Poseidon's Spear

Book 3: The Long War

by Christian Cameron

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

An epic novel from the master of historical fiction, author of ALEXANDER: GOD OF WAR 'Brilliantly evoked' Sunday Times

Arimnestos of Plataea is a man who has seen and done things that most men only dream about. Sold into slavery as a boy, he fought his way to freedom – and then to everlasting fame: standing alongside the Athenians at the Battle of Marathon where the Greeks crushed the invading Persians.

Sometimes, however, a man's greatest triumph is followed by his greatest sorrow. Returning to his farm, Arimnestos finds that his wife Euphoria has died in childbirth, and in an instant his laurels turn to dust. But the gods are not finished with Arimnestos yet. With nothing left to live for, he throws himself from a cliff into the sea, only to be pulled by strong arms from death's embrace. When he awakes, he finds himself chained to an oar in a Phoenician trireme.

And so begins an epic journey that will take Arimnestos and a motley crew of fellow galley slaves to the limits of their courage, and beyond the edge of the known world, in a quest for freedom, revenge – and a cargo so precious it's worth dying for.

Release date: September 13, 2012

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 400

Sample

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am an amateur Greek scholar. My definitions are my own, but taken from the LSJ or Routeledge’s Handbook of Greek Mythology or Smith’s
Classical Dictionary. On some military issues I have the temerity to disagree with the received wisdom on the subject. Also check my website at www.hippeis.com for more information and some helpful pictures.

Akinakes A Scythian short sword or long knife, also sometimes carried by Medes and Persians.

Andron The ‘men’s room’ of a proper Greek house – where men have symposia. recent research has cast real doubt as to the sexual
exclusivity of the room, but the name sticks.

Apobatai The Chariot Warriors. in many towns, towns that hadn’t used chariots in warfare for centuries, the Apobatai were the elite three
hundred or so. in Athens, they competed in special events; in Thebes, they may have been the forerunners of the Sacred Band.

Archon A city’s senior official or, in some cases, one of three or four. A magnate.

Aspis The Greek hoplite’s shield (which is not called a hoplon!). The aspis is about a yard in diameter, is deeply dished (up to six inches
deep) and should weigh between eight and sixteen pounds.

Basileus An aristocratic title from a bygone era (at least in 500 BC) that means ‘king’ or ‘lord’.

Bireme A warship rowed by two tiers of oars, as opposed to a trireme, which has three tiers.

Chiton The standard tunic for most men, made by taking a single continuous piece of cloth and folding it in half, pinning the shoulders and open side. Can be
made quite fitted by means of pleating. often made of very fine quality material – usually wool, sometimes linen, especially in the upper classes. A full chiton was ankle
length for men and women.

Chitoniskos A small chiton, usually just longer than modesty demanded – or not as long as modern modesty would demand! Worn by warriors and
farmers, often heavily bloused and very full by warriors to pad their armour. Usually wool.

Chlamys A short cloak made from a rectangle of cloth roughly 60 by 90 inches – could also be worn as a chiton if folded and pinned a different
way. or slept under as a blanket.

Corslet/Thorax In 500 BC, the best corslets were made of bronze, mostly of the so-called ‘bell’ thorax variety. A few muscle
corslets appear at the end of this period, gaining popularity into the 450s. Another style is the ‘white’ corslet, seen to appear just as the Persian Wars begin
– reenactors call this the ‘Tube and Yoke’ corslet, and some people call it (erroneously) the linothorax. Some of them may have been made of linen
– we’ll never know – but the likelier material is Athenian leather, which was often tanned and finished with alum, thus being bright white. Yet another style was a tube and
yoke of scale, which you can see the author wearing on his website. A scale corslet would have been the most expensive of all, and probably provided the best protection.

Daidala Cithaeron, the mountain that towered over Plataea, was the site of a remarkable fire-festival, the Daidala, which was celebrated by the
Plataeans on the summit of the mountain. in the usual ceremony, as mounted by the Plataeans in every seventh year, a wooden idol (daidalon) would be dressed in bridal robes and
dragged on an ox-cart from Plataea to the top of the mountain, where it would be burned after appropriate rituals. or, in the Great Daidala, which were celebrated every forty-nine
years, fourteen daidala from different Boeotian towns would be burned on a large wooden pyre heaped with brushwood, together with a cow and a bull that were sacrificed to Zeus and
hera. This huge pyre on the mountain top must have provided a most impressive spectacle; Pausanias remarks that he knew of no other flame that rose as high or could be seen from so far.

