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    Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
    Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
    Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
    Ebook519 pages8 hours

    Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae

    By Steven Pressfield

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Steven Pressfield brings the battle of Thermopylae to brilliant life.”—Pat Conroy

    At Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece, the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army.

    Day after bloody day they withstood the terrible onslaught, buying time for the Greeks to rally their forces. Born into a cult of spiritual courage, physical endurance, and unmatched battle skill, the Spartans would be remembered for the greatest military stand in history—one that would not end until the rocks were awash with blood, leaving only one gravely injured Spartan squire to tell the tale. . . .
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateJan 30, 2007
    ISBN9780553904055
    Author

    Steven Pressfield

    Steven Pressfield has been an enthusiastic golfer since the age of ten. He is the author of the novel Gates of Fire and a well-known screenwriter whose screenplays include "Above the Law" and "Freejack." He lives in the Los Angeles area.

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    Reviews for Gates of Fire

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    • 4/5
      Really fascinating novel of the Spartans and other Greeks and the last stand of the 300 at the narrow pass of Thermopylae in the late 400s BC in their fight against the Persians and allies of Xerxes. Offers good insight into their training, philosophy, and virtues of brotherhood, honor, etc. Some foul language and very bloody fighting could be a drawback for some readers. I would definitely read it again.
    • 4/5
      A novelization of the Battle of Thermopylae, with an extensive fictional background for the main character.

      Yeah. So. I read about half and skimmed the rest. Not my jam. My two big issues with it: 1) It's way too graphic and violent for me, which, admittedly, is very much an "it's not you, it's me" thing, because of course a novel about Spartan soldiers and the battle in which nearly every single Greek soldier was killed is going to be violent if it's going to be accurate. But, again, that's not my jam. And 2) Pressfield clearly did his research and good for him, but he seems intent on his readers being constantly aware that he did his research. There is *way* too much detailed explanation of how the Spartans trained their army and the mechanics of the army itself, which is of course fascinating, but belongs in a history text and not a novel. Do the research, yes, and definitely use that research to help you write an accurate and believable story, but please don't regurgitate all that research onto the page. Possibly it was more annoying for me as a Classicist who already knows all the historic details? But I suspect that others would get pulled out of the story by the sheer volume of the stuff, too. The big take-away here: Pressfield is no Madeline Miller (and now I *need* Miller to write a novel about Leonidas).
    • 2/5
      To be fair, this book is exactly what the title sells it as. But it is nothing more than that. It is basically one long Brandon Sanderson fight scene. Epic? Maybe, but self-consciously epic, unbelievably epic; and therefore I found it powerless. And the writing is terrible.

      "The more miserable the conditions, the more convulsing the jokes become, or at least that's how it seems. I have witnessed venerable Peers of fifty years or more, with thick gray in their beards and countenances as distinguished as Zeus', dropping helpless with mirth onto hands and knees, toppling onto their backs and practically pissing down their legs they were laughing so hard. Once on an errand I saw Leonidas himself, unable to get to his feet for a minute or more, so doubled over was he from some otherwise untranslatable wisecrack."

      Good thing the joke was untranslatable, because otherwise Pressfield might have had to write it, and dialog is beyond him.
    • 5/5
      Great story of heroism based upon the ancient battle. The remarkable culture and standards of behavior in the Spartan nation are the highlight of this one. Should be mandatory reading for teenagers - boys in particular, but the surprise at the end is in the particular strength of the women of Sparta.
    • 4/5
      I saw 300; I’ve even read Frank Miller’s graphic novel that inspired the movie, so I wasn’t completely unprepared when I was handed a copy of Gates of Fire and told, “This is one of my favorite books. You have to read it.” Though historical fiction isn’t normally my cup of tea, especially when its main characters are warriors and its main plot is a bloody battle wherein (SPOILER ALERT) they all die, I gave it a try.

      The story is that of the battle of Thermopylae, otherwise known as the Hot Gates, a conflict between the invading Persian armies of King Xerxes and the defending Greeks who decided that the Hot Gates were the best place to die the best place to attempt to hold back the masses of Persians and their slaves who are in love with the idea of world domination. In order to better understand the Greeks, especially the Spartans, Xerxes has the one survivor of the battle, a dying slave to the Spartans named Xeones, tell them everything he knows about the Spartans.

      Of course, it’s not that simple, otherwise the book would be about fifty pages long and would end most likely on the down note of Xeones getting put out of his misery after telling all. Instead, it starts when Xeones was a child, living happily, and his town gets sacked by some other Greeks, but he escapes to eventually wind up as a slave-squire to one of the Spartans who gets sent to Thermopylae as one of the three hundred.

      Well, not actually as one of the three hundred. I mean, he is a squire to one of the Official Three Hundred Spartans, but it’s not like they were the only warriors to show up.

      You see, part of what makes Gates of Fire a fantastic book is that Pressfield has a penchant for research, so much of what made it into the book is actually historically true and you end up actually learning something (which is another reason why I don’t normally read historical fiction--who needs stealth learning? My gosh).

      What I mostly learned about the three hundred is that there was actually a bit more than three hundred people from Sparta showing up at the Hot Gates. There were three hundred actual, true Spartan citizens and then eleventy billion slaves-of-the-Spartans (okay, like a thousand, maybe) who showed up to be squires and blacksmiths and the like.

      There were also Greeks from other city-states like Athens and Corinth and Mycenae hanging around waiting to get slaughtered...I mean...beat back the Persians. Granted, most of those are sent home by the Spartans at the end of the battle so they don’t get killed, but it’s still a bit of a misnomer to say “Only the three hundred Spartans held back Xerxes!”

      So, if you’re interested in a compelling, well-written book in which you might actually learn a few historical facts, put this one on your to-read list.
    • 3/5
      This is a fictional account of the battle at Thermopile. One thing I learned is that there were many more than 300 Spartan combatants on the defensive side. Thousands actually, but only 300 elite soldiers who were ultimately the only ones required to stand and die to allow the homeland to prepare for the Persian onslaught. Sometimes gripping narrative, with very brutal battle descriptions and modern day English vulgar language at times. It's one of those books that makes you wonder, "how close is this description to what really happened?"
    • 4/5
      There's not much I can say about the book that hasn't been covered by others and even the cover itself. The book centers upon the Battle of Thermopylae, the same subject as the movie 300, but chok full of so much more. If you want to get an immersion into the mindset and culture of these amazing warriors, then this is the book to read. My only critique is flow. There's a lot of back and forth, which interrupts the pacing. From the start to halfway it is not a bother because Pressfield is impeccable with creating evocative images; however, after a third of the way through it began to wear on me. If it wasn't for the pacing issue I'd rate it a 5.
    • 3/5
      Years ago, a man walked into my bookstore and ordered 20 copies of this book because he liked it so much he needed to give a copy to everyone he knew. A couple years ago, it came up again when a coworker passionately explained that it was one of his most favorite books of all time. I decided that any novel that inspired that much fervor was probably worth reading.

      It was very good, but not really my thing. A captured, nearly-dead survivor of the battle of Thermopylae recounts his personal history and the training regiment of the Spartan warriors he served, and who were lately defeated by the Persian army. Much historical research likely went into the details of the Spartan day, the different levels of the Spartan boys as they progressed up to Peer status, the slave-servants and their role in their lives, and just how much punishment they subjected themselves to.

      The most vivid scene for me was the description of the aftermath of the ill-matched battle on the first day. One Spartan took of his helmet and all his hair came with it. Another spit out a mouthful of teeth. All collapsed into the slimy mess of the battlefield, where the soil had been churned up calf-deep by fierce fighting and was made into a sludgy mess by the amount of blood that had been spilled.

