hand the weapon back to the woman, who seems intrigued.
"You earned a weapon." I explain. She hesitates. "I'm a Warrior, not an ephor, I don't play mind games."
She finally takes the javelin and holds it close. She reminds me of Dionae, her face and all… I can't help but think the only difference between us is that was born to fight and her to serve. We are both slaves to our nation.
Unlike Marcus and the others, I feel no contempt for the helots because of their rank, only because of their weakness and the fact they let us push them around like cattle.
Marcus' voice brings me back to the scene ahead. "Athos, come look at this…"
I move forward with twelve warriors shadowing me, holding a perfect line, shields intertwined. No quite big enough to be a real phalanx, but close.
We cross the distance quickly and I find Marcus, Kratos and Demetrius kneeling next to something that seems to be no more than a large lump of bronze.
Then, it turns a lone eye to me and flails skeletal arms in a vain attempt to… whatever does it think it will do if it somehow reaches me? Shake hands? Tickle?
The thing has a leaf shaped torso and a cylindrical abdomen connected to two triangular 'feet' pointing away from each others .
The javelin seems to have crippled it, as it remains still even as Kratos pokes it with his short sword.
"Can you make it talk?" I look at Marcus, then at the prisoner, before finally asking:
"Can it talk?"
The hoplite shrugs. "Find out."
Great… The others form a circle around me while I dig my spear in the ground to initiate a dialogue. I speak Celtiberian, Latin, Greek and a few dialects from the north. I try them all.
"Who are you? Why do you take peoples away? Do you understand me?"
After thirty minutes without a single reaction, I must face it, that thing either speaks every languages I know or none of them, since it showed no particular signs of understanding to anything I said.
The helots have long since set up camp around us and are preparing it for the night. When you're this scrawny, you learn to make yourself useful, or you die.
"So?" Marcus asks, leaning against my spear arms crossed.
"It's not talking." I draw my short sword. The Enomotarch nods and I dig it in the thing's eye. It tickles all the way to my shoulder, the sensation quickly replaced with blinding pain akin to the most agonizing cramp in history.
The pain quickly subsides, replaced by a throbbing and slight numbness and my fingers are burnt, not seared, but red and painful, like a sunburn.
I am about to tell the others what happened when I realize my feet are no longer on the ground and I am floating. I look up and am blinded by an intense blue light.
"Spartans!" I hear Marc call, "Ready yourselves for battle!"
I kick around to face our leader and he tosses me my spear, already holding his ready.
All around us, Spartans are holding their shield and spears in readiness for the contact with whatever has assaulted us. There are also pieces of the camp being brought along, floating freely around us.
I snatch the spear from the air and place myself in combat position, braced for impact same as when I charged the Persians.
Whatever the enemy is, it will bleed before the last Lacedaemonian has fallen… Unless this is the hand of Zeus, in which case I am terribly sorry for always thinking you were kind of a jerk. Hades is much more likeable in my opinion.