The Chians did not go crawling on their bellies....

The Ionian Revolt was hastily suppressed, leaving hundreds of men dead -- and the women and children in slavery. Herodotus specifically mentions the castration of attractive boys. In this excerpt from A Heroic King, one of those slave boys, now serving the concubines of a Persian Ambassador on a diplomatic mission, finds himself in Sparta 

“What can I sell you today, young sir?” said the woman behind the sweets stand, bringing him back to the present.

“Oh, I’m just a slave,” he hastened to correct her, ever conscious of his status. “But―but I do have money to buy―for my mistress. I’m sure she’d like some of these.” He pointed to the honey squares.

“Only those?” the saleswoman asked, astonished. “What about some of the raisin and walnut tarts? Or my lemon squares? Do you want to test my wares to be sure they are good enough?” she suggested with a little wink.

Danei understood her gesture as one of kindness from a woman showing sympathy for a boy in bondage. Her kindness lured a smile from him as he glanced up and asked, “May I try the lemon squares and the almond tarts, please?”

She smiled back and bent to retrieve a knife from under the counter to start cutting into her wares. His eyes focused hungrily on the sweets, Danei did not realize someone had come up behind him until a deep male voice asked, “Where are you from, young man?”

Danei nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned to look over his shoulder at the owner of the voice and felt his heart in his throat. It was one of the Spartiates―tall, muscular, tanned, and wearing bronze armor including a helmet tipped on the back of his neck, the nosepiece resting on his forehead. Danei wanted to flee. He started to shrink back, away from this man who smelled of sweat and bronze and freedom. “I―I’m―no one,” Danei told him. “I’m sorry.” He turned to run, but the woman stopped him.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, young sir. That’s just the master come to snatch a slice of cheesecake for himself. Here.”

Still poised to flee, Danei turned to look at her. She was smiling at him, an almond tart on the palm of her hand. “You need it more than he does,” she noted with a little nod in the direction of her master―who, incomprehensibly, laughed at her impudence.

Danei gaped. No Persian’s slave would risk using such a tone of voice with his master, and if they did, they would probably have their tongue torn out. “It’s all right,” she assured him gently, “the master won’t hurt you.”

“She’s right. I won’t.”

Danei still hesitated, but now it was in shame rather than fear. The man was the embodiment of masculinity, and Danei felt the scar between his legs as if he were naked. He looked down at the pavement beneath his feet, rooted to it from sheer humiliation. He was remembering how they had been lined up and castrated on a bloody block, one after the other, without so much as a glass of wine. Two men held the boys down backward over the block. The surgeon made a few expert cuts with his knife. The removed genitals landed in a bucket that had to be emptied several times before the day was over, and then each new eunuch was pushed off the block to make room for the next victim.

Danei had struggled too much at the wrong moment. The surgeon’s knife slipped and the man cursed in professional annoyance. Another man grabbed Danei and crushed a cloth down into his wound with all his might, ignoring Danei’s screams. Danei passed out. When he came to again, a crude bandage was made fast to his crotch with tarred twine and the bleeding had slowed to a trickle, but he would never again walk without a limp.

He was yanked from his memories by the saleswoman. She reached out and took his hand, pressing her pastry into it. As he looked up and met her eyes, he saw only his mother looking back at him, not just pitying him but encouraging him, too. He closed his eyes, unable to bear it.

“You speak with the accent of the islands,” the terrifying Spartan hoplite insisted. “Which island are you from?”

Danei looked up at him and mouthed the word. When was the last time he’d dared utter it? “Chios, master,” he whispered, and then he dropped his eyelids over his eyes to hide his tears. The word, said at last, instantly conjured up images: the sun coming up over the Aegean, the smell of the soil when his father turned it with a plow, the humming of the bees in their little orchard, his mother singing ….

“Chios?” the Spartan inquired, unsure if he had read the youth’s lips correctly.

Danei nodded, his eyes still down and staring, unintentionally, at the Spartan’s sandaled feet while his free hand tugged unconsciously at the hem of his shirt, pulling it down to cover his crotch more completely.

There was a pause. Then the deep voice said softly, “A man’s heart―not his extremities―make him a man. My life was once saved by a squadron of Chian triremes. I know the Chians did not go crawling on their bellies to the Persians, but died upright, as free men. I believe the sons of such men have the hearts of lions―no matter what the Persians have done to their bodies.”

Danei gasped and looked up. Their eyes met only for an instant, and then the Spartan turned and was gone. Danei stood rooted to the pavement and watched the Spartan continue down the street. He was filled with a strange sensation of lightness.

Danei’s father had been boatswain on one of Chios’ proud triremes, and he had been killed at sea in the great sea battle. More than half of Chios’ ships had been crushed and sunk in that battle, but the remainder, with shattered rams and crushed sides, limping and listing, had been dragged to Chios by the triumphant Persians. There the captive men had been hog-tied and run up the halyards of their own ships like bunting. There they had been left to die slowly of thirst as the sun burned them like rotting grapes. Danei had recognized some of the men, the fathers and brothers of friends, his cousins, a maternal uncle. While the men died overhead, the Persians had herded the boys onto the open decks and divided them into categories: the galleys, the mines, whores, eunuchs ….

