The two of them stood there. Uncle and nephew. They stood alone on the porch and watched the river running slowly before the great palace.

"I want you to do something for me, Artabanus" murmured Xerxes.

"To a god and to a king, no one says no."

The king's swarthy face lighted up with self satisfaction at his uncle's words. He liked the comparison. God, the king of the world. Xerxes, the king of men. "I want you to become me..."

"Forgive, me, but the passing years have not given me enough wisdom to understand. What do you mean, son of Darius?"

"Exactly what you just said. I want you to become the son of Darius..."

Artabanus fell two steps back and looked at his nephew. His face looked serious, his lips pulled into a straight line, his eyes clear. "I do not understand."

"Do not look at me strangely. What I am saying is simple. It is about the dream and the words I hear every night."

"I still do not understand."

"Mardonius is sure of our crushing victory and the dream confirms his words. But whoever does not listen to the voice coming from white hair has not done everything he needs to do to make sure he makes a wise decision. And I do not like to make mistakes."

"You can wait, as I advised you."

"I heard that. But I did not mean your white hair. I meant that of my forefather, the glorious Cyrus. Something you said earlier, in the hall, made me think. Can the dreams that come to us at night really be moved by the matters of the day that occupy our minds? Do you believe that, Artabanus?"

"Surely. I have observed the same thing in myself."

"Then there is only one way to learn if the words of Cyrus are true or if they come from my own deeds and are of no importance."

"What way?"

"You must become me."

Artabanus thought of the court doctor, the famous Greek Ctesias from Cnidus who had offered his services to the king after he was taken captive. Of course, after Ctesias, it would be a good idea for him to see his nephew, the Great Mage of Ahura Mazda, to confirm the doctor's opinion. And all this must happen before the king made his decision.

Xerxes looked at him and understood what was in his mind. "Do not worry, Artabanus. My mind is still in the right place."

"Son of Darius, in all this heat even..."

"I mean that you yourself must tell whether this dream is real" his nephew interrupted him in a serious voice. "You must wear the king's garments, sit on my throne, hold my scepter for one day and then sleep in the king's quarters and in my bed. If the dream appears to you as well, it will mean that it was not simply a fantasy but an important prophecy and a clear command from my forefathers."

"Son of Darius, King of Kings and my nephew..." Artabanus started softly. "Of course I do not believe that we need to exchange clothes and beds to prove what you say, because it is impossible that the spirits of your forefathers would be so mindless as to believe that I am you, just on account of the clothes. If you insist, however, that things must be as you say, I will do exactly as you wish, for the wish of the king is a command to all of us and no one has the right to disobey or doubt it. But will you not tell me at last, what were the words that Cyrus said to you in your dream?"

"I may not have white hairs on my head, but I have enough of a mind inside it not to tell you beforehand" he answered, smiling.


And yet Artabanus's suspicions and his fears for his nephew's health dissolved like a cloud of dust in a strong wind. It was Cyrus. Undoubtedly it was Cyrus, founder of the dynasty of the Achaemenids. He recognized him from the painted reliefs on the palace walls. He stood over the bed and his words fell like great rocks in a steep gorge, carrying everything before them.

So you are Artabanus, the one who wants to transgress against my wish and persuade the king to put off the expedition against Greece? You will not be able to change what must happen, either now or in the future. Xerxes knows what awaits him. I told him myself. And now I say it to you. If you insist on your opinion tomorrow, that will mean that you do not see correctly. And since you do not see correctly, there is no reason for you to see at all. Red hot iron. That is what awaits you.

Artabanus woke up bathed in sweat. And not only from the suffocating heat. He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. He looked at the window open to the east. The heavens were still black, but he wanted to rush straight to his nephew to tell him the works he had heard, and that he had changed his mind about the expedition against Greece and Europe, and about his belief that Athens and Sparta would be swept away by the imperial army and would become ashes.

The next day the oracle Onomakritos was called in haste to the great court of the palace. He must read the omens as quickly as possible. The decisions of men and the wishes of ancestors must be validated by the gods. Without divine validation, without their favor, they were worthless.

Onomakritos took his place at the center of the great tiled court, which was open to the sky to make communication with the gods easier. His aged face with the deep wrinkles of thought and his shaved head, pockmarked by the years, were bent reverently over the metal chalice filled with burning coals and incense. His lips were tight, he breathed in deeply through the nose, and at times sighed deeply like a bull getting ready to attach. His limbs remained still, his hands encircled the burning metal chalice.

Suddenly, strange words began to come from his mouth. Words that no one understood, not only because they were in an unknown language but because they were out of order, mixed up, without any pauses. Disordered, as in delirium.

At the end the oracle stopped abruptly, his limbs began to tremble and saliva fell from his opened mouth, sizzling on the lighted coals. He seemed to have lost all contact with the tangible world and to be enduring, all alone, unbearable torment.

With one last spasm that shook his scrawny, hunched body, the oracle turned abruptly and fell unconscious, face down, on the tiles of the courtyard. His chest rose and fell in exhaustion, his tongue hung out of his mouth and his fingers trembled like leaves in the north wind.

It took him a long time to recover. He stood up, trembling, and with difficulty walked the few meters until he could stand on the red carpet spread before the throne where Xerxes sat, awaiting the verdict of the gods.

The oracle fell to his knees and lowered his head until his forehead touched the carpet. With his hands stretched before him with open palms, he resembled a dog bowing before its master.

"Well?" asked Xerxes calmly, hiding the agony growing inside him from his courtiers. "What did your gods say?"

Deliberately slow and deep, trained by sixty years of experience, the voice of the oracle Onomakritos gave the divine verdict:

"You will crown the East with the West, Great King. The image of you given to me by the gods shows you wearing a wreath in your hair. A wreath of olive branches. But the most important is the last word they gave me. That you will unite two lands that are divided by a sea..."

With a nod of his head, Xerxes indicated his satisfaction with the oracle and commanded him to withdraw.

Onomakritos withdrew, bent over and walking backwards so as not to turn his back to the Great King, opened the wooden door, and went out into the courtyard. There, he straightened his body, which had grown stiff with bending for so long, and walked hurriedly, shaking his limbs.

He crossed the great hall with the reliefs, came out on the square, turned left and came to the apartments where guests of the court were housed, where his lodging was. But he passed his own door without stopping. He paused thirty feet farther in front of another door. He knocked three times slowly and then twice quickly.

The door opened and behind it there appeared an old man wearing the characteristic white chiton under a cape bordered with the meander embroidered in gold, the geometrical pattern that adorned temples, houses and clothes in Greece.

The old man's eyes looked at Onomakritos anxiously. He nodded.

"Everything happened as we agreed. Xerxes will be convinced of the expedition..."

The old man in the white chiton smiled, took out his leather pouch, and counted five gold darics into the oracle's hand. Onomakritos immediately closed his hand and made the golden coins disappear. Then he bowed and withdrew without another word.

The old man closed the door, leaned his back against it and smiled broadly. His eyes shone, his face glowed with a bright inner flame.

It was Hippias, the last tyrant of Athens.

And the hour he had looked forward to for so many years had come.

The hour when he would take back power and have vengeance against the city that had expelled him.


Shall we call our own Mages, great king?"

"No. It is not necessary..."

The Persian Mages of the royal palace were not needed to explain anything. The meaning of the vision and the oracle's prophecy were clear for all to see. Everyone knew that the olive is a tree that does not grow in Persia but grows in abundance in Greece. And everyone also knew that Asia and Europe are divided by a sea. It is called the Aegean Sea at its broadest point and the Hellespont at its narrowest. It was the sea he must cross.

"Unite two lands that are divided by a sea..." repeated Xerxes ecstatically, almost seeing the vision before his dazzled eyes. "Could there be anything clearer than that, Artabanus?" he asked, looking behind him.

"No, son of Darius... the words of the gods are clear... You must crown your head with the olive, the sacred tree of the Greek goddess and the city that bears her name, Athens."

"In a very little while Athens will not exist anymore. Nor will the temple of the goddess on the rock of the Acropolis. In its place I will build a temple to the god of the creation of the world, Ahura Mazda. And next to that, the Persian palace of the satrapy."

"Greece is a small and poor country."

"So what?"

"There is not enough wealth there to support a satrapy."

"Greece is only the beginning. Behind it, in the direction of the setting sun, there are other, strong and rich countries. I have heard of them from the Phoenicians, who sail their merchant ships to all the seas. Syracuse, Italy, Europe. Our empire will conquer the whole world. Just as Mardonius said, from the moment the sun appears until the moment it disappears, it will shine its light only on the territories of our empire. Believe me, Artabanus. The cities of Greece will only be the beginning. The countries of Europe will follow immediately after" Xerxes cried, beside himself with joy. Then he suddenly grew serious and gloomy. Rage distorted his face. His gaze darkened. "But before that I must keep the promise I gave to my father. To wipe Athens off the face of the earth. To conquer it and punish its inhabitants without mercy for the defeat and the insult we endured at Marathon.

"And so are we ready, son of Darius?"

"We have the wish of our forefathers. We have the omens of the gods. And we have the best and most powerful army the world has ever known" said Xerxes and rose. "What else do we need?"

That same evening ambassadors were sent to the great palaces. In a grandiose ceremony, they were each given a silver vase and a small amphora. The vase for earth and the amphora for water. The ambassadors would ask the Greek cities, the separate little states that functioned all over Greece, to give the messengers of Xerxes "earth and water", a proof of submission and obedience to the Great King.

The next day, besides the ambassadors who left for the Greek cities, hundreds of royal messengers scattered to every corner of the vast empire, riding swift horses and taking the three great imperial roads. The eastern road that led to India, the southern road that led to Egypt, and the western road that led to Sardis.

They carried the order of the King of Kings to all the nations of Asia and the peoples he commanded. To gather an army and a fleet the equal of which the world had never before seen.

