Chapter Three

Demaratus

 

The arrogance of the man.  By all the gods, the arrogance of the lot of them!  These Athenians may be Greeks, but there's a reason they're not Dorian.  I really should just have him executed.  But he may prove useful for what I have in mind.  Cyrus is rarely wrong.  The Athenian came to me tonight, in rags, plucked like flotsam from Poseiden's grip, his life spared by my orders but oozing that self-righteous anger so common to their people.  Where does that come from?

 

It has always been somewhat of a puzzle to me.  They rule themselves without benefit of discipline, without adherence to a common code or set of laws handed down from generation to generation.  What is civilization without that?  They are impulsive, these Athenians.  Bold, it is true, but boldness without deliberation.  Indeed, a nation of children.  They worship at the shrine of individualism, their "collective" action smacking of self-aggrandizement, of a need to appear preeminent, even when the whole needs to be so much greater than the sum of the parts.

 

And that is where my people are superior.  Our Dorian ancestors set for us a code of living that created the perfect crucible to forge the unique strength of our nation.  We have been tested through the many years of our training, and those that were found wanting have fallen by the wayside.  We are like iron, hard and tempered by fire.  But it's not ‘we' any longer, I suppose.  They are not "mine," the flesh and blood of the Spartan state.  

 

Prior to our arrival in this place, Xerxes had heard from one of our scouts that the Spartans were preening themselves in front of the wall.  As is our custom, the men had been combing their long hair, oiling their bodies and exercising naked.  The king called me to his side to explain these strange habits.  I assured him these men were preparing to kill or be killed, and told him not to be fooled by either their languor or their approach.  He laughed at me, as he can do when in that mood, but I wished him to know the truth.  I told him that if he could still laugh at the end of the day, he could have my life.

 

As I watched for myself as Leonidas and the king's guard prepared in front of the wall the other day, I felt again the deep melancholy of loneliness that has been my burden these past few years.  Oh, to be leading those magnificent men myself, as I was born to do!

 

But such has not been my fate.  For the circumstances of my very birth were my downfall.  And to be deprived of my birthright at the very moment of my entry into the world was certainly a crueler irony than even the vengeful gods envisioned.  I sit here in the midst of barbarian excess, wishing to be somewhere I cannot be:  a place and a way of life I chose, of my own volition, to abandon. 

 

But perhaps it will not be that way forever.  With victory here, this army will continue its march forward, into central Greece, through the Athenian homeland, and into the Peloponnese itself.  When we come to my Spartan lands, maybe I will return and claim the Kingship again.  They will both be gone by that time, the kings who shamed me and sent me away.  Our friend Leonidas over there took care of the schemer Cleomones years ago.  If the gods smile on me ever again, I will feed my sword the blood of the usurper Leotychides, and return to my inheritance.  That is what I wish for, I think, when I feel this way.

 

But there are other times I know I can never go back.  I listen to the young Athenian and am reminded that though my fate is mine alone, there are many who know of my choice.  And for that, there may be no forgiveness in the hearts of my countrymen.  It is in those times that I sense another, more final outcome:  I will remain where I am, a prisoner of my past, a stranger to my people, a guest to my benefactors.  In that case there is nothing more to it.  I must see to the defeat of the Spartans, my countrymen, and all the Greeks.  I must assure myself of their subjugation, that I will once again share their fate.  But perhaps there is another way.