The End of Sparta

No one had heard the bellowing of the approaching stranger. Now Chion was upon them, at the beach waving a torch with his good right hand, and then running up the plank out of breath. He seemed clumsy without two good arms, more so than Gaster, and he stumbled as he approached, but he had a huge iron sword strapped to his back and a travel sack hanging from the leather belt. Finally he coughed out his story on deck-and more than his usual word or two. “I came, Alkidama. On the third day as promised from last we met at Thespiai. I made my Marathon, running the whole way. All the way, from the army camp on Kithairon, all the way and with Melon’s money. But Neto-she’s been taken from the helots in the south, or so that Nikon says. Into the hands of the Spartans, into the jail of Kuniskos with a ransom on her head. For Neto, I ran. I saw Melon, outside Plataia. He let me take his money I pulled out of his well. Here, take it.” Chion threw down the sack of silver and collapsed on the deck, his cloak wet and his breathing heavy. “Oar. Where’s an oar? Give me a butt pad. I’ll row. Where’s the captain? I will watch him as promised.”

“Right here, one arm, right here. So you decided to come after all.” Gaster laughed at the idea of a clumsy crippled freedman pulling, and instead turned to his drummer and pointed to the sea. “Hey you, Keleuste, hit your drum. A beat, one not too fast. I’ll take us right up the middle of the gulf and then out westward.” Then Gaster broke off a half-loaf and handed it to Chion. “How do you like your one arm, brand face?”

“Like this.” Chion jumped up, grabbed Gaster’s chin beard, and pulled the enormous man down to the deck. He would have torn off his scraggly whiskers had not Alkidamas waved him off. Chion had already tired of Gaster’s brag and let him up slowly with a warning, “I came to watch you, fat man. Trick us, or talk like tricking us, and I’ll throw your head overboard. I would rather run to Messenia, so if I have to bleed you, it’s better for me anyway.”

Gaster gave Chion ten feet of room for the rest of the voyage and turned his back to him when he yelled. And with that, the Theoris at last went out into the black gulf to the sound of beating and fell heavy into the surf, bound due west out of the great gulf of Korinthos toward the sea of Sikily five hundred stadia away. For all the weight of the hoplites and the short crew and the leaky hull, this Sacred Mission made good headway over the black waves as the rowers began to chant and sing, happy returnees now on their last leg to Holy Messenia. Like the wings of some old bird of the sea that limbers up when it leaves the shore, the oars of the Theoris dipped and swung outward as the boat picked up speed through the gulf.

Gaster was calling out over the sea’s roar to Alkidamas. “I like this ship, Alkidama, like it a lot. Built with good seasoned fir from Makedon. Better than what they slap together these days. It has Phormio’s smell all over it. Let’s sell it in Korone and split the coins. Or don’t you want to give me a little extra for getting it here in one piece?”

Alkidamas ignored him, deep in thinking how best to find Neto and deal with Gorgos, if Nikon were right that he was the kidnapper.

All the oars were the same length, but only half the helots hit the waves in unison-even though they pulled from different banks. Too many of these beginners fouled their wood. The oars echoed as they hit each other. “So we row, Chion,” Alkidamas patted the freedman as the two sat up. Then he went himself to a top bench below the outrigging and began to pull in front of the slave. “You came as promised, as you always do, Chion. As for this new report, don’t worry, we will save our Neto yet-if as you think your Nikon is true in his messages, and Neto still lives and if she can be bartered for in the house of our Kuniskos at Ithome, wherever that is. A helot like Nikon does not run a thousand stadia into Boiotia for nothing.”

Chion nodded. He had not told Melon at the camp the prior night that he had met Alkidamas in Thespiai on the day Melon left for Thebes, and had been promised passage on his ship. That this Nikon showed up on Helikon just before Chion’s planned meet-up with Alkidamas made it even easier to go south. Indeed, Damo had told him to rescue Neto and to hurry with money to Aigosthena, and to draw on the wisdom of Alkidamas. Chion fell into his new pulling. He had given the horse to Myron, and covered a hundred stadia on foot over the mountain from Plataia to the shore, all that late day and night, and reached the ship well before dawn as promised. But he could not sleep. Not yet, not with the chance that Nikon spoke truly, and that Neto was caught in the hands of Gorgos. So he was still yanking on the oar with his good right arm until the sun came out, when all could see Helikon on their right and off in the distance Parnassos and the waters not far from Kirrha, as the Theoris continued westward out of the gulf. He pulled for Neto.