The die was cast.


[ When the Earth was Hidden ]

The news reached Athens in advance of the official ambassadors. Sailors on Phoenician ships, mercenaries from Thrace, textile merchants from Egypt, porphyry exporters from Phoenicia, exiled Greeks at the court of the Persian king. They were all talking about the terrible gathering of the Persian army, bringing consternation to the little scattered cities of Greece.

A mere seven years after the magnificent victory of the Athenians in the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. and the expulsion of the barbarians from the sacred soil of Zeus and Athena, no one believed that the Persians would return so quickly. Especially not the victors, the citizens of Athens, who considered themselves safe.

"No one is safe, Aristeides. Neither the aristocrats like you nor the simple citizens like me. Everyone says that Xerxes is preparing..."

Themistocles had made a secret appointment with his greatest political opponent in the little storeroom he kept on the harbor of Athens, Piraeus. He used it as a commercial office, having followed his father in his business, the importation of goods from all over the Eastern Mediterranean.

Since he was always at the harbor, he came into close contact with captains and sailors of ships from all the harbors of the Mediterranean. The aristocrats of Athens avoided such contacts. Being landowners, they despised the sailor's trade with its pungent ocean smells. To them, it was necessary only on account of the perfumes and incense it brought to Athens and the porphyry for dying their clothes red. The enclosed space of the market and their own estates, isolated in the countryside, were the only places they frequented besides their houses, where they gave their famous symposia.

In spite of that, Aristeides the Just, though an aristocrat, had a curious relationship of mutual hatred and esteem with the rich but humbly born Themistocles. It was not easy for him to refuse the invitation, despite his revulsion for the place of the appointment, and despite the fact that Themistocles had convinced the citizens of Athens to ostracize him to the island of Aegina. He got there secretly and came inside with his face covered so that no one would recognize him, and also to filter out the harbor smells. Piraeus stank of fish, salt and sweat, and was full of dives, thieves and prostitutes.

"The mouths of sailors are larger than the holds of their ships" Aristeides commented phlegmatically. "Xerxes is having trouble in fertile Egypt where there is a revolt, everyone knows that. Why would he be interested in a little country like ours again, full of high mountains and dry land?" he wondered, with good reason, when he heard the bad news.

"The wealth of a king is not in the coins he has in his treasury. Nor in his golden statues and his huge palace. Much less in his fertile and fruitful territories. The wealth of a king is in his reputation. It is the only thing that allows him to hold on to power in a vast empire."

"So what? What reputation could a little city like Athens give him? Or a little country like Greece? The distance between the two ends of the empire is fifty times the distance between Athens and Sparta. He rules over a thousand times more people than all the Greeks together. Why would he run the risk of another defeat with an exhausting campaign? What motive could he have?"

"To wipe out his humiliation. A humiliated king is weak, no matter how much gold he has in his imperial treasury. A king with no glory among his people stands naked…a decorated but empty vase…" Themistocles explained in a slightly sarcastic tone.

"I don't understand what you want from me" Aristeides frowned suddenly, feeling the sarcasm and adopting the haughty attitude he had been used to since he was born, having learned it from his parents.

"I want your support" Themistocles with audacious candor.

The blue eyes of Aristeides widened with surprise. "Where?"

"In the assembly of citizens."

"For what? For the last seven years we haven't agreed even once in the debates and the voting. We live in the same city but we belong to different worlds. As soon as you became master of the political situation, you made a point of limiting my power and finally, you exiled me. Why should I help you now?"

"Because I'll revoke your exile. You'll return to Athens with all the honor you had before."

Aristeides looked at him suspiciously. It was difficult to believe. He simply raised his eyebrows without speaking.

"And because we'll both be destroyed if the army that Xerxes is gathering in Sardis crosses the sea and reaches Greece" Themistocles continued impetuously. "If Persia wins, there won't be any democrats like me or any oligarchs like you either. Neither common people nor aristocrats. We'll all be destroyed."

"Do you really believe all the rumors that sailors bring to the harbor?"

"Yes. It's better to believe them and be prepared than to be surprised. At heart, you know that from our teachers and our philosophers. The way to protect peace and freedom is to always be prepared for war.

"Of course I don't…"

"I know I'm right" Themistocles interrupted him before he could go any further. "Xerxes is gathering an army. A great army from all over his empire. And I didn't learn that just from the open mouths of sailors."

"You learned it from their closed mouths too? They talk to you in sign language?" Aristeides grew ironic, with the inborn haughtiness of an aristocrat.

Themistocles paid no attention. He had just been elected general for his tribe and he hadn't needed either parchments showing aristocratic descent or the swagger and arrogance of racial purity to do it. He had done it by talking to simple citizens, helping them, advising them. He had done it with his simplicity and his affability. He had done it with his personal charm and his rhetorical ability, with persuasion. As a method it was more tiring than subservience, but it was more effective in the long run.

He took a few deep breaths and continued more calmly: "They don't speak to me in sign language. I didn't find it out from there. I observe the sea traffic. That's my work."

"The fish tell you?"

"The lack of wheat tells me. It's not arriving from Egypt any more. The lack of copper tells me, it's not arriving from the mines of the Black Sea. The lack of guts for bowstrings tells me, the lack of bronze for helmets and boiled hides for shields. Where do all those goods go, the ones that used to be used to make weapons and feed armies?"

"Maybe the merchants found better prices elsewhere" Aristeides suggested indifferently.

"I advise you not to make that argument to the assembly before the citizens" Themistocles said sarcastically. "If they hear something like that they might exile you again for naiveté…"

"What do you believe?"

"I don't believe anything until I see it with my own eyes" Themistocles suddenly became serious. "But prevention is better than cure."

"Is this another of your games to impress people, to stand out and charm your beloved mob?"

"No. What I'm saying is not a political maneuver or an attempt to impress. You know that. If I wanted to impress people I wouldn't have called you here to talk alone, far from curious eyes. I would speak at the market for everyone to hear. And I wouldn't intend to revoke your exile, nor would I humble my pride to ask for your help."

Logical. In spite of his arrogant conceit, Aristeides was an intelligent man. He grew serious and came to the point. "And what do you want from me?"

"I want you to convince your friends, the oligarchs, to agree that the assembly should approve my trip to Asia so that I can see what is happening with my own eyes."

"That is, if I understand you right, you're asking for the city to pay for your trip from the public funds?"

"No. I have enough money and I don't mind spending it for the common good. Anyway, I will not go with an official escort or in a procession. It'll be just me as a merchant, and my slave Sikinos, who is from Persia and knows the languages of Asia."

"Then why are you asking for approval from the assembly?"

"So that you oligarchs do not take advantage of my absence and slander me to the citizens as a friend of Persia. So that you do not spread unfounded and sycophantic rumors about me. Or, simply, so people will not think I am a spy of the Persian king and exile me when I come back from the journey. I want to remain a free democratic citizen when I return."

Aristeides laughed. "You're exaggerating a bit…"

"Exaggerating? Put a Greek by himself and you have a good merchant. Put two, and you have a good fight. That's the way we are. In a bad light, of course."

"That is hubris against the race of Greeks."

"It will be hubris if we allow the city to be destroyed and the barbarians to burn down the temple of the goddess Athena out of our own negligence."

"They won't manage it so easily. Especially not after Marathon" objected Aristeides.

"With the five hundred thousand soldiers Xerxes is gathering?"

Aristeides' blue eyes widened again. This time from unpleasant surprise. "Five hundred thousand?" he asked in a trembling voice.

"I got that information from the sailors you despise. And not just five hundred thousand soldiers. Thirty thousand horse as well. And two imperial fleets."

"How many ships are there in a fleet like that?"

"Six hundred in each one" Themistocles answered him gloomily. "And we only have two hundred. Some from the time of Marathon. Skewed and rotten. They're good for nothing but washing troughs. You understand now why I insisted for so long that we had to create a fleet capable of going into battle and launch new warships? They're the only thing that can help us fight off the invader."

There was a heavy silence while Aristeides deliberated. The numbers were crushing. In the famous battle of Marathon, Athens had thrown in all its forces but it had only succeeded in putting ten thousand soldiers on the field, without cavalry or ships.

"Five hundred thousand?" Aristeides asked again, indecisive. "It seems impossible to me."

"Nothing is impossible for an empire with twenty million subjects… He can gather enough soldiers to hide the earth…" Themistocles murmured gloomily, looking out the door at the open sea and the eastern horizon. "Well? Do you agree?"


Halicarnassus in Caria, was not the largest city on the shores of Asia Minor. Nor was it one of her greatest trading ports. There were many cities that were greater and more important. Miletus. Ephesus. Sidon.

But Halicarnassus was the most familiar to Themistocles. He had never visited it in all the forty years of his life, but he had heard a great deal about it. About its sea, its streets, its houses, its palaces. His mother Euterpe was from Halicarnassus and from the royal family, the family that had ruled the city for years. She was the sister of the satrap Lydgamis. His merchant father, Neocles, had met her on one of his journeys, fallen in love with her, married her and taken her with him to Athens.

"It is a beautiful place" murmured Sikinos, hanging on the gunwale, gazing at the shores of Asia as the merchant ship approached it.

His mind travelled another fifteen hundred miles to the east, to the interior, to Mesopotamia and Persia, his homeland. He was moved and sad at the same time. Because he was bound by the oath he had given to his god, Ahura Mazda, before they sailed from Athens. He had lighted a fire, the sacred symbol of the god, he had burnt his aromatic offerings, had offered words of prayer and had made a sacred promise that he would not desert or abandon his master. He had also sworn not to betray him and to return with him to Athens. That was his part of the deal for Themistocles to take him with him on the journey, and for a Persian, faithful to Zoroaster, breaking an oath or telling lies was the greatest sin, bringing immediate punishment from the god and eternal condemnation.

