 "The wise man judges the new by the old." —SOPHOCLES

 "The value of life is measured by its beauty and not by its length." —PLUTARCH

 "The times do not wait." —THUCYDIDES


Proud Xerxes, Emperor of Persia and King of Kings, invades Greece with a million soldiers. He leads thousands of ships and is helped by dozens of allies, among them the charming Queen Artemisia.

Against him stand a few Greek fighters and two determined men - Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans on dry land, the personification of bravery and patriotism; and Themistocles and the fleet of Athens on the sea, the incarnation of ingenuity and strategy.


[ Fifty eight years earlier ]

[ Babylon, 538 B.C. ]

Cyrus the Great, ruler of all Asia, grasped his gilt scepter and swept the landscape before him with a direct and focused gaze. He beheld the endless plain of Mesopotamia watered by the imposing river Euphrates. In the distance, a few miles away to the right and left of the river, six miles long and five miles wide, lay the greatest and most glorious city he had seen in all his years of conquest. It was the only city that had resisted until now, the only one he had not yet added to his possessions, the only thorn in the soft underbelly of his vast empire.

"Babylon… the city of cities…" the emperor murmured to himself, impatient yet filled with awe.

He sat on his golden throne atop a wooden platform supported on the shoulders of fourteen dark-skinned carriers. His eyes were squeezed almost shut, like his tight-pressed lips—narrowed not just against the glare, but from anxious concern. Babylon had the best system of defense of all known cities in the world, even better than the renowned Nineveh. Its famous limestone and granite wall was a hundred and fifty feet tall and a hundred feet wide. Two four-horse carriages could run side by side at full speed along the top of that wall, and they would still take quite a long time to cover the fifty-three miles of its perimeter. In front of the wall ran a great trench, sixty feet wide and ten feet deep, filled with water from the Euphrates and encircling the city. The wall was pierced by two huge gates through which the river entered the city from the north and left it at the south, after passing through the whole city. The gate on the north side opened every morning to let in boats filled with every kind of merchandise from all over Asia. It was a gigantic, double gate with one door leading to the world outside the wall and the other to the city inside. When both doors of the gate were closed, its bottom part touched the surface of the river. This made it impossible for anyone, whether mounted or on foot, to get into the city since no one could have swum underwater against the strong current for a hundred feet, the thickness of the wall.

At the center of this rich city with its terrific defenses was the greatest prize any conqueror could desire, the famous tower of Babylon, one of the so-called wonders of the world. Seven floors tall and two hundred and thirty feet high, it dominated not only the city but the whole plain and the two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. It was the golden temple of the great Babylonian god Bel Marduk. In it served the twenty-four priests who, together with the king, ruled Babylon and all its wealth.

Cyrus blinked his eyes. The glare from the golden roof of the temple blinded him and simultaneously enraptured his mind, while the light glancing off the thousands of blue bricks that adorned the temple stained his face cyan.

He dragged his gaze away from the city, stood up and turned around. Immediately the two generals standing at the back of the throne fell to their knees, bowed their heads to the floor, and touched their foreheads to his feet. His vast army spread out before him from the manmade hill where he stood to the dim reaches of the plain to the east, where sight lost itself in the dull veil of swiftly approaching night. Five hundred thousand front line warriors and five hundred thousand assistants, tens of thousands of workers, servants and merchants, cooks and prostitutes, brought here from all the ends of the empire. His army covered an area greater than the area of Babylon itself.

The Persian emperor raised his golden scepter and held it out, pointing at the city behind him whose image was fading slowly in the soft light of sunset. Then he raised his head imperceptibly towards the heavens and gave thanks in advance to his god, the winged Ahura Mazda, for the conquest of glorious Babylon. This conquest would make him lord and master of all of Mesopotamia and consolidate his empire as the only power in all of Asia, from the Mediterranean Sea to India.

When his prayer of thanks had ended, he returned his scepter to vertical position and struck the wooden floor of the platform three hard blows. The two generals kissed his feet, stood upright and took up their positions before the army. The attack on the unassailable city would begin that same evening.

