The sun was still high in the sky, and the judges declared an hour’s rest for all competitors. Then the archery started. The Lesbians had several fine archers, and the Samians had one, Asclepius, whose shots were so strong that I didn’t think he could be beaten. Most men’s arrows lofted into the target at fifty paces, but Asclepius’s arrows flew straight as if shot from Apollo’s bow. But as a group, the Cretans were the best.
I was out in the first round. I can shoot a bow, but not with archers like these.
Teucer was there, and he shot patiently and seriously. He just made the first cut and went on to the second round, the lowest-ranked man there. In the second round, he had to shoot against Asclepius. That was a bout to see — every arrow thudding home into the stretched hide at fifty paces, every shot inside the charcoal marking of the highest score. None of us had ever seen shooting like this. The judges sent both men to the third round with the issue undecided.
Idomeneus also went to the third round, and one Lesbian, an archer in service to Epaphroditos. The four of them poured libations and drank wine together, and then the target hides were moved to one hundred paces.
At that distance, even Asclepius had to loft his arrows. He shot first, and hit the charcoal every time. Idomeneus was next, and he placed two of his three arrows within the charcoal, but the third was caught by a flutter of breeze and sailed high over the target. We all sighed together, and Idomeneus bowed and was applauded by two thousand men — out of the competition, but with great honour. The Lesbian shot next, and only hit the charcoal once. He, too, received the applause of the whole army. Finally, Teucer stood to the line. He shot all three arrows so fast that a man who turned his head to speak to his neighbour might have missed the whole performance, and every shot went home in the charcoal.
Now there was open argument about how to carry on — whether to award both men, or to move the target. Miltiades rose to his feet and held up the baton of the judges.
‘For the honour of Lord Apollo, we will have both of these men shoot again,’ he said. ‘Although we deem both worthy of holding the prize.’
There was much applause, and the hides were moved to one hundred and fifty paces.
At that range, a bull’s hide is smaller than the nail on your little finger. A moment’s inattention and your arrow drops short. At a hundred and fifty paces, a man with a Greek bow must aim it at the heavens to drop the arrow into the target.
It was Teucer’s turn to shoot first. He used the Persian bow I had brought him, which pleased me. He shot one arrow, as directed, and it hit the charcoal.
We roared for him.
Asclepius took a long time with his shot. By his own admission, the Samian was an expert at close, flat shooting, and he didn’t excel at the long shots. He waited patiently for the breeze to die. There was no rule against it.
I drank water.
Suddenly, without warning, Asclepius lifted his bow and shot. His arrow went high — very high — and came down at a steep angle into the target. Dionysius proclaimed it in the charcoal and we roared again. This was competition, dear to the gods. I remember slapping Phrynichus on the back and saying that now he had something to write about.
And then an arrow came from behind us. It lofted high over the spectators and the red awning where the judges sat, and it plummeted to earth like a stooping falcon to strike the target just a few feet from where Dionysius stood. He leaped in the air, and stumbled away.
Because I was near the awning, drinking water, I turned and saw the archer, who had shot from at least two hundred and fifty paces. In fact, I counted later two hundred seventy paces. His shot hit the charcoal. He raised his bow in triumph, gave a long war cry and ran.
He was a Persian. He must have slipped over the mudflats while we all watched the competition. He killed no Greek. He shot further, and better.
Miltiades awarded him the prize — an arrow fletched in gold.
We roared our approval — even Teucer and Asclepius, both of whom had shot like gods.
But later — much later — I saw Teucer pace off the distance. Night was falling, and he thought that no man watched him. He raised his bow and his shaft fell true, but a fist of breeze moved it, and later he told me that he missed the charcoal by the width of his hand.
We were elated by the shooting — the sort of heroism in which any Greek (and apparently, any Persian) might take joy.
I put on my armour with some trepidation. It wasn’t really mine — it was a good bronze bell cuirass that Miltiades had given me, and while I liked it, it lacked the flexibility and lightness of the scale cuirass I had won in my first games — a cuirass that was hanging on its wooden form in my hall in Plataea with my shield and my war spears. A bronze cuirass never seems to fit just right over the hips. It flares there, so that the hips have full play in a long run, but that same flare makes a waist where much of the weight of the armour is borne, just over the hard muscles of the stomach, and that can make running uncomfortable.
Worse by far is running in ill-fitting greaves. They snap over the lower leg, covering a warrior from the ankle to the knee, and if they are too big they slip and bite your arches, and if they are too small, they pinch your ankles and leave welts that bleed — even in one stade. I’d spent all my spare time fitting and refitting those greaves — a plain pair in the Cretan style, worn over linen wraps.
It was a strong field — Epaphroditos, Sophanes, Stephanos, Aristides himself, Lord Pelagius’s nephew Nestor, Nearchos of Crete and his younger brother, Neoptolemus, Sophanes’ friend Glaucon, and Dionysius of Samos’s son Hipparchus, a fine young man without his father’s arrogance. He was next to me in the first heat, and I made the mistake of giving way at the first step — I never caught him. But I placed second, and went on to the next round.
The men I named had all gone on in their rounds. We were down to two eights, and the men running were the heroes of our army, the champions of the East Greeks and their allies. I was proud just to run with them. I drank water, pissed some of it away and lined up, the aspis on my arm as heavy as lead after just one race.
I was between Epaphroditos and Aristides, chatting with both, waiting for Miltiades to start us, when the cry went up.
The Persian fleet was sailing around the point. Their fleet was immense, and it came and came and came. They crossed the bay under sail and put in to the beaches at the foot of Mycale, and I stood on the shore and counted them.
Five hundred and fifty-three ships, first to last, biremes and hemioliai included. Just two hundred more ships than we had, including all of our lighter ships.
On the other hand, the Cyprians sailed like fools, and the Aegyptians were so wary that they edged away from us, though we didn’t launch a single ship.
We took it as an omen, that the Persians had come while we competed. We watched them, and we laughed and called out to them to come and join us, and then, as if by common consent, we turned our backs on their display of imperial power and went back to our athletics.
I remember that walk away from the shore, because I hated the aspis I had on my arm, an awkward thing with a badly turned bowl and an ill-fitting bronze porpax. I still had the cheap wicker Boeotian I had purchased on the beach at Chios a year before, a far less pretty shield with a split-ash face and a plain leather porpax, but it weighed nothing. In those days, there was no rule about competitions and shields, and besides, the Boeotian was, in fact, the shield I would carry to fight. I dropped my heavy aspis on my blanket roll, picked up my Boeotian and trotted to the start line.
Aristides looked at my shield with interest. ‘Surely that big thing will impede your running,’ he said.
I shrugged. ‘It weighs less on my arm,’ I said.
‘I seem to remember that you beat me in this race four years ago,’ he said.
I grinned. ‘Luck, my lord. Good fortune.’
Aristides smiled. ‘You are rare among men, Arimnestos. Most men would tell me that they were about to beat me again.’
I shrugged, watching Miltiades go to the start line. ‘In a few heartbeats, we will
Epaphroditos laughed. ‘Listening to you two is like an education in arete,’ he said. ‘Me, I’ll just run my best.