Themistocles' part of the deal was to pay a wage of five hundred drachmas a month for as long as he accompanied him as his guide and interpreter. But also to give Sikinos his freedom after five years had passed, and without any financial demands.

"A beautiful place with beautiful women" Sikinos added, as the wooden hold of the merchant ship was tied to the pier of the harbor. "Although farther to the east, in Babylon, they're even more beautiful. Women the like of whom you will not meet anywhere in the world in beauty of face and in the art of love, and in their willingness to take care of a man."

"For payment, from what I heard."

"Well, what do you expect? Something for free? They have to live. Besides that, beautiful things cost a lot. You people in Athens know that better than anyone else. Your hetaeras are famous for the art of love."

"The hetaeras are not prostitutes. And they are not famous only for the art of love. They also know the art of song, and the art of conversation. Many times that last is more pleasurable than love itself."

"For you? I don't doubt that…" Sikinos laughed. Over the years he had learned Themistocles' habits and his preferences.

"Anyway, I've almost forgotten about love. Politics and trade take up all my time."

"So… it's been a long time since you…" the slave wondered. He did know his master's first preferences, but was not unaware of his secondary ones: good wine and beautiful women.

"I have visited some hetaeras after symposia but… you know… only from need. That's not love… I'm not twenty years old anymore, I want something strong…"

"Then you must go to Babylon on this journey" Sikinos answered him, as they put down the board that the sailors had thrown them to disembark from the ship.

Halicarnassus had never been as famous as Athens, but there were so many people on the harbor that it made Piraeus seem like a little fishing village. The twelve piers of the harbor were all full, and at many of them the ships were berthed one next to the other forming wooden bridges with their decks. Slaves and free workers came and went in endless lines, carrying merchandise to shore. Large carts with four wheels yoked with huge oxen waited in a long line to be loaded down.

"What are you looking at, master? Let's go, we don't want to be out in the midday heat…" complained Sikinos as they got off, carrying the two goatskin sacks filled with clothes, gifts and weapons.

But Themistocles did not seem to hear him. His head did not turn, nor did his feet move. His gaze was riveted to the carriers and to the carts they were loading down.

"What do the ships bring?" he wondered.

"Why does it matter to you, master? You do not have your warehouse here."

"And what are they carrying in the carts?"

Sikinos raised his head and looked at the sky. The sun was still in the first quarter, weak, and its rays were pale. There was no way his master could have gotten sunstroke. "Are you dizzy from the journey, master? Do you want me to open the waterskin? Or shall I bring you some cool water from the fountain?"

He didn't get an answer to either one of his questions. "Strange…" was all Themistocles said. "Strange and ominous…"

"Why?"

"Look at what's happening. The slaves and the workers are only unloading, not loading. And the carts come here empty and leave full."

"Halicarnassus is a big city."

"Wrong. It is a great trading city. And trade requires giving and taking. I only see taking here. There's no giving…"

Sikinos laughed. "I am not a merchant. I am a warrior. A mercenary. I don't know anything about that." Then he suddenly became serious. "But I do know that when the sun reaches the center of the heavens, besides being a mercenary I will have to become a bull to carry these bags up the hill to the city."

"And also" Themistocles added, even more seriously than Sikinos, "It's not such a big city that it would need so many supplies. If it was, it would have a larger harbor and more piers and the ships wouldn't have to be tied up one next to the other. What's happened all of a sudden?"


He hadn't managed to learn much about the current situation in Halicarnassus. The satrap Lygdamis, who was of Greek descent but a subject and friend of the Persians, had died the year before. Since then, the royal house of the city lacked a head and it was embroiled in quarrels and brawls. There was no heir because Lygdamis had not had a son, only a daughter. None of the courtiers, priests and officers in town even considered the possibility that the daughter might take up her father's position and become queen; that was rejected without being discussed. The courtiers did not have the authority to impose such a humiliating solution, the priests did not want a woman underfoot and the officers did not like the idea of such a direct solution to the problem of succession. Most of them had sons and hoped to gain the coveted position for themselves by means of marriage to the only daughter of the dead satrap.

Until the problem was solved, the aged Sindos, brother of Lygdamis, acted as king. He was in his sixties and knew about city governance, since for all those years he had served as his brother's tax collector. He was a man experienced in wielding power, practical and diplomatic but cruel and merciless when those qualities became necessary.

"I am so glad to finally meet you, my dear nephew. I am sure that the news you are bringing from your mother and my sister will fill my heart with joy. I could not wait for us to meet from the moment I learned that you had set foot in our city" Sindos said jovially when he received Themistocles in the portico of his palace. Then he coughed lightly and added with a meaningful glance: "You did come here as a relative and friend, I hope…"

"Of course. Family is sacred."

That set Sindos's fears at rest for the present. The two men smiled cordially as commanded by Zeus, the god of hospitality, and they embraced, kissed and exchanged the usual gifts. The atmosphere was warm, not just from the sun but from the meeting of close relatives, even if it was the first time in their lives they had seen each other.

"And Euterpe? Why did she not come with you? Does my sister not want to see the city and the house where she grew up?"

"Travel by sea is difficult, especially in this season with the winds that blow every summer from the north" Themistocles gave a garbled explanation. He had not told his mother where he was going because if she had learned, it would have been impossible to convince her to stay in Athens. "Besides, she's not so young any more…" he began, but stopped abruptly, afraid of insulting Sindos. They were brother and sister after all so they must be close to the same age, and he did not want to hint that Sindos was too old to be capable of ruling.

"Right… And Euterpe is the oldest of us three… Much older than me…" his uncle commented, without losing his good temper at all.

He gave him a tour of the palace, introduced him to the chamberlain and the advisors and then showed him his room, a large rectangular hall near one end of the complex of buildings, with a gallery that looked out on the sea and many windows to catch the cool air from the sea winds.

"In the evening I will expect you for dinner" were Sindos's last words before he left him alone with Iasmi, the servant he had assigned to him, a young girl from Miletus with plump buttocks and breasts and a permanent smile on her fleshy lips. "We'll talk about everything there. When you've rested of course…" he said enigmatically, gave a meaningful smile to the servant and withdrew.

Before Sindos had time to close the door behind him Themistocles sent the lovely Iasmi away, locked the door and went out onto the large gallery. What he had seen on the harbor bothered him. He found fault with himself. He should have been more careful. He should have observed more, understood more. Come to conclusions. He should have found out if his ideas were right or just the result of his fears. That doubt had eaten away at him from the moment he disembarked on the soil of Asia.

But hard as he tried to watch the strange sea traffic now, the gallery looked to the north and the harbor was on the south side. As if that were not enough, its entrance to the harbor was at the lower part of the peninsula and in order to get in or get out, the ships had to make a circle at sea, more than half a mile away from the coast. It was a great distance for the human eye, almost impossible to make out details. Otherwise Themistocles, whose business was with the sea and who had spent half his life on the harbor of Piraeus, would have been able to learn something from the depth of the ships in the water. The main thing he was interested in. What he suspected. That they arrived loaded down and left empty.

"There's a lot of traffic on the harbor."

Sindos smiled broadly. "Thanks be to Hermes, god of trade. That means more income for the city treasury from taxes and duties."

"Most of the ships are Phoenician, from what I could see."

"The Phoenicians have dominated the sea for many years now. And whoever dominates the sea, dominates the world. You know that, you come from a family of merchants."

Yes, he knew it. Themistocles had understood that for a long time. The ones who did not seem to understand it were the Athenian aristocrats who insisted on despising the sea and caring only about their farms, some pitiful, infertile fields full of rocks and boulders between the huge mountain masses. But the fields had belonged to the nobles since the time of the hero Theseus, and they wanted Athens to be a little, introverted town that praised only the gods and its aristocrats. That was what Themistocles was hoping would change now, with the establishment of democracy.

"What do so many Phoenician ships bring to your harbor?"

Sindos's eyes, painted with antimony, a Persian custom that had been adopted by the Greek cities of Asia Minor when they became subject to the great king, narrowed. He looked at Themistocles curiously. "Why are you interested?"

"I am a merchant. You said it yourself, my dear uncle."

"Anyway, they're not bringing wine or oil. As far as I know, that's what you trade in."

"Then what are they bringing?" he insisted.

Sindos didn't have time to answer.

Because just then, although it was evening, Themistocles had the impression that the sun had risen again, came straight into the hall with all its light, and stopped in front of the table.


Let me give you some advice, cousin…"

The voice that was heard in the royal hall of symposia with its colorful stones and gilded fountain, was not hoarse or heavy. It was not an old man's voice, like the voice of Sindos. It was as soft as light fabric fluttering in the breeze, tinkling and musical like the water of the fountain. It was serious and commanding, but at the same time charming and playful. It sounded like the delicate and harmonious voice of a singer, but also like an order from a person who is accustomed to command, whose words have weight. It was the voice of a despotic man trapped in the splendid body of a woman.

Her jet-black hair fell to her waist like a silky night veil, in complete contrast to her eyes which were the color of emeralds on a cloudy day. Her body was wrapped in a light blue chiton decorated with golden embroidery and fastened at the shoulders with carved clasps. A short white cloak fell to the backs of her thighs. In spite of her expensive women's garments, her bare arms and legs were muscular and at every move the muscles showed as carved lines on her dark skin, tightened from training and burned by the sun.

"Oh… Are you here, my dear?" murmured Sindos, and he got up from the couch with the cup of wine in his hand. "Didn't we agree that you were going to stay in the hunting lodge until the moon was gone?"

"I didn't want to miss the chance."

"Your chance to hunt foxes is now, when there is a full moon. When it's gone you won't be able to make out your own shadow in the forest."

"I'm interested in another fox right now. One that doesn't live in the forest, but on the sea. As you said yourself, whoever dominates the sea, dominates the world" the woman answered. She embraced the old man and stood before the low table, looking at Themistocles. "Isn't that so, cousin?"

