The End of Sparta

a half-loaf of stale bread. In the torchlight he seemed an older sort, without any age, given that his fat filled out his wrinkles. But Gaster was a scarred veteran of the fighting in Asia; his left arm was a road map of tears and healed wounds. A seashell, hard and crusty, Gaster was, but his insides? They were long eaten away with drink and stab wounds, and bad food from Asia. He cared little when he crossed the Styx, since four or five times he should have already been across. So he was ready to stab or torch anything he wished on the shore, and pay whatever price he must. Near-dead men who come back to life think everything after is dessert. Gasters of the world live blink-to-blink only-always eager to test what kind of man can put them on the other side where there is only relief from the present ordeal. Such rough and loud sorts do well, until they meet a Chion, a like but stronger and more desperate kind still.

Alkidamas had met Gaster twice before hiring him-and so had heard all the stories of his missing arm. How Gaster and Alkibiades had warned the Athenians not to beach their ships on the sands at Aigospotami. How Gaster alone saw the warships of the Spartan admiral Lysander on the horizon. How Gaster was the first to get his trireme, the Parrhesia, into the surf. How Gaster took down five Spartan hoplites in the knee-high surf of the channel, until they swarmed him, spearing and stomping on his arm, and left him for dead in the tides. Finally how he had crawled in the water all the way to the tower of Alkibiades, who gave him shelter and whose doctor cut off his worthless stinky and green right limb and seared his stump with hot iron. None of these stories was of interest to Alkidamas, since Gaster was hardly a Spartan spy, and in any case soon Chion would be here to ensure their money was safe.

Alkidamas finally found the writer whom he had sent for, the young Ephoros, alone and quiet on the outrigging of the trireme. He was silhouetted in the moonlight and under a torch, the only one sitting still on an empty ship, oblivious and cross-legged. The frail historian had made it from his home in Athens with his cloak and papers untouched. The entire way from Athens to the Isthmos, Ephoros had sat there mute-and now still in the gulf, well after the mob of rowers had cursed and shoved and elbowed each other off the smelly boat. This other Athenian at last in a soft voice tried to speak over the tumult, but without looking up from his scrolls that he was busy writing on. He talked too softly to be heard clearly. “Don’t worry. We’re here. About one hundred thirty of us, my Alkidama, if that. One or two died or fell overboard in the tempest off Megaris, or maybe they were pushed. All in all, a short crew by many tens at least. Yes, short some rowers, but foul all the same. I don’t know how you are going to use these Messenians for much other than stone masons. I wouldn’t turn anything over to these thugs, much less an entire city. Compared to them, Gaster is an Athenian lord.”

Then Ephoros slowly got up. He was careful not to trip in the dark or rock the deck and began to stretch his slight frame and toss his golden hair back down his neck. Alkidamas saw why this thin wisp had won fame for his writing on Kretan boy-love. He had argued in his books that the rite had supposedly made the islanders more virtuous, but those pampered boys in his books were a different sort from the crew now of the Theoris. “Some of these scum rowers tried to pull my locks and pat my backside, as if I were some street whore. But the Messenian hoplites, the bigger sorts up here on top, have their armor and gave me a hand. You now give me a hand, man. We have till dawn to plot and plan. But I warn you that Gaster may well jump the starting blocks. He is a restless sort. He hates having his feet on land, where any can see his one arm, his woman’s thin beard, and his big belly. No wonder he likes the sea, where fish and gulls think he’s Adonis. He’s a sly fart, who stares into the water like a made-up woman with her mirror.”

Alkidamas waved him to stay put. He walked up the springy board to the outrigging. Ephoros was, as he remembered him from the previous year, of an age that was hard to gauge, with his baby face that wrinkled slowly. He was pale from his long nights with the stylus. But at least he had a strong nose and everything seemed to fit on him, except his floppy ears, which looked like the monkey’s saucers on the pots from Egypt. But why not the tall ears, when the writer must listen and sift the wind for gossip and rumor, for the purposes of Alkidamas’s war were in fact twofold: one to free the helots, and quite another to ensure that the truth of what they did reached the Hellenes. At least, that is what Alkidamas told Ephoros, who knew that Platon and Xenophon, older, wealthier, and aristocrats both, would either damn Epaminondas or ignore him-and that far more of the literate would read their scrolls than his own. But he was here nonetheless and would have come even without the urging of Alkidamas, who feared greatly the fame-and influence-of Xenophon in particular. For Ephoros knew this march would be a great thing and he thought he could write the truth of what would unfold, and that in itself would finally win the day against his better-connected and wealthier rivals. And he was pledged to follow these Athenians of helot birth all the way to Ithome and with Alkidamas teach them the ways of democracy. He had been writing furiously since the moment the Theoris had left the Piraeus. Ephoros had finished the battle of Leuktra, and now was working on the anabasis of Epaminondas as it unfolded.