The cultic legend that was offered to account for the festival ran as follows. When hera had once quarrelled with Zeus, as she often did, she had withdrawn to her childhood home of
euboea and had refused every attempt at reconciliation. So Zeus sought the advice of the wisest man on earth, Cithaeron (the eponym of the mountain), who ruled at Plataea in the earliest
times. Cithaeron advised him to make a wooden image of a woman, to veil it in the manner of a bride, and then to have it drawn along in an ox-cart after spreading the rumour that he was
planning to marry the nymph Plataea, a daughter of the river god Asopus. When hera rushed to the scene and tore away the veils, she was so relieved to find a wooden effigy rather than the
expected bride that she at last consented to be reconciled with Zeus. (Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology, pp. 137–8)

Daimon Literally a spirit, the daimon of combat might be adrenaline, and the daimon of philosophy might simply be native intelligence.
Suffice it to say that very intelligent men – like Socrates – believed that god- sent spirits could infuse a man and influence his actions.

Daktyloi Literally digits or fingers, in common talk ‘inches’ in the system of measurement. Systems differed from city to city. I have taken the
liberty of using just the Athenian units.

Despoina Lady. A term of formal address.

Diekplous A complex naval tac- tic about which some debate remains. in this book, the Diekplous, or through stroke, is commenced with an attack by
the ramming ship’s bow (picture the two ships approaching bow to bow or head on) and cathead on the enemy oars. oars were the most vulnerable part of a fighting ship, something very
difficult to imagine unless you’ve rowed in a big boat and understand how lethal your own oars can be – to you! After the attacker crushes the enemy’s oars, he passes, flank
to flank, and then turns when astern, coming up easily (the defender is almost dead in the water) and ramming the enemy under the stern or counter as desired.

Doru A spear, about ten feet long, with a bronze butt-spike.

Eleutheria Freedom.

Ephebe A young, free man of property. A young man in training to be a hoplite. Usually performing service to his city and, in ancient terms, at one
of the two peaks of male beauty.

Eromenos The ‘beloved’ in a same-sex pair in ancient Greece. Usually younger, about seventeen. This is a complex, almost dangerous subject in
the modern world – were these pair-bonds about sex, or chivalric love, or just a ‘brotherhood’ of warriors? I suspect there were elements of all three. And to write about
this period without discussing the eromenos/erastes bond would, I fear, be like putting all the warriors in steel armour instead of bronze . . .

Erastes The ‘lover’ in a same-sex pair bond – the older man, a tried warrior, twenty-five to thirty years old.

Eudaimonia Literally ‘well-spirited’. A feeling of extreme joy.

Exhedra The porch of the women’s quarters – in some cases, any porch over a farm’s central courtyard.

Helots The ‘race of slaves’ of Ancient Sparta – the conquered peoples who lived with the Spartiates and did all of their work so that they
could concentrate entirely on making war and more Spartans.

Hetaira Literally a ‘female companion’. In ancient Athens, a hetaira was a courtesan, a highly skilled woman who provided sexual
companionship as well as fashion, political advice and music.

Himation A very large piece of rich, often embroidered wool, worn as an outer garment by wealthy citizen women or as a sole garment by older men, especially
those in authority.

Hoplite A Greek upper-class warrior. Possession of a heavy spear, a helmet and an aspis (see above) and income above the marginal lowest free class
were all required to serve as a hoplite. Although much is made of the ‘citizen soldier’ of ancient Greece, it would be fairer to compare hoplites to medieval
knights than to roman legionnaires or modern national Guardsmen. Poorer citizens did serve, and sometimes as hoplites or marines, but in general, the front ranks were the preserve
of upper-class men who could afford the best training and the essential armour.

Hoplitodromos The hoplite race, or race in armour. Two stades with an aspis on your shoulder, a helmet and greaves in the early
runs. I’ve run this race in armour. It is no picnic.

Hoplomachia A hoplite contest, or sparring match. Again, there is enormous debate as to when hoplomachia came into existence and how much
training Greek hoplites received. one thing that they didn’t do is drill like modern soldiers – there’s no mention of it in all of Greek literature. However, they
had highly evolved martial arts (see pankration) and it is almost certain that hoplomachia was a term that referred to ‘the martial art of fighting when fully
equipped as a hoplite’.

Hoplomachos A participant in hoplomachia.

Hypaspist Literally ‘under the shield’. A squire or military servant – by the time of Arimnestos, the hypaspist was usually a
younger man of the same class as the hoplite.