Themistocles got up from the couch and came to stand before her, his limbs numb and his gaze fixed on the imperious beauty he saw. He stared at the woman in front of him, who reminded him of the legendary amazons, the mythical warriors of Thrace. He was stunned by this woman who had called him cousin. Her high cheekbones and her full lips, which naturally turned down at the corners, reminded him of his mother, Euterpe.

Under her intense gray-green eyes, Themistocles felt like the phoenix, the bird that is reborn and flies swiftly, tearing the air. She smiled at his confusion, which was impossible to hide. Her curved lips rose and two dimples appeared on her cheeks. She came towards him and kissed him, touching him softly with her moist lips, and all of Themistocles senses were sweetly sharpened as if he had drunk a whole cup of the nectar of the gods in one gulp.

"I am Artemisia, daughter of Lygdamis and niece of your mother. Welcome to Halicarnassus, cousin."

"You haven't given me your advice…" murmured Themistocles as soon as he found his mind and his voice again.

"I know why you have come. It didn't take much guessing to understand. My advice is to visit Miletus, it's only six days journey from here. Fifteen years have passed since their rebellion against the Persians, and the ruins are still smoking. That will be your fate if you raise your head and oppose the will of Xerxes" she told him calmly. The dimples from her charming smile were still showing in her painted cheeks. "The Persian lion will eat you in one bite, cousin…"


The dinner was not going as expected. His cousin, even though she had Greek blood in her veins, had become the most loyal subject of the king. It was not just her appearance that told him: her eyes ringed with black kohl, her eyelids smeared with powder of oxidized copper, her eyes dilated with solution of belladonna, and her lips colored with red ocher. It was also her scent: her lithe limbs were perfumed with Assyrian balsam and her hair was oiled with lotus oil. But more even than her scent or her appearance, her soul was Persian.

Artemisia was not just a subject of the Persian king. She was a bandaka, a subject and at the same time a friend, a faithful member of the boundless empire. She believed to her core in the values Xerxes represented: eternal peace under the roof of the King of Kings.

During the sumptuous dinner, his cousin promoted the superiority of the Persians better than a member of the great king's court could have done. Their architectural wonders in Susa and in Persepolis, their agricultural achievements in Babylon and Mesopotamia, their military achievements in India and Egypt. The prosperity and well-being that prevailed in the empire of Asia, the abundance and wealth its citizens enjoyed.

"If you see the palaces built in Persepolis and the temples dedicated to Ahura Mazda, you will rub your eyes in surprise and wonder, cousin. Before them, our own temples, even your famous Parthenon, are nothing but huts and wooden houses.

Themistocles' reply was a saying from the oracle of Delphi. A saying that governed all of Greek life and behavior: "Nothing in excess… All moderation is excellent…"

Just before the slaves from Lydia and Babylonia brought in the desert, dried figs dipped in honey and flavored with cinnamon, Artemisia, perhaps dizzy from the sweet wine of Samos, began to talk with unfeigned admiration about the army of the Great King.

In spite of Sindos' diplomatic attempts to change the subject, which was dangerous, and bring it into the calm waters of family matters and common customs, his niece was riding the chariot of Apollo and galloping forward in ecstasy. She spoke enthusiastically and rapidly about the Spanta, the famous Persian army. About the Immortals, the personal guard of the emperor with their blue uniforms and their javelins decorated by golden pomegranates, who never died or retreated. About the spearmen who put on their colorful garments and advanced, holding their iron spears vertically like an impassable fence of deadly metal. About the famous archers with their bright red uniforms who stretched the cords of their bows, which were as tall as a man, so tightly that their arrows reached the roof of heaven. About the swift horsemen who slept, ate and shot arrows from the backs of their horses and who galloped like the desert wind.

"We beat all of those at the battle of Marathon. We can beat them again if we have to" Themistocles answered calmly, trying to choke down his anger at his presumptuous and annoying cousin.

"You beat part of the army" Artemisia corrected him with a smug smile. "Not the whole army. This time, there will be so many Persian spears that a horse could gallop over them for three days."

"That's good. We need roads for horses and chariots…"

"And their ships will fill the whole sea from Asia to Greece."

Themistocles' irony evaporated like water in the burning Asian desert. "How do you know that?"

Old Sindos tried desperately to change the subject. To end this dangerous conversation. To stop his niece from answering before it was too late and his guest was irreparably insulted.

To his great relief, Artemisia's excitement and enthusiasm worked in his favor.

"You think, cousin, that we inhabitants of the Greek cities of Asia have to follow the traditions and the ideas of our ancestors who came to these shores four generations ago, and fight on your side when need arises. Our ancestors were needy and miserable when they came here from a country with nothing but mountains, rocks, olive trees and dry land. Poor people without a chance in life. And look at us now. Look at me. I have gold on my body and expensive clothes on my back. Look at the gifts of the Persian peace and the friendship of the great king. Why would I not fight with him?" she said with pride.

"That's not friendship. It's subjection. It's not the same thing."

She ignored his observation. "I have everything my body needs and everything my heart desires. Power, money and authority. What would I have if I had remained faithful to my ancestors and to Greece?" she asked with calm self-confidence.

"Dignity."

Artemisia was silent. She looked at him searchingly for a moment. Then she blinked her eyes as if she could not believe what she heard.

"Dignity…" she murmured contemptuously. "Can dignity sweeten your palate at the feast? Can it dress you in precious fabrics and expensive jewelry? Can dignity give you wealth and power?"

"No."

"Well then you're not just dignified, cousin, as you implied. You're also reckless, stupid and pathetic. You have no hope before the emperor's army…" she commented, and then she smiled sadly, got up from the couch and, with her light veil fluttering in the air behind her, withdrew imperiously, leaving behind the scent of Assyrian balsam, her favorite perfume.

"That is the recklessness of youth, and its naiveté. Young eyes see things without understanding them, and about ten times larger than they really are. And young lips magnify them a hundred times…" Sindos tried to make excuses for her to lighten the tense atmosphere.

"Unfortunately, she was right about one thing… Xerxes' army is terrific. It's not just Artemisia that says so, everyone does…" Themistocles muttered gloomily. "On the other hand, the wise do nothing but pile up money. Great achievements are made by those who are reckless and courageous."

"But if you have a large fortune, why would you want all the rest, my dear nephew? Is that not itself a great achievement?" Sindos asked cheerfully, and raised his cup of wine. "What is higher or more desirable than abundant food, good wine, bright gold and beautiful women? What else does a man need to be happy?"

Themistocles' answer was one word.

Only one word.

"Freedom…"


He looked at the stars and thought about his life. Themistocles considered himself a lucky person, blessed by the gods. He hadn't been born an aristocrat, nor was he descended from noblemen, but he had lacked for nothing all his life. His father was a knowledgeable man, shrewd and circumspect. Although he came from a poor family who worked the earth, his mind and his character pushed him to become a trader, to work the sea roads and acquire a considerable fortune.

That fortune got the young Themistocles an education from the great teachers and philosophers of Athens. It got him the opportunity to build up his body and his will in the gymnasium of Hercules. It helped him become a successful trader himself and gave him a comfortable life. All of this later brought him the political power he desired. The power to take part in the city's public life, to influence people for its good and, finally, to be elected to one of the most distinguished positions in the democracy of Athens, the position of general. He had lived free under the gods, as all men should. Frugally and humbly, but with dignity and pride. With the power to decide their own fate and that of their city by themselves.

Looking at the black sky sprinkled with bright points and listening to the light rustling of the waves of his beloved sea, he felt his anger slowly fade and disappear, as a wave is absorbed on a soft, sandy shore.

The last thing to fade was Artemisia's words: you are stupid. That was what bothered him most out of all her pretentious boasting about the achievements of the Persian empire, its boundless wealth and its unbelievable power.

"Am I stupid?" he wondered out loud, looking at the star-embroidered heavens. "Am I stupid, Athena, goddess of wisdom? Am I?"

He didn't have time to decide on an answer. A knock on the door interrupted his reflections and distracted him.

It's Sikinos, he thought. Sikinos coming to ask when we are leaving tomorrow.

The caravan for Sardis, the Persian capital of Asia Minor, would start the next day from the market of Halicarnassus, before the sun climbed over the horizon. He had arranged that they would leave with it.

But when he pulled the latch and opened the wooden door, he did not see Sikinos before him. He saw Iasmi waiting on the doorstep. She was wearing a thin linen chiton that showed the rich curves of her body, her face was made up with red cinnabar and her body scented with heavy myrrh.

Themistocles hesitated for a moment. It had been months since he had been with a woman. There were evenings when he longed to embrace and taste a perfumed female body. But tonight was not such a night. The conversation earlier at dinner had removed the erotic desire from his mind and brought gloomy thoughts instead.

"No… No, Iasmi… Some other time, perhaps…" he told her softly, trying not to offend her.

"You cannot refuse."

Themistocles laughed. He had heard of the famous voluptuousness of the women of the east, who had inherited something from the unbridled hedonism of the women of Babylonia and something from the intense sensuality of the priestesses of Cybele, creating an explosive mixture of female lust.

"But…"

He was not allowed to continue his objections. Iasmi's hand covered his mouth and cut off his refusal. Then it left his face and went farther down.

"You must follow me" she said, taking him by the hand.

"I don't have the desire tonight. You are very beautiful and as attractive as Aphrodite. I am sure that no man with even one eye in his head could resist you but just tonight I…"

Iasmi smiled broadly and cut his verbosity short. "Are you Athenians always such chatterers?"

Themistocles laughed in spite of himself. "Just me. Well… And a few others... Anyway, we live in a democracy… But… Honestly, tonight…"

"It's not about me. I have orders to lead you somewhere" she told him, and pulled him by the hand.

They crossed the great hall with the Greek statues, climbed one more stair, passed a gallery decorated with colorful stones and lighted with dim lamps, came to another hall painted with forms of Aphrodite and Artemis, and came to its end, before a double door of aromatic cedar wood.