      It is well-written, touching, and definitely an ode to the single-minded soldiering of the Spartan army. I can see how this would appeal to, and be inspirational to, many people, but again, it just wasn't my thing.
    • 2/5
      This turned out to not be my sort of thing. There is a perfectly understandable need to set the scene for the climactic battle, but with one thing and another, I never read far enough to get anywhere near it. The early part of the book is a set of slightly confusing flashbacks and switches of perspective, introducing the protagonist, a young lad who will become a squire and the only surviving non-Persian witness to the battle. I found it rather difficult to follow his mental switches between points in his life. When we did settle down to an account of how he ended up at Thermopylae, it was a grim litany of unpleasant events. As tends to happen, it was the compulsory Historical Novel Rape Scene that first disengaged me - his cousin is barely introduced to the book before she's gang-raped by a band of pillaging Persians. I did press on for a while, but on that kind of form, I just didn't anticipate enjoying it very much. The book would need to be more tightly-written and more compelling to draw me on despite the content. Reading other reviews, it seems that the actual battle doesn't even start until near the end of the book, so I'm not sorry I stopped. I don't see much entertainment value in a couple of hundred pages of brutality and misery, personally.
    • 4/5
      Engaging novel, and largely true (to the best of my knowledge) of the time/events, etc.
    • 4/5
      Ah, Memphis; home of Elvis and the Ancient Greeks...erm...

      Most people who know anything about anything, know at least a little about the legend of Thermopylae and the 300 Spartans who fought there against overwhelming Persian odds back in the time of Ancient Greece. Of course, if you've seen the film '300', you'll know roughly the story, but 'Gates of Fire' takes it on to a whole different level.

      'Gates of Fire' (Thermopylae is Greek for 'hot gates', after the hot springs found there) uses what is known of the battle, immediately before, during and immediately after, and fleshes out the available facts, with background, characters and lots of personality. Having already read 'The Spartans', by Paul Cartledge, I knew something of The Spartan's history and traditions beforehand, so I can vouch for the authenticity of the description of Spartan society, customs and fighting techniques.

      It's written as though one of the Greeks has survived and though gravely injured, is telling the story of the Spartans and their preparation for and conduct during the battle, for later presentation to the Persian king Xerxes.

      It is a thoroughly captivating book, well-written and packed with detail and interesting characters. The book builds nicely throughout, leading to the climactic battle at the pass of the hot springs. The description of the fight scenes in the final battle is superb, gripping and well-written. Of course, I've no experience of fighting in such a battle, but it seems very realistic, you get what seems like much more of an idea of how - apart from anything, how dirty and thoroughly exhausting - it must have been to take part in such a battle, than many of the other historical novels I've read.
      I thought it was a really good, thoroughly enjoyable, absorbing read.

      *Of course, there weren't only 300 Spartans fighting at Thermopylae. There were thousands of other Greeks from other Greek city states in the battle as well. Even the 300 Spartans is a little doubtful. In The Gates of Fire, does say that 300 are chosen to go to the battle. On the third day of fighting, the Spartan king Leonidas, on learning that his force is about to be surrounded, by Persians coming round to the rear of the Thermopylae pass, sends away the majority of the other Greek forces. Some refuse and so stay, but in this book, obviously at this point, there are a lot less than 300 Spartans still alive. However, some other sources suggest that over 1,000 Spartans went to start the battle and that when Leonidas sent away the Greek forces, there were just 300 Spartans left at that point. Confusing.
    • 5/5
      What a book! A timeless masterpiece. All I can say is I wish it had been at least twice as long, or even infinite, for that matter. Legendary! I highly recommend this!
    • 3/5
      "Gates of Fire" is a majestic novel focused on the actions of 300 Spartans defending Hellas from the vast invading Persian hordes. It's story is large, the characters heroic. It's not, however, epic. At least not in its claustrophobic feel. The epic-ness resides in the well-travelled deeds of the Spartans then, just not in this book.

      Honor is a most valued trait. Long Homeric speeches bolster mens' bravery. And within this glory-driven, very testosterone-heavy vibe, we see only glimpses of the humanness of somewhat two-dimensional characters who represent the greater collective of the Spartan spirit.

      The Spartan women seem to best represent the humanness of this group of people who've taken on a supernatural historic status. They are noble, strong in both emotions and physicality, but through them we glimpse the human soul that resides at the heart of Pressfield's story.

      This story did not touch me. The characters and themes did not connect with me as a reader. Maybe because I'm not a warrior? Maybe because I'm not as familiar with this time period? I don't think so. This beautifully written novel is well crafted, but there's a flatness in the characterizations, and in the cases where a third dimension is almost complete, Pressfield shifts time and focus and delves into another aspect of Sparta's war-heavy ways.

      The battle scenes are tremendous and Pressfield does a terrific job of varying the action and description. I recommend "Gates of Fire" for the action and the story. Just don't go looking for more.
    • 4/5
      First line:
      ~ Although extraordinary valor was displayed by the entire corps of Spartans and Thespaians, yet bravest of all was declared the Spartan Dienekes ~

      My 29 year old son is a great fan of historical fiction involving battles and war strategy etc. He says that Gates of Fire is the best that he has ever read. I tried it once before and couldn't get into it but I know from past experience that sometimes a second go around makes the difference. This time I made it to the end.

      This is definitely not my favourite book but it is obviously well researched, well written and very detailed.

      Pressfield did some pretty heavy research about the Spartans and their warfare tactics. I understand it is pretty accurate.

      There are long passages (pages and pages) of details of the training experiences and the actual battle strategies etc. If you want bloody detail about hand to hand combat this is the book for you. I did find it fascinating to see what a well oiled machine these legions presented to their enemies and their sheer determination is to be admired on a certain level.

      However, reading this just confirms for me the tragedy of war. I can't imagine the life that these men and their squires lead. I am taken by their discipline and commitment. However, I am saddened as I am any time that I read about war and, what I believe to be, the senseless loss of lives. And so many lives were lost at this battle.

      There is also a lot of information about Spartan women and the role they play in the unfolding war.

      I don't think I would read this again but I did enjoy it.
    • 4/5
      This book was a very intimate look at the culture and lives of the Spartan 300 warriors. I found this book well worth reading. It kept you very much involved, and provided just enough humanity to the tale that you begin to care about the characters.

      This book focuses more on the historical than the fictional, even though it is a fictional view. It is actually a bit hard to read emotionally, since the Spartan lifestyle, and later the battle portrayals, are hard to imagine in today's society, and to our modern world can actually seem quite barbaric.

      This is not light reading, though the writing style is comfortable and engaging. My overall impression is of a very good inside look at a horrific battle.

      I enjoyed the read.
    • 4/5
      A little too disjointed and long-winded for my taste.
    • 5/5
      It took a rare individual to write this masterpiece of historical fiction. First, only a highly skilled writer could craft such a compelling, readable book. Second, he had to be intimately familiar with classical Greek history and the extant sources for the period. Finally, and most important, only someone who has endured the blood, sweat, and tears of military training and combat could create this timeless, relevant story.

      This book is an account of the same events at Thermopylae as the graphic novel, and now movie, 300. Both are good stories, but 300 is almost completely without context. When I first saw the movie, I left impressed, but thinking others who didn't have any background in classical Greek history were left with the wrong impression of Sparta. Gates of Fire tells the whole story, warts and all.

      Two constant themes in the book are camaraderie between warriors, and to a lesser extent, citizenship. He explores both ideas from different perspectives through dialogue between various characters, and their relations as Spartans, slaves, and other free Greeks. The central truth, gradually explained throughout the book, is that the opposite of fear is love.

      Some reviewers thought there was too much profanity and crude sexual jokes. He actually kept it pretty mild in my experience. I try to refrain from swearing and vulgar jokes myself, but it's a fact of life in military service. That's part of what makes the book realistic, and instantly relatable for any veteran. His realistic portrayal of military life and close combat are needed in stories of this kind. He neither glorifies war, nor condemns it in some quixotic quest for a fantasy world without war.