Kithara A stringed instrument of some complexity, with a hollow body as a soundboard.

Kline A couch.

Kopis The heavy, back-curved sabre of the Greeks. Like a longer, heavier modern kukri or Gurkha knife.

Kore A maiden or daughter.

Kylix A wide, shallow, handled bowl for drinking wine.

Logos Literally ‘word’. in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy the word is everything – the power beyond the gods.

Longche A six to seven foot throwing spear, also used for hunting. A hoplite might carry a pair of longchai, or a single, longer and
heavier doru.

Machaira A heavy sword or long knife.

Maenads The ‘raving ones’ – ecstatic female followers of Dionysus.

Mastos A woman’s breast. A mastos cup is shaped like a woman’s breast with a rattle in the nipple – so when you drink, you
lick the nipple and the rattle shows that you emptied the cup. I’ll leave the rest to imagination . . .

Medimnos A grain measure. Very roughly – 35 to 100 pounds
of grain.

Megaron A style of building with a roofed porch.

Navarch An admiral.

Oikia The household – all the family and all the slaves, and sometimes the animals and the farmland itself.

Opson Whatever spread, dip or accompaniment an ancient Greek had with bread.

Pais A child.

Palaestra The exercise sands of the gymnasium.

Pankration The military martial art of the ancient Greeks – an unarmed combat system that bears more than a passing resemblance to modern MMA
techniques, with a series of carefully structured blows and domination holds that is, by modern standards, very advanced. Also the basis of the Greek sword and spear-based martial arts. Kicking, punching, wrestling, grappling, on the
ground and standing, were all permitted.

Peplos A short over-fold of cloth that women could wear as a hood or to cover the breasts.

Phalanx The full military potential of a town; the actual, formed body of men before a battle (all of the smaller groups formed together made a
phalanx). in this period, it would be a mistake to imagine a carefully drilled military machine.

Phylarch A file-leader – an officer commanding the four to sixteen men standing behind him in the phalanx.

Polemarch The war leader.

Polis The city. The basis of all Greek political thought and expression, the government that was held to be more important – a higher god –
than any individual or even family. To this day, when we talk about politics, we’re talking about the ‘things of our city’.

Porne A prostitute.

Porpax The bronze or leather band that encloses the forearm on a Greek aspis.

Psiloi Light infantrymen – usually slaves or adolescent freemen who, in this period, were not organised and seldom had any weapon beyond some rocks to
throw.

Pyrrhiche The ‘War Dance’. A line dance in armour done by all of the warriors, often very complex. There’s reason to believe that the
Pyrrhiche was the method by which the young were trained in basic martial arts and by which ‘drill’ was inculcated.

Pyxis A box, often circular, turned from wood or made of metal.

Rhapsode A master-poet, often a performer who told epic works like the
Iliad from memory.

Satrap A Persian ruler of a province of the Persian empire.

Skeuophoros Literally a ‘shield carrier’, unlike the hypaspist, this is a slave or freed man who does camp work and carries the armour
and baggage.

Sparabara The large wicker shield of the Persian and Mede elite infantry. Also the name of those soldiers.

Spolas Another name for a leather corslet, often used for the lion skin of heracles.

Stade A measure of distance. An Athenian stade is about 185 metres.

Strategos in Athens, the commander of one of the ten military tribes. Elsewhere, any senior Greek officer – sometimes the commanding general.

Synaspismos The closest order that hoplites could form – so close that the shields overlap, hence ‘shield on shield’.

Taxis Any group but, in military terms, a company; I use it for 60 to 300 men.

Thetes The lowest free class – citizens with limited rights.

Thorax See corslet.

Thugater Daughter. Look at the word carefully and you’ll see the ‘daughter’ in it . . .

Triakonter A small rowed galley of thirty oars.

Trierarch The captain of a ship – sometimes just the owner or builder, sometimes the fighting captain.

Zone A belt, often just rope or finely wrought cord, but could be a heavy bronze kidney belt for war.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This series is set in the very dawn of the so-called Classical era, often measured from the Battle of Marathon (490 BC). Some, if not most, of the famous names of this era are
characters in this series – and that’s not happenstance. Athens of this period is as magical, in many ways, as Tolkien’s Gondor, and even the quickest list of artists, poets, and
soldiers of this era reads like a ‘who’s who’ of western civilization. Nor is the author tossing them together by happenstance – these people were almost all aristocrats,
men (and women) who knew each other well – and might be adversaries or friends in need. Names in bold are historical characters – yes, even Arimnestos – and you can get a glimpse
into their lives by looking at Wikipedia or Britannia online. For more in-depth information, I recommend Plutarch and herodotus, to whom I owe a great deal.

