The Isle of Stone

2

The inevitable occurred on the third day, when Lacedaemonians were sighted some distance down the beach. There were three of them, shieldless, with their cloaks wrapped tightly around their lank forms. The Athenians could feel the eyes on them, appraising the strength of their defenses. And though his men so far outnumbered the enemy one thousand to three, a wave of disquiet rolled through their ranks, confronted as they were now by the certainty that a fight must come. With the exception on their glorious stand at Thermopylae, the Lacedaemonians had not lost a significant engagement in more than two hundred years.

“Tell us now, O Demosthenes, what we should do!” cried one hoplite.

“How can we fight these Lacedaemonians on their own territory?” asked another.

“Is there still time to escape, Demosthenes?” asked a third.

Demosthenes mounted on the bronze ram of a ship, climbing carefully so as not to damage his clay limbs. The Greeks, who were busy arguing with each other, did not notice him until he began to speak. The riot died down by stages, and every pair of eyes fell on him.

“Athenians, all of your questions have answers. But I ask you, are these the questions you want to ask? Are they worthy of you? Or should we all be facing our fates with different questions on our lips-ones that will redound to the glory of our city? Shall we not ask, instead, how our adversaries will take a prepared position when they are so loathe to risk the lives of their precious Spartiates? Instead of taking this place to be enemy territory, shall we not ask how we may make it Athens’ own?

“No doubt you are thinking that our forces are few, while the Lacedaemonians will attack us by land and water with every able body they can muster. In such cases it is wise not to think about the odds against us, but to get on to the fight with as little reflection as possible. Did Militiades fret about Persian numbers at Marathon? Did your grandfathers count the enemy fleet at Salamis before charging their ships against it? You know the answers to these questions already.

“In any case, I will say two things about the size of the forces for and against us. First, numbers are irrelevant if an army cannot bring its advantage to bear against the opposition. With no way to reach us on land, the Lacedaemonians will no doubt come at us from the bay. But can you imagine those clodhoppers, who never glimpse a body of water bigger than a river, presuming to fight their way in from the sea? Do you imagine we will let them?”

Panic fading, the men laughed at the image of the waterlogged Spartans.

“Second, it is not we who are outnumbered, but the enemy. For never forget where we are-this is the kingdom of Messenia, a land of proud Greeks who have chafed in the Spartan yoke since before the days of Solon. This land is filled with our allies, men who would eat a Spartan raw if they had the chance. Our allies have but to be mobilized, and the first step will be the defense we put on here.

“And so for many reasons we have but one choice today: to govern our fears, to stand our ground here, and save ourselves. Does that answer your questions?”

The Athenians gave a thunderous cheer that reverberated off the heights of Koryphasion, and set to work.

The stretch of beach they needed to defend measured less than two stades. Using the heavy stones they had formerly put aside, they made submerged obstacles to block an enemy landing. In the places that were too deep for stones they anchored three of their ships broadside to the shore, and filled them with dry grass to help them burn in case the Peloponnesians tried to tow them away. The stones and the ships were disposed so as to funnel the enemy craft into just a few narrow approaches. These were the places where the outnumbered Athenians hoped, with luck, to defend themselves.

As most of the Athenians were sailors and not hoplites, there was a shortage of weapons among them. Demosthenes sent his unarmed men into the marsh to gather green wood and willow fronds; with these they fashioned wicker shields. Straight branches served as pikes, and smaller stones as missiles. Demosthenes ordered the straighter, heavier piles to be positioned where he expected the Peloponnesians to force their way ashore. With these he intended his men to push the enemy ships away before they reached water shallow enough for their hoplites to disembark.

As they made these preparations, the Athenians kept watch on the horizon. Columns of smoke from enemy fires began to multiply by the third day; horse-men were seen riding back and forth on the shore, no doubt with dispatches coordinating the coming attack.

On the fourth day a fleet of sixty Peloponnesian ships sailed through the south passage into the bay. With their arrival Demosthenes’ garrison was surrounded: it could not escape by land, and the ships could easily be used to block the bay’s two entrances. To tighten their grip, the Lacedaemonians ferried a garrison onto Sphacteria, to prevent escape or relief via the island. The soldiers there would be in an excellent position to take any prizes or prisoners that might wash up.

But Demosthenes had never meant to make a secret of his little fort on Spartan territory. Before the Peloponnesians blocked the northern strait, he sent out two ships to find the Athenian fleet at Zacynthus. This was a calculated risk that reduced his force by three hundred rowers, but for Demosthenes the decision was foregone. Once the enemy disrupted his supply of food and water from the helot village, outside relief would be his only hope. Nor did he believe that Eurymedon could conceivably deny such aid.

When he at last came to rest, he was startled to dream of Aetolian mountaineers running along a ridgeline, trailing long ropes decorated with Athenian heads like beads on a string. In the way of certain visions, he could see both near and far at the same time; the living heads were breathing and blinking as they bounced along the goat paths.

He lay with the ground around him soaked with sweat when welcome news at last came down from Leochares. A force of forty Messenians from the local villages had come down to fight for him. They wore little more than breechcloths and the scars on their arms, and were armed with farming implements, but the expressions on their faces left no doubt of their zeal to kill Lacedaemonians. Hailing them, he found the Messenians even more laconic than the Laconians. Only later, when the three boys returned with more supplies, did he learn that these forty men were all parentless bachelors, with no family to suffer retribution for their acts. Demosthenes assigned them the task of reinforcing the archers defending the barricade.

The Athenians had arrived at Pylos dreading battle with the Lacedaemonians. Now that they had managed to make a fight inevitable, they wanted it to come as soon as possible. A hush of expectation came over the fort whenever a Peloponnesian ship set out across the bay; the place was abuzz when enemy troops showed themselves on the high ground of Sphacteria across the strait. But for another two days the enemy did nothing more than observe, probe, and blockade. Just two ships were enough to seal the northern channel; the southern one was far wider, but did not need to be physically blocked as much as guarded. The Peloponnesians stationed ten ships at a camp there, prepared to charge out and take broadside any Athenian vessels that attempted to enter.

During this time Demosthenes exhausted every trick to keep his men busy. He had the shoreline obstacles built higher and higher, until they protruded from the water in a kind of rustic stockade; he also had a ditch dug on the marsh side, in the unlikely event the enemy attempted to attack there. Any attempt on their position, he supposed, would be made in the morning, when the waters of the bay were most calm. The camp was therefore on a war footing hours before sun broke over the Aigaleon hills.

The wait ended on the fifth day.