The Ten Thousand

CHAPTER FIVE

THE FIRE BURNED hot and bright, enough to make those closest to it wince when they faced it directly. A hundred pairs of young eyes gleamed from the darkness around it, some still blinking from the sleep from which they had just been roughly roused. Around us the light of the flames reflected blood red on the roughly cut stone walls against which we had been lined up, in a small amphitheater on the edge of camp that was used for harangues or weapons demonstrations. The flickering shadows cast by the squadron of newly inducted ephebes against the wall were strangely distorted-a black row of round heads and narrow, squared shoulders. They resembled nothing so much as a line of pegs on which to hang clothing, or a row of pins in a children's game, oddly swaying or jerking now and then as one looked to the side to gaze questioningly at his neighbor.

We stood in silence. The day before, Xenophon, as a boy of eighteen who was now of age to serve in the military, and I as his designated battle squire, had marched under Gryllus' stern, proud gaze to the barracks built hard by the city walls. Now we had been awakened in the middle of the night. Xenophon and the other ephebes had been made to put on their newly issued chlamydes, the knee-length black cloaks that signified their status. We had been led here in silence by a burly instructor, his own face obscured in a full-faced hoplite battle helmet, his bushy beard emerging from beneath the cheek plates like some nocturnal mammal peering from its burrow. Only his eyes, gleaming from deep within the blackness of the visor, distinguished him from a shade risen from the underworld. For perhaps an hour we stood motionless and silent before the fire, watching as it burned down to glowing red coals. Our faces around it slowly faded into darkness until the only being wholly visible to us was the hoplite, who stood frozen in an erect, spread-footed guard stance, his eight-foot spear placed butt-end to the flagstones and held straight out in a ready position. Since arriving here, the man had not moved a single, hard muscle, and after the first few minutes before the fire, all our own rustling and movement had ceased as well. We trained our eyes expectantly and wonderingly at him, his armor glittering strangely in the firelight as if it were the living skin of some enormous reptile.

Without warning, we were startled by a sudden blast of a salpinx, a war trumpet, directly behind us, and twelve more hoplites in full panoply, each bearing a flaming, spitting torch, marched in precision to line up before us at the glowing fire. They, too, stood motionless for a moment, as if surveying us, and we them. Then, as if on cue, they turned to the side, stepping away and stationing themselves at equal distances against the perimeter walls, surrounding us and bathing our faces in the lights of their sputtering torches. We eyed them nervously and unconsciously shuffled closer to each other in the middle, herdlike. Again we waited, in utter silence but for the low sizzling of the flames surrounding us. The ceremony, if that indeed is what it could be called, was one of tension and suppression, of silence and waiting. Despite the open sky over our heads, I felt smothered and claustrophobic. Finally, one of the bronze-clad hoplites, taller and broader than the others and apparently their leader, stepped forward. His bearing and the tone of his voice indicated that he was a seasoned warrior.

"Ephebes!" he bellowed in a gravelly voice, so loudly I could almost feel his hot breath, though I myself stood several rows back. "You have been called to commence your training as defenders of the polis. You are about to embark on a sacred mission which, after the requisite period of time, will have hardened you into hoplites worthy of the name, and of the black cloaks you now bear." I could almost feel the wave of excitement and anticipation as it rolled through the mass of boys now warily inching closer to the speaker.

"Over the next two years you will train until your muscles ache and your body screams for rest. You will learn to march in phalanx, shoulder to shoulder with your comrades, straight into the teeth of the enemy, though fear gnaws at your gut and urges you to sidle into the shadow of your brother's shield. You will learn to stand firm, javelin in hand, though threatened by enemy spears and assaulted by Spartan curses, because you have taken a sacred oath to abide by the hoplite ethic, to not abandon the man standing next to you in the battle lines. This you will swear on your life!"

The boys rustled and murmured in anticipation at the glory that awaited them.

