Nicholas Nicastro - The Isle of Stone

Antalcidas picked up his shield. He had made sure to get command of a twenty-four man platoon, with himself in the front rank. This would make him visible to all his men when his time came. Turning to examine them, he faced a gallery of greenhorns, Nigh-Dwellers, reprobates, and reformed cowards like himself.

“Your orders are simple, scum: keep the pace-and watch how men should die!”

He cracked the head of his spear against his shield, and waited for the others to do the same. He heard their answer, the percussion of iron against bronze, the ancient music of the ranks, stretching back to echo the battle order of the Homeric heroes before the walls of Priam. Satisfied, he raised his cheek guards, spat, and pulled his helmet down low around his ears.

The enemy line came down the hill, approaching on the double-quick. The boy-pipers behind the Spartans began to play. Without thinking, the Lacedaemonians moved their feet to that deliberate cadence, marching at a slower pace but good order. Antalcidas’ heart was pounding now, surging with exhilaration, for there was no feeling like being swept before a clanking human beast of ten thousand legs, propelled unstoppably toward that wall of hostile spears. His urine coursed down his legs, but not in fear-in time, with the inevitability of it, he would ejaculate too, for there would be much fucking to do that day. He would rip pussies for them all, the men he would penetrate with his spear. As his men watched in wonder, he charged into the arms of the enemy, letting out as he ran a wail of joy like a man coming into his beautiful bride.

Those who witnessed it spoke for years of Stone at Mantinea.

The lady Damatria laid out Antalcidas on the same table where her youngest was honored a few short years before. Equals from all over Laconia came to marvel at her good fortune: to have a husband acquit himself well in battle was worthy enough, and to see him followed by a heroic son like Epitadas a true bounty. But to live to savor the glory of a second son was a rare thing indeed. With the victory at Mantinea, she became the most envied woman in Sparta. Instead of being known as “Damatria the Grasping” or “Damatria, Queen of Bitches,” she earned a new epithet among her peers in Kynosoura: “Damatria the Thrice-Blessed.”

She sat by the garlanded head of the corpse with a handkerchief to daub away the tears that could not come. No one could blame her, for what was there to cry about? She received her admirers all in turn-the two kings of Sparta, Agis and Pleistoanax, and Ramphias, the former governor of Cythera, and old Endius, the boy-herd, and the packmates Redhead, Cheese, and Rehash, and all the members of the Hill Wolves. She knew that all of them had shunned Antalcidas when he was alive, but had rushed to see him when they learned the manner of his death. She wondered, would he have forgiven them? Of course he would! The boy was such a fool-he lacked the wits even to keep a secret grudge. She kissed her fingers and laid them along her son’s cold temple. No one ever claimed he was sprung from good stock.

But he had served his mother well in another sense. She had been sitting there all morning, accepting the gifts of cake and good wishes from people she relished despising, when she realized she had not imagined the face of that helot all day. At some point she had not been aware, the rape had ceased to dominate her thoughts. It was a memory now-painful to be sure, which she loathed to dwell upon-but a memory nonetheless. Somehow repaired now, she loosed a tear for Antalcidas’ sake. She would invite Andreia and her little girl to live with her in her big house.

“Rejoice, for you have given your last child to Sparta!” old Isidas, the ex-ephor, told her. Wetting his ancient lips through their thicket of beard hairs, he asked, “So, do you still think him ‘the shame of Sparta?’ ”

Damatria smiled. “Not at all. Both of my sons were good boys. They have exceeded their fathers.”

Aeimnestus (Spartan): Renowned slayer of the Persian commander at the Battle of Plataea

Agis II (Spartan): Eurypontid king of Sparta

Alcander (Spartan): A city elder

Andreia (Spartan): Daughter of Ramphias; wife of Antalcidas; mother of Melitta

Antalcidas (Spartan): Illegitimate son of Damatria and an unknown helot; husband of Andreia; half-brother of Epitadas

Arcesilaus (Spartan): A city elder

“Beast” (Spartan): Nickname of Antalcidas’ second pack leader during the Rearing

“Birthmark” (Spartan): Nickname of Antalcidas’ first pack leader during the Rearing

“Cheese” (Spartan): Nickname of packmate of Antalcidas during the Rearing

Cimon (Athenian): Noble and general; after the Great Earthquake of 464 BC, led Athenian expeditionary force to Laconia to expel the Messenian rebels from Mount Ithome

Cleinias (Athenian): Oarsman of the lowest rank on the Terror

Cleomenes I (Spartan): Renowned Agiad king of Sparta in the time before the Persian Wars; famously died by self-mutilation

Cleon (Athenian): Popular politician and would-be military commander; leader of war party after the death of Pericles

“Cricket” (Spartan): Nickname of packmate of Antalcidas during the Rearing

Damatria (Spartan): Mother of Antalcidas and Epitadas; widow of Molobrus and wealthy wife of Dorcis

Damonon (Spartan): Member of the Spit Companions dining club

Demosthenes (Athenian): Noble and general; after suffering defeat in Aetolian mountains, led the successful incursion into Messenia at Pylos (not to be confused with the fourth century orator)

Dicaearchus (Athenian): Oarsman of the highest rank on the Terror

Dorcis (Spartan): Wealthy landowner and second husband of Damatria

Dorieus (Spartan): A member of the Spit Companions dining club

Doulos (Helot): Servant and shieldbearer, given by Damatria to Antalcidas upon his maturity

Endius (Spartan): Public official in charge of Rearing of Spartan youth (“boy-herd”)

Epitadas (Spartan): Son of Damatria and Molobrus; half brother of Antalcidas; leader of Lacedaemonian garrison on Sphacteria

Erinna (Helot): Servant and mistress of Dorcis

Eudamidas (Spartan): A member of the Spit Companions dining club

Eurymedon (Athenian): Fleet commander and superior to Demosthenes at the outbreak of the Pylos campaign

“Frog” (Spartan): Nickname of packmate of Antalcidas during the Rearing; restive member of Lacedaemonian garrison during siege of Sphacteria

Gorgo (Spartan): Sister of Leonis

Herippidas (Spartan): A member of the Spit Companions dining club

“Ho-hum” (Spartan): Nickname of packmate of Antalcidas during the Rearing

Ianthe (Athenian): Wife of Demosthenes; succumbed to plague

Iphitus (Spartan): Admiral and member of the Spit Companions dining club

Isidas (Spartan): Ex-ephor, member of the Gerousia, and member of the Spit Companions dining club; peace emissary to Athens during the Pylos affair

Lampito (Spartan): Mother-in-law of Damatria, mother of Molobrus

Leochares (Athenian): Officer and subordinate to Demosthenes at Pylos

Leonis (Spartan): Female tough who has a fateful encounter with Andreia

Melitta (Spartan): Daughter of Antalcidas and Andreia

Molobrus (Spartan): Father of Antalcidas, first husband of Damatria; namesake of Antacidas’ son by Andreia

Nicias (Athenian): Noble and general; after the death of Pericles, leading figure in the peace party

Oreus (Athenian): Oarsman of the middle rank on the Terror

Patronices (Athenian): Oarsman of the highest rank on the Terror

Philemon (Athenian): Wealthy sponsor (trierarch) of the vessel Terror

Pleistoanax (Spartan): Agiad king of Sparta