Danei stared after the Spartan until he turned a corner and was lost from sight, and still he stared after him, trying to remember with every nerve of his body what he had said. A man’s heart, not his extremities…. The image of his father, dressed as he had been the day he sailed away for the last time…. His father had died a free man…. The sons of such men…. He turned and looked at the saleswoman in wonder.

She was no longer alone. The exchange had attracted two other Spartiates. They were younger than the man who had spoken to Danei. The first, wearing a striped chiton and hair braided at a rakish angle, remarked, “You can take his word for it, young man. He knows what he’s talking about.”

“But―who was he, master?”

“That was Leonidas, the man who should be king of Sparta.”

Danei looked again in the direction in which the Spartan had disappeared, as if hoping he might re-emerge, but he did not. When Danei turned back, the other Spartiates, too, had faded into the crowd. Only the woman selling sweets was still there. “How many do you want?” she asked.

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An Improper Proposal

One of the key events leading to the confrontation between Persia and Greece at Thermopylae in 480 BC was the subject status of the Greek cities of the Eastern Aegean. These cities had submitted to Persian overlordship in the reign of Cyrus, but they soon grew restless. When the "tyrant" of Miletos Aristogoras grew tired of Persian suzerainty over his city, he looked for allies to help him regain his independence. The first place he went was to Sparta. The excerpt below from A Peerless Peer is based on Herodotus.

Aristagoras opened his appeal: “I hope, Cleomenes, that you are not too surprised by my visit. After all, Sparta is the leading city in all Greece, and you are the Spartan king with the greatest intelligence and vision.” Cleomenes bowed graciously at the compliment, although he had far from forgotten the insults of this morning.

“Now, the fact is this,” Aristagoras continued: “the Ionians have become slaves to the Persians. This is not only their shame, but yours.” Cleomenes raised his eyebrows. “It is your shame, King Cleomenes, because—as I said earlier—the Spartans are the leaders of Greece; and if any Greek is enslaved, then it diminishes your own glory.”

“Ah,” Cleomenes remarked ambiguously.

“But if you do that which is pleasing to the Gods and come to the aid of your oppressed brothers, you will find rich rewards. I do not speak only of the rewards of glory and fame—although these would be yours in abundance—but also the rewards of riches quite beyond counting.”

“We have highly trained accountants here,” Cleomenes corrected the impertinent stranger.

“So I heard—your women.” Aristagoras laughed to show he recognized this was a joke.

Cleomenes only frowned.

“Please, may I show you something I had made and transported all this way merely to show you where your own interests lie?”

Cleomenes was scowling now. “What?”

“If I may send to my quarters?”

“Of course.” Aristagoras asked one of the attending helots to go to his quarters and ask his own slaves to bring “the map.”

Shortly afterward, four of Aristagoras’ slaves appeared, carrying the awkward box offloaded at Limera. Cleomenes was curious, and he got up to stand over the slaves as they pried open the wooden box, revealing a large bronze sheet on which a map of the world had been etched. “Here,” Aristagoras explained, pointing, “are the Gates of Herakles. Here is Italy and Sicily, and here is Hellas, with this dot representing Sparta.”

Cleomenes pointed, “And that is the Isthmus, Corinth, and there is Athens.”

“Exactly! Now, look here. These are the oppressed cities of Ionia. Here is the Persian provincial capital of Sardis, and here—all the way over here—is the principal seat of the Great King, Susa. But his Empire does not end here. It goes on and on and on to the very ends of the earth in the East. The riches of all this vast Empire would be yours, if only you defeat the Persians in Ionia.”

Cleomenes gave the tyrant-emissary a skeptical look.

“I have seen your army and I have heard that it is the best in the world—that is why I wonder so much at its staying here idle when your brothers cry out to you to save them from the Persian yoke. You will have no trouble beating the Persians. They fight in turbans and trousers, and their weapons are bows and short spears hardly better than their arrows. They are softened by a life of luxury and rich foods, nothing like your tough young men! If you defeat these effeminate men with their perfumed hair and painted faces in Ionia, you will not only have freed your brothers, but this whole, vast Empire will be yours for the taking.” He gestured with his hand.

“Odd that these perfumed men with painted faces have conquered such a vast empire, then, isn’t it?” Cleomenes noted.

“That was decades ago, under Cyrus. The new generation is soft.” Aristagoras dismissed Cleomenes’ objection and pointed to the map again. “Look, here is Lydia, a fine, rich country where the noblemen have houses filled with gold; and then Armenia, rich in cattle; here are Assyria and Cilicia and Media; and here Arabia, rich in spice, Phoenicia, the master of the Mediterranean, and Egypt, with all the riches of the Nile; here is conquered Babylon and humbled Media. Here, beyond the banks of the Choaspes, is Susa.” He pointed to a star on the map. “This is where the Great King lives and keeps his treasure—the tribute paid by all these subject states and peoples. But beyond is still half the Empire—there is Parthia, Bactria, and India.” He paused again and looked at Cleomenes’ face.

Cleomenes’ eyes were narrowed, and he appeared to be calculating.