      Few books or movies manage to successfully tread this narrow path. One notable example is the brilliant movie Blackhawk Down, by Ridley Scott (before he made a preachy, anachronistic, and historically inaccurate movie about the Crusades). These works of art skillful communicate the sentiment in the quote attributed to General Robert E Lee: "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it."
    • 5/5
      It took a while for me to get into this story, but I did love the novel by the end. The story is framed as the first person account of a "squire" of the heavy infantry of the famous 300 of Sparta at Thermophylae, where in 480 BC a few thousand Greeks held off hundreds of thousands of invading Persians for days. Xeones tells his story to the Persians because he doesn't want his comrades who fell there and what they did to be forgotten.

      Xeones, only twenty at the time of the battle, was made stateless at ten when his city fell to fellow Greeks, the Argives who were Sparta's tradition enemy. Making his way to Sparta and choosing to fix his loyalty there, he is made a servant to one of the Spartan officers, Dienekes, who'll fight at Thermophylae.

      The portrait of Sparta fascinated beyond that of simply military fiction because this isn't really a book about the battle, but what it is that within the Spartans, and within humans, that makes deeds like theirs possible. Sparta was the main model for Plato's utopia in The Republic, and the training was famously harsh. Pressfield's Spartans, although brutal by modern standards, aren't brutes though. As he presents them there is no sadism in how they train their soldiers, but an attempt to habituate them to pain and hardship and drive away instinctive fear, so that they can perform "the commonplace" drilled into them in "uncommonplace conditions" of battle.

      Xeones greatly admires his master Dienekes, who is presented as a Spartan ideal even above Polynikes who embodies so much of the martial virtues. As Pressfield presents Dienekes, he's not an Achilles who single-handedly slays myriads, but a professional "whose primary attribute was self-restraint and self-composure" and it's this rather than bloodlust or even glory (Polynikes' ideal) that Pressfield presents as at the core of the Spartans martial success. Throughout his life, Dienekes has made his study the question, "What is the opposite of fear?" It's the answer he reaches at Thermophylae I found among the most moving moments in the novel.

      At the same time, Pressfield doesn't airbrush out Sparta is essentially a police state, with systematic eugenic infanticide, informers, assassins for dissenters, and that its citizens have only one profession from the moment they are sent for training as young boys at seven-years-old until 60 years of age--war. Within a slave society even its citizens are essentially slaves. Xeones young friend Alexandros, a Spartan "peer," is more suited to be a musician than a soldier and feels a distaste for war--but he has no other options. Given that King Leonidas speeches about the need to fight for "liberty" against the Persians felt a bit hollow to me. The novel does soft-petal just how badly treated the helots, the state slaves were. In addition, from what I've read about Sparta, the mentoring system was a form of institutionalized pederasty in Sparta--someone like Dienekes wouldn't just be Alexandros mentor, but his lover. Nothing like that is hinted in the book.

      Despite that, I can't help but feel admiration for Pressfield's Spartans and care about his characters. Leonidas himself is written as an able leader. Like another reviewer of the book, I'm more impressed by the achievements of Athens than Sparta. But it's because of Sparta's part in the Persian war that Athens survived to bequeath to us the cornerstones of Western civilization. Reading Pressfield I'm reminded of the quote attributed to Orwell--that we only sleep safe in our beds because "rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us."

      Pressfield wrote a more thoughtful book than I expected, true to the emotions and experiences of military training and war from what I've read of it and heard of it from veterans. This raises it well above the visually spectacular graphic novel and film on Thermopylae, The 300. Pressfield's battle scenes are vivid and seem real because of how he conveys things like the emotional and physical exhaustion. And despite this being essentially a work of military fiction about a warrior society, I thought Pressfield did a good job with his female characters and historically Sparta was, in terms of gender, the most egalitarian of the Ancient Greek city-states, so his strong female characters are fitting.

      He certainly does well by those who are buried near the memorial at Thermophylae with the famous epigram: "Tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie."
    • 5/5
      Like many people, I imagine, going into this book I have already seen the movie 300, so I know the general story. The only problem with this is that I continuously compared it to that work. That is a shame because they are greatly different stories.
      Gates of Fire is mostly narrated by one Spartan squire, Xeones, who had been saved by the royal surgeons of the emperor Xerxes. He not only tells the story of the battle at Thermopylae, but the majority of his own history. How he grew up away from the Spartan's home of Lakedaemon in another city, and how the landscape was continuously scarred with war. He and his cousin escaped his own city being destroyed and they eventually went their separate ways. She to Athens and he to Sparta. He gradually rose through the ranks starting as a slave of sorts until he was a squire to one of the heroes of the Spartan army, Dienekes. The narration account much more of the training methods and culture of the Spartan people than of war itself. He does eventually get to the battle of Thermopylae, but if you are expecting a book filled with gruesome detail and action, you may want to look elsewhere. Not to say there aren't those aspects as well.
      The author does a great job of characterization so that the reader actually cares what happens to the characters. This makes it that much more tragic when all the characters die in the end. This shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone, as I think the general story line is fairly known. Once the story progresses to the main battle, it becomes one of the best page turners I have ever read. It was both tragic and very exciting.
      Throughout much of the book I had to remind myself that it is a work of fiction and not a historical work. Not to say that it was dry and filled with dates and other factual information, but it was obvious that Pressfield did a massive amount of research for the novel. The book is interspersed with so much Greek words that I often had difficulty pronouncing a line. This combined with the great detail into how they battled and trained really made the fictional account of the novel that much more real.
      I can't recommend this book highly enough, both for lovers of war books but also for those that just love a good story and good characters. 5 of 5 stars!
    • 5/5
      This story puts you back into history, into a very intense culture that reminds you how how easy we have it in many ways. Great story - could not put it down. I wish my history teachers had used this kind of material.
    • 5/5
      Well read and extremely well-written. A delight to listen to, and painful to come to the end because one is so interested in the times and so sympathetic to the well-developed characters.

      Pressfield even surpasses the Shaaras, in my opinion, and this is his best of the several books of his to which I have listened.
    • 3/5
      This is a more accurate depiction of the Battle of Thermopylae, the battle of Greek allied forces against the Persian Empire at Thermopylae.

      What got me interested in this story was the movie 300 and while I did find its interpretation of the battle entertaining I still enjoy learning about what really went on.

      I would only use this book in a junior high or high school classroom as it was a graphic at times. I would definitely recommend it to any students who may have seen 300 and enjoyed it and use it to aid in a unit teaching about Greek history and mythology.
    • 3/5
      Parts of it were fascinating, parts of it were disgustingly graphic, I had some serious issues with the stylistic approach of the layered flashbacks, but the feel for historical detail was top notch. Also, the publisher should have rethought the format decision to set the narrative-framing flashforwards in italics; I found the lengthy chunks hard to read in that style. Surely it wouldn't have been difficult to set those passages in a legibly distinctive secondary font?

      I'm glad I read this book, and I'm just as glad to send it away for someone else to read.
    • 4/5
      Diennekes the platoon leader said that the opposite of fear is love. If it is, the Spartans truly loved their city and their ideals. It was absolutely unreal the lengths they went to in battle with the Persians. This was about 100 years before Alexander would ultimately crush the Persians. At this time, they were the dominant force on earth, with a territory from India to Asia Minor and Egypt. Because of the Greek city-state in fighting, the Greeks didn’t get their act together for quite a while and squandered valuable men, weapons, food and other resources in the years preceding their war with Persia. It took that threat to bring them together.

