The Isle of Stone

2.

The late summer festival coincided that year with a wave of torrid weather. As the crops baked amber in the heat and the green wall of Taygetus appeared to flutter in the distance, the Eurotas seemed to flow with a viscous reticence, as if saving strength for its run to the sea. Festival-goers converged on the city in much the same way, laboring but perennial. In covered wagons, on horses and donkeys, or straggling in on foot, they came from the towns of Gytheion and Pellene, Sellasia and Helos, and regions as far afield as Thyreatis and Messenia and Triphylia, and a thousand remote valleys in between that were too small to have names. They were Spartiates on respite from their estates, and Nigh-dwellers from their work-shops, and helots-a few from Messenia and most native Laconians-to attend their masters. These arrivals made the Festival of the Flocks one of a handful of times each year when Sparta ceased to be an agglomeration of sleepy villages, but a bustling center of conviviality. Many a pilgrim from other cities, such as Athens or Corinth, came to Laconia with set notions of what to expect of the dour natives, supposing them devoted to whipping each other and niggling matters of soul-deadening precedent. Instead, the visitors would be surprised by what the Laconians always knew: their city was the place to find the best dancers, the shortest skirts, and the finest men.

For nine days Antalcidas wandered wide-eyed through his transformed city. Where ordinarily the verses of no one but Homer, Tyrtaeus, or Alcman were ever heard, poets from all over the Peloponnese converged to present works composed for the occasion, very often during informal recitals in the Persian Stoa or atop the foundations of unreconstructed houses. He stopped to listen to a wild-eyed poet from the depths of Arcadia sing an encomium to Panic as he accompanied himself on the lyre. He watched a chorus of twenty-four maidens from Sciritis dance for Artemis; in short tunics and hunting shoes, their bodies turned so rapidly their hair never rested on their backs.

The people watching these performances were turned out in old-style girdleless chitons, hanging loosely with gleaming stickpins at the shoulders. Puzzingly, some of them carried small model boats in their hands, or wore little boats on their heads like hats, or bore tiny vessels upright on handles. He wanted to ask Zeuxippos about these boats, but the old man was busy dressing down Frog and Rehash for some infraction Antalcidas had not seen.

“No reason can justify quarreling in front of the helots,” he told them. “Equals may disagree, but no difference between you is worth emboldening your enemies…!”

The center of the marketplace had been converted into a military camp, festooned with colored pennants and devices of the tribal phratries. Nine men were housed in each of nine tents for the entire nine day duration of the festival. The tents had three sides, with the fourth closed to the outside by a rope. During the nine days every aspect of the men’s lives was regulated by the calls of a crier, who announced their activities to the spectators who gathered to peer into the tents.

“Why do they make camp, when the making of war is forbidden during the festival?” Antalcidas asked.

Zeuxippos smiled and nodded, as if savoring the innocence of this question.

“It is not always given to us to understand such things,” he replied. “Still, I would tell you that there is a hidden premise in your question, that we make camp in order to fight wars. The festival camp shows us the very opposite: we succeed in war because of the things we value, such as discipline.”

“And the meaning of the boats?”

“The boats represent the ancient journey of the Heraclidae from Naupactus to the Peloponnese, upon the first conquest of Laconia from the Achaeans. The children of Herakles, as you know, were vagabonds after being deprived of their lands by the treachery of Eurystheus, king of Mycenae. In their first attempt to reclaim their birthright, Eurystheus was slain, and the Heraclidae were obliged to take refuge in Thessaly. There they became allied with Aegimius, king of the Dorians, whom Herakles had once aided in their fight against the Lapiths. Aegimius adopted Hyllus, the eldest Heraclid, who in time became king of the Dorians upon Aegimius’ death.

“Before resuming the war against the house of Mycenae, Hyllus sought guidance from the Delphic oracle. He was told that his campaign would succeed if the Heraclidae waited until the ripening of the third harvest, and if they invaded the Peloponnese by a narrow channel. Hyllus took ‘the third harvest’ to mean the third year, and ‘the narrow channel’ a land attack across the Isthmus of Corinth. But when he resumed the war after three years, the expedition again failed, this time with the death of Hyllus himself. Only then did the Heraclidae understand that ‘the third harvest’ was not by count of seasons, but of generations, and that ‘the narrow channel’ meant an invasion over the straits at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth. One hundred years later, their descendants sailed in boats from Naupactus to Rhion. As the Pythia had foretold, they defeated and slew Tisamenus, son of Orestes, and became lords of the all the lands of the Achaeans, including Laconia.”