This warship Theoris that Gaster had bought was leaky. Mice scurried in the hold, feeding on crumbs and excrement. For all Gaster’s talk, it was a foul mix down there, a bilge mess of moss and stink, as the sea seeped into bad planks of the hull. “Help us, Pythagoras,” Alkidamas yelled. “I said bring me a small trireme, not a floating sewer. Good Messenian rowers, not thugs and freed slaves. We’ll be lucky to make it halfway to the mouth of the gulf. I’d rather face Lichas than try my luck in this raft.”

“Maybe, old man,” Gaster barked in reply. “You’ll get your chance with Lichas soon enough. But when you drown it won’t be the fault of my ship. I’ve captained far worse and never lost a hull. These Messenian cutthroats row hard, even if they don’t quite know what they’re doing with their oars. All of them would give me a golden Zeus to get a chance to get back home to their Ithome. Next time you want me to row up in a new cruiser, pay with a pile of Athenian gold, not a few silver Theban shields. This Theoris of yours, or whatever it was once called, was ramming Korinthian triremes under Phormio before we were born.”

Lopsided Gaster then turned from Alkidamas and was strutting along the beach, calling at his porters in the black of night. “Where’s my fish sauce? Where’s my water? Three hundred hard loaves I paid for from these thieves at Aigosthena. Where are the bread baskets? Hurry now-or you’ll get none of Alkidamas’s silver from me. I want the ship stocked now. Get to it, lazy boys; this winter night won’t last forever.” Gaster with his one claw pulled his wool fleece tighter over his shoulders as the wind picked up. The captain waved a torch over his head that nearly went out against the icy blasts. He was proud that he had picked up this ancient trires among the wrecks at the Piraeus. He put in a few ribs and planks, and caulked the leaks. He bought oars cheaply and then resold them at a profit to the crew as they boarded. And he had no problem rounding up men, once Alkidamas spread stories to the Messenians of Athens who lived outside the Dipylon Gate of a new and free Messenia to the south. They were to get passage to Ithome for rowing and listening to Alkidamas prep them on the new constitution of the free polis of Messene. But on the sly Gaster had charged the helots another ten owls fare once they climbed aboard-and had knocked one into the harbor who had no coin. He hoped to make a quarter talent in fare and bribes on the voyage charging helots for what Alkidamas had already purchased. His Theoris was an Athenian brand, a small one, rumored to have been towed in after Conon’s victory, then beached when the shipwrights thought it too leaky and broken to fix.

Despite the crusty surface, Gaster had painted over the faded colors its new name, meaning “Sacred Mission,” on its bow in a fancy block script. Now he and Ephoros sat onboard while the crew foraged, waiting until their bodyguard Chion appeared from Plataia with Melon’s money for Neto and some bonus coins for Gaster. Finally before sunrise, the porters brought in bread and water. Gaster barked out orders. The crew lined up and began counting off. He sent the bottom rowers, thalamians, to the lower benches first. Maybe forty or so climbed in. Then another forty of the zygians. These were the middle rowers squeezed in on top of the lower set. Much later the elite thranites sat up on top, thirty at most who had some oaring in their past, or who had paid Gaster the most coin. Ten hoplites, swearing in their Messenian Doric, carried on their gear and were sitting flat on the outrigging, arms out to roll with the swells that came in, even at dock. Most below were soon pushing each other. They fell on the slippery planks and fought over their rowing pads, blaming each other for the farting and smell.

Gaster yelled as he balanced on the top deck. “Alkidama, it’s a small ship, not a fleet trireme. With you fatties up here and these heavy breastplate boys, we’ll have a slow go out against the wind this morning. Can’t any of you slobber-mouths row, or is it to be talk all the way out the gulf? Cold, are you? I’m sweating and need a breeze.” Alkidamas had never been on a trireme, and only once on a rolling ferry boat to Aegina. When he and Ephoros lumbered on top with the epibatai, the entire boat nearly keeled over.

“Careful, clumsy fools.” Gaster came up and slapped them down. “Sit with your knees crossed and don’t move. Do you want to beach us before we leave the dock? A ship’s not a dance floor. Hoa. Look over there at who’s coming. He’s late. If that’s your big man, O Alkidama. We have to put that slave-or is he a freedman now?- somewhere. I was hoping we’d swish out before he came.”