      For the Persians, the idea of democracy (government by the people) was unheard of and unfathomable. Greek kings were down-to-earth types who literally led their men into battle. The citizens (all men of a certain birth) were active participants in government and war. The Persian king was a sacred personage and most people couldn’t even look directly at him, never mind him leading them into battle. He stayed far away from the battlefield, observing it from his covered dais.

      This tale, like the tale of Alexander’s Persian boy, is told from a servant’s perspective. Xeo is so in awe of the Spartans that he somehow gets in with them and becomes the squire of Diennekes, a peer of Sparta. The role of the squire is to do everything for a warrior that will free up the warrior’s time for training and exercises. The squire accompanies the soldier into battle to bear weapons, repair gear, dress and fetch and otherwise support the soldier. They are not paid. Neither are the forced. It’s a strange position, part servant, part dog part soldier.

      The unbelievable bravery and staunch conviction of the Spartan warriors is amazing. The descriptions of the battles themselves was gut wrenching. The blood, sweat, mud, noise, pus, snot and sheer brutality is something that I doubt people today could endure. These men were literally battered to death slowly over a period of many battles (if they survived at all). Having to fight standing on the bodies of the slain. Stacking them up in a wall to discourage and frighten the enemy. Diennekes fought with one eye gouged out of his head. Alexandros had his hand lopped off and then cauterized with a sword heated up and held flat against the stump, and still he went on. Another man was shot in both shoulders and he still went on the raiding mission to kill King Xerxes of Persia, crawling up stone escarpments on his belly like a snake.

      And the women – what a horrid lot most of them had. Greek women in general were treated worse than dogs, but Spartan women were expected to take it with unwavering fortitude. No tears. No grief. No relief in the outpouring of emotion. They were only valued if they could produce sons. Typical. But in another sense, the men relied on their backbone to fortify the whole community. If the city saw them crying or grieving, they would all lose heart and wouldn’t be able to stand against the enemy. The men asked them to bear their unrelenting sorrow of their men dying, because they could. They saw that as true courage because they contained themselves in the face of their more nurturing and caring natures. It was natural for men to be aggressive and want to fight, so the bravery of the battlefield was somehow less than the bravery of the women because that bravery went against their nature. Someday I would very much like to visit Thermopylae (the Hot Gates) to see for myself.
    • 5/5
      Great book about Battle of Thermopylae.Great characters and sheer intensity of battle scenes and war waging in the ancient world is what will become Mr. Pressfields trademark in his historical novels.

      Recommended.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book. It was interesting from the start and kept my interest throughout the book. Earlier this year I read the history of this story in The Landmark Herodotus. The importance of the Greco-Persian war contributed to my interest in the book. I am sure my reading made it easier for me to concentrate on the part of the book that describes the life of a Spartan.
      It is stated but not emphasized that Sparta was a slave society. That held true for a lot of the world in those times. Xeo, The narrator, is a slave but he is proud of being a Spartan slave.
      Uniquely Spartan was the practice of housing men in dormitories beginning at the age of seven when the agoge, a period of military training, begins. This continued through adulthood and was somewhat similar to the way of life portrayed by Plato in the Republic. As the only Greeks who trained for war full time the Spartans were very effective soldiers. They ruled on land while Athens ruled the sea.
      Discussion of philosophy is also a big part of the book. Dienekes, the Peer for whom Xeo is a squire, ponders the question; What is the opposite of fear? throughout the book. He does reach the answer. Generally the tenor of discussion is basic and very serious. On the third day of the battle, when everyone knows they will die, the discussion of the situation is as much of the story as the fighting. It would appear from this book that the level of serious thought in Plato's Dialogues was common in ancient Greece.
      The battle scenes in the book are every bit as gory as the Iliad. They are told from the point of view of a participant and convey very well the action of hoplite warfare. Much of the battle consisted of getting behind your shield and pushing on the soldier in front of you. When you were on the front you skewered the enemy with your eight footer or sliced him open with a xiphos.
      The book is not just about the battles. There are also some personal relationships woven through the story. The author does a good job portraying the role of women in Greek society. In the sphere of the family they were powerful and in a speech at the end of the book the King makes it clear how important they were to Sparta.
      This is a good book to learn some of the day to day details of Greek life. It is a very flattering portrayal of Sparta. Personally I prefer the Athenian way of life to the Spartan regimen but in the war between the two many Greeks supported Sparta. Sparta personified the older, simpler and more virtuous way of life.
    • 4/5
      This fictionalized account of the Battle of Thermopylae is a thoroughly enjoyable treatment of the historical event upon which it is based. Most interesting and educational are the many pages devoted to the training and indoctrination of the Spartan warriors, literally from birth until their preordained death in combat.

      The level of dedication, loyalty and sacrifice endured by these men is difficult to comprehend, it is so foreign to our lives today. Certainly, many aspects of such training are utterly barbaric and inhumane, however they must be viewed in the context of their time.

      Having read this novel soon after seeing the movie "300", the book gives excellent background to the sights and sounds highlighted in the movie. Anyone with an interest in ancient history or even in human nature will enjoy and benefit from reading this book.

      Far more than simply a blood and guts war novel, it says a lot about the complex emotions and human behavior elicited by a fight for survival, both personal survival and the survival of a way of life.
    • 5/5
      If you liked the movie "300," read this book. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Herodotus and Plutarch let us know the history; Pressfield lets us feel like we were there.
    • 5/5
      What a fantastic book! I would have given it six stars or more, if possible! It gives you a much more realistic look at the battle than the movie 300. While it's a great movie, don't expect it to be anything like the book. The author did his research, and this was a great story! It's not written like a non-fiction, but that of a fictional story. Some of the names and locations were a tad hard for me to pronounce, but I gained a much better understanding of the Spartan culture and the battle. The story itself was first-rate.

    Book preview

    Gates of Fire - Steven Pressfield

    BY ORDER OF HIS MAJESTY, Xerxes son of Darius, Great King of Persia and Media, King of Kings, King of the Lands; Master of Libya, Egypt, Arabia, Ethiopia, Babylonia, Chaldea, Phoenicia, Elam, Syria, Assyria and the nations of Palestine; Ruler of Ionia, Lydia, Phrygia, Armenia, Cilicia, Cappadocia, Thrace, Macedonia and the trans-Caucasus, Cyprus, Rhodes, Samos, Chios, Lesbos and the islands of the Aegean; Sovereign Lord of Parthia, Bactria, Caspia, Sousiana, Paphlagonia and India; Lord of all men from the rising to the setting sun, His Most Holy, Reverend and Exalted, Invincible, Incorruptible, Blessed of God Ahura Mazda and Omnipotent among Mortals. Thus decreeth His Magnificence, as recorded by Gobartes the son of Artabazos, His historian:

    That, following the glorious victory of His Majesty’s forces over the arrayed Peloponnesian foe, Spartans and allies, at the pass of Thermopylae, having extinguished the enemy to the last man and erected trophies to this valorous conquest, yet was His Majesty in His God-inspired wisdom desirous of further intelligence, both of certain infantry tactics employed by the enemy which proved of some effect against His Majesty’s troops, and of the type of foemen these were who, though unbound by liege law or servitude, facing insuperable odds and certain death, yet chose to remain at their stations, and perished therein to the final man.

    His Majesty’s regret having been expressed at the dearth of knowledge and insight upon these subjects, then did intercede God Ahura Mazda on His Majesty’s behalf. A survivor of the Hellenes (as the Greeks call themselves) was discovered, grievously wounded and in a state of extremis, beneath the wheels of a battle waggon, being unseen theretofore due to the presence of numerous corpses of men, horses and beasts of transport being heaped upon the site. His Majesty’s surgeons being summoned and charged under pain of death to spare no measure to preserve the captive’s life, God yet granted His Majesty’s desire. The Greek survived the night and the morning following. Within ten days the man had recovered speech and mental faculty and, though yet confined to a litter and under direct care of the Royal Surgeon, was able not only at last to speak but to express his fervent desire to do so.