“Look!” Aristagoras drew his attention back to the lower left-hand quarter of the map, where the Greek peninsula was etched onto the bronze. “Isn’t it time you stopped squabbling over this insignificant rocky scrap of land and turned your attention—and your superb army—to places of great fertility and wealth? Why do you shed the blood of your beautiful young men in interminable skirmishes with the Argives and Arcadians? Why not set before them a task worthy of their skills and courage? There is no gold or silver to be taken from Messenia or Arcadia—poor, rocky places that they are. But here!” He pointed again to Persia and Susa. “Here are treasures beyond imagination, and all waiting for whoever is bold enough to seize them.”

Cleomenes’ eyes were swinging from Greece to Susa and back again. At last, he asked, “Just how far is it from Sparta to Susa?”

“Your troops, I am told, march very fast. I was told that they can be in Messenia in a day or Athens in three. So if they were to set off from Miletos marching at that pace, they could reach Susa in three months.” Aristagoras was being generous. Even Persian royal messengers using relays of horses took a month. He did not really think a Spartan army could cover the distance in three months, but he thought this sounded plausible enough to impress upon Cleomenes how vast the Persian empire was.

Cleomenes, however, took a step back from the map, which he had been examining closely, and announced sharply, “Stranger! Your proposal to take the Lacedaemon Army three months’ journey from the sea is highly improper! You must leave Sparta before sunset!”

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Night at Thermopylae

Athough historians doubt the tale told by Diodorus of a Spartan raid into Xerxes camp on the night before the final battle at Thermopylae,

the story is just too good to exclude from a novel. Here's an excerpt from "A Heroic King," which describes how it may have come about.

By the time Dienekes and Oliantus reached Leonidas' tent, a heated argument was raging among Leonidas' closest friends. "For all we know, he's a fake, a plant, a traitor," Alkander was arguing.

"So what?" Prokles answered. "He came out of Xerxes camp, and he knows where the bastard's tent is."

"But why should he lead you to it?"

"Because I'll have a sword up his ass!"

"So he'll lead you to Hydarnes' tent, and when you're surrounded by Immortals, he'll squeal."

"So what? Then I die sooner rather than later. What the hell difference does it make? But if I can get him to lead me to the Great Asshole himself, there's a chance I could cut off the snake's head. If Xerxes is killed, that whole anthill won't be able to take another step!" Prokles was gesturing contemptuously toward the Persian positions. "They'll be headless -- or rather, all Xerxes' brothers will be so busy fighting one another for the throne, they won't have another thought for us. That's the real advantage of their polygamy, you know; they produce packs of royal whelps who hate one another more than anyone else in the world."

"And what do you propose to do? Stroll through the West Gate by the light of the full moon and say 'cheers' to Persians sentries as you walk past?"

"You're still a stupid little--"

"Prokles!" Leonidas cut him off and turned to Dienekes. "Everything alright?"

"Yes, an eager young lad by the name of Gylis is on his way right now. What's this all about?"

"We have in the form of this Tyrrhastiadas of Cyme," Prokles answered, "a man in our midst who knows the exact location of Xerxes' tent. He could lead me to it. All I need to do is slip inside --"

"The unguarded, isolated royal tent--" Alkander mocked sarcastically.

Leonidas clapped his hands once sharply to shut Alkander up, and Prokles continued, "And cut his throat. Then the whole war, let alone this battle, will be over."

Leonidas looked straight at Dienekes without a word.

"It sounds like a good idea to me. I'd say, six men. No more and no less."

"Why so many? THey'd just attract attention!" Prokles protested.

"The idea is too good to put all our hopes on the likes of you!" Dienekes retorted bluntly. "We should send in two teams of three men each. One can take the path that leads up from the Hot Gates over the spot where Xerxes had his throne. The helots can show the way up, and our deserter can show them the way down. The other three can take a fishing boat around to the back of the camp," he gestured vaguely toward the lights that dotted the dark stretch of the coast beyond the Malian Gulf. "From there they can ask their way to Xerxes' tent, which will hardly be a secret. Given the number of Ionian troops with the Great King's army, no one will take any note of a trio of Greek hoplites. We should have thought of this days ago."

"Choose the men, Dienekes -- anyone but yourself," Leonidas warned.

"For the three men to go over the mountain: Mindarus, Labotas, and Gallaxidoros. They're all born mountaineers, used to hunting in the harshest parts of Taygetos. For the sea route: Prokles here, Bulis, who speaks some Persian and has seen Xerxes face-to-face, and...." He paused for a moment, thinking carefully, before deciding, "Temenos."

Leonidas started slightly at this last choice, but he had told Dienekes to make the selection and had no grounds for calling his decision into question. "Fetch them," he ordered Meander.  

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The Captain from Kythera - An Excerpt from "A Heroic King"

Eurybiades was the Spartiate elected admiral of the combined Greek fleet that faced the Persians in 480. We know almost nothing about him, but I knew he had to be a character in my biographical novel about Leonidas -- and I couldn't resist associating him with my own home: Kythera.

In this scene, an Aegian penteconter has been terrorizing Athenian shipping in Lacedaemonian waters, and Leonidas has joined his fledgling navy to try to intercept her. After successfully forcing her to surrender, the officers of the penteconter are brought aboard the Lacedaemonian trireme.