His plan, inconceivable for a common mind, went into effect the moment the sun hid itself and continued in an unbroken, feverish rhythm until dawn. A great distance from the unassailable walls of the city, massive boulders were dragged to the Euphrates by elephants and thrown in, lessening the flow of its waters. A short way below this curious dam, for a length of several miles, hundreds of thousands of men were lined up, one next to the other, on the two banks of the river. In their hands they held basins woven of reeds, covered with leather and sealed with pitch. Behind them stretched two deep trenches, many miles long, constructed by imperial engineers in the previous weeks.

As soon as it became dark hundreds of thousands of basins were immersed in the now-calm water at the same time and they began rapidly and efficiently emptying it. In a few hours the level of the Euphrates had sunk by several inches. By the time the night was at its darkest, just before dawn, the level of the waters was at the height of the knees of a man of average size.

The glorious moment had arrived. The two generals led foot soldiers and cavalry to the riverbed and drew them up facing the city's great northern entrance. The water lapping the lower edge of the enormous gate had sunk, leaving six feet of empty space. There was enough room for a soldier with all his gear or a horse without its rider to pass through.

Within a short time thousands of Persian soldiers had entered the city. They seized it suddenly, taking inhabitants and defenders in their sleep.

The next morning the gold and blue radiance of the tower of Babylon reflected the light of the morning sun and shone on the face of the emperor who stood at its top, surveying the famous hanging gardens.

Cyrus lowered his head and looked at the thousands of Babylonians who had gathered below the tower, silently awaiting his decree. Around him, along the sides of the roof, kneeled the twenty four priests of the Babylonian god Bel Marduk with their heads bowed.

The emperor raised his imperial scepter and showed it to the crowd. He held it high for a short while, like a flaming sword, for all to see.

Then, with his gaze on the far-away red and gold horizon of the dawn and the bright light of the new day, he lowered it suddenly. With it fell twenty-four sharp swords.

The heads of the priests were cut from their necks and fell into the void. Their headless bodies followed soon after, bathing the townspeople in their sacred blood.

The kingdom of Bel Marduk had ended.

Babylon the Great had fallen.

The Persian Empire dawned with the sun.


The music of kitharas could be heard in all the neighborhoods of Athens around the Acropolis, in all the narrow streets, in all the one-storied and two-storied houses. In every garden, in every temple and in every grove of sacred olive trees. The procession of the Sacred Veil of the great Panathenaia festival was about to start.

Earlier, gymnastics competitions had been held in the three great gymnasia of the city. A little later, the most important music competitions followed. Then there were contests in reciting passages of poetry from the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Now everything was ready for the festival's grand finale.

The police and the Agora overseers had removed all the prostitutes and drunks from the streets and had personally supervised the cleansing of all the shops, especially the ones that sold meat and fish. The fountains were cleaned, the altars of the gods were purified, the temple of Zeus was polished and the street that led to the walls of the Acropolis was newly strewn with gravel.

Outside the walls the inhabitants of Athens and the foreign visitors waited impatiently for the festivities to begin. For the procession to start and to reach the Acropolis and the temple of the goddess Athena, high above the city. For the animals to be slaughtered and the ceremonies to be solemnized. And then for the sharing out of roasted meat and wine and the great celebration with singing, music and dancing that would follow.

Outside the Dipylon, the west gate of the wall of Athens, a great chariot in the shape of a boat had been made ready. The four chosen virgins, who for a year had been weaving the Sacred Veil they would present as a gift to their favorite goddess, had taken their places on the wooden boat with wheels that symbolized Athens' naval power. They wore simple white robes that left one shoulder bare and their heads were adorned with wreaths of olive branches. In their fingertips they held the golden-yellow veil they had woven with their own hands. The veil showed scenes from the Gigantomachy and the Titanomachy, the great victories of Zeus and the twelve gods of Olympus over the Giants and the Titans.