    Several unorthodox aspects of the captive’s armor and raiment were noted by the detaining officers. Beneath the man’s battle helmet was found not the traditional felt cawl of the Spartan hoplite, but the dogskin cap associated with the race of helots, the Lakedaemonian slave class, serfs of the land. In contrast inexplicable to His Majesty’s officers, the prisoner’s shield and armor were of the finest bronze, etched with rare Hibernian cobalt, while his helmet bore the transverse crest of a full Spartiate, an officer.

    In preliminary interviews, the man’s manner of speech proved to be a compound of the loftiest philosophical and literary language, indicative of a deep familiarity with the epics of the Hellenes, intermingled with the coarsest and most crude gutter argot, much of which was uninterpretable even to His Majesty’s most knowledgeable translators. The Greek, however, willingly agreed to translate these himself, which he did, utilizing scraps of profane Aramaic and Persian which he claimed to have acquired during certain sea travels beyond Hellas. I, His Majesty’s historian, seeking to preserve His Majesty’s ears from the foul and often execrable language employed by the captive, sought to excise the offensive material before His Majesty was forced to endure hearing it. Yet did His Majesty in His God-inspired wisdom instruct His servant so to translate the man’s speech as to render it in whatever tongue and idiom necessary to duplicate the precise effect in Greek. This have I attempted to do. I pray that His Majesty recall the charge He imparted and hold His servant blameless for those portions of the following transcription which will and must offend any civilized hearer.

    Inscribed and submitted this sixteenth day of Ululu, Fifth Year of His Majesty’s Accession.

    ONE

    Third day of Tashritu, Fifth Year of His Majesty’s Accession, south of the Lokrian border, the Army of the Empire having continued its advance unopposed into central Greece, establishing an encampment opposite the eastern fall of Mount Parnassus, the sum of whose watercourses, as numerous others before upon the march from Asia, failed and was drunk dry by the troops and horses.

    The following initial interview took place in His Majesty’s campaign tent, three hours after sunset, the evening meal having been concluded and all court business transacted. Field marshals, advisors, household guards, the Magi and secretaries being present, the detaining officers were instructed to produce the Greek. The captive was brought in upon a litter, eyes cloth-bound so as to dissanction sight of His Majesty. The Magus performed the incantation and purification, permitting the man to speak within the hearing of His Majesty. The prisoner was instructed not to speak directly toward the Royal Presence but to address himself to the officers of the household guard, the Immortals, stationed upon His Majesty’s left.

    The Greek was directed by Orontes, captain of the Immortals, to identify himself. He responded that his name was Xeones the son of Skamandridas of Astakos, a city in Akarnania. The man Xeones stated that he wished first to thank His Majesty for preserving his life and to express his gratitude for and admiration of the skill of the Royal Surgeon’s staff. Speaking from his litter, and yet struggling with weakness of breath from several as-yet-unhealed wounds of the lungs and thoracic organs, he offered the following disclaimer to His Majesty, stating that he was unfamiliar with the Persian style of discourse and further stood unfortunately lacking in the gifts of poesy and story-spinning. He declared that the tale he could tell would not be of generals or kings, for the political machinations of the great, he said, he was and had been in no position to observe. He could only relate the story as he himself had lived it and witnessed it, from the vantage of a youth and squire of the heavy infantry, a servant of the battle train. Perhaps, the captive declared, His Majesty would discover little of interest in this narrative of the ordinary warriors, the men in the line, as the prisoner expressed it.

    His Majesty, responding through Orontes, Captain of the Immortals, asserted to the contrary that this was precisely the tale he wished most to hear. His Majesty was, He declared, already possessed of abundant intelligence of the intriguings of the great; what He desired most to hear was this, the infantryman’s tale.

    What kind of men were these Spartans, who in three days had slain before His Majesty’s eyes no fewer than twenty thousand of His most valiant warriors? Who were these foemen, who had taken with them to the house of the dead ten, or as some reports said, as many as twenty for every one of their own fallen? What were they like as men? Whom did they love? What made them laugh? His Majesty knew they feared death, as all men. By what philosophy did their minds embrace it? Most to the point, His Majesty said, He wished to acquire a sense of the individuals themselves, the real flesh-and-blood men whom He had observed from above the battlefield, but only indistinctly, from a distance, as indistinguishable identities concealed within the blood- and gore-begrimed carapaces of their helmets and armor.

    Beneath his cloth-bound eyes, the prisoner bowed and offered a prayer of thanksgiving to some one of his gods. The story His Majesty wished to hear, he asserted, was the one he could truly tell, and the one he most wished to.

    It must of necessity be his own story, as well as that of the warriors he had known. Would His Majesty be patient with this? Nor could the telling confine itself exclusively to the battle, but must proceed from events antecedent in time, for only in this light and from this perspective would the lives and actions of the warriors His Majesty observed at Thermopylae be given their true meaning and significance.

    His Majesty, field marshals, generals and advisors being satisfied, the Greek was given a bowl of wine and honey for his thirst and asked to commence where he pleased, to tell the story in whatever manner he deemed appropriate. The man, Xeones, bowed once upon his litter and began:

    I had always wondered what it felt like to die.

    There was an exercise we of the battle train practiced when we served as punching bags for the Spartan heavy infantry. It was called the Oak because we took our positions along a line of oaks at the edge of the plain of Otona, where the Spartiates and the Gentleman-Rankers ran their field exercises in fall and winter. We would line up ten deep with body-length wicker shields braced upon the earth and they would hit us, the shock troops, coming across the flat in line of battle, eight deep, at a walk, then a pace, then a trot and finally a dead run. The shock of their interleaved shields was meant to knock the breath out of you, and it did. It was like being hit by a mountain. Your knees, no matter how braced you held them, buckled like saplings before an earthslide; in an instant all courage fled our hearts; we were rooted up like dried stalks before the ploughman’s blade.

    That was how it felt to die. The weapon which slew me at Thermopylae was an Egyptian hoplite spear, driven in beneath the plexus of the ribcage. But the sensation was not what one would have anticipated, not being pierced but rather slammed, like we sparring fodder felt beneath the oaks.

    I had imagined that the dead would be detached. That they would look upon life with the eyes of objective wisdom. But the experience proved the opposite. Emotion ruled. It seemed nothing remained but emotion. My heart ached and broke as never it could on earth. Loss encompassed me with a searing, all-mastering pain. I saw my wife and children, my dear cousin Diomache, she whom I loved. I saw Skamandridas, my father, and Eunike, my mother, Bruxieus, Dekton and Suicide, names which mean nothing to His Majesty to hear, but which to me were dearer than life and now, dying, dearer still.

    Away they flew. Away I flew from them.

    I was keenly conscious of the comrades-in-arms who had fallen with me. A bond surpassing by a hundredfold that which I had known in life bound me to them. I felt a sense of inexpressible relief and realized that I had feared, more than death, separation from them. I apprehended that excruciating war survivor’s torment, the sense of isolation and self-betrayal experienced by those who had elected to cling yet to breath when their comrades had let loose their grip.

    That state which we call life was over.

    I was dead.

    And yet, titanic as was that sense of loss, there existed a keener one which I now experienced and felt my brothers-in-arms feeling with me. It was this.

    That our story would perish with us.

    That no one would ever know.

    I cared not for myself, for my own selfish or vainglorious purposes, but for them. For Leonidas, for Alexandros and Polynikes, for Arete bereft by her hearth and, most of all, for Dienekes. That his valor, his wit, his private thoughts that I alone was privileged to share, that these and all that he and his companions had achieved and suffered would simply vanish, drift away like smoke from a woodland fire, this was unbearable.

