The End of Sparta

them, every one a match for a Spartan and nearly as good as ourselves.”

The Theban Sacred Band joined the Argive Thousand. In fear, a groan rose among the elders of the Arkadians and Mantineians that the northerners would kill their Lykomedes this very night, as he slunk off into the shadows. Nonetheless, Sinon, the olive picker and demagogue of Mantineia, nodded at his master Lykomedes. He was the right fist after the left jab of Lykomedes and pointed at Pelopidas and also swung at Epaminondas. “Your work is done, Theban. Declare victory. Set up another trophy with another horse and rider in bronze. The great city of Megalopolis is about done. With Mantineia you have your two democratic fetters of Hellas to keep chained the defeated Spartan beast. After all, it is we the neighbor, not you the distant foreigner, who must keep the Spartan animal in our nets.”

“I need three fetters, Sinon, not two,” Epaminondas yelled out to the throng. “With chains, not webbing, for a monster like Agesilaos.”

Sinon stood up again. It was clearer in the firelight that he was a plump sort, with soft hands and a shape like some shadow-tail squirrel whose back legs were twice the girth of his tiny claws in the front. He gestured nervously to the audience, as if he were gnawing on a winter nut. He was not as good a speaker as Backwash of Aulis but he was a braver sort who wished to humiliate Epaminondas, not just to abandon him. “Lords of Boiotia, you can vote as well, either to face a stoning in Thebes, since the new year will be upon you in three days-or to face death with the helots when the Spartans break out of the blockade and go on to hit your backsides as you march to your west.” A roar followed. But heads were already turned back from Sinon-who had six large bags of Spartan gold from the agents of Agesilaos in the bottom of his wagon beneath the tiles. The sudden noise was not approval for Lykomedes from the Mantineians or the Eleans on news of their departure in the morning but rather wonder at the shaggy man who entered the arena and stood next to Epaminondas.

Hundreds were pressing toward the center as the mob contracted and then surged around Lykomedes, who desperately tried to break out. This new intruder looked more like a wild Epiriot than a man of civilized Argos, with unkempt beard and hair-and a long, dirty leather under-jerkin beneath his bronze that fell beneath his knees. The Argive Thousand in the front yelled out, “Kill him, Epiteles. Kill them all, Epiteles. Epiteles.” He pushed aside Sinon as he entered and sent the wide-butt onto his backside. Lykomedes stepped back, but the wild man hit him, too, harder than he had Sinon. A black cape covered the heavy bronze armor of Epiteles, with full greaves, shoulder and arm guards, and a Korinthian helmet of the masters with a black sideways crest, officer style, slung back on his head. The brute, with a crossed eye, appeared a near twin to the Tanagran Philliadas. He was as ugly as Lichas himself, though evil was not quite in his look. No wonder the Argives called him “Torn Dog.” Yet he spoke like a rhetor, not a brawler, and he was as careful in speech as he was rough in look.

“I am Epiteles of Argos. I claim myself polemarchos of the Argives for the year to come. We Argives, seven thousand strong and more, we have voted ourselves last night. We march west to finish the war. Go home in peace, you men of the middle Peloponnesos. We were never folk like you Arkadians or Eleans. We have always fought the Spartan, Dorians though we are. So, yes, we march tomorrow ourselves-with Epaminondas over the mountain to free the helots and finish Sparta. The fewer of us, the better the army. Let it be said that both Epaminondas and Epiteles have a final task under the slopes of Ithome. The only problem I see is that there is no enemy to kill, none that wish to try us.” Yes, this Epiteles sounded like even a better orator than Alkidamas himself. “Well, then, let us all part in friendship, the men of the Peloponnesos except for the Argives. It is decided they return home to the walls that our Proxenos built, with the booty we earned for them, and without the hoplites who protected them.”

Small groups were scuffling even, until Epaminondas abruptly ended the council. “It is decided. We go west, Epiteles and I. You others go home. Friends we all remain who hate the men of Sparta, Lykomedes-at least for the year to come.” At daybreak twenty thousand Boiotians and Argives headed up on their side of the Eurotas northward. They were eager to sweep into Messenia from the topside as the pestle that would hammer the Spartans there against the mortar of Taygetos, and end what was started far to the north at Leuktra. The freed helots among them ran fast to the west to warn their own of the final approach of the men of the north, to ready food and to kill any Spartan on sight still under Ithome.