When the hot sun of July reached the center of the sky, the sign was given for the procession to start. The four virgins raised the veil and set it up on a pole in the center of their wheeled boat, so that it looked like the sail of a ship filled with wind.

The wheeled boat moved slowly up the street, its wheels crunching on the gravel. Behind it came young men leading the hundred oxen for the sacrifices, young women carrying woven baskets full of gifts, musicians with their instruments and citizens of Athens bringing amphorae filled with oil, honey and wine.

The middle-aged Aristogeitonas and the youth Armodios watched the procession start and held their breath. The first stretched out his right arm and put it tenderly around the shoulders of the second. Armodios pressed his lips together and nodded his wreathed head decisively. He looked his beloved Aristogeitonas in the eye and grasped the handle of the sharp knife hidden under his white tunic. The two lovers were ready.

The boat with the stretched veil passed through the gate and entered the city. At a sign from the head of the procession, the two wreathed oxen pulling it turned to the right and took the Panathenaic Way that led through the Agora and ended at the gates of the Acropolis, where the priests of the temple of the goddess Athena were waiting.

Slowly and steadily, the head of the procession approached the sacred precinct dedicated to the female deities and the pedestal standing in front of it. On the pedestal stood the governor of the city, the tyrant Hipparchus, together with his brother Hippias. Their father, Peisistratos, had seized power fifty years before and imposed a brutal tyranny which now, after his death, was carried on by his oldest son. The tyrant Hipparchus was dressed in his glamorous official clothes and looked down with conceit, arrogance and contempt on the people of Athens gathered outside the walls. But when the sacred veil reached his pedestal, he bent his head in a show of humility and respect for the goddess.

The moment had arrived. The lovers moved quickly on both sides of the pedestal. While the tyrant's guard was busy with the ceremony in honor of the sacred procession, first the youth Armodios and then the middle-aged Aristogeitonas climbed quickly onto the wooden pedestal. When they reached the top, they pulled out the knives hidden in their tunics. Aristogeitonas grabbed Hipparchus by the throat and immobilized him. His youthful lover raised his knife and, with a quick movement, buried it in Hipparchus's unprotected chest, twisting it with hatred.

The heart and lungs were shattered instantly.

The tyrant of Athens fell dead.

Democracy had returned to the city that gave it birth.

"The Baptism of Blood"


[ Sardis, city of the Persian Empire ]

Are you sure?"

"Yes…"

"It's expensive" the merchant murmured, looking with distrust at the girl standing before him. "It's only for archers and wrestlers."

"And me" she answered arrogantly, and commanded her nursemaid to take out the daric, the golden Persian coin that glittered in the light of dawn.

That convinced him. The merchant took a clay cup and filled it up with the black liquid he had been stirring all evening in a huge pot over a low fire. It was the famous broth of Sardis. A thick liquid mixture of blood, wine and honey, flavored with poppy seeds from Mount Tmolus. An expensive tonic that wrestlers drank before matches and warriors drank before going into battle.

Letting go of the nursemaid's hand, the girl grasped the clay cup firmly in both hands and drank down the warm liquid in one gulp. She greedily drank three heavy clay cups full, though even the ferocious athletes of the palaestra were satisfied with just one. She dried her mouth with the back of her hand, sighed in satisfaction and paid for the expensive drink with the golden coin, one of ten that her father had given her for the journey. Only then did she raise her eyes and meet the disapproving gaze of her gray-haired governess.

"What are you looking at me for? Didn't we come to honor the goddess of plenty? If the goddess Cybele is known for anything, it is for the good things she gives to those who are faithful to her."

"Yes, but..."

"Besides, in a way we're relatives. I have the name of a goddess too."

"Of Artemis... The goddess of hunting."

"A goddess who is known for never forgetting and never forgiving" the girl answered her with a grim look. "So be careful what you say..." she added, smiling.

"It's your money..." the nursemaid murmured deferentially, bowing her head.

"Right. Mine. So now let's go and hunt for the gift for my father, the most beautiful golden ring in this whole city."