"Here…" said Iasmi, and softly raised the iron latch.

The door swung halfway open without a sound. The entrance to a half-dark room showed in the opening. Shadows flickered on the wall like moving paintings. A strong scent of liquid musk and burnt amber reached out to him from inside.

"Who is here, Iasmi?" he asked, his heart thumping in his chest.

The answer was not long in coming.

But it did not come from Iasmi.

"Come inside, stupid Athenian…"


The shapely figure stood upright next to two large couches. Lower down, on a wooden table decorated with ivory and terracotta, there were figs, walnuts, honey and sweet grapes, and a delicate amphora full of wine from Samos with two silver cups.

Farther back, the doors to the balcony stood wide open. The light veils hanging from the roof fluttered in the evening breeze coming from the sea, bringing a pleasant coolness and the familiar smell of the sea and filling Themistocles with well-being and euphoria.

Artemisia was wearing a full length caftan the color of sand, fastened with a golden clasp on one shoulder and leaving the other bare, while on the side it was tied only with fine cords. It was made of a soft, airy fabric that wrapped her body like a glove.

Themistocles swallowed noiselessly, dumbfounded by the beauty he saw before him. Artemisia's face had lost the severity it had at dinner. She had rubbed it with aromatic oil and it shone in the light of the lamp. Her abundant hair was piled on the top of her head and caught with an ivory hairpin, showing a neck like a swan's. Her lips, painted with red henna and aromatic cream, were provocatively half open, showing two rows of straight, white teeth.

"Do you not wish to sit, cousin?"

"Ah…"

"Or are you used to standing up, like on the rostrum of your famous assembly where you like to talk and orate by the hour?"

"We talk about the city's business. So many thousands of citizens need time to be heard, to judge and make decisions."

"Wasted time. That explains why Athens is just a village compared to our cities."

"Is that why you called me?"

Artemisia smiled. She bent down, took the amphora and filled the two silver cups with wine. "Will you not come next to me?" she asked him, offering the cup. "It is sweet wine from Samos. The kind you like…"

"How do you know that?"

"In the east, people have big mouths" she said, and smiled. "Especially the Persians, big and honest. Even if they are servants, the great god of creation, their one and only god, forbids them to tell lies. It is the greatest sin. When the time comes for them to cross the bridge of the Great Judge of souls, such a sin could send them to eternal damnation. That is why the Persians never send other Persians as spies…" she finished, meaningfully.

"Sikinos told you?"

"Yes, he told me… About everything, even the personal things. Especially the personal things. And as I told you before, Persians believe honesty to be a great virtue…" Artemisia explained, and her lips curved in a cunning smile.

They sat on the couches next to each other, in the way Greeks usually sat at symposia. With one arm supporting their reclining bodies turned towards the low table, and the other serving the needs of the stomach and throat.

"I am sorry about the silly things I said earlier. It was rude, unbecoming in a hostess. But you annoyed me, cousin."

"I only told you my opinion. It is what I believe."

"It is mistaken, nevertheless" Artemisia answered, smiling. "Think about what I said and you will see I am right."

"You won't convince me with a little wine" Themistocles replied with a smile, and took a large swallow of the excellent, sweet, amber wine.

"I know you have enough money, cousin. I know you are good at your work. My uncle told me about you. And your mother sends us news of your family every now and then, when she can find a merchant ship to take it. And I know that you're as stubborn as a mule and as wise as a fox. You know how to hold the helm steady, as I do. Also, we are relatives. The blood that flows in your veins from your mother's side has governed Halicarnassus for many years."

"Where are you going with this, cousin?"

"I am an only daughter. My father Lygdamis, king of the city…"

"And slave of the Persian emperor" Themistocles interrupted her ironically.

"No matter what you say, you won't spoil my mood" smiled Artemisia. Then she explained a little more seriously "Not a slave. You mean tributary. It's not the same. We pay some taxes to the emperor, we apply his laws and carry out his wishes, but in return we receive continuing peace and protection. Our trade has increased, our wealth has multiplied. You are a merchant too. Think about what I am saying…"

"You are an only daughter, you say," Themistocles stopped her flow of words. "So?"

"If I were a man I would already be king."

"And?"

"The nobles and the officers will not accept a woman on the throne. That means that the city is officially ungoverned."

"I know that. But your uncle is acting as governor."

"For now," she said, and looked him straight in the eyes. "I must marry for Halicarnassus to have a king."

"I wish that for you."

"You can do something better than wish."

"Find you an Athenian?" he asked ironically.

"Yes."

"Who?" he wondered.

"You…"


Themistocles felt as if one of Zeus's thunderbolts had fallen next to him. He forgot all of his witty replies. His eyes started out of their sockets, looking at Artemisia.

"What kind of game is this?" he asked, stunned.

"It's not a game. Our house has governed the city for three generations. I do not wish to put some stranger on the throne now. And you are not a stranger. You were born and live in Athens, but your mother is my father's sister. In your veins flows the same blood as flows through mine."

"Blood means nothing."

"Blood means everything, cousin. With one word, you can become king" she urged. "When I learned you were coming I sent my men to the harbor, where there are some Athenian merchants. They asked about you and the news was excellent. They spoke highly of Themistocles, son of Neocles, from Athens. And so I weighed all things in my mind, and decided. All that is needed now is for you to decide as well. As I told you before, it is simple, and the throne of Halicarnassus will be yours."

"I don't like thrones."

"Don't start talking nonsense again. Everyone likes thrones. Who would refuse to be king?"

"Tributary king" he corrected her. "But it's not just that. I was born and raised in a democracy. I like the assembly, as you said before. I like talking and chatting with my fellow citizens about city matters. I like it that decisions are not just the wish of one person, but the will of many. But more than that, I like it that a simple merchant like me, without aristocratic descent from one of the official tribes of Athens, can be elected general and hold one of the most powerful city offices simply on account of his worth as a person and the power of his words.

Artemisia rose. Slowly, ostentatiously. She stood before him. Her face did not show anger, but solemnity and self-confidence. She raised her hands, undid the clasp at her shoulder, and let the chiton slip from her body with a light rustling sound. Even in that relaxed, voluptuous position the muscles on her shoulders, her arms, her belly and her thighs stood out, reminding Themistocles of the Spartan women who trained next to the men in the palaestras from a young age. But the resemblance stopped there. She also had femininity that the goddess Aphrodite might have envied: full breasts and rounded, vigorous buttocks. Her whole body had been carefully denuded of hair and it shone with aromatic oil in the flickering light of the lamps.

"Perhaps you do not like me?"

It was a rhetorical question. There was no answer. The stunned Themistocles stood still and sweated, and his face showed amazement at the beauty he saw.

"I am offering you a rich throne and a young body like the bodies of Aphrodite and Artemis put together. Why do you not want them?"

"Because I have learned to live free. And I think that is the greater good."

"Free…" Artemisia chewed on the word. "So I am a slave?"

"You are a tributary."

"It is a fair return for the great goods the Persians bring. Marry me and you will enjoy them with me."

"On my knees…" was all Themistocles would say. Not so much because he couldn't think of anything else to say, because his volubility and his rhetorical ability were well known. But speech was cut off by the sensuous body and the sculpted face before him. "I would enjoy it, but I would be on my knees…" he repeated slowly.

"That's no reason. Everyone kneels at some moment, for some reason. You are a politician, you should know that. Even you kneel before the gods at their altars."

"But not before humans. I prefer to die standing up than to live on my knees."

"What an unrealistic view… Almost foolish…" she said, but now her voice was honey-sweet. "Why would you prefer that?"

"Because power is not held by the one who kneels, but by the one who always stands upright."

"Are you sure?" she asked in a sultry voice, and came even closer.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm convincing you of the opposite. I am using that persuasion you admire so much."

Without saying any more, she bent her carven legs and knelt before his couch. She ran the ends of her fingers over his broad chest and tight stomach. Then she laid her whole palm on his body and caressed him farther down. She took his erect penis in her right hand and rubbed it, covered it with oil from her hand, then opened her lips and took all of it in her mouth, stroking the naked tip with her tongue.

This special love play with the lips and the mouth was a practice of the women of the island of Lesbos. The women of Athens did not do it. Themistocles had heard about it but had never experienced it until then. It made his head pound and his body spasm with pleasure.

A little later, when his head was empty of kings, armies and campaigns and his penis was competing with the anvil of Hephaestus for hardness, Artemisia took him by the hand and led him to the great bed, made of oak and sandalwood, which was already made up and waiting for them.


Hours later when their bodies fell apart, soaked with the juices of love and the liquids of pleasure that had come many times for both of them, the sun had not yet risen over the horizon. The sea had just taken on the rosy color of dawn and the room was filled with pale light. Most of the lamps had gone out.

Artemisia kissed him on both eyes and pushed back the curtains that hung down from the bedposts, concealing the bed. She rose from the moist linen sheets. She stood there for a moment, naked, watching him. The expression of desire had faded from her face and, in spite of the night of love-making, she looked as if she had just woken from a deep slumber.

"It's still early, come back to bed…"

Without answering his invitation, without saying a word, she went to a large wooden closet standing on one side of the room. She opened it and took out the last garments that anyone would have expected. Themistocles looked at her in surprise.

"I am on a peaceful journey" he said, looking at the helmet and breastplate she held in her hands. "Thank you, but I don't need armor. Anyway, I have some in Athens. I wore it at the battle of Marathon."

"It's not for you" Artemisia cut him off dryly.

"Who is it for?"

"For me" she answered him, putting on the breastplate of linen sewn with bronze plates that flashed in the light of the few lamps that were still burning. "Today I'm leaving for exercises on the sea with the flagship of our fleet, the Cassiope."

"You?"