This rowing was far easier than pressing the lever of the olive-crushing stone on Helikon. These waves gave way to his strength in a way the stone smasher never did. Even with the sunrise, the hoplites were asleep on the outrigging, but just one or two were waking to the gentle surge of the ship. Chion could see tall forests close by on the northern shore of the gulf-good places for a man to live in the wild over there, with plenty to kill to eat. Soon the winter morning sun finally came out full, cold and bright. The sea calmed. Gaster turned into the light wind a little more and in caution began to hug the coast of Boiotia. “A good night and a calmer morning, and already halfway out. We soon make a sharp turn out of the gulf at the mouth and catch the tail wind to Messenia.”

Then something on the horizon caught his eye, and he turned to his tiller. “Hard to the coast! Turn full into Boreas. Take in the wind at our faces. Head right to Boiotia. Look at them, damned Korinthians. Six at least. Not pirates. But warships, faster than ours-and in Spartan pay. They’re pulling our way from all sides. Look, look at them, all good long ships with full crews. Right, right, we go right. Head for the north shore. Cut into the wind. Outrun them. To holy Delphi. Pray to Apollo. Row to the peaks of Parnassos. Ten hecatombs to Poseidon for our safety.”

The Theoris made a hard turn and had a lead of twenty lengths, and maybe five more. Ephoros in his trance about the great march kept on writing on the outrigging. But despite a sudden haze on the water and the morning glare, Chion already could see on the shore Phokians watching their race. The six triremes behind were closing the distance. Would they catch the Theoris before shore? Gaster went up and down the top deck, grabbed the backs of the necks of the hoplites, and pushed them onto the top benches right below. He took their breastplates and shields and began tossing them over the side.

“Row, fools. You down there, hand them up spare oars. All of you row. Row you boy-butt Ephoros and white-head Alkidamas. Row proktoi or you won’t have any scrolls left to write on. Give me an oar and I’ll balance out your slave. Between Chion and me, we one-arms will have two arms still, a good left and right each.” The epibatai climbed down among the thranitai and pulled with the rest. Ever so slowly the Theoris surged toward land on the northern shore of the gulf. There was a mob already forming at Kirrha, the port of Delphi, all waving for the helot ship to speed up. About a hundred or so rushed into the surf. These were Phokians who hated the men of the Peloponnesos somewhat more than they hated the Thebans-and they had been paid to harbor Boiotian ships if they came to shore in need. Some bent on one knee with shields and spears, waiting for the Korinthians to beach. Bowmen took aim to pick off the Korinthians if they neared the Theoris. Suddenly the pursuers veered off, about three stadia from shore.

The crowd waved in the Theoris that slid onto the shore. The helots climbed out and dragged the boat out of the water. They stacked their oars against the keel. Gaster had them carry their food up the path to the crowd that swarmed them, hawking dry cloaks and for a few drachmas offering them wood for campfires. “Look. Ide, philoi mou, ide,” Gaster yelled as he turned back to the sea. Another four triremes were joining the six, even as the friendly shore crowd of gawkers swelled and more Phokians came up in arms. Ten enemy ships were circling well out of bowshot, crisscrossing the rising early-morning whitecaps to keep the Theoris beached and off the gulf, as they relayed in and out from the bay far away at Perachora.

Phryne had sent Lichas the time and route of Alkidamas. And in turn Lichas had sent the Korinthians money. In return the Korinthian captains promised to keep ships from the northern shore from leaving the gulf. When the wind died, those on the shore could hear the taunts of the enemy rowers over the morning surf. “Cowards. Wide- butts, come out to fight. We’ll kill you for sport. We kill you still.” Gaster laughed and yelled back to the trireme that darted parallel to the coast. “Whoa. Maybe so. But we’re dry and on ground. You Korinthians. You can stay out there until you freeze. Drink your bilge.”

Then he turned to Alkidamas. “Well, man, we made it halfway, almost. Though I bet we could have hiked as fast on land as we made by the oars. This may be the end of our voyage, if these damned Korinthians decide to patrol in turn, five or so at sea, five or so replaced by fresh ships from over there to the south on the Peloponnesos.