    We had reached the river now. We could hear with ears that were no longer ears and see with eyes that were no longer eyes the stream of Lethe and the hosts of the long-suffering dead whose round beneath the earth was at last drawing to a period. They were returning to life, drinking of those waters which would efface all memory of their existence here as shades.

    But we from Thermopylae, we were aeons away from drinking of Lethe’s stream. We remembered.

    A cry which was not a cry but only the multiplied pain of the warriors’ hearts, all feeling what I, too, felt, rent the baleful scene with unspeakable pathos.

    Then from behind me, if there can be such a thing as behind in that world where all directions are as one, came a glow of such sublimity that I knew, we all knew at once, it could be nothing but a god.

    Phoebus Far Darter, Apollo himself in war armor, moved there among the Spartiates and Thespaians. No words were exchanged; none were needed. The Archer could feel the men’s agony and they knew without speech that he, warrior and physician, was there to succor it. So quickly that surprise was impossible I felt his eye turn toward me, me the last and least who could expect it, and then Dienekes himself was beside me, my master in life.

    I would be the one. The one to go back and speak. A pain beyond all previous now seized me. Sweet life itself, even the desperately sought chance to tell the tale, suddenly seemed unendurable alongside the pain of having to take leave of these whom I had come so to love.

    But again, before the god’s majesty, no entreaty was possible.

    I saw another light, a sicklier, cruder, more coarse illumination, and knew that it was the sun. I was soaring back. Voices came to me through physical ears. Soldiers’ speech, in Egyptian and Persian, and leather-gauntleted fists pulling me from beneath a sheaf of corpses.

    The Egyptian marines told me later that I had uttered the word lokas, which in their tongue meant fuck, and they had laughed even as they dragged my shattered body out into the light of day.

    They were wrong. The word was Loxias—the Greek title of respect for Apollo the Cunning, or Apollo Crabwise, whose oracles arise ever elusive and oblique—and I was half crying to him, half cursing him for laying this terrible responsibility on me who had no gift to perform it.

    As poets call upon the Muse to speak through them, I croaked my inarticulate grunt to the Striker From Afar.

    If indeed you have elected me, Archer, then let your fine-fletched arrows spring from my bow. Lend me your voice, Far Darter. Help me to tell the tale.

    TWO

    Thermopylae is a spa. The word in Greek means hot gates, from the thermal springs and, as His Majesty knows, the narrow and precipitous defiles which form the only passages by which the site may be approached—in Greek, pylae or pylai, the East and West Gates.

    The Phokian Wall around which so much of the most desperate fighting took place was not constructed by the Spartans and their allies in the event, but stood in existence prior to the battle, erected in ancient times by the inhabitants of Phokis and Lokris as defense against the incursions of their northern neighbors, the Thessalians and Macedonians. The wall, when the Spartans arrived to take possession of the pass, stood in ruins. They rebuilt it.

    The springs and pass themselves are not considered by the Hellenes to belong to the natives of the area, but are open to all in Greece. The baths are thought to possess curative powers; in summer the site teems with visitors. His Majesty beheld the charm of the shaded groves and pool houses, the oak copse sacred to Amphiktyon and that pleasantly meandering path bounded by the Lion’s Wall, whose stones are said to have been set in place by Herakles himself. Along this in peacetime are customarily arrayed the gaily colored tents and booths used by the vendors from Trachis, Anthela and Alpenoi to serve whatever adventurous pilgrims have made the trek to the mineral baths.

    There is a double spring sacred to Persephone, called the Skyllian fountain, at the foot of the bluff beside the Middle Gate. Upon this site the Spartans established their camp, between the Phokian Wall and the hillock where the final tooth-and-nail struggle took place. His Majesty knows how little drinking water is to hand from other sources in the surrounding mountains. The earth between the Gates is normally so parched and dust-blown that servants are employed by the spa to oil the walkways for the convenience of the bathers. The ground itself is hard as stone.

    His Majesty saw how swiftly that marble-hard clay was churned into muck by the contending masses of the warriors. I have never seen such mud and of such depth, whose moisture came only from the blood and terror-piss of the men who fought upon it.

    When the advance troops, the Spartan rangers, arrived at Thermopylae prior to the battle, a few hours before the main body which was advancing by forced march, they discovered, incredibly, two parties of spa-goers, one from Tiryns, the other from Halkyon, thirty in all, men and women, each in their separate precincts, in various states of undress. These pilgrims were startled, to say the least, by the sudden appearance in their midst of the scarlet-clad armored Skiritai, all picked men under thirty, chosen for speed of foot as well as prowess in mountain fighting. The rangers cleared the bathers and their attendant perfume vendors, masseurs, fig-cake and bread sellers, bath and oil girls, strigil boys and so forth (who had ample intelligence of the Persian advance but had thought that the recent down-valley storm had rendered the northern approaches temporarily impassable). The rangers confiscated all food, soaps, linens and medical accoutrements and in particular the spa tents, which later appeared so grimly incongruous, billowing festively above the carnage. The rangers reerected these shelters at the rear, in the Spartan camp beside the Middle Gate, intending them for use by Leonidas and his royal guard.

    The Spartan king, when he arrived, refused to avail himself of this shelter, deeming it unseemly. The Spartiate heavy infantry likewise rejected these amenities. The tents fell, in one of the ironies to which those familiar with war are accustomed, to the use of the Spartan helots, Thespaian, Phokian and Opountian Lokrian slaves and other attendants of the battle train who suffered wounds in the arrow and missile barrages. These individuals, too, after the second day refused to accept shelter. The brightly colored spa tents of Egyptian linen, now in tatters, came as His Majesty saw to protect only the beasts of transport, the mules and asses supporting the commissariat, who became terrorized by the sights and smells of the battle and could not be held by their teamsters. In the end the tents were torn to rags to bind the wounds of the Spartiates and their allies.

    When I say Spartiates, I mean the formal term in Greek, Spartiatai, which refers to Lakedaemonians of the superior class, full Spartans—the homoioi—Peers or Equals. None of the class called Gentleman-Rankers or of the perioikoi, the secondary Spartans of less than full citizenship, or those enlisted from the surrounding Lakedaemonian towns, fought at the Hot Gates, though toward the end when the surviving Spartiates became so few that they could no longer form a fighting front, a certain leavening element, as Dienekes expressed it, of freed slaves, armor bearers and battle squires, was permitted to fill the vacated spaces.

    His Majesty may nonetheless take pride in knowing that his forces defeated the flower of Hellas, the cream of her finest and most valiant fighting men.

    As for my own position within the battle train, the explanation may require a certain digression, with which I hope His Majesty will be patient.

    I was captured at age twelve (or, more accurately, surrendered) as a heliokekaumenos, a Spartan term of derision which means literally scorched by the sun. It referred to a type of nearly feral youth, burned black as Ethiopians by their exposure to the elements, with which the mountains abounded in those days preceding and following the first Persian War. I was cast originally among the Spartan helots, the serf class that the Lakedaemonians had created from the inhabitants of Messenia and Helos after they in centuries past had conquered and enslaved them. These husbandmen, however, rejected me because of certain physical impairments which rendered me useless for field labor. Also the helots hated and mistrusted any foreigner among them who might prove an informer. I lived a dog’s life for most of a year before fate, luck or a god’s hand delivered me into the service of Alexandros, a Spartan youth and protege of Dienekes. This saved my life. I was recognized at least ironically as a freeborn and, evincing such qualities of a wild beast as the Lakedaemonians found admirable, was elevated to the status of parastates pais, a sort of sparring partner for the youths enrolled in the agoge, the notorious and pitiless thirteen-year training regimen which turned boys into Spartan warriors.