"Yes. One day I will be made queen. Either by you, if you marry me…"

"Artemisia… I explained to you that…"

"Or by Xerxes himself, who can put the nobles in their place with one of his decisions and give me the power by royal decree" she answered him curtly. "I must command the fleet and the army. That is what kings do all over the world. Though that may be hard for you to understand, since you do not have a king in Athens.

"We do have a king."

"You said…"

"We have thousands of kings. Our citizens."

Artemisia laughed. "I can see why you are so successful in your city. You know how to choose your words and serve them up like a well-cooked dish."

"What you are describing is called persuasion. It's the opposite of command. Persuasion…"

"I know. I used it on you yesterday evening, you saw it with your own eyes. But when Xerxes' army reaches Greece and destroys your cities, then you won't speak of this persuasion with the same pride" she said with bitter sarcasm, since now that the excitement of love-making had faded the disappointment of his refusal returned with a vengeance. "I have learned that after this you will go to the capital of the satrapy. To Sardis."

"Do you want to come with me?" Themistocles smiled.

Artemisia's face became like the face of Thetida when her son Achilles was slain before the walls of Troy. Stone, like hard granite. "I will not set foot in Sardis!"

"Why?"

"Because of you" she told him, looking at him as if in disgust. "Because there, on account of the Athenians, I lost the person I loved most in my life. The only woman in the world I really loved. I was forced to kill her with my own hands to save my life from the swords of your soldiers."

It was impossible to hide his astonishment. "What woman? How?"

Artemisia did not answer him. She put on the helmet and fastened the sword around her waist with quick, experienced movements. "Think of my proposal on your way back, when you return to Halicarnassus. That is when I will expect your answer."

"I told you my thoughts. You are very beautiful, you are really irresistible, but my answer is no."

"Your answer may change, then" she cut him off icily. "It's very likely."

"Why?"

Taking in her hand the spear with its iron point and the silver pomegranate at its base, as Persian spearmen did, she opened the door and prepared to leave the room "Because you will not be able to get into Sardis, Themistocles. You will not even be able to get near it" she said drily.

"Why?" he repeated in surprise.

"Because Sardis is too small a city to hold all of the army that Xerxes is gathering there. Tens of thousands of soldiers are encamped throughout the whole valley of the Pactolus river, for miles and miles around the city. And those soldiers, cousin, are only the beginning…" she answered him, walking to the door. One step before she went through it and disappeared into the great hall, she turned and spoke to him one last time. "But you must decide quickly. You do not have much time. The ambassadors of the Great King have already started out for your cities, to demand earth and water…


Days later, on the way back from Sardis, Themistocles was surprised to find that instead of thinking about the terrifying mass of the army he had seen, he kept thinking about Artemisia.

Her moist eyes as she writhed in pleasure and her moist body that he pierced like the hard bronze ram of a warship. Her soft, full lips and her playful tongue that wrapped his hard penis and played with it like a hetaera with a flute. Her smooth skin that shuddered under his heavy body and her heavy breasts that pulsed vigorously when she rode him like a wild stallion, howling with pleasure. But also the striated muscles of her trained body, hard as the marble of columns and sculpted like the statues of temples.

Since that night, every evening before he flung himself on the straw mat he carried with him and surrendered to the embrace of sleep, he had prayed to his beloved goddess of wisdom, begging her to visit him with some dream and give him her guidance.

"Most wise Athena, goddess of wisdom, deliver me… Take the thought of Artemisia from my mind or help me to decide otherwise and make her my wife if that is right…" he murmured on the last evening before boarding ship to return to Athens.


The two naked boys turned and twisted energetically. In this competition all holds, all kinds of kicks and blows and every move was allowed. Their immature but hardy and muscular bodies were full of lacerations and old scars from their struggle for survival during their harsh education. And this was its peak: wrestling with no holds barred and to the limit, known to the Greeks as pancratio.

The palaestra where the competition was held was twelve yards long and six yards wide. It was filled with rough sand from the bed of the river Evrotas. Reeds from the banks of the same river formed a barrier not to be crossed by anyone except the paidonomos who set the rules of the competition and was the final judge. Around the palaestra were rows of bleachers full of adult men. At the base of those bleachers, in the spot with the best view, the young trained warriors, fellow students of the two boys, were seated. Exemplification was the basis of the famous Spartan education.

As the competition went on, the two twelve year old boys hit each other like rabid dogs. The thinner of the two was lying on the sand and trying to push his opponent off of himself, scratching deep bloody lines into his back. The second, sturdier boy had his knees firmly fixed in his opponent's side and was pulling his neck with all his might, trying to dislocate his shoulder or break his collarbone, while pointedly ignoring the pain from the gashes and the blood running down his back.

When the boy who was lying on his back on the ground opened his mouth to draw breath, the boy kneeling on his chest let go of the neck, thrust his palm into the open jaw and pulled hard on the lower mandible, tearing the edges of the lips and dislocating the collarbone.

Before the smaller boy could recover from the painful surprise, the bones of his nose were shattered by a vertical punch that fell on his face like a lead weight. His face had been turned into a formless, mutilated mass of blood, saliva and mucus. Screams of pain and gruesome wails filled the stadium, but no one got up to help.

While the thin boy was still writhing like a wounded animal from the unbearable pain and the other one waited patiently over him with cold eyes and tight fists, the Athenian Cimonas jumped up in a panic from his place in the bleachers.

The hand of King Leonidas, who was watching the games with him, stretched out and pulled him back to his place. "You can't…" he said calmly without looking at him. "The games cannot be interrupted except by the paidonomos and he has not moved yet…"

Cimonas, agitated but silent, sat down again on the little bench, sparsely decorated with pine boughs and braided garlands of red cloth like that from which the characteristic red cloaks of the Spartans were made.

He had come to the city three days earlier with a delegation from Athens. The delegation was headed by Themistocles, who had pretended he felt tired and weak to avoid appearing at one of the most characteristic ceremonies of the famous Spartan education. He admired that education because it was so effective, but at the same time abhorred its inhuman tactics.

When a Spartan mother brought a young boy into the world, she immediately had to give him to be examined by a committee of elders of the city. That was the first of the four important stages in the life of the newborn child. If the elders found that the infant was healthy and able-bodied, they gave him back to his mother. If not, they left him all alone at a place in the Taygetos, the wild mountain that towered behind Sparta. There, amid the steep cliffs and shrubs, hidden by oak, maple and pine trees, was a steep ravine that the Spartans called the Keadas. On the sheer slopes of this chasm they left every crippled newborn boy to die or to be raised by shepherds and slaves, not, that is, by real Spartans, since he would not be able to serve the city as a soldier.

If the child was able-bodied and healthy enough to pass this first test, at the age of seven the second important stage of his life followed. The boy left his family and joined a group called the Herd. For five years he lived with a group of boys of the same age, ate one frugal meal a day with them, was taught writing, wrestling and music, slept on a mattress of reeds from the river, and was encouraged to steal if he wanted more food. Not to make him into a skillful thief, but to develop his resourcefulness and ability to survive. In Sparta theft was not punished unless it was discovered, otherwise it was considered to be seizing an opportunity.

At the age of twelve the boy became an adolescent, and after a series of ruthless wrestling matches against the most distinguished Spartans and his mother, he had to prove his worth on the field of battle. His adolescence started with the Krypteia, a hunt in the open air where all the adolescents of the same age, armed only with a small curved knife, had to hunt down rebellious slaves and to murder at least one each, in order to become familiar with death and to learn their purpose in life: to kill uncomplainingly and mercilessly when the city required it. During the six years of his adolescence, the young man lived day and night in a military group, ate only a nourishing liquid called Black Broth, drove out the fear of blood and death with physical and mental exercises, participated in exhausting ten-hour marches wearing armor, was whipped mercilessly by his superiors if he was exhausted and gave up trying and, most importantly, learned to blindly obey the adult man who was in charge of the whole of his education. He only had the right to one light chiton, the same one all year round, winter and summer. He did not have the right to wear boots or sandals on his feet and, besides the broth, he ate only rough barley bread, dried figs, olive oil, and cheese. Besides the military education, the group leaders also taught writing, dancing and music. The members of a group were linked by bonds of friendship and comradeship and all the groups were bound to their city and had the common values of respect, discipline, honor, solidarity, iron will, rejection of the fear of death, and spontaneous sacrifice for the good of the city.

At the age of eighteen the adolescent became a young soldier, carrying the honorable weapons of Sparta and participating fully in wars, and even in time of peace he prepared for war by training every day and living frugally and with austerity. He had the honorary privilege of participating in a military unit, paying a contribution and eating with its members. Day by day, this strengthened the bonds with the comrades on which he would have to depend totally during war. He only returned to his family in the evening, to sleep in his house at night. He was a full-time soldier, the only one in the whole ancient world and full of pride in his own worth. The maxim of Sparta was: everyone knows their duty, but only Spartans carry it out fully.

Finally, at the age of thirty, after an exhausting eleven years of education and twelve years of honorable military service, having earned the right with his actions, he became one of the omoioi or equals, a free Spartan citizen, a man with full rights to take part in the public life of the city and participate in the Apella.

For one moment, the thinner boy writhing in unbearable pain on the sand of the palaestra, with a crushed nose, torn face and mouth full of sand, raised his hand, squealing gruesomely like a hog being dragged to the altar for sacrifice. Immediately, a sturdy woman jumped up from the bleachers opposite and started to complain in a loud voice, directing at the boy an angry jumble of reprimands, curses and prayers to the gods for punishment.

"Who is she?" asked Cimonas in surprise, since the women of Athens did not have the right to go to the palaestras where the men competed naked.

"His mother. She is trying to protect him" Leonidas answered calmly.

"To protect him how? By scolding him? To protect him from what? The boy might bleed to death."

"From dishonor, from asking for mercy, from giving up by raising his hand. From showing that he is not able to bear the pain and that he has not managed to defeat the fear of death."