Arimnestos of Plataea may – just may – have been herodotus’s source for the events of the Persian Wars. The careful reader will note that herodotus himself
– a scribe from halicarnassus – appears several times . . .

Archilogos – ephesian, son of hipponax the poet; a typical ionian aristocrat, who loves Persian culture and Greek culture too, who serves his city, not some cause of
‘Greece’ or ‘Hellas’, and who finds the rule of the Great King fairer and more ‘democratic’ than the rule of a Greek tyrant.

Arimnestos – Child of Chalkeotechnes and Euthalia.

Aristagoras – Son of Molpagoras, nephew of histiaeus. Aristagoras led Miletus while histiaeus was a virtual prisoner of the Great King Darius at Susa.
Aristagoras seems to have initiated the ionian revolt – and later to have regretted it.

Aristides – Son of Lysimachus, lived roughly 525–468 BC, known later in life as ‘The Just’. Perhaps best known as one of the
commanders at Marathon. Usually sided with the Aristocratic party.

Artaphernes – Brother of Darius, Great King of Persia, and Satrap of Sardis. A senior Persian with powerful connections. Behon – A Kelt from
Alba; a fisherman and former slave.

Bion – A slave name, meaning ‘life’. The most loyal family retainer of the Corvaxae.

Briseis – Daughter of hipponax, sister of Archilogos.

Calchus – A former warrior, now the keeper of the shrine of the Plataean hero of Troy, Leitus.

Chalkeotechnes – The Smith of Plataea; head of the family Corvaxae, who claim descent from herakles.

Chalkidis – Brother of Arimnestos, son of Chalkeotechnes.

Cimon – Son of Miltiades, a professional soldier, sometime pirate, and Athenian aristocrat.

Cleisthenes – was a noble Athenian of the Alcmaeonid family. he is credited with reforming the constitution of ancient Athens and setting it on a democratic footing in
508/7 BC.

Collam – A Gallic lord in the Central Massif at the headwaters of the Seine.

Dano of Croton – Daughter of the philosopher and mathematician

Pythagoras.

Darius – King of Kings, the lord of the Persian empire, brother to Artaphernes.

Doola – Numidian ex-slave.

Draco – Wheelwright and wagon builder of Plataea, a leading man of the town.

Empedocles – A priest of hephaestus, the Smith God.

Epaphroditos – A warrior, an aristocrat of Lesbos.

Eualcides – A hero. Eualcidas is typical of a class of aristocratic men – professional warriors, adventurers, occasionally pirates or merchants
by turns. From euboeoa.

Heraclitus – c.535–475 BC. One of the ancient world’s most famous philosophers. Born to an aristocratic family, he chose
philosophy over political power. Perhaps most famous for his statement about time: ‘You cannot step twice into the same river’. His belief that ‘strife is justice’ and
other similar sayings which you’ll find scattered through these pages made him a favourite with nietzsche. His works, mostly now lost, probably established the later philosophy of
Stoicism.

Herakleides – An Aeolian, a Greek of Asia Minor. With his brothers Nestor and Orestes, he becomes a retainer – a warrior – in service to Arimnestos. It is
easy, when looking at the birth of Greek democracy, to see the whole form of modern government firmly established – but at the time of this book, democracy was less than skin deep and
most armies were formed of semi-feudal war bands following an aristocrat.

Heraklides – Aristides’ helmsman, a lower-class Athenian who has made a name for himself in war.

Hermogenes – Son of Bion, Arimnestos’s slave.

Hesiod – A great poet (or a great tradition of poetry) from Boeotia in Greece, Hesiod’s ‘Works and Days’ and ‘Theogony’
were widely read in the sixth century and remain fresh today – they are the chief source we have on Greek farming, and this book owes an enormous debt to them.

Hippias – Last tyrant of Athens, overthrown around 510 BC (that is, just around the beginning of this series), hippias escaped into exile and became a
pensioner of Darius of Persia.

Hipponax – 540–c.498 BC. A Greek poet and satirist, considered the inventor of parody. he is supposed to have said ‘There are two
days when a woman is a pleasure: the day one marries her and the day one buries her’.

Histiaeus – Tyrant of Miletus and ally of Darius of Persia, possible originator of the plan for the Ionian Revolt.