She gave her a kiss on her wrinkled cheek and pulled her towards the marketplace where there were shops that were famous throughout the vast Persian Empire, the shops of the goldsmiths from Sardis who got their gold straight from the river Pactolus.

"The sacrifices start when the sun is an arm's length up in the sky" said the nursemaid, and threw an anxious glance to the east, which was already rosy. "Perhaps we should wait until the afternoon?"

"We'll be done in time."

"We have to go to the baths before we go to the temple for the sacrifice."

"I know. We will, I promise. We didn't make a ten day journey to come before the goddess with our bodies unperfumed and our hair unoiled."

"Ritual cleansing is required before the ceremony of Taurobolion."

"Really, tell me about this famous ceremony" the girl shouted, pulling her over the rough tiles of the marketplace. "I've heard so about it much in our city, Halicarnassus. Is it true what they say about the red bath?"

"You'll see for yourself with your own eyes…" her nursemaid murmured, and she smiled for the first time, secretively.

"Do you promise?"

"You are the daughter of Lygdamis, Satrap and King of Halicarnassus. You will have the place with the best view during the ceremony."

The fourteen year old girl's enthusiasm translated into a warm embrace. And a warm, tender kiss that made the nursemaid smile broadly, showing the bare gums hiding behind her usually tightly closed lips.

"Besides..." she added, pushing down her conical Persian cap and raising her pleated caftan in order to walk faster, "you'll experience it yourself when you go into the pit for the baptism of blood."


Dust and choking heat. The air was like the air in a blacksmith's workshop. As the sun climbed higher in the sky, foreheads were moistened with sweat and faces turned red from the burning rays.

And from excitement. Thousands of people were crowded together under the rock where the Persian fortress and the headquarters of the governor of the city were located. From the western beaches where the Ionian cities were to Susa, the capital of the Persian empire two thousand miles to the east, people had come to Sardis for the annual festival in honor of the Mother Goddess. All those who were faithful or just curious had gathered around the great pits, holding leather bags full of water in their hands and with their heads wrapped in linen cloth soaked in water for protection from the sun. They waited patiently, expectantly, as hour after hour the air grew more and more suffocating from the smell of meat being roasted by the hundreds of peddlers and the odor of thousands of sweating bodies. Pilgrims were everywhere. On the roofs of the imperial limestone buildings, in the branches of the few little trees, crowded together on the surrounding hills, even clinging to the rocks on the hill where the fortress of Sardis was built.

The girl and her nursemaid were not among them. Their prominent places had been chosen by Artaphernes himself, the Persian satrap of the whole province. They sat on bleachers made out of thick canes from the river, right in front of the place of sacrifice. Next to them and around them sat ambassadors of the Persian emperor Darius who had come there from the capital, advisors of the Satrap Artaphernes, commanders of the Persian army, gold traders from Sardis, owners of mines, large landowners and stockbreeders, and all the power and authority of the satrapy.

The girl was worried. She had gone to the baths where they had carefully cleansed her with warm water, had rubbed her skin with the metal scraper, massaged her body and hair with cool water, and perfumed her with sandalwood and incense in all the hidden spots and folds of her unripe body. Finally, her nursemaid had dressed her in her new garments, a colorful Persian robe of cool linen and a high conical hat to protect her head and her clean hair.

Her eyes could not get their fill of the strange and new scene, the immense crowd that filled the whole valley and the hillsides, the proud stances of the guard of the honorary delegation, the plumed costumes of the officials, the precious jewels shining on their bodies. The priests of the goddess, the mystics and their followers. The sanctuary workers who were now setting up special wooden racks above the great pits and the dozens of bulls that waited, shut up in a corral, bellowing and stamping the dry ground with their hooves.