"The crew of the penteconter is first rate," the [Perioikoi] captain continued, "but then, that's what you'd expect of the Aeginans. It's no wonder their symbol is the sea turtle. No sooner is an Aeginan born that he waddles down to the sea and starts to swim. They can row and sail before they can talk."

Leonidas glanced back at their prize, and then forward to where two perioikoi marines were escorting the Aeginan officers to him. "But they failed to capture their prize," Leonidas pointed out.

"Pah! They never intended to capture her. They drove her on the rocks intentionally."

"Why would they do that?" Leonidas wanted to know. "There's no booty from a wrecked grain carrier."

The captain shrugged. "We'll have to ask them." He nodded toward the two prisoners. One was a grizzled veteran with shoulder-length hair, more grey than brown, and wearing the breastplate, greaves, and helmet of a marine. His face and arms were burned a dark brown from decades on decks in the blaze of the Mediterranean sun, and the lines around his eyes were cut deep into his skin. The other man looked much younger by contrast, although he was no youth. His almost-black hair was cut short at the back and his beard was neatly trimmed.

Leonidas started violently. The elder man was none other than his childhood friend Prokles, who had been exiled for dereliction of duty just before reaching citizenship. Almost as astonishing, he was accompanied by a young Spartiate, whose name escaped Leonidas at the moment.

"Prokles! What are you doing preying on innocent ships -- and under the turtle of Aegina?"

Prokles, who had been fussing at the guard and not focused on the men on the afterdeck, broke into a grin. "Well, I'll be damned! I never expected a landlubber like you to catch me off guard like that." He glanced at the perioikoi captain and nodded once in respect, giving credit where he thought it was due.

"You didn't answer my question," Leonidas pointed out and turned to the younger man, who at least had the decency to look worried, to add, "and you need to explain yourself, young man!"

"I went off active service at the winter solstice, my lord," he spoke up at once, "and I'm on leave from my syssitia."

"With what possible excuse?" Leonidas wanted to know.

"To look after my affairs, my lord. My estates are on Kythera."

"Since when did looking after your affairs include attacking innocent merchant ships?"

"That's the second time you've used the adjective 'innocent,'" Prokles pointed out. "But you are using the term inadvisably. The Aeginans provided our ship and are paying us. The Aeginans do not view Athenian ships as 'innocent,' while Eurybiades here has a grudge against the Argives, whose ships have been our principal target."

"The Argives burned my kleros to the ground and murdered every man, woman, and child on it," Eurybiades explained at once.

Leonidas well remembered the damage wrought by the Argives on Kythera, but he still did not approve of someone taking the law into his own hands. "In my waters, I'll decide who can be attacked and who can go free," Leonidas countered. 

"Your waters be damned!" Prokles spat in the direction of the side of the ship, and the perioikoi marines stiffened in alarm, looking to Leonidas for orders to put the impudent man in his place. Leonidas signaled for them to relax, even as Prokles continued. "Power has gone to your head, Leo. We didn't break any law. Can we help it if an Athenian captain puts his own ship on the rocks?"

Leonidas addressed himself to the baffled perioikoi marines, who appeared ready to slit Prokles' throat for his impudence. "Untie them. They will do us no harm." The perioikoi obeyed with obvious reluctance, and then moved a short distance away, both curious and suspicious.

Prokles demonstratively stretched and wriggled his shoulders, while Leonidas asked, "Just what are the terms of your commission with Aegina?"

Prokles shrugged. "Ask Eurybiades. He's the captain. I'm just the commander of marines."

Leonidas looked at the younger Spartiate, even more amazed. "How did you come by an Aeginan commission? And where did you learn seamanship?"

Eurybiades, his hands now free, gestured vaguely around them. "Here, my lord. I spent my holidays here, not just on Kythera, but on the waters around it."

"Who is your father?"

"Eurykleides, my lord."

The name was familiar. Eurykleides had a distinguished career behind him and had served once as ephor. He stood a good chance of election to the Gerousia when the next vacancy came up. Generally seen as conservative, he had nevertheless, Leonidas now remembered, spoken forcefully in favor of the building of a fleet, and he also supported the law to allow helots to improve their status through service on Lacedaemonian ships. 

"My mother killed herself when she realized the Argives had breached the wall of the courtyard," Eurybiades continued, breaking in on his thoughts. "My father remarried and has two younger sons by his second wife. I inherited my mother's property here."

"Where did you recruit the crew of the penteconter?" Leonidas asked next.

"Oh, mostly in Skandia."

"They're Kytheran, not Aeginan?" the perioikoi captain asked astonished.

"For the most part," Eurybiades agreed, "maybe a third are Aeginan."

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A Spartan Admiral

In 480 BC, the Persian invasion of Greece was confronted at sea by a rag-tag fleet composed of 271 triremes and 16 penteconters. Although the bulk of this fleet (147 triremes) was built in Athens, the command was entrusted to a Spartan, Eurybiades, son of Eurycleides. He is a forgotten Spartan hero.

