Steven Pressfield - Gates of Fire - An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae

The other youths under Polynikes' orders had now finished urinating as best they could into the hollow of Alexandras' shield. I glanced at Dienekes. His features betrayed no emotion, though I knew he loved Alexandras and wished for nothing more than to dash down the slope and murder Polynikes.

But Polynikes was right. Alexandros was wrong. The boy must be taught a lesson.

Polynikes now had Alexandros' tripous basis in his hand. The little tripod was comprised of three dowels joined at one end by a leather thong. The dowels were the thickness of a man's finger and about eighteen inches long. Line of battle! Polynikes bellowed. The platoon of boys formed up.

He had them all lay their shields, defamed, facedown in the dirt, exactly as Alexandros had done.

By now twelve hundred Spartiates up the hill were observing the spectacle, along with an equal number of squires and helot attendants.

Shields, port!

The boys lunged for their heavy, grounded hopla. As they did, Polynikes lashed at Alexandras' face with the tripod. Blood sprung. He swatted the next boy and the next until the fifth at last wrestled his twenty-pound, unwieldy shield off the ground and up into place to defend himself.

He made them do it again and again and again.

Starting at one end of the line, then the other, then the middle. Polynikes, as I have said, was an Agiad, one of the Three Hundred Knights and an Olympic victor besides. He could do anything he liked. The drill instructor, who was just an eirene, had been brushed aside, and could do nothing but look on in mortification.

This is hilarious, isn't it? Polynikes demanded of the boys. I'm beside myself, aren't you? I can hardly wait to see combat, which will be even more fun.

The youths knew what was coming next.

Tree fucking.

When Polynikes tired of torturing them here, he would have their drill instructor march them over to the edge of the plain, to some particularly stout oak, and order them, in formation, to push the tree down with their shields, just the way they would assault an enemy in battle.

The boys would take station in ranks, eight deep, the shield of each pressed into the hollow of the boy's back before him, with the leading boy's shield mashed by their combined weight and pressure against the oak. Then they would do othismos drill.

They would push.

They would strain.

They would fuck that tree for all they were worth., The soles of their bare feet would churn the dirt, heaving and straining until a rut had been excavated ankle-deep, while they crushed each other's guts humping and hurling, grinding into that unmoveable trunk. When the front-rank boy could stand no more, he would assume the position of the rearmost and the second boy would move up.

Two hours later Polynikes would casually return, perhaps with several other young warriors, who had themselves been through this hell more than once during their own agoge years. These would observe with shock and disbelief that the tree was still standing. By God, these dog-strokers have been at it half the watch and that pitiful little sapling is still right where it was! Now effeminacy would be added to the list of the lads' crimes. It was unthinkable that they be allowed to return to the city while this tree yet defied them; such failure would disgrace their fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins, all the gods and heroes of their line, not to mention their hounds, cats, sheep and goats and even the rats in their helots' barns, who would hang their heads and have to slink off to Athens or some other rump-split polis where men were men and knew how to put out a respectable fucking.

That tree is the enemy!

Fuck the enemy!

On it would go, into all-night shield drill which by mid second watch would have reduced the boys to involuntary regurgitation and defecation; they would be puking and shitting themselves, their bodies shattered utterly from exhaustion, and then, when the dawn sacrifices at last brought clemency and reprieve, the boys would fall in for another full day of training without a minute's sleep.

This torment, the boys knew now as they stood under Polynikes' face-lashing, was yet to come.

This was what they had to look forward to.

By this point every nose in the formation had been broken. Each boy's face was a sheet of blood.

Polynikes was just taking a breath (he had tired his arm with all that swatting) when Alexandras thoughtlessly reached with a hand to the side of his blood-begrimed face.

What do you think you're doing, buttfuck? Polynikes turned instantly upon him.

Wiping the blood, lord.

What are you doing that for?

So I can see, lord.

Who the fuck told you you had a right to see?

Polynikes continued his blistering mockery. Why did Alexandras think the division was out here, training at night? Was it not to learn to fight when they couldn't see? Did Alexandras think that in combat he would be allowed to pause to wipe his face? That must be it. Alexandras would call out to the enemy and they would halt politely for a moment, so the boy could pluck a nosenugget from his nostril or wipe a turdberry from his crease. I ask you again, is this a chamber pot?

No, lord. It is my shield.

Again Polynikes' dowels blasted the boy across the face. 'My'? he demanded furiously.

'My'?

Dienekes looked on, mortified, from where he stood at the edge of the upper camp. Alexandras was excruciatingly aware that his mentor was watching; he seemed to summon his composure, rally all his senses. The boy stepped forward, shield at high port. He straightened to attention before Polynikes and enunciated in his loudest, clearest voice:

This is my shield. I bear it before me into battle, but it is not mine alone. It protects my brother on my left. It protects my city. I will never let my brother out of its shadow nor my city out of its shelter. I will die with my shield before me facing the enemy.

The boy finished. The last of his words, shouted at the top of his voice, echoed for a long moment around the valley walls.

Twenty-five hundred men stood listening and watching.

They could see Polynikes nod, satisfied. He barked an order. The boys resumed formation, each now with his shield in proper place, upright against its owner's knees.

Shields, port!

The boys lunged for their hopla.

Polynikes swung the tripod.

With a crack that could be heard across the valley, the slashing sticks struck the bronze of Alexandras' shield.

Polynikes swung again, at the next boy and next. All shields were in place. The line protected.

He did it again from the right and from the left. Now all shields leapt into the boys' grips, all swiftly into place before them.

There.

With a nod to the platoon's eirene, Polynikes stepped back. The boys held fast at attention, shields at high port, with the blood beginning to cake dry on their empurpled cheekbones and shattered noses.

Polynikes repeated his order to the drill instructor, that these sheep-stroking sons of whores would do tree-fucking till the end of the second watch, then shield drill till dawn.

He walked once down the line, meeting each boy's eye. Before Alexandras, he halted.

Your nose was too pretty, son of Olympieus. It was a girl's nose. He tossed the boy's tripod into the dirt at his feet. I like it better now.

One of the boys died that night. His name was Hermion; they called him Mountain. At fourteen he was as strong as any in his age-class or the class above, but dehydration in combination with exhaustion overcame him. He collapsed near the end of the second watch and fell into that state of convulsive torpor the Spartans call nekrophaneia, the Little Death, from which a man may recover if left alone but will die if he tries to rise or exert himself. Mountain understood his extremity but refused to stay down while his mates kept their feet and continued their drill.