The End of Sparta

the water. Was Epaminondas blowing into Lakonia? Or was the gust from Ithome? Chion pressed on and would run for the rest of the night.

Back on Ithome, Erinna was stacking tiles on the roof of her school. The Thespian Chion from Helikon had not arrived as promised. So there was no ransom money for Neto. Only if they had the money, would they learn of the fate of Neto, though most of Erinna’s girls assumed that she was locked inside the compound of Kuniskos, or that her head already was impaled on one of his many trophy stakes. “Nikon-no Chion? No ransom. No silver, and no way inside the house of Kuniskos. And no Neto. We can’t wait any longer.” Erinna pulled a long dagger and slid it into a cotton sheath inside her chiton that she tied close to her waist. “This Chion of yours has gone off with his master’s treasure. Six days after you come and no money. You said he has one arm-but maybe the slow-cart had one leg? Or did the kryptes catch him? Or was his boat sunk by pirates? I go to this camp of Gorgos and free her or kill him-or both.”

Erinna showed Nikon a finely curved leg and picked up her bow-as she looked over at Nikon and said the one would lead Gorgos to the other. Nikon nodded and followed her down from the school, wondering how the Amazon without any silver would get close enough to Kuniskos to free Neto and assuming his own rangers would have to storm in with her. Their small band of four helots made their way over the crest of Ithome. Nikon stopped and pointed to the tamarisks and limestone outcroppings. “Look, soon there will be the great theater. On that hill, there is our Arkadian Gate to come. A stadium will rise down there in the low ground. With stone seats far better than any found at Olympia or Pythia’s sanctuary at Delphi. I’ve heard what this Proxenos promises us and I have his city laid out in my head. When he comes, the new council hall of a free Messene will sit atop the camp of the Spartans.”

Erinna kept silent at the idea of anything rising from these dry scrub pines and ancient oaks but she did not laugh since they were the days of flux when everything was not as it was and would be. She was at a loss as to how to free Neto once they reached the fort of Kuniskos. Poets like herself, she thought, are no saner than this wild Nikon. Who knows what twenty myriads might do if organized and inspired by her Epaminondas? “We both see things as we hope rather than as they are. I call out to the Muses, you to the dead helots of the past. But enough. Hurry, Nikon, if Neto still has her own head, hurry.”

It was not far to the compound of Kuniskos below, and Erinna led Nikon and his four helots, running down the gentle slope. Soon they were at the low-lying saddle and reached the edge of the scrub pine. The fort was in clear view, and they stopped their talk. Yet there was no way to storm the double wall and get to Neto, unless Erinna might be let in alone. But she had no ransom money, only the power of her voice. So Nikon and his guards trailed off into the brush as Erinna approached the path toward the Spartan guardhouses. The helots had no chance against a hundred Spartan hoplites and waited in a gully above the camp and would stay there until they heard the sound from the wooden whistle around Erinna’s neck. She first went into a small clump of bushes by the timber gate. There, despite the winter morning cold, the poetess pulled off her leather jerkin, leaving the soft linen that barely covered her arms and thighs. She left behind her quiver and pack. But Erinna pulled over a long wool cloak with a hood, rough and full of burrs and stickers, as if she had been on the road for days. Then she approached the guard up on the rampart.

“Hoa. You. Red-cape. Come here. Leonidas or Lykos may be your name? Or are you Lysander back from the dead? At least you have the look of a Spartan warrior man. I’m an Athenian bard, a rhapsodos. You see that, hear that. Yes? An Athenian. I’m a traveling rhapsode and music girl who can read out loud block letters. I entertain to the lyre. Let me in and out of the cold. I want a talk with your Antikrates or at least his henchman Kuniskos. I want help.” Now she shouted even louder to the man on the rampart, “Did you hear? Who’s in charge? I’m cold and numb and lost. I fear these mad helots and their damn cries of freedom.” Then Erinna threw off her outer hood and put her hands on her hips, and louder still cried, “And I can sing in the high strain for you and more still.”

The gate opened. Two Spartans approached. One was a young toothless sort, Klopis, who had hacked down three Thebans at Leuktra and reminded Kuniskos nightly of his tally. Now this Klopis grabbed Erinna and took her through the gateway and inside the double walls of the stockade and then all the way to the stone courtyard of Antikrates’s house.