According to Herodotus, this was because “the other members of the confederacy [against Persia] had insisted on a Lacedaemonian commander, declaring that rather than serve under an Athenian they would break up the intended expedition altogether.” (The Histories: Book 8:2)

Herodotus rightly stresses the refusal of the allies to accept Athenian command, and this undoubtedly had historical reasons. Athens was not a significant sea power in the 6th century BC, and it did not build its massive fleet until after the discovery of silver in Laurium in 493 BC. In short, in 480, Athens was a parvenu naval power. The naval powers of the 6th Century, Corinth and Aegina, both had good reason to be wary of Athens. Aegina and Athens had been involved in an undeclared war for more than a decade, while Corinth and Athens were manufacturing centers that increasingly competed in trade. It is not, therefore, surprising that these and other cities rejected Athenian leadership. Noteworthy is that they wanted a Spartan commander. After all, Corinth provided the second largest contingent of ships (40 triremes) and four-times as many as Sparta’s modest if respectable contribution. Corinth, with a long history of naval power and such a significant number of ships, could have claimed command for itself.

That Corinth instead requested a Spartan commander cannot be dismissed as mere subservience to Sparta. Corinth was the city that had forced Sparta to break-off an invasion of Attica and ended Sparta’s ability to take the Peloponnesian League to war without the consent of all members. Corinth was an ally of Sparta, not a vassal-state or satellite. That Corinth joined other allies in insisting upon a Lacedaemonian commander, therefore, suggests that the demand was more than anti-Athenian and not merely pro-Spartan; it indicates that Sparta was considered a naval power capable of providing competent leadership at sea.

We know that Sparta conducted a campaign against Samos in the last quarter of the 6th Century which required considerable naval power in the form of transports and fighting ships to defend those transports. In addition, Cleomenes’ first attempt to depose the Athenian tyrant Hippias also entailed naval capability since the Spartan task force was landed at Phalerum. Theoretically, these earlier naval expeditions could have been conducted with perioikoi ships and crews, but Herodotus explicitly tells us Eurybiades was Spartiate. 

Furthermore, in Herodotus’ list of ship contingents to the battles of Artemisium and Salamis, he makes a notable distinction between ten “Spartan” ships at Artemisium and sixteen “Lacedaemonian” ships at Salamis. This implied that ten ships were financed and at least officered by “Spartans,” whereas the sixteen ships at Salamis included an additional six ships provided and manned by Perioikoi. Significantly, one year later, King Leotychidas led a naval expedition, demonstrating that naval command was not ipso facto beneath the dignity of Sparta’s kings. In short, at least some Spartiates at the start of the 5th century BC, most notably Eurybiades, had obtained naval experience and demonstrated competence at sea.

Contrary to popular opinion, there is no evidence that Eurybiades was a mere figurehead. While Eurybiades was not the originator of the winning strategies (all of which are attributed to Themistocles), Herodotus makes it clear that Eurybiades' support was essential for the implementation of Themistocles plans. Eurybiades commanded enough respect to be obeyed once he made up his mind, which would not have been the case if his position had been purely nominal.

The two instances in which Eurybiades opposed Athenian wishes/suggestions highlight his very real power. At Salamis, the position of greatest honor was given to the Aeginans, to the disgruntlement of the Athenians. While Athens had every reason to feel that they deserved pride of place because they provided half the fleet and had lost their city, Eurybiades’ decision was the right one for the commander of a multi-national force. Athens was going to fight regardless, but Eurybiades had to retain the loyalty and morale of the smaller contingents that resented Athenian dominance. Aegina’s was an important naval power with a significant contingent of triremes. By honoring Aegina, Eurybiades effectively prevented the smaller allied contingents from falling away or losing heart at a very critical moment.

Even more significant is Eurybiades’ role in preventing a fool-hardy destruction of Xerxes’ bridge across the Hellespont. The Persian fleet withdrew across the Aegean after the battle of Salamis. The victorious Greeks, waking up on the day after the Battle to find the Persian ships gone, gave chase. They reached the island of Andros without even catching sight of their quarry and stopped to consult. Themistocles at once proposed sailing north to destroy the bridge across the Hellespont by which the Persians had entered Greece and would need to retreat. Eurybiades wisely pointed out that trapping the undefeated Persian army in Greece was the last thing that the Greeks wanted! (This was before the battle of Plataea, and Persian land forces were only marginally weakened by the brief delay at Thermopylae.) Without an escape route, the Persians would have no choice but to lay waste to all Greece, using their superior numbers to slaughter everything in their path. The fact that Themistocles could even suggest such a course of action will not have endeared him to the men from cities other than Athens that had not already been raised to the ground. Certainly, Eurybiades was supported by all a majority of those voting and the plan was abandoned.

This was Eurybiades last significant act. Herodotus records that he was honored in Sparta, along with Themistocles,  for his role in defeating the Persians at sea. Then he disappears from history. So what do we know of him?

In Herodotus, Eurybiades serves primarily as a foil for Themistocles. Themistocles is the intriguer. He is constantly seeking and taking bribes, he sends secret messages to Xerxes, he takes credit for ideas that are not his own. Themistocles is depicted as a brilliant tactician and a gifted orator (something Athenians particularly admired), and he saves Greece. But as Herodotus portrays him, he is a shady character nevertheless.