The whole time, her hand stayed in the old, familiar, tender hand of the dear nursemaid who took care of her night and day, and who had been her shadow from the time her eyes first saw the light of day fourteen years before. She as strict as a tutor should be and as tender as any mother, and she was just as absorbed in the scene before them as her charge was. She watched without speaking. For all of her beloved little girl's begging, not a word came from her mouth. Words had no value, they would only cheapen the glorious spectacle that was to follow. Now and then she glanced at the girl's overwrought face and smiled fondly. The fate the gods had assigned to the nursemaid had been hard. She was barren and infertile, alone and unwed, but in the end, her reward had been the precious gift that sat beside her, the girl who had made the years of her old age beautiful from the first time she held her to her breast until now. She was her one and only nurse.

At that moment the girl glanced worriedly at the sky, half closing her eyes against the blinding light.

"The chariot of the sun runs faster than Hermes, the swiftest of the gods. It is already in the middle of the sky."

"Don't worry. Everything is arranged, provided and measured out by the priests."

"Will they have time?"

"Don't worry" her nurse repeated. "The blood will flow in its time..."


The bull bellowed frantically. Tied with five thick ropes of braided strips of hide and with a forged chain around its neck, it was dragged by ten men while several more goaded it on the rump with sharpened canes. The uproar and the dust kicked up by the maddened brute covered the whole of the little valley, because on this day the god Aeolus had closed up his bags of wind and the city was without a breeze.

Just before the bull arrived at the wooden grate, a man waiting at the edge of the pit stripped off the white tunic he was wearing so that he was naked, smeared himself with aromatic oil and, amid the celebratory chanting of the priests, climbed down into the pit, which was deeper than he was tall. There he kneeled to the earth, prayed to the goddess, and prepared for the ritual cleansing that was to follow.

When the chanting of the priests had stopped, complete silence spread out over the hill. It was as if all mouths had closed at the same time so as not to insult the Mother Goddess with their voices. The girl looked on, fascinated, unable to speak because of suspense and the rapid beating of her heart. This was the great hour of sacrifice. The hour for which she had travelled to Halicarnassus in Caria, to the capital of the satrapy of Sardis.

When the thick ropes were tied to the five stakes thrust deep into the earth around the pit, and the chain on the bull's neck was stretched by the strong arms of temple servants, the bull was immobilized on the wooden grate. Its bellowing and the stamping of its hooves shook the air, foam came from its mouth, which opened desperately, and thick saliva ran down its snout and neck. Its brown coat glistened with sweat, its great eyes stared and its tail waved back and forth feverishly. Perhaps it foresaw the end that was approaching. The girl was sure that the bull knew what was coming.

The high priest made three complete circles around the bull, speaking the sacred words of cleansing and sprinkling it with palm oil scented with vrentheio, the Lydian perfume of musk and lavender. Then he stood in front of the animal, grasped its two horns firmly in his two hands, and raised his voice which pierced the air like the howl of a wolf. The naked man in the pit below the grate raised his head, reciting a hymn to the Great Mother. The horns sounded loudly. Another man, dressed in calfskin, climbed up to the wooden grate and took up position under the bull's head. In his hand he held a double ax. With a sudden movement, amid the bellowing and the sound of hymns, he raised the ax and cut the muscles and tendons of the bull's neck. Then, with a long and broad knife, the man cut through the animal's jugular vein while the priest pulled the horns, stretching the head so that the blood rushed out.

The baptism of blood was well underway. The man in the pit received the waterfall of steaming animal blood ecstatically. His naked body was covered in the hot red liquid and his head was stretched back so that his face would receive the life-giving offering. Above him, the sacrificed animal trembled and shook in a desperate attempt to hold on to life. The bellowing had ceased and had been replaced by a death rattle. The life-giving power of the invincible bull flowed onto the faithful man along with the goddess's blessing. Until the bull fell lifeless on the grate, all the blood drained from its body.

"Unbelievable..." the girl murmured, her eyes wide.

"Ritual cleansing is a great gift from the goddess. It is life and good fortune itself" her governess commented calmly. Then she abruptly became serious. "Don't be afraid" she urged, feeling the trembling of the hand she held in her own.

"I don't..."