    Every heavy infantryman of the Spartiate class travels to war attended by at least one helot. Enomotarchai, the platoon leaders, take two. This latter was Dienekes’ station. It is not uncommon for an officer of his rank to select as his primary attendant, his battle squire, a freeborn foreigner or even a young mothax, a noncitizen or bastard Spartan still in agoge training. It was my fortune, for good or ill, to be chosen by my master for this post. I supervised the care and transport of his armor, maintained his kit, prepared his food and sleeping site, bound his wounds and in general performed every task necessary to leave him free to train and fight.

    My childhood home, before fate set me upon the road which found its end at the Hot Gates, was originally in Astakos in Akarnania, north of the Peloponnese, where the mountains look west over the sea toward Kephallinia and, beyond the horizon, to Sikelia and Italia.

    The island of Ithaka, home of Odysseus of lore, lay within sight across the straits, though I myself was never privileged to touch the hero’s sacred soil, as a boy or later. I was due to make the crossing, a treat from my aunt and uncle, on the occasion of my tenth birthday. But our city fell first, the males of my clan were slaughtered and females sold into slavery, our ancestral land taken, and I cast out, alone save my cousin Diomache, without family or home, three days before the start of my tenth year to heaven, as the poet says.

    THREE

    We had a slave on my father’s farm when I was a boy, a man named Bruxieus, though I hesitate to use the word slave, because my father was more in Bruxieus’ power than the other way round. We all were, particularly my mother. As lady of the house she refused to make the most trifling domestic decision—and many whose scope far exceeded that—without first securing Bruxieus’ advice and approval. My father deferred to him on virtually all matters, save politics within the city. I myself was completely under his spell.

    Bruxieus was an Elean. He had been captured by the Argives in battle when he was nineteen. They blinded him with fiery pitch, though his knowledge of medicinal salves later restored at least a poor portion of his sight. He bore on his brow the ox-horn slave brand of the Argives. My father acquired him when he was past forty, as compensation for a shipment of hyacinth oil lost at sea.

    As nearly as I could tell, Bruxieus knew everything. He could pull a bad tooth without clove or oleander. He could carry fire in his bare hands. And, most vital of all to my boy’s regard, he knew every spell and incantation necessary to ward off bad luck and the evil eye.

    Bruxieus’ only weakness as I said was his vision. Beyond ten feet the man was blind as a stump. This was a source of secret, if guilty, pleasure to me because it meant he needed a boy with him at all times to see. I spent weeks never leaving his side, not even to sleep, since he insisted on watching over me, slumbering always on a sheepskin at the foot of my little bed.

    In those days it seemed there was a war every summer. I remember the city’s drills each spring when the planting was done. My father’s armor would be brought down from the hearth and Bruxieus would oil each rim and joint, rewarp and reshaft the two spears and two spares and replace the cord and leather gripware within the hoplon’s oak and bronze sphere. The drills took place on a broad plain west of the potters’ quarter, just below the city walls. We boys and girls brought sunshades and fig cakes, scrapped over the best viewing positions on the wall and watched our fathers drill below us to the trumpeters’ calls and the beat of the battle drummers.

    This year of which I speak, the dispute of note was over a proposal made by that session’s prytaniarch, an estate owner named Onaximandros. He wanted each man to efface the clan or individual crest on his shield and replace it with a uniform alpha, for our city Astakos. He argued that Spartan shields all bore a proud lambda, for their country, Lakedaemon. Fine, came the derisive response, but we’re no Lakedaemonians. Someone told the story of the Spartiate whose shield bore no crest at all, but only a common housefly painted life-size. When his rankmates made sport of him for this, the Spartan declared that in line of battle he would get so close to his enemy that the housefly would look as big as a lion.

    Every year the military drills followed the same pattern. For two days enthusiasm reigned. Every man was so relieved to be free of farm or shop chores, and so delighted to be reunited with his comrades (and away from the children and women around the house), that the event took on the flavor of a festival. There were sacrifices morning and evening. The rich smells of spitted meat floated over everything; there were wheaten buns and honey candies, fresh-rolled fig cakes, and bowls of rice and barley grilled in sweet new-pressed sesame oil.

    By the third day the militiamen’s blisters started. Forearms and shoulders were rubbed raw by the heavy hoplon shields. The warriors, though most were farmers or grovers and supposedly of stout seasoned limb, had in fact passed the bulk of their agricultural labor in the cool of the counting room and not out behind a plough. They were getting tired of sweating. It was hot under those helmets. By the fourth day the sunshine warriors were presenting excuses in earnest. The farm needed this, the shop needed that, the slaves were robbing them blind, the hands were screwing each other silly. Look at how straight the line advances now, on the practice field, Bruxieus would chuckle, squinting past me and the other boys. They won’t step so smartly when heaven starts to rain arrows and javelins. Each man will be edging to the right to get into his rankmate’s shadow. Meaning the shelter of the shield of the man on his right. "By the time they hit the enemy line, the right wing will be overlapped half a stade and have to be chased back into place by its own cavalry!"

    Nonetheless our citizen army (we could put four hundred heavy-armored hoplites into the field on a full call-up), despite the potbellies and wobbly shins, had acquitted itself more than honorably, at least in my short lifetime. That same prytaniarch, Onaximandros, had two fine span of oxen, got from the Kerionians, whose countryside our forces allied with the Argives and Eleuthrians had plundered ruthlessly three years running, burning a hundred farms and killing over seventy men. My uncle Tenagros had a stout mule and a full set of armor got in those seasons. Nearly every man had something.

    But back to our militia’s maneuvers. By the fifth day, the city fathers were thoroughly exhausted, bored and disgusted. Sacrifices to the gods redoubled, in the hope that the immortals’ favor would make up for any lack of polemike techne, skill at arms, or empeiria, experience, on the part of our forces. By now there were huge gaps in the field and we boys had descended upon the site with our own play shields and spears. That was the signal to call it a day. With much grumbling from the zealots and great relief from the main body, the call was issued for the final parade. Whatever allies the city possessed that year (the Argives had sent their strategos autokrater, that great city’s supreme military commander) were marshaled gaily into the reviewing stands, and our reinvigorated citizen-soldiers, knowing their ordeal was nearly over, loaded themselves up with every ounce of armor they possessed and passed in glorious review.

    This final event was the greatest excitement of all, with the best food and music, not to mention the raw spring wine, and ended with many a farm cart bearing home in the middle watch of the night sixty-five pounds of bronze armor and a hundred and seventy pounds of loudly snoring warrior.

    This morning, which initiated my destiny, came about because of ptarmigan eggs.

    Among Bruxieus’ many talents, foremost was his skill with birds. He was a master of the snare. He constructed his traps of the very branches his prey favored to roost upon. With a pop! so delicate you could hardly hear it, his clever snares would fire, imprisoning their mark by the boot as Bruxieus called it, and always gently.

    One evening Bruxieus summoned me in secrecy behind the cote. With great drama he lifted his cloak, revealing his latest prize, a wild ptarmigan cock, full of fight and fire. I was beside myself with excitement. We had six tame hens in the coop. A cock meant one thing—eggs! And eggs were a supreme delicacy, worth a boy’s fortune at the city market.

    Sure enough, within a week our little banty had become the strutting lord of the walk, and not long thereafter I cradled in my palms a clutch of precious ptarmigan eggs.

    We were going to town! To market. I woke my cousin Diomache before the middle watch was over, so eager was I to get to our farm’s stall and put my clutch up for sale. There was a diaulos flute I wanted, a double-piper that Bruxieus had promised to teach me coot and grouse calls on. The proceeds from the eggs would be my bankroll. That double-piper would be my prize.

    We set out two hours before dawn, Diomache and I, with two heavy sacks of spring onions and three cheese wheels in cloth loaded on a half-lame female ass named Stumblefoot. Stumblefoot’s foal we had left home tied in the barn; that way we could release mama in town when we unloaded, and she would make a beeline on her own, straight home to her baby.