Beside Themistocles, Eurybiades is an almost featureless shadow. At Artemisium, Herodotus claims he took a bribe from Themistocles to stop him from ordering the fleet to withdraw. Yet according to Herodotus, Themistocles was himself bribed by the local inhabitants. Given the fact that this was at the very moment when Eurybiades' King was making his unequivocal stand at Thermopylae, I personally find it inconceivable that Eurybiades considered retreat. After Thermopylae fell and Artemisium was militarily worthless, yes, but not before. Some of the other contingents might have been in a panic (so were many of the other Greeks who fought with Leonidas) but Eurybiades is unlikely to have been any less steadfast than Dienekes and rest of Leonidas' troops. In short, like Themistocles himself, may have taken the money without any intention of retreating.di

Otherwise, Herodotus depicts him diligently consulting with the commanders of the various contingents, calling conferences to discuss the course of action, and hearing everyone out before taking a decision. He appears to have been scrupulously respectful of the independence and rights of all the allies and to have diplomatically kept Athens from dominating the alliance. Once a decision was made, he acted decisively and commanded the respect of all involved – including the Athenians. His performance at sea is not singled out for special praise, but he positioned the Lacedaemonian ships in the middle of the line, where, as admiral, he would have the best overview.

The fact that he disappeared from history after this short moment of glory in 480 hints at one last characteristic: Eurybiades was no Pausanias and no Lysander, who turned his military success into a political agenda. He appears to have faded again into the anonymous ranks of the Spartan line, but his successful foray into history suggests that Sparta had greater naval competence than is widely recognized and foreshadows Sparta’s victory over Greece’s greatest naval power a half-century later – at sea.


Spartans and their unique culture are depicted as realistically as possible in all my Spartan novels. Eurybiades is given a small role in "A Heroic King":

    

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A Girl's Education - An Excerpt from "A Boy of the Agoge"

The co-educational nature of education in Sparta was the scandal of the ancient world, and particularly the physical education component of that education drew the voyeuristic attention of the many visitors that flocked to Sparta's religious festivals. 

In this excerpt from "A Boy of the Agoge," Leonidas and his friends have gone to see Alkander's sister participate in a girls' race and find themselves surrounded by "strangers" (i.e. Greeks from outside of Sparta.)

 "Does Hilaira have any chance of winning?" Prokles asked skeptically.

"She certainly does," his mother told him firmly.

"Why are there so many strangers here?" Leonidas asked because he noted that almost everyone around them, although Greek, was speaking a different dialect -- most Ionic.

"Oh, that's because they don't have maiden races in other cities," Prokles grandmother explained. "In fact, they don't let their maidens out of their houses at all." Leonis knew what she was talking about because she had lived in Tegea for a time when Lysandridas was in exile there.  

"So how do they go to school?" Prokles wanted to know.

"They don't."

"They don't go to school?"

"No--"

"And that is the proper way of things!" one of the men standing near them insisted, butting into the conversation firmly. He addressed himself to the boys rather than the women. "Everything a girl needs to know in life, she can learn at her mother's knee in the safety and seclusion of her own home. By letting girls run around in public view, you only encourage licentiousness and disobedience! The less a girl sees and hears, the better she is."

The three Spartan boys stared at the stranger in open bafflement. Because he looked at least 40 and by his rich clothes and carefully coifed hair appeared to be a man of wealth, they dared not contradict him.

It was Prokles' grandmother who answered him sharply. "IF it is such a scandal, why are you here?"
 

"See! That's just what I mean!" the man declared, still addressing the boys. "Silence. SILENCE is a woman's greatest virtue." Then, turning on Leonis, he sneered at her. "Flaunting your bodies is not half so bad as the way you chatter and interfere in men's affairs!"

"If you are afraid of women's words, go back where you came from!" Leonis retorted.

"I intend to do just that!" the man said indignantly and would have turned away, but Leonidas stopped. 

"Excuse me, sir."

The older man looked back. "Yes?"

"May I ask where you are from, sir?"

"I am from the great city of Athens!" the man proclaimed loudly enough to make others take notice.

"Oh!" 

Leonidas looked so surprised that the man's curiosity was aroused. "Does that surprise you?"

"It does, sir."

"Why?" the man asked, perplexed. He evidently felt that his nationality should have been obvious by his clothes and accent.

Leonidas hesitated. He glanced a little uncertainly at Prokles' grandmother. She could not know what he was going to say, but she awaited it expectantly. "It's only that I was taught Athens was a great and powerful city, sir."

"As indeed it is, boy --  nothing like this provincial pig-sty you call a city! Why, your whole acropolis wouldn't qualify as more than a collection of third-rate district temples in Athens, and your agora could fit inside ours three time over!"

"I accept your word for it, sir, but it surprises me nevertheless -- although I knew you had walls..." Leonidas trailed off enticingly. 

"What surprises you, boy?" The man asked impatiently, frowning, sensing something behind Leonidas' words that he could not identify yet.

"It surprises me that you are so easily frightened."

"Frightened?" the Athenian demanded, flabbergasted and uncomprehending.

"I mean," Leonidas still sounded baffled and respectful because it was a guise he had long since honed to perfection in the syssitia. "If you fear even the words of women, how you must tremble before the spears of men."