“So I have heard,” said Antalcidas absently, his attention straying to a young girl nearby. She stood in a girdleless tunic dyed purple, as if she had just stepped off the choral stage. Her coloring was of that striking blond, almost white, often seen among slaves from the north. But there was nothing slavish about her as she stood there, her head crowned with laurel, her hair slung over her shoulder in a queue braided with flax stalks. She was looking at him with large eyes filled with frank fascination. He turned around to see if she was looking at someone behind him, but when he looked back she was gone.

“Never mind the girls,” Zeuxippos said with some annoyance. “There is something here you must see…”

He led Antalcidas to the running track west of the marketplace. A huge crowd surrounded the place. Pushing their way to the front, Antalcidas saw the object of the gathering: a young man, probably just old enough to have completed the Rearing, was pouring a libation to the Dioscuri, then to Lycurgus the Law-giver, then to Zeus, Turner-of-Cowards, then to Artemis-the-Leader, then Eileithyia, and then of course to Apollo-of-the-Flocks, patron of the festival. This man was dressed very curiously, in animal skins bound with woolen straps that ran from his breastbone all the way down to his thighs. Around him three others, naked, were bending and limbering up, as if preparing for a race. Zeuxippos leaned toward Antalcidas, arm around his waist, his mouth almost touching his ear as he spoke.

“The celebration goes back to the ancients, to before the Dorians reached these lands. Karneios was a harvest god of the Achaeans, among whom he was called Karneios-of-the-House. Can you tell me why the Lacedaemonians carry on the tradition?”

Antalcidas was still thinking about the girl he had seen. And though he knew that a prospective Equal must show piety, he never had much of a head for the old stories, the sheer multitude of which never failed to confuse him. He shook his head.

“When the Dorians conquered Laconia, they killed by accident a seer of old Karneios,” the old man continued. “Fearing the pollution caused by the act, our ancestors propitiated the god-listen here, boy, because this is important-propitiated the god by observing all the honors due him. One of these was a rite of pursuit conducted around the time of reaping. So that the gods of the Dorians would not themselves be slighted, the festival was named for their god of all diviners and seers, who is our Apollo…”

The libations completed, the man in the woolen fillets took his place in the starting position. The three other runners, after consecration by a trio of temple magistrates, lined up behind him. Turning his head, Antalcidas could see the goal of the contest: a crude wooden statue erected at the far side of the track, set on the stone altar and decked with flowers.

“Is that Karneios?” he asked.

Zeuxippos nodded. “The rite of the Hunt goes back beyond the original conquest. The Ram will run out ahead of the three hunters. If he reaches the image of the god at the end of the track before he is caught, disaster will befall the city; if they catch him, it portends good fortune.”

It occurred to Antalcidas that the prevalence of the number three in the rites may have something to do with the three ancient tribes of the Dorians: Hylleis, Dymanes and Pamphyli. He would have asked Zeuxippos-if he wasn’t afraid the old man might actually give him the entire dull story.

“The hunters we call the Grape-Bunch Runners-a name which might put you in mind of Dionysus, but that would be a misconception…”

And then, before Antalcidas anticipated it, the race was on. The Ram ran down the track between the accumulated throngs. The spectators, male and female, screamed and held out their hands to the Grape-Bunch Runners, imploring them to join the pursuit. But those boys were cocky, standing around until it seemed certain that the prey would reach the finish line. At last they turned serious; coiling their finely oiled bodies at the gates, they launched themselves down the track to the thunderous delight of the crowd.

Their start seemed well timed to magnify the suspense. The pursuers were well behind, but the Ram’s thighs were clad in woolen straps, which prevented him from taking full strides. But then, to the general mortification, the straps worked loose. The Ram accelerated to the sound of ripping and tearing, now only a few strides from his goal.

The fastest hunter charged and launched himself in the air. He caught his quarry by the foot, tripping him to the ground as the other kicked back at him. The Ram tore himself loose and crawled forward on his knees. At last, seemingly within arm’s length of the altar, the other two hunters pulled him back by the arms. The three fell in a heap. When they rose again, their oiled faces and bodies were coated in the fine dust of the track, but the Ram was fully in their control. Triumphantly, elbows and knees battered, the three led their trophy on the long walk back to the start as the spectators cheered and danced around them.