As for this stranger Epiteles, Melon smiled that sometimes a single good man comes from the shadows for a single task for his own motives. He may have had no stomach for storming the Eurotas or building a city of stone for the Messenians, or for giving democracy to the mob. But for a few days of chaos, marching in the cold to free the helots and killing Spartans on the pathway up Mt. Taygetos? The very gods could not do it better themselves. Melon was now at the van, with Ainias and Melissos, marching once more with Pelopidas and the Sacred Band. All were happy to be on the move and out of the fog and mist of Lakonia, following Epaminondas across the barren orchards to the foot of Taygetos. The sounds of the chafing of wood and metal from thousands were deafening as the army headed for the ice of the high passes. But not a yell, not even a voice was raised, as the men shuddered at the black clouds on the mountain and met a growing hard wind with sleet from the north. Melon had had no word of Chion despite the mob of helots that was coming east from Messenia. He could only hope Chion had settled up by now with Gorgos and freed Neto. Yet, he was not sure whether the freedman was making his way to Ithome down the Alpheios, or had he been killed by kryptes along the way. And Alkidamas-was the old man shivering on the gulf, waiting for a ship to the south? Nor was there any report of Neto after her imprisonment by Kuniskos, but at least Melon at last was heading west to find her and settle with Gorgos. No mention either of the reception ahead in Messenia. The fate of Erinna? Erinna herself was not even much known to Melon. Was his silver at the bottom of the gulf? Melon wondered; since Chion had left Plataia with plans to hand the money over to the trireme at Aigosthena, there had been only silence.

Ainias pointed out Epaminondas. He was riding a three-year-old black stallion, not his red pony, but one taken from the stables of Antikrates. Their general was again bridling it on its back legs in the wind, and waving them all to follow in the howling of ice rain-happy to be free of the Peloponnesians, and happier to have this shaggy Epiteles and his Argives at his side. The tiny Boiotian seemed to have a feel for the frisky horse. So he turned his mount around at the foot of Taygetos as they started to ascend the steep narrow road that wound to the west and northward toward the cloudy pass. Epaminondas called out to this army. It was icy and windy, but there were not yet the high snows blocking the pass, and so the shorter route over Taygetos was open to Messenia. “Follow your Epiteles. Follow Pelopidas. We lead you to the freedom of the Messenians and to freedom for us from Sparta forever. Make the strong weak, the weak strong-and a new Hellas like none other.”

Thousands of Argives and Boiotians heard his message and answered back, “Freedom. Freedom. Eleutheria. Eleutheria ton Hellenon.” Now they left for good the valley of Eurotas as their voices bounced off the rock walls above. Smoke from the fires of the valley blew across as they climbed and even now the Spartans still dared not cross back over the Eurotas. Melon felt his leg loosen up, the pain vanish, just as it had during the battle at Leuktra. Pelopidas was calling out in unison with the Sacred Band. Runaway helots had cut out a path ahead. The Messenians had cleared the road of the black ice and some light snow as they went up the summit, peeking out of the fir and cedar in twos and threes as the army passed on.

Only Ainias kept quiet, with his bloody cape on and his patches of wild hair and his beard mangy. He was full of black bile that this army had forgotten his Proxenos, whose scrolls were about to come alive in stone at Messene, the greatest of the three fetters, on the other side of this dark Taygetos. Helots, Ainias cursed, had brought Proxenos southward across the Isthmos-and helots were not worth his death. Few among us, Ainias snarled to himself, are prisoners of memory and loyal to the past. There are too few of these faithful ones who have a bond with the dead, the sleeping majority who came and went. So, yes, the good few resent mightily that none praise their ancestors, the better, now forgotten men who made their roads, tiled their roofs, and planted their orchards. Not a man among the thousands marching here, not one cared that these cities came from the hard work and thinking of Proxenos, son of Proxenos, forgotten even before the fires of his pyre had eaten away his flesh. Ainias muttered to himself that this was silly to climb a mountain in winter when there were clouds on its top and ice in the air. Better to go up the mountains in summer-or go to the north to the kinder passes around the mountain. That they were passing the Kaiadas, the pits of Sparta where the helots were thrown, meant nothing to the brooding Ainias.

Still, he always liked to fight, and he now was the sole Arkadian in this new army of Boiotians and Argives. So Ainias said nothing ill about fighting into the new year that would confirm Epaminondas a death sentence back at Thebes. Nonetheless, Ainias thought it useless when Spartans were alive at their rear-and the helots hardly worth any more death. Most in the columns left him alone now, since he stank and would not change his cape and jerkin with the blood of Proxenos on it. Rumors spread that the ashes of Proxenos were in his leather bag on his belt,