The man's jaw dropped in shocked outrage, and there was no knowing what he would have said if around him other spectators, both domestic and foreign, hadn't hooted with laughter. Angrily the Athenian pushed away into the crowd, with a loud sneer of "Whores and their whelps!" tossed over his shoulder.

Prokles leaped after him, apparently intent on making him retract this insult, but his mother caught him by the neck of his chiton. "Leave it! Leonidas won the round, and he knows it. Here's your sister now."

Based primarily on Nigel Kennel's comprehensive study of the Spartan agoge, the first novel of my Leonidas Trilogy depicts the Spartan "upbringing" one year at a time through the eyes of young Leonidas and his (fictional) friends. Experience the Spartan agoge in the age of Leonidas in:

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An Amok Chorus - An Excerpt from "A Boy of the Agoge"

The agoge, as I have argued repeatedly, was designed to produce self-confident, thinking citizens capable of independent action. The agoge did not aim to break, humiliate or cow the boys. This required maintaining discipline among spirited youth and teaching obedience and endurance — but all without robbing them of their pride.

In this excerpt from “A Boy of the Agoge,” I try to expose how subtle and complex the relations between the youth and their elders really were. The circumstances are a performance by a youth chorus at the Hellanikos, a festival in which Spartan choruses performed works composed by foreign composers selected in competitions for this very honor. I have chosen an event recorded in the sources in which the youth perform a fable (i.e. imitate animals) to song.

 

Now, with the entire city collected and the composer trying to talk the boys into cutting certain stanzas that had been agreed on earlier, some demon got into them. Even as Hellanikos gave his final instructions to perform exactly as practiced, the boys exchanged a look, and Leonidas knew they were going to do it. They went out on to the dancing floor, and an expectant hush fell across the entire crowd.  The musicians started to play the music, and Leonidas minced his way into the center of the agora like a market cat in the early morning. In the center, he sat down and proceeded to lick his right “paw” and use it to wash his face and behind his ears. The audience was delighted. Cats rarely appeared in fables. The “dog” appeared next….

Hellanikos knew something was wrong almost at once, but it was too late to stop them. All he could do was hold his breath in anticipation. He knew and his dancers knew they would be in serious trouble if they offended their elders. If they were willing to take the risk, then he could only hope and pray that they would do so for the sake of something worth seeing. By the time they started singing the corrupted text, he was far too amused by the audacity and wit of his charges to be angry with them.

The Theban poet, however, had not noticed the subtle changes in the pantomimes, and so it was only after they started to sing his text in a garbled and willfully misshapen form that he gasped in horror. “What’s happened? What is going on?” he demanded “What have you done to me? They are butchering my text! They are making a mockery of it! How could you do this to me?”

Hellanikos threw up his hands. “I had no idea they were going to do this.”

“What do you mean you had no idea? Who gave them those insulting lines? Everyone knows Spartan youths always follow orders! You gave them orders to commit this outrage!”

“Nonsense! You heard me give them orders to the contrary. Besides, I’ve never even heard this text before. They must have written it themselves. They are doing this on their own initiative and at their own risk.”

“They are turning the entire performance into a farce!”

They were indeed — and the audience loved it, none more than the Athenian guests of King Cleomenes. As the dance ended, these men leaped to their feet applauding vigorously. “Magnificent! Brilliant! Bravo! Bravo!” they called out to the performers, before turning to Cleomenes and remarking in obvious wonder and delight, “We had no idea you had comedy in Sparta! What a pity none of our comic playwrights could be here to see this. They would recruit your youths for one of our comic choruses on the spot! And these youths! Where do they get their training? I had no idea you had a drama school here. I thought all your youth just drilled and let themselves get flogged,” Isagoras exclaimed in rapturous enthusiasm.

Then a new thought occurred to Kleisthenes: “They aren’t really Spartiate, are they? Perioikoi? Surely not helots?”

“Of course they’re Spartiate,” Cleomenes countered indignantly. “Why, the youth who played the lion is my own brother.”

“Your brother?”

“Well, half-brother. Shall I call him over?”

“Of course! At once! Such a talented youth! And a magnificent voice! Does he have a lover?” Isogoras asked anxiously.

“Leonidas?” Cleomenes couldn’t imagine such a thing. “I shouldn’t think so,” he answered dryly, and then attracted the attention of one of his helot attendants and told him to fetch Leonidas.

The performers were toweling the sweat away and gulping water lacked with a thimbleful of wine to recover. They were euphoric, mostly for having got away with their mutiny, but also because the applause had gone to their heads. They were cracking jokes and exchanging good-natured insults, and their laughter came in volleys that echoed in the lofty ceiling of the bathhouse that they used as their changing room.

The arrival of the helot with the message for Leonidas that he was to report to his brother was unwelcome. “Do I have to go?” Leonidas asked rhetorically. The others tossed unwanted advice after him as he pulled his chiton over his head and belted it. Someone threw a himation after him as he left, and he just managed to catch it.