"But you are not yet worthy to call yourself hoplites! Before you can be trusted to fight alongside a man whose life depends upon your skills, you must prove yourself alone. As ephebes, you will be stationed to defend the outermost frontiers of the polis. You will skulk in the night and prowl through the woods at the very edge of civilization, to engage lone thieves and solitary attackers before you are allowed to fight in open combat on the broad plains with the phalanx. You have a sacred duty to learn to protect yourself and your comrades from the enemy! Does that mean being the strongest?"

We stared at him in eager silence.

"I said, does that mean being the strongest, you piss-ants!?"

"Yes!" we called, though with some hesitation. The instructor stood in the shadows, seeming to glare at us with disgust, until he pointed to one of the larger ephebes standing in the front row. I had unconsciously flexed my knees in an attempt to make myself appear shorter in case he should look in my direction. The chosen boy walked uncertainly into the firelight.

The instructor nodded to the smallest of the several hoplites who had been standing motionless to the side. The soldier whipped off his helmet and stepped forward, slowly and stolidly, until he stood directly before the boy and crouched in a wrestling stance. The boy smiled faintly and he too crouched, as if eager to demonstrate his skills against his much shorter opponent. At the instructor's clap the hoplite shot forward and in a move that was barely visible to us in the semidarkness, he tripped the ephebe onto his belly in the dirt. The boy's arm stretched straight out behind him with the soldier's foot planted squarely on the shoulder joint. The man paused for a second before leaning back slightly against the arm, eliciting a loud "pop" as the joint pulled out of its socket, and the boy screamed. An audible shudder ran through the crowd and we all took a half step back in horror, as the hoplite roughly assisted the sobbing boy to his feet, his arm hanging limply, and gestured for him to step back into his place in the darkness.

The instructor stepped forward again.

"You were wrong!" he growled. "There will always be an opponent stronger than you. Even great Hector fell to one who was stronger. He who relies on strength alone endangers himself and his polis. Does that mean, therefore, being the most skilled with a weapon?"

Silence.

"Sons of whores. I said, does that mean being the most skilled with…"

"No!" a hundred voices shouted.

"Need I demonstrate?" he asked in an evil tone as he drew a sword and began scanning the faces of the ephebes peering fearfully at him from the darkness.

"No!" we shouted again, in rising panic.

"You learn your lessons quickly," he said dryly. "Tell me then, does it mean having the fastest reflexes?"

"No!" came the automatic response.

He chuckled hollowly. "I believe I will demonstrate this one," he said.

The crowd of boys shrank back away from him as he began peering at their faces. Unaccountably, his gaze rested directly on me. "You," he said, "the big one. Let us test your speed."

I stepped forward warily, memories of the training bouts with Antinous still fresh in my mind though they had occurred over six years before. The instructor looked me over, with what seemed almost an expression of disappointment behind the shadows of his visor.

"A squire," he said in disdain, noting my lack of a chlamys. Hawking his throat he spat an enormous, glistening gob on the ground at my feet. "Blindfold me, squire." He took off his helmet and breastplate and stood before me, massive, his bare chest and shoulders dark in the torchlight under a layer of curly hair. I hastened to obey, using a black linen cloth one of the other hoplites handed me. I then stepped back, and the man faced the boys, though unable to see any of them from behind the fabric.

"Now, squire, attack me, from any direction, however you see fit."

At this, the other hoplites began clanging their spears rhythmically, in unison, against their shields, setting up a racket that would obscure any sound that my feet might make as I circled around him seeking the optimal angle of attack. The beat was taken up immediately by the ephebes, who clapped their hands and stomped their feet in the same rhythm. As I looked around, however, I saw only fear on the faces of those around me. I stood motionless for a moment, gazing at the instructor and summoning my courage, listening to the rhythm of the beating hands and clanking spears. I then began moving slowly around him in concentric circles, drawing ever nearer, fixing my eyes steadily on him, wary of any trickery. The man stood erect and immobile, not a muscle twitching, his jaw thrust forward in utter concentration.

As I moved closer I made several feints toward his body, once almost touching him, to test his senses, experimenting as to whether he was able to see my moves from under the blindfold. All these maneuvers were met with a rising volume of din from the ephebes, who in their excitement increased the speed of their stomping, losing the sense of the steady beat until the noise was no longer a distinct thumping but rather a prolonged roar. Again and again I dove in, stopping just before committing to a full-fledged attack, while the man stood as if frozen.

