Gates of Fire Read Free Page A

days preceding and following the first Persian War. I was cast originally among the Spartan helots, the serf class that the Lakedaemonians had created from the inhabitants of Messenia and Helos after they in centuries past had conquered and enslaved them. These husbandmen, however, rejected me because of certain physical impairments which rendered me useless for field labor. Also the helots hated and mistrusted any foreigner among them who might prove an informer. I lived a dog’s life for most of a year before fate, luck or a god’s hand delivered me into the service of Alexandros, a Spartan youth and protege of Dienekes. This saved my life. I was recognized at least ironically as a freeborn and, evincing such qualities of a wild beast as the Lakedaemonians found admirable, was elevated to the status of
parastates pais,
a sort of sparring partner for the youths enrolled in the
agoge,
the notorious and pitiless thirteen-year training regimen which turned boys into Spartan warriors.
    Every heavy infantryman of the Spartiate class travels to war attended by at least one helot.
Enomotarchai,
the platoon leaders, take two. This latter was Dienekes’ station. It is not uncommon for an officer of his rank to select as his primary attendant, his battle squire, a freeborn foreigner or even a young
mothax,
a noncitizen or bastard Spartan still in
agoge
training. It was my fortune, for good or ill, to be chosen by my master for this post. I supervised the care and transport of his armor, maintained his kit, prepared his food and sleeping site, bound his wounds and in general performed every task necessary to leave him free to train and fight.
    My childhood home, before fate set me upon the road which found its end at the Hot Gates, was originally in Astakos in Akarnania, north of the Peloponnese, where the mountains look west over the sea toward Kephallinia and, beyond the horizon, to Sikelia and Italia.
    The island of Ithaka, home of Odysseus of lore, lay within sight across the straits, though I myself was never privileged to touch the hero’s sacred soil, as a boy or later. I was due to make the crossing, a treat from my aunt and uncle, on the occasion of my tenth birthday. But our city fell first, the males of my clan were slaughtered and females sold into slavery, our ancestral land taken, and I cast out, alone save my cousin Diomache, without family or home, three days before the start of my tenth year to heaven, as the poet says.

THREE
    W e had a slave on my father’s farm when I was a boy, a man named Bruxieus, though I hesitate to use the word “slave,” because my father was more in Bruxieus’ power than the other way round. We all were, particularly my mother. As lady of the house she refused to make the most trifling domestic decision—and many whose scope far exceeded that—without first securing Bruxieus’ advice and approval. My father deferred to him on virtually all matters, save politics within the city. I myself was completely under his spell.
    Bruxieus was an Elean. He had been captured by the Argives in battle when he was nineteen. They blinded him with fiery pitch, though his knowledge of medicinal salves later restored at least a poor portion of his sight. He bore on his brow the ox-horn slave brand of the Argives. My father acquired him when he was past forty, as compensation for a shipment of hyacinth oil lost at sea.
    As nearly as I could tell, Bruxieus knew everything. He could pull a bad tooth without clove or oleander. He could carry fire in his bare hands. And, most vital of all to my boy’s regard, he knew every spell and incantation necessary to ward off bad luck and the evil eye.
    Bruxieus’ only weakness as I said was his vision. Beyond ten feet the man was blind as a stump. This was a source of secret, if guilty, pleasure to me because it meant he needed a boy with him at all times to see. I spent weeks never leaving his side, not even to sleep,