7.
For the next month, Antalcidas had no contact with the world of adults, but instead lived as freely as some wild thing sprung straight from the soil. No one came to feed the boys, but at the height of summer the trees and gardens and vineyards were heaped with food for the taking. After gorging themselves on fruit, they would go down to the swift Eurotas to drink, and then lie on the rocks as the rays of the summer sun filled them with warm indolence. Twilight was the time for deer and jackals to venture out, and so too for the squad to use the shadows to stalk helots. Soon enough Antalcidas was in the forefront of these attacks, coming at last to relish the look of terror on the faces of grown men as he came screaming upon them. The excitement plucked every string of muscle and tendon with the music of unabashed, consequence-free cruelty. With such power, he not only lost his fear of the dark, but came to take night and cold as his natural allies.
One by one, the amenities he had grown up with-a roof, hot food, clothes-became distant, even absurd to contemplate. The sound of human speech itself was stripped away, becoming in those days a rare thing to be indulged only for purposes of organizing war parties. In time they at last stopped calling him “Grub” and named him “Stone,” after his deadeye accuracy with a thrown rock. But Antalcidas, having learned the essential unimportance of words, no longer cared what he was called.
He stopped missing his home. After two months of sleeping under the stars, he could visualize the constellations more easily than the features of his mother’s face. Looking up from his bed of rushes, he imagined he had a new family all around him; the lines of an old poem of Alcman, still sung by the older boys, echoed in his mind: The upland gorges are sleeping, laid among peak and crag Hushed by rushing waters As the nation of beasts enwombed in the black earth Keep the silence…
His packmates all came to look alike, their faces and knees caked with the same dirt, their feet hardened by the same calluses, their eyes burning with the same appetites. Older men coveted them when they glimpsed them in the forest, like prize game. Birthmark taught the younger lads to masturbate like men, standing up as if to piss, legs together. In the end they deposited their seed all together in a communal hole in the ground. Antalcidas wrung what he could into these viscous masses, imagining perhaps that the mingling of masculine essences would give life to the soil, like the warriors of Theban Cadmus sprung from the earth out of dragon’s teeth. Women who came upon these wet spots puzzled over them; men who had gone through the Rearing understood-and smiled.
By the fall Birthmark-whose real name Antalcidas never learned-passed into the lowest of the senior age- groups. Beast took over as their leader, and boys younger than Antalcidas entered the pack after him. He bullied them in turn, calling them “Grub” just as he had been. Helping his inferiors to struggle, adapt, and finally to mature made him believe in his own wisdom. Besides learning where the best berries grew, and which leaves to chew to settle an upset stomach, and where to obtain the sharpest cutting stones, he imagined he understood at last how a boy acquired manly virtue.
But he still had a lot to learn. Just as the chill of autumn mornings bit harder, the single cloak Endius had given him had become reduced to moldy, moth-eaten uselessness. It was no longer so easy to find fruit on the trees. The olives were not ready yet, and not many grapes were left on the vines after the harvest. Beast showed them how to stave off the pangs by chewing thyme leaves. He also showed them that, in a pinch, crickets and ants were edible (the former tasted like dry sticks, the latter like almond). But it was hard to eat his fill of these. The hunger gave him a constant headache; he found himself attracted again to settled places, where he thought he might steal some bread or cheese.
The boys were sometimes diverted from this torment by the intermittent presence of Thibron, son of Proclus. A smiling, handsome figure with preternaturally white teeth, Thibron was a Firstie-a member of the highest age- class, poised to leave the Rearing and embark on his career as a fighting member of the army. One of the duties of a Firstie was to school his juniors with advice and games. Thibron kept Beast’s pack on the run with a steady stream of physical challenges, calling on each of them to exceed the exploits of the rest. “Which of you can climb this tree the fastest?” was a typical dare. Others were less innocent, such as “Who can take a punch in the chest from Beast and not flinch?” or “Who can stay facedown in the river the longest?” or, most ingeniously, “Who can bring me some hairs from the leg of Isidas the Ephor?” Fulfilling these tasks broke up the monotony of long afternoons in the hills. It also gave Thibron an air of diabolical excitement-when he appeared, no one was sure what might happen.
But there were even greater dangers on the roam. The worse thing that could happen was to blunder into a gang of older boys, who would make them pay for their lack of discretion. This happened only once, during an afternoon when Beast led them down to the Eurotas to drink. Their favorite spot was occupied by a pack of fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds. During the chase Frog was caught from behind. Antalcidas heard him scream as the enemy gathered to kick him. Circling around, Antalcidas found a good round stone and, without thinking of the consequences, threw it at one of Frog’s tormenters. The rock struck its target square in the back.
“Ow! What was that?”
“Somebody threw something.”
“Where?”
They peered into the woods, but Antalcidas was well hidden among the laurel and holly oak. He had another stone in his hand, in case they came after him.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Somebody’s in there-I can smell him.”
“C’mon, let’s go,” said their leader, looking down on the supine Frog. “This little shit isn’t worth it.”
After each offered a parting kick, they left him on the ground. Antalcidas crept up, eyes and ears open in case their withdrawal was a trap.
“Are you all right?” he asked Frog. “Can you walk?”
The other boy moved his limbs, said something unintelligible, but otherwise made no response. Antalcidas turned him over to examine his chest and stomach. There were red marks there that would soon ripen into footprint-sized welts.
“Stone, what are you doing?” asked Beast, who was suddenly standing behind him.
“He’s hurt.”
“Got the wind knocked out of him. Hey, did you throw rocks at them?”
Beast had a look on his face as if he’d caught Antalcidas using a girl’s spindle.
“I did… but only because there were so many.”
“I didn’t hear that.”
“What was I supposed to do? There were five of them!”
“Listen, rocks are fine for punishing helots. But in battle, against real enemies, you don’t demean yourself by couching behind a bush and throwing things. Don’t you know anything?”
“I know you weren’t there to help.”
But Beast was already walking away, shaking his head.
After the new year they heard again from the boy-herd. The pack was summoned to the crest of the acropolis, where it was met by Endius and a man they did not know. Endius had the boys sit on the slope below them, obliging them to behold their teachers framed against the open sky. The boy-herd wore a simple tunic with one shoulder bared; the other man was dressed for war, with crimson cloak, short sword hanging from a leather baldric, and conical field cap made of felt on his head. His shield rested against his leg, its great lambda insignia-for “Lacedaemon”-facing out.
“Those who have lived thus far, congratulations,” Endius said without welcome or preamble. “The first part of your education is over. Today you will begin to learn what you need beyond survival. You will learn what it means to be a citizen of Sparta. Listen.”
He looked to the soldier, who leaned forward as if he was about to draw his sword. But instead he confronted them with a poem: I would not say anything for a man nor take account of him For any speed of his feet or wrestling skill he might have not if he had the size of a Cyclops and strength to go with it Not if he could outrun Boreas, the North Wind of Thrace not if he were more handsome and gracefully formed than Tithonos, or had more riches than Midas had, or Kinyras too, not if he were more a king than Tantalid Pelops, Or had the power of speech and persuasion Adrastos had, not if he had all splendors except for a fighting spirit. For no man ever proves himself