Suddenly, sensing that his concentration must have flagged, I leaped forward, plunging my fist with all my strength directly into his exposed belly. Scarcely had my knuckles met the hair on his skin, however, than he whirled, catlike, stepping to the side and throwing me into an off-balance stumble, augmented by an iron fist clubbing down across the back of my neck. I slammed jaw-first onto the flagstones, half senseless, and heard vaguely, as if from a distance, the sound of metal sliding on leather as he drew his sword and pressed the tip against the middle of my back almost before I had even hit the pavement. I opened my eyes and peered through the semidarkness into the crowd of now silent ephebes. I could make out Xenophon's face staring straight at me, his eyes wide in surprise and terror.

"You were wrong again, shitworms," the instructor said in a low, menacing voice. "It does indeed mean having the fastest reflexes."

We endured two years of training in hoplite weaponry, archery, javelin-throwing and maneuvering of the catapult, I performing the same drills as Xenophon, as well as serving as his foil and weapons bearer. For two years we were roused from bed before sunrise to submit to conditioning exercises that surpassed anything Antinous had put us through, and to suffer the relentless reflex drills designed to make our defensive responses unthinking and automatic. We dined in the common mess with the officers and men and practiced parade drills before the entire city. In those two years we became men. Upon successful completion of the regimen, Xenophon was awarded a fine shield and spear and formally inducted into the Athenian army. Through Gryllus' manipulations, however, young Xenophon would not serve as a mere foot soldier. His father, now retired from the military but maintaining a heavy presence in the city's political life, fitted him out with a fine horse and all the cavalry equipment needed by a young nobleman. He presented him with a commission as squad leader, the same position in which Gryllus himself had started his illustrious career many years before.

In this role, Xenophon cut a fine figure. He had grown to a man of medium height, but quite muscular, his broad chest tapering to a slender waist and well-defined thighs. Gryllus even had to order a special cuirass made for him, to be more comfortable around his collar and shoulders. His glossy black hair was cut short and left curly, military style, and unlike many heavily bearded officers, he kept a clean jaw. His eyes were still as round and limpid as they had been when he was a boy, but since his recovery from the chest wound years earlier, they had lost their sweetness and innocence, and instead glinted with a hardness that belied the boyishness of the rest of his face. When introduced for the first time to his men or to other officers, his features often gave the initial impression of a young man promoted too quickly to a level beyond his experience. This view was corrected as soon as he issued his first orders in a deep and commanding voice, and fixed his eyes on their recipient with an expression that brooked no dissent.

I regularly attended morning gymnasium with Xenophon and cared for his animal, reporting to Gryllus on his son's whereabouts and traveling with him as his squire to his postings at Athens' dwindling garrisons. He was a model officer, possessing not an ounce of frivolity, the ideal of his father's virtue. Yet during his infrequent leaves he would disappear for days on end, spurning both his fellow officers in the barracks and the comforts of Gryllus' house, where his father vainly awaited his arrival, eager to trade camp stories and discuss military tactics. Only I know the hours he spent in drab civilian clothes, quietly accompanying Socrates as he made his rounds throughout the city, and how Xenophon would discreetly scratch cryptic notes of the philosopher's words on a small travel tablet and transcribe them at night. Only I know the days he spent with a bitter, discredited old general named Thucydides, who was busy writing a history of the war, and who occasionally used Xenophon as an aide to check his calculations and organize his notes. Only I know these things because Xenophon told them to me, and swore me to secrecy. Gryllus considered Socrates a frivolous charlatan, and Thucydides a revisionist madman, and though he would have raged at Xenophon for frequenting the former, he would have disinherited him for assisting the latter.