"Calm down. You're number eighteen."

"I... I don't think I can..."

"The baptism of blood is a gift from the goddess. You can say the prayers we have learned to calm down. You still have time. But you must do it. Your name is already written in the catalog of the temple and the priests have read the wishes on the sacred alter of her temple. If you do not do it, your hubris will be punished and her wrath will fall upon you. Bad fortune will follow you until the end of your life."

"I don't know if..."

"There isn't any if. You cannot get out of it. Your fate has been decided. Today you will bathe in blood."


The tenth bull had been sacrificed. The hour was approaching rapidly. Luckily her hands had stopped trembling. As the sun sank into the west, as the pits filled up with blood, the girl felt her body dry out and the beating of her heart slow down while her mind relaxed. It was not just that she was getting used to the sight and her first reaction was fading. The poppy milk that her nursemaid had given her to drink had had a calming effect. After the first few swallows she felt her limbs relax, her spirit strengthen and her will expand, like the sail of a ship with the wind at its tail.

The eleventh bull and she was already anxious to get into the pit herself, to receive the baptism of blood. Yes, the truth was exactly what her nursemaid had just told her. On this day she would bathe in blood. She would receive the goddess's gifts that would accompany her for the rest of her life: well-being, abundance, good fortune. She had to do it. She was impatient to do it.

At the sacrifice of the twelfth bull they were going to leave the seats to go to the sacrificial area. At the fourteenth bull they were going to take their place next to the pit. At the fifteenth bull the priests would take off her robe and cap, leaving her naked, and the temple women would rub her with the perfume of musk and lavender. And then would follow the hymns, the descent into the pit and she would be sprayed with the life-giving blood that would seal her destiny with the gift of the goddess's favor.

"Come on, let's go, it's time..."

She and her nursemaid climbed down the seats made of canes, took the path between two lines of guards with their scaly armor and their long, embroidered trousers and came to the door of the dressing rooms where the faithful gathered to receive the first blessing from the initiate and to prepare for the ceremony.

With the poppy milk flowing through her veins, enhancing her excitement, with the murmuring of the priests ringing in her ears like a divine incantation and with the scent of perfume and incense thick in the air, a sacred inebriation filled the girl. Inside her, in her stomach and her heart and out to the tips of her fingers, she felt the beginnings of a new force and power, and this too was a gift of the goddess, a sure sign of her favor. Her spirit was already flying above Mount Tmolus, it rose to the heavens and reached the kingdom of the gods, the boundless ether. Her feet did not touch the ground. Ecstasy had taken her. She did not think of earthly things or hear words from human lips. She only felt the touch of her nursemaid, pushing her slowly but surely towards the dressing room where they would take off her clothes and prepare her naked body, and wrap her head in the ceremonial cloth dipped in perfume of musk and lavender.

And then it happened.


First they heard the horn from the top of the fortress, from the city's watchtower. It was a strident, shrill note that stopped the hearts of the people gathered there.

Then, before time could erase the piercing note of the horn, they heard the noise of galloping horses, metal clashing on metal and men's voices shouting in an unknown language. Battle cries echoed through the valley and got louder moment by moment. Feet thumped the dry ground as they ran up the valley's sides.

Finally came the crying accompanied by piteous sobs from the crowd, terrified cries and heartbreaking screams from women wailing as they picked up their children and ran down the paths like a flock of frightened sheep. Panic. Pushing and trampling.

That brought the girl back to earth.

She raised her head in surprise and opened her eyelids. In the time it takes an arrow to leave the stretched string of a bow, her eyes widened and almost started out of their sockets.

In the distance, towards Sardis, thick smoke was rising on the horizon. It was not the smoke of roasted meat, nor was it from the cooking fires in the central rooms of the thatched houses. It was burning houses. Sardis was burning. First at two or three points, then at five or ten more, and then very quickly the whole city was engulfed by fire and havoc.