Homer – Another great poet, roughly hesiod’s contemporary (give or take fifty years!) and again, possibly more a poetic tradition than an
individual man. Homer is reputed as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two great epic poems which, between them, largely defined what heroism and aristocratic good
behaviour should be in Greek society – and, you might say, to this very day.

Idomeneus – Cretan warrior, priest of Leitus.

Kylix – A boy, slave of Hipponax.

Leukas – Alban sailor, later deck master on Lydia. Kelt of the Dumnones of Briton.

Miltiades – Tyrant of the Thracian Chersonese. his son, Cimon or Kimon, rose to be a great man in Athenian politics. Probably the author of the
Athenian victory of Marathon, Miltiades was a complex man, a pirate, a warlord, and a supporter of Athenian democracy.

Penelope – Daughter of Chalkeotechnes, sister of Arimnestos.

Polymarchos – ex-slave swordmaster of Syracusa.

Phrynicus – Ancient Athenian playwright and warrior.

Sappho – A Greek poetess from the island of Lesbos, born sometime around 630 BC and died between 570 and 550 BC. Her father was probably Lord of
eressos. Widely considered the greatest lyric poet of Ancient Greece.

Seckla – Numidian ex-slave.

Simonalkes – head of the collateral branch of the Plataean Corvaxae, cousin to Arimnestos.

Simonides – Another great lyric poet, he lived c.556–468 BC, and his nephew, Bacchylides, was as famous as he. Perhaps best known for
his epigrams, one of which is:



Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,

That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

Thales – c.624–c.546 BC The first philosopher of the Greek tradition, whose writings were still current in Arimnestos’s
time. Thales used geometry to solve problems such as calculating the height of the pyramids in Aegypt and the distance of ships from the shore. He made at least one trip to Aegypt. He is
widely accepted as the founder of western mathematics.

Themistocles – Leader of the demos party in Athens, father of the

Athenian Fleet. Political enemy of Aristides.

Theognis – Theognis of Megara was almost certainly not one man but a whole canon of aristocratic poetry under that name, much of it practical. There
are maxims, many very wise, laments on the decline of man and the age, and the woes of old age and poverty, songs for symposia, etc. In later sections there are songs and poems about
homosexual love and laments for failed romances. Despite widespread attributions, there was, at some point, a real Theognis who may have lived in the mid-6th century BC, or just before the
events of this series. His poetry would have been central to the world of Arimnestos’s mother.

Vasileos – master shipwright and helmsman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So – here we are again.

Last night, I told you of Marathon – truly the greatest of days for a warrior, the day that every man who was present, great or small, remembers as his finest. But even
Marathon – the great victory of Athens and Plataea against the might of Persia – did not end the Long War.

In fact, thugater, an honest man might say that the Battle of Marathon started the Long War. Until Marathon, there was the failed revolt of the Ionians, and any sane man would
have said they had lost. That the Greeks had lost. In far-off Sardis – in Persepolis, capital of the Persian Empire – they barely knew that Athens existed, or Sparta, and I will wager
not a one of the gold-wearing bastards had heard of Plataea.

I was born in Plataea, of course, and my father raised me to be a smith – but my tutor Calchus saw the man of blood inside me, and made me a warrior, as well. And even that isn’t
really fair – my pater was a fine warrior, the polemarch of our city, and he led us out to war with Sparta and Corinth in the week of three battles, and fought like a lion, and died –
murdered, stabbed in the back while he fought, by his own cousin Simon, and may the vultures tear his liver in eternal torment!

Simon sold me as a slave. I had fallen wounded across my pater’s corpse, and Simon took me from the battlefield and sold me. Why didn’t he kill me? It might have helped him, but
often, evil men beget their own destruction with their own acts – that is how the gods behave in the world of men.

I grew to full manhood as a slave in Ionia, the slave of Hipponax and his son Archilogos, and to be honest, I loved them, and seldom resented being a slave. But Archilogos had a sister, Briseis,
and she is Helen reborn, so that even at thirteen and fourteen, men competed for her favours – grown men.

I loved her, and still do.

Not that that love brought me much joy.

And I received the education of an aristocrat, by attending lessons with my young master – so that I was taught the wisdom of Heraclitus, whom many worship as a god to this very day.

When I was seventeen or so, events shattered our household – betrayal, adultery and civil war. I’ve already told that story. But in the end, the Ionians – all the Greeks of
Asia and the Islands – left the allegiance of Persia and went to war. In my own house, I was freed, and became Archilogos’s friend and war-companion. But in my hubris I lay with
Briseis, and was banned from the house and sent to wander the world.