The city's military situation progressively worsened, and over the next few years Xenophon found himself increasingly occupied in defensive activities more befitting a besieged provincial garrison than the center of the Hellenic world. He was in Athens the night the vessel Paralus arrived, bearing shocked sailors carrying the terrifying news of the Spartan admiral Lysander's sacking of Athens' colonies. He remained in the besieged city that year, riding the walls in its defense against the gathering land and sea forces of the Spartan alliance. He heard the tragic moaning of the people, both for those lost and for their own fate; and he watched as the city's fortresslike Long Walls were destroyed to the rhythmic wailing of the reedy auloi, played unceasingly by weeping young girls whom Lysander had ordered to accompany the city's dismantling.

Thus the war's dismal end, and in the shadowy, shifting political alliances that emerged to rule Athens immediately afterwards, Xenophon's star began to wane. His wound at Phyle was the least of his worries, for he soon recovered full strength in the injured leg. When the Thirty Tyrants were overthrown by the democrats, Xenophon, who never outwardly supported any regime but merely followed the orders of his father and his superiors, found himself in actual disgrace, if not in outright danger of his life. The cavalry were disbanded and Xenophon's wages rescinded. There were even calls in the assembly for former cavalry troops to return all payments that had been made to them over the past two years. Gryllus fiercely stifled this motion and others, in a determined rearguard action to protect Xenophon's, and his own, declining reputations. Athens' new leaders eventually came to their senses and reconstituted the cavalry corps for the city's defense-but prohibited former officers, Xenophon included, from joining, on account of their past association with the Thirty. Xenophon's political viability was in jeopardy, and his very patriotism had been called into question.

It was around this time, when his morale was at its lowest and he had confided in me his fears that he would soon be forced into exile or imprisonment if the regime did not stabilize, that a fortuitous event occurred, one of those few occasions that make one lift one's eyes to the heavens in wonder at the impeccable dramatic timing of the gods. A letter arrived, borne by a runner from the port whence it had just been taken off a tramp grain ship from Ephesus. Xenophon unrolled it suspiciously, for little news he had received of late was in his favor, and was startled to find that it had been written by Proxenus, from whom he had heard nothing since his return to Boeotia twelve years before.

Proxenus, who had been elected to the rank of general in the Theban army and had inflicted considerable damage on the Athenians in the war, had now found a position in Sardis, commanding a Greek mercenary brigade in the employ of the Persian prince Cyrus. Cyrus had generously bankrolled Sparta during the war, and was now raising an army to dispatch some troublesome neighboring tribes in Asia Minor. Proxenus was seeking able-bodied recruits for the campaign.

"Xenophon," he wrote, "past political affiliations are of no consequence. Previous history is ignored. The war between Sparta and Athens is a thing of the past. Cyrus' only requirements are a stout heart, strong arms and a willingness to fight." Did Xenophon know of anyone who might fit those qualifications?

His eyes clouded over in thought as he considered the proposal and his own current prospects in Athens. Holding the letter in his hand, he slowly turned away and began walking absent-mindedly to his father's study, as if to seek his advice. I caught my breath, then quickly strode over and placed my hand heavily on his shoulder. He stopped and looked at me in puzzlement.

"Xenophon," I said. "Wait, before you talk to your father; think about this. Proxenus is your cousin, but he is also a Boeotian, an ally of Sparta, and therefore in Gryllus' eyes no friend of yours. He is a mercenary now, an irregular, employed by Sparta's biggest backer, a Persian no less. Is this really something you wish to present to your father?"

He fixed his eyes on mine for a moment, and then again glanced down at the letter. I could see the paper trembling in his hand, and I recalled the agony he had felt when Proxenus left. "Perhaps it would be better to speak first to Socrates," he muttered to me under his breath.

I wondered aloud at this, too, despite what I knew of his deep admiration for the old philosopher. "Xenophon, you're going to ask advice from a man your father can't abide, about a project that would kill him if he knew you were even considering it."

He flared for an instant. "Always protecting him, aren't you, Theo? Why don't you look to my side for once? Gryllus is my father, and for better or worse, I am his son. But his war is not my war." He looked away, seething, and I waited for a moment while he struggled to gain control of his emotions. Finally, he took a deep breath and pointed sadly to the long-unused saddle blanket neatly folded in the corner of the room, and to his army-issue shield, both gathering dust. "What would you have me do, Theo? What would you have me do?"