    This was the first time I had ever been to market without a grown-up and the first with a prize of my own to sell. I was excited, too, by being with Diomache. I was not yet ten; she was thirteen. She seemed a full-grown woman to me, and the prettiest and smartest in all that countryside. I hoped my friends would fall in with us on the road, just to see me on my own beside her.

    We had just reached the Akarnanian road when we saw the sun. It was bright flaring yellow, still below the horizon against the purple sky. There was only one problem: it was rising in the north.

    That’s not the sun, Diomache said, stopping abruptly and jerking hard on Stumblefoot’s halter. That’s fire.

    It was my father’s friend Pierion’s farm.

    The farm was burning.

    We’ve got to help them, Diomache announced in a voice that brooked no protest, and, clutching my cloth of eggs in one hand, I started after her at a fast trot, hauling the bawling gimpy-foot ass. How can this happen before fall, Diomache was calling as we ran, the fields aren’t tinder-dry yet, look at the flames, they shouldn’t be that big.

    We saw a second fire. East of Pierion’s. Another farm. We pulled up, Diomache and I, in the middle of the road, and then we heard the horses.

    The ground beneath our bare feet began to rumble as if from an earthquake. We saw the flare of torches. Cavalry. A full platoon. Thirty-six horses were thundering toward us. We saw armor and crested helmets. I started running toward them, waving in relief. What luck! They would help us! With thirty-six men, we’d have the fires out in—

    Diomache yanked me back hard. Those aren’t our men.

    They came past at a near gallop, looking huge and dark and ferocious. Their shields had been blackened, soot smeared on the blazes and stockings of their horses, their bronze greaves caked with dark mud. In the torchlight I saw the white beneath the soot on their shields. Argives. Our allies. Three riders reined in before us; Stumblefoot bawled in terror and stamped to break; Diomache held the halter fast.

    What you got there, girlie? the burliest of the horsemen demanded, wheeling his lathered, mud-matted mount before the onion sacks and the cheeses. He was a wall of a man, like Ajax, with an open-faced Boeotian helmet and white grease under his eyes for vision in the dark. Night raiders. He leaned from his saddle and made a lunging swipe for Stumblefoot. Diomache kicked the man’s mount, hard in the belly; the beast bawled and spooked.

    You’re burning our farms, you traitorous bastards!

    Diomache slung Stumblefoot’s halter free and slapped the fear-stricken ass with all her strength. The beast ran like hell and so did we.

    I have sprinted in battle, racing under arrow and javelin fire with sixty pounds of armor on my back, and countless times in training have I been driven up steep broken faces at a dead run. Yet never have my heart and lungs labored with such desperate necessity as they did that terror-filled morning. We left the road at once, fearing more cavalry, and bolted straight across country, streaking for home. We could see other farms burning now. We’ve got to run faster! Diomache barked back at me. We had come beyond two miles, nearly three, on our trek toward town, and now had to retrace that distance and more across stony, overgrown hillsides. Brambles tore at us, rocks slashed our bare feet, our hearts seemed like they must burst within our breasts. Dashing across a field, I saw a sight that chilled my blood. Pigs. Three sows and their litters were scurrying in single file across the field toward the woods. They didn’t run, it wasn’t a panic, just an extremely brisk, well-disciplined fast march. I thought: those porkers will survive this day, while Diomache and I will not.

    We saw more cavalry. Another platoon and another, Aetolians of Pleuron and Kalydon. This was worse; it meant the city had been betrayed not just by one ally but by a coalition. I called to Diomache to stop; my heart was about to explode from exertion. I’ll leave you, you little shit! She hauled me forward. Suddenly from the woods burst a man. My uncle Tenagros, Diomache’s father. He was in a nightshirt only, clutching a single eight-foot spear. When he saw Diomache, he dropped the weapon and ran to embrace her. They clung to each other, gasping. But this only struck more terror into me. Where’s Mother? I could hear Diomache demanding. Tenagros’ eyes were wild with grief. "Where’s my mother? I shouted. Is my father with you?"

    Dead. All dead.

    How do you know? Did you see them?

    I saw them and you don’t want to.

    Tenagros retrieved his spear from the dirt. He was breathless, weeping; he had soiled himself; there was liquid shit on the inside of his thighs. He had always been my favorite uncle; now I hated him with a murderous passion. You ran! I accused him with a boy’s heartlessness. You showed your heels, you coward!

    Tenagros turned on me with fury. Get to the city! Get behind the walls!

    What about Bruxieus? Is he alive?

    Tenagros slapped me so hard he bowled me right off my feet. Stupid boy. You care more about a blind slave than your own mother and father.

    Diomache hauled me up. I saw in her eyes the same rage and despair. Tenagros saw it too.

    What’s that in your hands? he barked at me.

    I looked down. There were my ptarmigan eggs, still cradled in the rag in my palms.

    Tenagros’ callused fist smashed down on mine, shattering the fragile shells into goo at my feet.

    Get into town, you insolent brats! Get behind the walls!

    FOUR

    His Majesty has presided over the sack of numberless cities and has no need to hear recounted the details of the week that followed. I will append the observation only, from the horror-benumbed apprehension of a boy shorn at one blow of mother and father, family, clan, tribe and city, that this was the first time my eyes had beheld those sights which experience teaches are common to all battles and all slaughters.

    This I learned then: there is always fire.

    An acrid haze hangs in the air night and day, and sulphurous smoke chokes the nostrils. The sun is the color of ash, and black stones litter the road, smoking. Everywhere one looks, some object is afire. Timber, flesh, the earth itself. Even water burns. The pitilessness of flame reinforces the sensation of the gods’ anger, of fate, retribution, deeds done and hell to pay.

    All is the obverse of what it had been.

    Things are fallen which had stood upright. Things are free which should be bound, and bound which should be free. Things which had been hoarded in secret now blow and tumble in the open, and those who had hoarded them watch with dull eyes and let them go.

    Boys have become men and men boys. Slaves now stand free and freemen slaves. Childhood has fled. The knowledge of my mother and father’s slaughter struck me less with grief for them or fear for myself than with the imperative to assume at once their station. Where had I been on the morn of their murder? I had failed them, trotting off on my boyish errand. Why had I not foreseen their peril? Why was I not standing at my father’s shoulder, armed and possessed of a man’s strength, to defend our hearth or die honorably before it, as he and my mother had?

    Bodies lay in the road. Mostly men, but women and children too, with the same dark blot of fluid sinking into the pitiless dirt. The living trod past them, grief-riven. Everyone was filthy. Many had no shoes. All were fleeing the slave columns and the roundup which would be starting soon. Women carried infants, some of them already dead, while other dazed figures glided past like shades, bearing away some pitifully useless possession, a lamp or a volume of verse. In peacetime the wives of the city walked abroad with necklaces, anklets, rings; now one saw none, or it was secreted somewhere to pay a ferryman’s toll or purchase a heel of stale bread. We encountered people we knew and didn’t recognize them. They didn’t recognize us. Numb reunions were held along roadsides or in copses, and news was traded of the dead and the soon to be dead.

    Most piteous of all were the animals. I saw a dog on fire that first morning and ran to snuff his smoking fur with my cloak. He fled, of course; I couldn’t catch him, and Diomache snatched me back with a curse for my foolishness. That dog was the first of many. Horses hamstrung by sword blades, lying on their flanks with their eyes pools of numb horror. Mules with entrails spilling; oxen with javelins in their sides, lowing pitifully yet too terrified to let anyone near to help. These were the most heartbreaking: the poor dumb beasts whose torment was made more pitiful by their lack of faculty to understand it.

    Feast day had come for crows and ravens. They went for the eyes first. They peck a man’s asshole out, though God only knows why. People chased them off at first, rushing indignantly at the blandly feeding scavengers, who would retreat as far

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