Leonidas was famished and thirsty. He wanted to find Prokles and Alkander and spend what free time he had left with them. He wanted to know what they had thought of the parody his troop of dancers had performed — or rather, wanted to collect the praise he expected from them. He wanted to have dinner with Prokles’ family and drink some stronger wine. Instead, he found himself reporting to his elder brother. “You sent for me, sir?”

“Your own brother has to call you ‘sir’?” Kleisthenes remarked with raised eyebrows, while Isagoras exclaimed in shocked amazement that Leonidas, shaved and barefoot, was evidently really a youth of the agoge. (His costume had covered his head, hands, and feet.)

“He doesn’t have to; it’s just a habit,” Cleomenes answered the first question with a touch of irritation. “Leonidas, these gentlemen from Athens wanted to meet you. May I present my little brother Leonidas, gentlemen. Leonidas, these are Kleisthenes of the Alcmaeonid family, and Isagoras, son of Tisander, of Athens. They were impressed by your little performance today.” From Cleomenes’ mouth, it sounded very patronizing.

Leonidas ignored his brother’s barb and addressed himself to the guests. “Thank you, sirs.”

“Tell us, have you had much training as an actor? We thought Spartan youth spent all their time drilling and what not?” Kleisthenes asked with apparent interest.

“No, sir. We rehearsed almost six months, every day except holidays.”

“Just how old are you?” Isagoras asked, leaning forward to get a better look at him at close quarters.

“Seventeen, sir.”

“That was our first performance? Remarkable. Then again, talent usually shows itself young. What will be your next role?”

“I hope there won’t be one, sir.”

“What? You can’t be serious. Why should you not want to act again?”

“It takes too much time, sir. I still have drill and the other classes. Rehearsals robbed me of almost all my free time.”

“Seriously?” The Athenians looked over at Cleomenes for confirmation. “You don’t excuse even your best choristers and dancers from drill?”

Cleomenes shrugged. “Of course not. My brother and the others are still in the agoge. They have to learn how to be good hoplites. As Spartiates they must learn the profession of arms.”

“But why to the exclusion of all else?” Isagoras leaned intimately close to Leonidas again, and Leonidas drew back instinctively. “Why not give up all that mindless drill and let me adopt you?” the Athenian asked him directly. “You never need to worry about marching or sleeping out in the rain or eating your horrid black broth again. I know a dozen comic playwrights who would be delighted to employ you!”

Leonidas shook his head sharply.

“Why not?” The Athenian pressed in a cloying voice. “You can mean you like being flogged and running around in rags?”

“No, sir, but I like what I will be,” Leonidas answered far too sharply. It was humiliating to stand here before these wealthy Athenians and know that to them, he was a pitiable creature.

“You mean a Spartan hoplite? A cog in a military machine? An interchangeable part of the Spartan line? Is that really such an enticing prospect? Think of the alternative; you could be a great actor, a man who brings audiences applauding to their feet. You would be wined and dined and entertained at the best addresses, adored by men and women! I fear you simply cannot imagine the joys of life in Athenian society.”

Leonidas glanced at his brother, offended that the Athenians felt free to talk like this in front of a Spartan king. Cleomenes, however, looked highly amused, as if he was enjoying the exchange. So Leonidas replied simply, “Nor do you know the joys of mine, sir.”

“Joys? What joys do you have in  your miserable clothes and barren messes?”

Leonidas glanced again at Cleomenes, resentful for being subjected to this shame. How was a youth of 17 supposed to explain to these Athenians what it meant to be Spartiate if the ruling king had failed to do so? Cleomenes, however, simply raised his eyebrows, evidently looking forward to Leonidas’ answer. Leonidas had no choice but to reply, and he decided on a single word: “Freedom.”

“Freedom? But you are chased from one exercise to the next. You said yourself you have no free time. You are the least free of all free Greeks. Indeed, I think you are less free than many slaves.”

“No, sir!” Leonidas snapped back. “We are the freest of all Greeks because we are free of fear. We are not afraid of hunger or cold or pain because we have known them all, and we know we can endure them all. We fear no man because we know we are dependent on no man’s favor and no man’s pay, but are the absolute masters of ourselves.”

“Fine words, young man,” Kleisthenes agreed in a rather sour tone, “but empty too. You live in constant fear of your instructors, your elders, your own leaders. Why, any citizen can call you to account, report you for the slightest infringement of rules, cause you to be flogged like a common slave.”

“Not so, sir.” Leonidas insisted hotly, aware that there was enough truth in the man’s words to make it all the more important to protest. It was the very fact that there was some truth to what he said that made Leonidas so agitated. He hated to think of his society in the way this Athenian was portraying it, and he wanted it to be better. He argued: “We obey our elders only as long as we respect them or what they stand for. Take tonight’s performance: the text was now what our chorus master had prepared and rehearsed with us. It was our own work.”

Cleomenes burst out laughing and slapped himself on the thigh in delight. “I should have known it! I’m beginning to like you, little brother. I thought that pompous Thebean looked like he swallowed a porcupine!”

 Based primarily on Nigel Kennel's comprehensive study of the Spartan agoge, the first novel of my Leonidas Trilogy depicts the Spartan "upbringing" one year at a time through the eyes of young Leonidas and his (fictional) friends. Experience the Spartan agoge in the age of Leonidas in:

 Buy Now!