Down the sides of the long and narrow valley descended hordes of soldiers howling and brandishing their swords and spears. They ran passionately and quickly in lines one next to the other, sweeping animals and humans along as they passed like a giant broom of dry sticks. Their beaten copper shields formed a solid wall that advanced quickly towards the place of sacrifice.

Their vanguard had already hit the gathered crowd, slaughtering, hacking, and slicing. The Persian soldiers were taken by surprise. Before they had time to form in defensive lines they felt the full impact of the attack and they scattered without offering resistance. One after another they fell dead from the short swords of the warriors that had attacked the city. Severed heads, opened breasts, bellies with the guts spilling out. The scent of musk and lavender had given way to the brackish odor of blood and the foul stench of defecation and death.

The few Persian soldiers who managed to escape the onslaught were drawn up around the seats of the officials, while ten of them, the personal guard of Artaphernes, had already pushed the Satrap and his family to the exit, put them on horses and led them to the short, steep path that ran up the hill to the impregnable fortress of the city.

The girl looked curiously at the fighters attacking. She had heard about their battle dress from sailors in the harbor of Halicarnassus. She had read about it in the parchments of her father's library. She had imagined it when listening to rhapsodists recite the Iliad and the Odyssey.

They wore crested bronze helmets with nose and ear protectors and openings for the eyes. They had linen breastplates with metal plates sewn on them and leather wings to protect the ribs, blue mantles around their shoulders, and tall bronze greaves from their ankles to their knees. They carried iron pointed spears in their right hands, short swords in sheaths at their belts, and metal shields with short woolen screens underneath to protect against arrows on their left arms. On most of the shields an olive branch was carved or painted, or else two entwined serpents, the symbol of the goddess Athena, the beloved daughter of almighty Zeus.

"They are soldiers… Athenian soldiers… They finally did it, they made an alliance with the Ionians to rebel against the Persians…" the girl murmured to herself and felt her limbs grow numb, not from sacred inebriation this time, but from fighting agitation at the sight of the enemies of her father, a subject of Darius. "Athenian soldiers… Do you hear?"

But her nursemaid heard nothing. She stood as if turned to stone and looked at the burning city with a lost gaze. Her face was drawn and livid. She looked like an aged shroud. Her lips were dry, her mouth hung open, doomed and witless, as if she were waiting for the fate Atropos to cut the line of her life from one moment to the next.

"Do you hear?" the girl said and shook her vigorously. "They are the Athenians and their rebel allies from Miletus and the other Ionian cities. They will kill us! If we stay here they will kill us!"

The hysterical screaming of the crowd, together with the girl's shaking, brought the nursemaid back to the present. She turned, looked at her and pulled her into her arms. Then she threw a frightened glance beside her, behind her, around her.

She saw bodies strewn around the valley like the moist reddish leaves of fall, slaughtered. Mothers covered in blood, holding their children under their lifeless bodies in a desperate attempt to save them. Men with severed arms, with missing legs, with crushed skulls. The wounded dragging themselves along the ground, leaving streaks of blood in the dirt like slugs. Priests praying with their last breath. Decapitated workers flung into the ceremonial pits. And a few soldiers from the Satrap's guard, fighting desperately. There was no salvation, there was no mercy.

Only above, high up behind the bleachers where the rugged Athenian soldiers had not yet reached, on top of the steep hill of the fortress, was there still hope for salvation. A line of Persian soldiers was deployed at its base to protect the path that led to the summit. There, high on the hill, the thick walls could hold off the enemies. And they had the right to go there. They surely had that right. They had been officially invited by the Satrap Artaphernes himself.

"Let's go to the fortress" the nursemaid shouted as if she had suddenly recovered from paralysis, and she started to pull the young woman toward the bleachers. "That's the only place we'll be safe."


They moved with what little strength they had left in their stunned bodies. Their legs trembled from fatigue and from the trauma of the slaughter they had seen. They ran desperately, striding barefoot over fallen bodies and around those who were kneeling, about to die, without noticing the cuts on their soles from the sharp pebbles and with no interest at all in the pain in their traumatized joints.