The camp was an elaborate maze. Two parallel walls, both topped with sharp stakes, made a square. It ran about half a stade in each direction, with towers and a gate on each side. In the middle inside was another square, four wooden halls joined together, separated by an arch entry into the courtyard. These were the barracks of the young kryptes, at least of the few who were alive and served Kuniskos or who had not fled back over Taygetos. A fire pit was in the middle and hoplites came out of the stoas on all sides to cook their dinner and warm themselves from the icy blasts. There were guards at the gates of the outside walls and more still at the entry to the courtyard-everything built from massive spruce logs hauled down from the mountains above. Erinna quickly saw that the stockade was far too big for the garrison and that it would not last a day should the army of Epaminondas storm down from Tagyetos.

Kuniskos himself sat beside a brazier, with spits of lamb on the grill. His chair stood near the fire and a nearby table on the largest porch. Six spearmen, shivering in the cold, sat on cots and straw mattresses. He’d lost half his guard to helot killers and carried a spiked club wherever he walked. Klopis pushed Erinna forward. “Hey, Master, there’s a woman here. No helot. I brought her in, a stitcher of tales who walked over the mountain, or so she claims. No worry-she’s no Messenian from her speech. You can see that well enough. I think she’s a softie from Athens, and beneath that wool cloak of hers I smell rose petals and linen. She will sing and more for us-if we feed her and keep her safe from the murderers of the brigands under Nikon.”

“A singer, is it, woman-or maybe one of these rebels with a false sound to her speech?” Then Kuniskos stood up, leaned on his club, and laughed. “I am the leader, the harmost. Antikrates is over the mountain dealing with Epaminondas and his Theban pigs. Before I throw this saucy Athenian in the cage with the other one, let me hear her out.”

Erinna was already walking up to the porch of Kuniskos, then paused, hands waving about and head tilted back. “What do you want, my lord? Is it to be war songs from your Tyrtaios? Or do you want me to play some Alkman maiden sounds? Or then again, maybe a chorus of Euripides in more of your harsh Doric? Maybe Medea with her snakes up in her sun chariot? Oh, yes. I can give you all that to music, even the slow beat of Aeschylus and his Klytemnestra with her gory hands.”

She stepped closer to Kuniskos. “I can do all three and more-even a girl song about the loom. But let me near that fire. Those damn helots came down the mountain and almost got me. I hid in the glen behind an icy rock till they passed. They killed all three of my perioikoi guards, paid in advance for six days of passage from Sparta, where I have sung Alkman and even some Tyrtaios as they ready to battle the incoming Boiotians. Yes, I sang for crippled Agesilaos himself. But, Master, I need this wool off to dry out. Let me inside your halls, my dear Spartan.”

“Oh yes, yes, come here, strange woman. Certainly you will go in. But first, sit near Kuniskos, near my little fire on the porch. No need for my spearmen. I’m well equipped as it is, even though this poetess I see has muscles enough. No danger. She’ll have to play for me and whatever else earns her a dry bed and a rabbit leg or two for dinner. But, woman, tell me, where is our Melon, our Chion in all this?” He laughed when Erinna blushed at that. “Where,” Kuniskos pressed on, “is that faker we hear about, this Alkidamas? Surely you know all three, my pretty poetess? They all have a bad, bad way of letting friends like you dangle. They flee when they find no more use for them-and the tab for the sacrifices of others comes due. As you learn. Or did you not say your guard ran away at the first sign of a fight?”

Erinna said nothing back as if he spoke Persian or was a Scythian whose grunts gave no meaning. So Kuniskos jumped up, grabbed Erinna, and pulled her inside. As she was forced into the chambers of Kuniskos, she blurted out some Tyrtaios in rough hexameters, while the guards outside on the signal of their master retreated to the outer stockade. “Sit down, woman, and sing louder and have some broth before we dine and drink. Dance as well, yes? I have no flute girls so you’ll have to be both guest and entertainer. We’ll have the barley pulp they serve here, but some special bowls with a bit of hare’s leg and a dried leek or two. Then more wine for us both. A krater or two just to keep us dry and warm and feisty. But keep singing. No one here now. Just us. Your name, woman? Did you give me your name? I hear there are lots of poets in these parts and on the hill up there as well. But perhaps I know it already?”

“Oh, I go by Attis. Yes, I claim to be Attis, daughter of the trader Athenaios from the Piraeus. My family