At precisely that moment, the women, whose muscles stood out clearly on her arms and thighs as they did in all Spartan women, raised her right hand and signaled the paidonomos.

A man with a porphyry chiton and a rod in his hand came up to her, exchanged a few words with her and then went back to the palaestra and pulled the boy with the crushed face out.

He pulled him to the column on the side of the gymnasium and set him upright with his face and breast against the marble. While his mother held his hands from the other side of the column, the man raised his rod and brought it down hard on the boy's back twenty times. That was the punishment for abandoning the competition and giving in to fear.

"He will die…" murmured Cimonas, astonished and upset, looking at the savage beating of the boy's already wounded body.

"If he dies that will mean he was not worthy of serving the law and the city" was Leonidas' calm answer. "But if he lives, our doctors will heal him and his mother will be proud of her son, and not ashamed because she could not give Sparta a worthy defender."


Bare walls without ornamentation. Whitewash and a statue of the goddess Artemis. No decorations, no carpets, no couches with comfortable cushions. Wooden stools without backs and a long table fashioned from pine boards smoothed with a thin layer of wax furnished the official banqueting hall where the Spartans honored their guests in accordance with the command of Zeus, protector of travelers and wayfarers.

Around the table sat the leaders of the military battalions, the imperious Spartans with their long hair and their red capes, upright, their spines like the trunks of pine trees. They did not speak loudly, but asked and answered each other in low voices and they ate slowly, without greed.

A few pine resin torches burned in the four corners of the room, discretely lighting and scenting the place. It was the only perfume in the roomy but severe hall. The bodies of Spartans were never anointed with heavy perfumes and myrrh except in some of their religious ceremonies, in which all the citizens participated and which were maintained strictly and austerely.

And the food was unspiced. It was chosen and cooked according to the dictates of physical health and not for pleasure of the palate. Even that night, at a formal dinner in honor of a foreign delegation, not a single dish had been laced with expensive spices. Simple barley bread, dried figs, white cheese, walnuts, almonds, boiled vegetables and of course, the main dish of the Spartans, the infamous Black Broth.

Themistocles smiled faintly, looking at the tasteless and unsightly food waiting for him on clay plates.

"Why do you not eat?" King Leonidas, who was sitting beside him, asked in a puzzled voice. Dinner was the only meal of the day, besides breakfast.

"I am not very hungry."

"At least our broth. We are famous for this dish. It accompanies all our meals" explained Leonidas, and pulled the deep basin with the black liquid towards him. "Here, try some…"

Themistocles hesitatingly broke off a piece of bread and dipped it in his bowl. Then he slowly brought it to his mouth and chewed it without appetite, trying to hide a grimace of disgust.

"Well?"

"Now I understand why Spartans do not fear death" he murmured to Leonidas with a smile. "A thousand times better to lose your life than to be forced to eat this food all your life…"

Leonidas laughed at the joke. He was an uncompromising, austere man, like all the Spartans, but he respected directness and honesty. He had met Themistocles a long time ago, after the battle of Marathon when he came to Athens as the head of a unit of Spartans and was impressed by the victory the Athenians had achieved over Persia. He himself, with Themistocles as his guide, had visited the field of battle and offered sacrifices and libations at the tomb of the fallen. Since that day, a close friendship based on understanding and respect had grown up between the two men. That was why, when the question arose of an alliance of Greek cities against the Persian invader, the Athenians had sent Themistocles himself as the head of their delegation to discuss it with Leonidas.

"We have already launched two hundred new ships."

Leonidas looked at him calmly. "That is very many. Does Athens have that much money?"

"Half was paid by the public treasury of the city and the other half by citizens. With donations."

"Donations? What are those?" The Spartan honestly did not know. He had never heard the word before, nor could he understand how a simple citizen could have enough money in his possession to pay for a whole ship all by himself.

The concept of money was unknown in Sparta. Besides a piece of land and the slaves needed to provide the minimum food necessary for himself and his family, no Spartan owned any property in money, gold or silver. There were no coins and in the very few cases when it was necessary, they used clumsy, heavy iron rods as currency so as to discourage the tendency to amass money. Acquiring and possessing gold, except as ornaments for weddings and religious ceremonies, was strictly forbidden. Spartan law laid down merciless punishments for greed and speculation. Of course those punishments were almost never applied. Personal interest was incomprehensible to Spartan citizens. There was only the public interest of the city and the common good.

"Every Athenian merchant has undertaken to build and equip one warship within the space of one year. The merchant provides for its maintenance and the wages of the crew and the rowers" Themistocles explained.

"The wages of the crew? Aren't the crew soldiers?"

"Yes. They receive two drachmas a day for their services."

"Even in wartime?" asked Leonidas, unable to hide his surprise. He had never been able to understand Athens. "How is it possible for a citizen to accept payment for his services to the city?"

"It would take a long time to explain, my friend. And we don't have time," Themistocles answered seriously. "What I came here to propose to you is an alliance of all the Greek cities, but most importantly an alliance between the two great opponents, Athens and Sparta. With our own fleet and our own army, we have a chance of beating Xerxes' hordes and staying free. Otherwise each of us will be crushed separately by the Persian forces."

"We will have to think about it. We will have to ask the Senate. Alliance is something strange for us. We usually fight alone."

"And what will you do? Will you shut yourself up behind your walls and wait for the Persians?"

"Sparta is not walled because it does not fear anyone. Walls make soldiers feel safe, make them lazy. We always confront our enemies face to face on an open field of battle."

"Is that what you plan to do with the Persians?" Themistocles asked gloomily. He could not hide his surprise.

"The Spartan infantry has never yet been beaten" answered Leonidas proudly, but it was unnecessary. Everyone knew that about Sparta.

"Of course not… But…"

"But what?"

"How many soldiers are there in your city?"

"Four and a half thousand full soldiers of the front line. Fifteen phalanxes fighting as one. Many times we have beaten armies ten times our size."

"So you have an army of forty five thousand soldiers?"

"Perhaps fifty in good battles."

Themistocles laughed. But not with his former optimism; it was the sad laughter of knowledge.

"Xerxes has gathered such a large army that he would not need to send messengers to Athens. All he would need to do is to line his soldiers up in a row, one next to the other, and they would reach to here.

Leonidas felt as if he had been kicked in the chest, but he showed no sign of surprise. Spartan policy was to show complete indifference to the numbers and strength of the enemy.

And Themistocles continued undaunted: "If you don't understand I'll explain it to you with numbers, my friend, because I saw it with my own eyes. He has five hundred thousand soldiers in his whole empire, and more than a thousand ships, including three hundred Phoenicians…" he said slowly, emphasizing every word. "Think about it… Without the alliance we are all lost…"

Leonidas was unaffected by Themistocles' dramatic tone and his unparalleled rhetorical technique. Anyway, Spartans did not understand rhetoric either. So he simply shrugged his shoulders.

"Even if things are the way you say they are" he said, undisturbed, "there are ways to face them…"

"So your answer to our proposal is no?"

"We will have to think about it."


When Themistocles and Cimonas opened their eyes, it was still completely dark even though it was summer and the nights were short. Trumpets were sounding from one end of Sparta to another, announcing the new day and summoning the people to rise. In Athens people got out of bed before sunrise too, although not for the same reasons and not while it was still completely dark. The Spartans were different from everyone else in Greece in this habit too. Winter or summer, they ate early and went to bed early, getting up at first cockcrow so that the sun's first rays would find them in the barracks next to their weapons and their comrades.

Leonidas was waiting for Themistocles alone, at the exit of the guesthouse, holding a lighted torch of pitch and pine resin in his hand. He laughed crustily when he saw his friend's red eyes, and came up to him with good wishes for the new day.

"Is the agora already open?" Themistocles asked sleepily.

"There isn't any agora in Sparta because there isn't any money. Besides, we don't have any use for it."

"And where do you shop for food?"

"What do you mean? We take whatever we need from our land. If we need something we can go to the city's storehouses and get it for free. Our goods are available to every citizen who really needs them.

"So then why did you get me up so early?" Themistocles asked in frustration. He had hoped to use his rhetorical skills on the simple citizens at the agora to influence the decision of the Spartan Senate.

"We will visit the temple of Artemis and then go to the barracks together. Watching the morning drills is the best way for a stranger to understand our military technique. And don't imagine that we would put on a display like this for just anyone. We do it only in exceptional cases and it is a sign of my boundless friendship and esteem for a victor such as yourself."

When the two men returned from the temple where they had offered sacrifices and libations for a favorable outcome of the quickly approaching war, the sun had still not risen but the darkness of night was gone, and a pure light filled the whole valley.

With or without an alliance, it looked like a clash was inevitable. Xerxes had finished gathering his army and completed his preparations for the campaign in Greece. Even to isolated Sparta, without a harbor or trade, rumors had come more and more frequently, more and more ominously.

"The truth is that I had already heard from other mouths what you told me yesterday. And with even larger numbers than the ones you gave. Some speak of eight hundred thousand and others of one million men" Leonidas said suddenly. "But if he has such a huge army, how will he get it here? How will he feed it? How will he supply it with water?"

"With the ships that will accompany him, sailing next to the coast. In this war, the navy will be the most important factor. Without that, Xerxes' campaign will fail…"

"If you do not dominate the land, you have not won the war" Leonidas answered him immediately. "The sea does not produce olives or wheat or grapes. The sea does not have cities. It has nothing but fish. It is merely water. And for Xerxes to dominate our land, he will have to fight us with his army and his solders, not with his ships and his navy."

"Without his ships his army is lost. Five hundred thousand men are impossible to feed on enemy territory, there aren't stores of food that large anywhere. Without the supplies brought by his transports he'll be starved out before he can raise his spear and shield" countered Themistocles.