“We are in luck this year, it seems,” Zeuxippos said.

“Have they ever failed to catch him?”

“Once, not too many years ago, the Ram was well ahead but tripped over his own feet. Some say he would have reached the end if Apollo had not interceded. That was the festival just before the Great Earthquake…”

The Runners presented their captive to the magistrates. At once, the crowd fell silent, and over the buzz of children and cicadas rose the thin voice of the Ram.

“The glad-tiding, the all-seeing, cultivator of spears, bearer of horns, Karneios-of-the-House, having seen the worth of the men of the city, here and for the year extends and avouches his forgiveness for the sins of the Dorians, and by such dispels the pollution of the murder of the seer Krios, his loyal servant, and releases his suppliants to practice sacraments of war for one year, until and unless the citizens assemble again in his sight, in the fashion handed down by their fathers, to plight their virtue as they must in their bloodguilt, on the fifteenth day of the month Karneia, next year.”

With this blessing and the promise to earn it again next year, the Lacedaemonians received permission to be themselves again. A pair of belaureled priests took their places before the figure of Karneios. A real ram was then led before them with horns gilded and fleece festooned with crimson ribbons, followed by a maiden dressed in spotless white, bearing a basket. Her linen folds, freshly pleated, fell as straight and regularly as the flutes of a stone column. Priests, maiden, and animal processed around the image to the sound of the pipes, and then received the ablution-the humans with water on their hands, the ram with drops sprinkled on its head. The animal’s head remained still. The priest poured out more water, this time flicking it more forcefully at the ram’s eyes. It startled, jerking its head backward. This was good enough to resemble a nod by the ram, giving its permission to be sacrificed.

The basket was opened, the barley cakes inside shared out and consumed. The exposure of the knife produced a gasp in the crowd as if nothing of the kind had ever been seen before. With the cutting of a vessel in the animal’s neck, a strong stream of blood projected onto the side of the altar, which was stained black with the residue of a hundred previous sacrifices. As the ram poured out its life, the women in the crowd raised their hands and ululated-a sound that always sent chills up Antalcidas’ neck.

“In my sixty-two years I’ve never seen the rites done better,” avowed Zeuxippos, with a formulaic tone that suggested he said the very same thing every year.

The competitions in music and dance resumed, including a choral hymn by twenty-four maidens in purple. They stood at first in four lines of six, stepping in time to the verses, their swaying alternately exposing and hiding the nakedness between the ungirt sides of their tunics. They sang: In the center of Delphic Pytho, navel of the world, divine Phoebus Touches the strings of his hollow kithara, sending its sweet ring Over the rocky heights of Parnassus, beloved of the Muses. But faster than the glint of light from his golden plectrum, He flies to the mansions of Olympus, aerie of Zeus the Orderer. There he diverts the gathered immortals, pleased to hear the son Of fair-haired Leto play in honeyed notes, and step in radiance For the Graces so finely tressed, and Artemis pourer of arrows, And his sister, sea-born Aphrodite, who dance with hands entwined, As the Hours sing of the love of the gods, that gift to mortal men In their short, feeble spans, where there is no recourse from decay, No reprieve from death…

The blonde he had seen before was there, on the left end of the third rank. She danced and recited with her brow furrowed in concentration, lifting and placing her sandaled feet, kicking out with filleted ankles, grasping an invisible bow with the evocation of Artemis. In unison, the girls fell into a circle with each grasping the wrist of the dancer beside her, their turnings livened by ample flashing of shins and buttocks. At the quality of their extremities Antalcidas was compelled to stare: unscarred, round, softly glowing in the light as if covered with velvet. The knees of Spartan women, on the other hand, cut like swords. They were slightly discolored with the dirt of the gymnasium, or as foreign men liked to believe, in the kneeling service of their lovers. Antalcidas became so excited by these sights that he was compelled to run away without warning Zeuxippos.

“Where are you going?” the old man called after him. “We must tour the encampment!”

Antalcidas ran into the fields and found a grove of apple trees. Picking a fruit with a color as hale as the girl’s thighs, he retreated to a private place and began to kiss the smooth surface of it, using his lips in ways that increased his frenzy. His kisses became nibbles, then bites, exposing the flesh, drawing the juice through his toothmarks, driving himself to bore at the bitter center of her, splitting the whole against his cheeks, reducing seeds and rind until all that was left was-nothing.