A world suddenly at war.

I marched and fought through the first campaign, from the victory at Sardis to black defeat on the plains by Ephesus, the city of my slavery, and then I fled with the Athenians. I served as a
mercenary on Crete, and found myself with my own black ship at Amathus, the first naval battle in the Ionian Revolt. We won at sea. But we lost on land, and again, I was on the run in a captured
ship with a bad crew.

Eventually, I found a new home with the Athenian lord, Miltiades. As a pirate. Let’s not mince words, friends! We killed men and took their ships, and that made us pirates, whatever we may
now claim.

But Miltiades was instrumental in keeping the Ionian Revolt alive, as I’ve told on other nights. We fought and fought, and eventually we drove the Medes from the parts of the Xhersonese
they’d seized, and used it as a base to wreck them – until they sent armies to clear us from the peninsula.

I did as Miltiades bade me: killed, stole, and my name gained renown.

After a year of fighting, we were losing. But we caught a Persian squadron far from its base, in Thrace, and we destroyed them – and in the fighting, I murdered Briseis’ useless
husband. Again, I’ve told this story already – ask someone who was here.

I thought that, now Briseis was free to marry me, she would.

I was wrong. She went back east to marry someone older, wiser and more powerful.

So I went back to Plataea.

I worked my father’s farm, and tried to be a bronze-smith.

But a man died at the shrine on the hill – and his death sent me to Athens, and before long I was back at sea, killing men and taking their goods. Hard to explain in a sentence or two, my
daughter. But that’s what I did. And so, I was back to fighting the Persians. I served Miltiades – I ran cargoes into Miletus, the greatest city of Ionia, besieged by the Persians, and
we saved them. And then the East Greeks formed a mighty fleet, and we went to save Miletus.

And we failed.

We fought the battle of Lade, and the Samians betrayed us, and most of my friends died. Miletus fell, and in the wake of that defeat, Ionia was conquered and the East Greeks ceased to be free
men. The men of some islands were all killed, and the women sold into slavery.

It’s odd, thugater, because I loved the Persians, their truth-telling and their brilliant society. They were good men, and honourable, and yet war brought the worst of them to the fore and
they behaved like animals – like men inevitably do, in war.

They raped Ionia and Aetolia, and we – the survivors – scuttled into exile. I ran home, after Briseis spurned me again.

So I went back to the smithy in Plataea. I began, in fact, to learn to be a fine smith.

But I had famous friends and a famous name. I had occasion to save Miltiades of Athens from a treason charge – heh, I’ll tell that story again for an obol – and as a
consequence, my sister got me a beautiful wife. Listen, do you doubt me? She was beautiful, and had I not saved Miltiades . . .

At any rate, I married Euphoria.

And a summer later, when she was full of my seed, I led the Plataean phalanx over the mountains to Attica, to help save Athens. This time, when the Persians forced us to battle, we had no
traitors in our ranks and we were not found wanting. This time, the gods stood by us. This time Apollo and Zeus and Ares and Athena lent us aid, and we beat the Persians at Marathon.

But I told that story last night.

And when I came home, my beautiful Euphoria was dead in childbirth. Her newborn child – I never saw it – lay in swaddling with a slave. I assumed it dead. My sister still blames
herself for that error, but I have never blamed her. Yet, to understand my tale, you must understand – I thought my child had died . . .

So I picked my beloved wife up, took her to my farm and burned it, and her, with every piece of jewellery and every scrap of cloth she’d ever worn or woven.

And then I took a horse and rode away.

That ought to have been the end. But it was, of course, another beginning, because that’s how the gods make men.

You need to understand this. After Marathon, nothing was the same. No one was the same. Life did not taste sweet. Indeed, most of us felt that our greatest deed, and days, were behind us, and
there was not much left for us to do. And I had lost wife and child. I had nothing to live for, and no life to which to return.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was off my head.

I rode south past the shrine in a thunder of hooves, so that Idomeneus came out with a spear in his hand. But I did not want his blood-mad comfort. I rode past him, up the mountain.

Up the Cithaeron, to the altar of my family. The old altar of ash and ancient stone where the Corvaxae have worshipped the mountain since Leitos left for Troy, and before.

I had nothing to sacrifice, and it had begun to rain. The rain fell and fell, and I stood at the ash altar watching the rains wash it, watching the water rush d