"You're not wrong about that…"

"Listen to me, Leonidas. Even if you manage to withstand him at the narrow pass of Isthmos, on the road that leads to your city, then Xerxes' ships can transport his army and bypass your phalanxes. And how long will your defenses last if the Persian disembarks his army to your south and you're surrounded? Even your famous phalanxes cannot fight on all fronts at the same time.

Leonidas listened without speaking. Most Spartans only thought about one thing, but Leonidas had a reputation for being open-minded and knowledgeable. He was thinking. He weighed the words he heard from Themistocles. His face suddenly became as dark as the night that had passed. Deep lines of thought were carved on his forehead and his lips darkened as he pressed them together.

But he did not open them. He said nothing. He neither agreed nor disagreed with the Athenian general. Brevity of speech and the ability to keep silent were considered great virtues in Sparta. Together with music and singing, they occupied second place in the hierarchy of the things Spartans valued, after martial ability and obedience to the law.

"That's how it is, my friend…" continued Themistocles. "Sometimes, besides courage, it takes a little imagination to win a war."

"If there is a war… We Spartans are untrusting by nature and don't put much faith in the words of men. From one mouth to the next they grow like clouds in the winter sky…"

"It will happen, Leonidas. You must believe me. It's not just me who says it. The sailors on the merchant ships that come here from the other side of the sea say it too. Xerxes is already bringing his army from Asia to Europe across the straits of Abydos, just above Troy. In a few weeks they'll be here with hundreds of thousands of soldiers and one thousand two hundred warships."

"Not even Ares, the god of war, could gather such an army and cross so many countries in a few weeks. No, I do not believe the situation is as bad or as urgent as some frightened sailors describe…" explained Leonidas seriously, before adding with a smile as he looked at Themistocles, "or even generals…"


They met Cimonas just outside the barracks. It was a day of training, a typical day for the Spartans that is, and Leonidas believed that allowing his Athenian guests to watch the exercises would serve two purposes: it would raise their morale to see the famous Spartan infantry in action, and it would also impress them, making them less proud and less likely to resist the one unbreakable condition on which the Spartans would join any Greek alliance. Sparta would have to command the whole Greek army, both land and sea.

On that day the Evrotas company was scheduled to line up on the field for exercises, but Leonidas had intervened and the Hercules company took its place. Hercules was the royal guard and it was commanded by Leonidas himself, one of the two kings of Sparta.

Under the astonished eyes of Themistocles and Cimonas, the king himself went to the storehouse and met his personal assistant, Melegros. Unlike in Athens, where a soldier's armor and his weapons were his personal property, paid for out of his own pocket, in Sparta the city provided the expensive fighting equipment and every soldier got the same thing. The only difference between the king's armor and that of a simple Spartan soldier was that a king's helmet had three crests on it, while an officer had two crests and a simple soldier had one.

"What are you doing, my friend?" wondered Themistocles when he saw him fastening on the heavy metal breastplate.

"My company is exercising" Leonidas answered naturally. "What do you think? That I'm some barbarian king who sits on a golden throne and watches his men get killed?"

Themistocles laughed. His friend's scornful reference to the style of the Persian king, who led bloody campaigns and watched them like a spectacle from the safety of his throne, lightened his mood and dispelled the clouds of worry that had gathered at Leonidas' ambiguous answers the night before.

"Sit and watch the morning exercises" Leonidas told him, pointing to the little benches under the reed roof. "Melegros will bring you wine, figs and cool water from the well."

Then the king strode quickly forward and took up his usual position on the right side of the phalanx, next to his soldiers who, without any sign of submission or fear, welcomed him into their ranks by taking a small step to the side in a completely natural and coordinated way.

The round shields stood upright before the soldiers' feet, the pointed lower ends of the spears were thrust into the ground and the helmets were raised and supported on their foreheads. Complete stillness and silence. If the Athenians had closed their eyes, they might have imagined themselves alone in the barracks.

"Arms!"

With a single, curt word from Leonidas that seemed to create waves in the air from the intensity with which it was pronounced, a unique spectacle unfolded before the eyes of Themistocles and Cimonas. Like a well-oiled machine, like a single man, three hundred soldiers raised their shields from the ground and held them vertically before their breasts with their left hands, while with their right they raised the heavy spears from the ground and held them parallel with their bodies. The spears, lined up one next to the other, resembled the back of a gigantic hedgehog. It was as if the earth had suddenly sprouted hundreds of black needles.

"Helmets!"

The second one-word command from Leonidas sounded after a pause of a few seconds to allow the men to synchronize their breathing. It was a physical technique for driving away fear that they had been taught since they were small children. In one moment, without anyone moving his hand or putting down his weapons, with a short, coordinated movement of their heads, three hundred helmets came down over their faces, fencing them off with bronze and iron.

The third and most impressive preparatory movement, however, was the one that followed. This was the one that caused the hearts of enemies on the battlefield to be wrung out like sponges from fear and their legs to walk backwards to avoid slaughter.

"Phalanx forward!"

First, with a sudden movement of the left arm, the shields were placed one next to the other and locked liked the doors of a treasure chamber, forming an impenetrable metal wall at the front of the phalanx. Next, in one movement, three hundred spears were raised horizontally above the shields, forming a terrible line of iron points six feet in front of the phalanx. Eighteen inches back and a little higher there was a second line of spears from the second line of soldiers, and then a third from the third line. A killing machine of staggered points supported by muscular arms and shoulders, moving slightly up and down to aim at the faces or the chests of the enemy.

Finally, Leonidas raised his spear high. He waited for a moment and after turning his eyes to the left to check that the phalanx was in formation, he lowered it suddenly.

The shrill sound of reed pipes sounded from the musicians behind them, a simple but rhythmic and piercing sound. The Spartans began to sing their battle hymn loudly in time with the music.

 Forward, brave Spartan

 children of citizen fathers,

 with the left hand hold the shield,

 with the right boldly lift up the spear,

 without ever thinking of your lives

 because that is a Spartan's traditional duty!

Moving as one, their legs took the first step. And then they all moved together like one hand, one head, one body. They went straight forward, singing martial songs in coordinated rhythm. Step by step their voices became louder. A straight line of thirty-five men and behind them, perfectly aligned, another seven lines exactly the same so that every man in front led a file of eight men that followed him foot for foot, with a three-foot distance between them.

When the pipes suddenly changed rhythm, without interrupting the steady pace of the formation, the five files on the left split off from the main body of the phalanx and marched faster, moving many feet forward. When they were more than a hundred and fifty feet in front and the formation looked from far away like a closed fist with the first finger extended, the music of the pipes changed again. Perfectly coordinating their movements, the five files turned to the right, with their shields to the front and their spears extended. It was the crowning moment of the exercise. This was the moment when they would hit the enemy phalanx from its vulnerable right side and throw it into disorder by attacking it from two sides simultaneously.

"An outflanking movement" Cimonas stammered in awe. "I have heard about it but it's the first time I've actually seen it."

"Thank the gods for that…" Themistocles answered him, looking with the same fascination at the soldiers moving all together as one to carry out a maneuver that required absolute discipline and complete coordination.

"I would not like to be a Persian standing before the spears and shields of the Spartans."

"Yes… Right…" murmured Themistocles thoughtfully. "Except that it would take thousands of phalanxes like that to frighten Xerxes and his five hundred thousand warriors, and the Spartans only have fifteen…"

A shrill note from the pipes interrupted their talk. The advanced left part of the phalanx turned back with absolute discipline and took up its place in the formation again. Then the three hundred soldiers started to withdraw without turning their backs to the enemy for a single moment, first because that would ensure a safe withdrawal and secondly because the most dishonorable thing for a Spartan was to have wounds in his back.

When they had all returned to their first position, the pipes fell silent. Leonidas, standing on the right side in his predetermined position, raised his spear high again, ready to give the order for the pipes to sound for the next exercise.

But the sound they heard was not that of a pipe. It was the door of the barracks slamming.

Melegros ran up, breathing hard, his face as red as Leonidas' cloak.

Behind him came three of the five elders of the city council, their faces as black as their famous broth.

"Leonidas…" shouted Melegros and began to run faster. "You must stop! Immediately!"


Melegros approached his exasperated king, trembling with anxiety and also with fear. In twenty years with Leonidas, the old attendant had learned that no one, for any reason, interrupted military exercises.

Melegros' white head turned leaned towards the king's rich braided crest and he began to whisper furiously in his ear. Moment by moment, listening to the assistant's words, Leonidas' angry face relaxed and finally, his anger at the interruption turned to concern at what he was hearing.

"What is going on?" wondered Themistocles.

"I don't know…" murmured Cimonas, looking around him. "Something unpleasant, though."

"I hope it's not a sudden attack. I wouldn't like to be shut in here in Sparta. The assembly of Athens meets in ten days to set the strategy for war with Persia."

"If there is a war and it's not all one of those rumors that turn people's minds."

"Yes, of course, it could all be in our minds and nothing will happen…" Themistocles commented ironically. There had been no doubt at all in his mind since the moment he saw the Persian troops and denied Artemisia's proposal to follow the Persian king. "But if it happens…"

"You want to be in command."

Themistocles reddened slightly. In the years Cimonas had been with him since the death of his father Miltiades, he had learned exactly how Themistocles thought, his desires and his ways. Themistocles opened his mouth to deny having such an obvious and arrogant ambition, but he didn't have time to say a word.

At that moment, Leonidas looked toward the gate of the barracks and made a sign to the guards standing to the right and the left of the gate, blocking the entrance.

The soldiers stood to the side, and in the open gate appeared the many-colored trousers, the light blue caftan and the yellow hat of a swarthy man, his arms and neck loaded down with golden jewelry and with a gold medallion engraved with a winged lion shining on his breast. Behind him came two more swarthy men dressed the same way, but without jewelry on their bare arms.

One of them carried the Caduceus, a special wooden rod held by official ambassadors which assured them asylum.

The other held a silver vase and a small amphora, to receive the earth and water of the Spartans.