At the start of the month I discussed the Spartan custom of syssitia, or dining clubs. In today's excerpt from A Peerless Peer we see inside a syssitia. Gorgo, Leonidas' niece, has recently announced that her father intends to marry her to a foreigner, and she has named Leonidas as her preferred husband.
The entire syssitia fell silent as Leonidas entered, and they looked at him expectantly. He frowned. "If you're gossiping about me, I'll leave again so you can carry on."
"You'll do nothing of the sort!" Nikostratos countered.
Leonidas turned on his heel to leave. Nikostratos nodded to two of the youngest members of the mess, and they sprang to their feet to block the door.
"You'll come in and sit down with us and behave like an adult," Nikostratos told off the younger man.
"I'm not going to talk about this nonsense."
"Calm down and have your soup!"
Warily Leonidas eased himself down on the couch and held out his hands to the mess-boys. One of the boys held the bowl while the other poured water over his hands, and then handed him a towel. Leonidas watched the entire ritual intently as if he were seeing it for the first time. The boys, both eight-year-olds, were very diligent, but just as they finished, one of them risked glancing up at him. Leonidas recognized the look of boyish delight at the prospect of hearing something worth telling their friends. Frowning, he sent the boys scampering back toward the kitchen.
A moment later they were back, rolling in the soup in a deep cauldron. The boys filled individual bowls with the thick stew while a loaf of warm bread was passed around. Leonidas tore off a chunk of bread and dipped it into the steaming-hot soup. Only after he had put the bread in his mouth did Nikostratos open his attack. "You realize your elder brother has outmaneuvered you, don't you?" he asked casually, not even looking at Leonidas -- but there was no question to whom he was speaking.
Leonidas looked up furiously, his mouth too full to retort, while Nikostratos continued, "King Cleomenes was called in to explain himself to the ephors, and he swore solemnly that you were his first choice for his beloved daughter -- but that you wouldn't take her. It was only because you'd already turned him down --"
Leonidas swallowed what was left in his mouth and insisted, "That's complete nonsense! He's lying!"
"Oh, I don't doubt he's lying, Leo. That's not the point. The point is, he has now publicly gone on record saying that you were his first choice as husband for his daughter, and only because you refused has he been forced to look for alternatives. He insisted that his daughter is too intelligent, independent, and precocious -- all of which is patently true -- to give to anyone but a prince or, short of that, a ruler. He suggested that a Persian satrap would be more suitable than an ordinary ranker."
"That's ridiculous!" Leonidas scoffed.
"Maybe, but he has neatly shifted the blame for seeking a foreign bridegroom from himself to you," Nikostratos pointed out. "And made you look doubly bad, since you are well over thirty, unmarried, and childless, and so in open violation of the law already."
"Meanwhile, your other brother is talking divorce, so he would be free to marry Gorgo," Euryleon joined in.
"Brotus?" Leonidas asked, incredulous. "Brotus wouldn't last a day with Gorgo -- she'd dissect him!"
Euryleon laughed, but retorted. "But she'd do it so intelligently, he might not even notice -- thick as he is." The remark harvested a general laugh from their mess-mates.
Nikostratos, however, insisted seriously, "Well, as next in line to the throne, there is a certain logic to Brotus marrying Gorgo." He wiped the bottom of his bowl clean with his bread.
"There's no logic to it at all!" Leonidas retorted hotly. "Besides, Brotus has no grounds for divorce -- and Sinope will kill him if he even mentions it!"
"Well, in that case, for an Agiad prince there is always the precedent of two wives."
"That would only perpetuate the entire nightmare of two rivals for the throne. Pausanias would naturally claim the throne as the first born, and any child by Gorgo would claim it by right of his double royal blood. The ephors can't be that stupid!"
Nikostratos shrugged and signaled for more soup. "Leonidas, you may well be right. I admit the situation is unprecedented. Ever since the sons of Herakles came to this valley, there has never been a situation exactly like this. But you can't just look on this as a personal matter. There will be consequences to your refusal to marry your niece and not all of them will be to your liking."
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