Salamis

Epilogue

You’ll make me blush if you demand more. Hah! Pour cool wine over the hot coals of lust and tomorrow night, the last night, I’ll tell you one more tale, how the men of Greece, free Greece, stood against the Medes and Persians and men of a hundred nations, spear against arrow as my friend Aeschylus has said, and fought until the dust and haze of Ares covered all. How the men of Plataea danced the dance of Ares one last time. And how close we came to losing everything. Indeed, many of us lost life, and others lost all they owned.

But leave me to remember the happiest night of my life. Because although I never promised you a happy story, some days it was as full of glory as sunrise over the ocean, and some nights, too. And if there is sadness to come … well, here’s to your mother, my dear, the love of my life.

Το telos