They got no farther than the base of the great central platform. Before they could reach the path leading upwards, they saw Athenian soldiers racing toward them from the left. In a little while they would be upon them. The path was steep and hard to climb, and their feet were slow from fatigue. The soldiers would take them at the beginning of the path and kill them without mercy.

"No! Back!"

The little one's cry stopped the nursemaid in her tracks, and she stood and looked to her side. She to saw the formation of Athenian soldiers running towards them, clashing their swords on their shields. Their faces were twisted with fury, their hands red with blood.

"To the city..." the nursemaid murmured, trembling. "Let's go to the city to hide."

But when they turned their faces toward the city, the city wasn't there. It was all in flames. Thick smoke covered Sardis, a black haze blotted out the sun. The houses, the stores, the groves, even the temple of the god Ahura Mazda built by the Persians after the conquest of Lydia, were burning. Everything was on fire.

The nursemaid looked around her in despair. Her lungs were blocked, feeling the end. Her heart had almost stopped beating. Her mind was paralyzed. "But by Zeus, we're finished..."

"No..."

Unexpectedly, the great god's name had brought an idea to the girl's mind. She looked away from the east, from the burning city, and turned west, to the end of the valley, to the hill where the temple of the goddess Artemis stood.

"The temple. The Greeks will not strike the temple of one of their own goddesses. It is the greatest sacrilege. They won't dare. We'll hide there and ask for protection as supplicants.


The idea was simple. Simple and hopeful. Mostly, though, it was the only idea they had. The girl knew from studying the works of Homer and listening to singers recite his verses, that for Greeks the greatest sin was to insult the gods. The inside of the temples was sacred, with everything that word implied. Asylum could not be violated.

Their feet grew wings. Stumbling, pushing and shoving each other, they ran back to the pits of sacrifice and started to climb the sacred road, the little street that led to the temple standing out, untouched, amid the fire. Its surrounding wall, its altar, the double row of columns and the limestone roof, shone incongruously white in the black smoke and mayhem of battle.

Paradoxically, they managed to reach the surrounding wall relatively easily and without being in danger. Inside the walled courtyard the priests who had escaped the slaughter had gathered. They kneeled at the sacrificial alter in front of the temple and prayed to the goddess to save their lives. Among them were some Lydians in their characteristic yellow cloaks and some Persians in their many-colored robes.

The nursemaid pulled the girl into the courtyard, led her behind the altar, embraced her protectively and made her kneel beside her so they could sing a hymn of thanks together, to the goddess for their salvation.

They did not have time for that.

At that moment the Athenian cavalry charged the temple. Four white horses jumped the low surrounding wall and started to trample the people who had sought asylum in the arms of the goddess. At the same moment, a phalanx of soldiers stormed the courtyard with swords in their hands. The first to fall under the blades were a group of Lydians who were huddled together in the corner with the statues dedicated to the followers of the goddess. They were all slaughtered, men, women and little children.

Under cover of their screaming and howling, the others scattered like a flock of birds after a murderous strike from an arrow. They ran frantically in all directions, some trying to jump the wall and be lost in the hills, others struggling to run into the priests' quarters behind the buildings, and still others fleeing towards the central temple building, to hide behind the huge columns of the façade.

Now the nursemaid seemed to have lost all hope. Her head bent, she murmured some verses to the god of the underworld, Hades, in a trembling voice. She beat her hands on the ground so that he would hear her prayers. Her face was contorted from the anguish of impending death and her cheeks were wet with tears.

The girl wrenched herself from the deadly embrace of her hopeless nursemaid and stood up. She looked hurriedly around the area and tried to think. Quickly. Urgently. There was not a moment to lose. Around them people were falling, wounded, bloody, and hacked to pieces.

"The temple... Only in the temple..." she murmured, as her eye made out the white tunics of a few priests running to the east side, where the vestibule and the central entrance were.

Without explaining or waiting for agreement, she pulled her nursemaid upright and, almost dragging her, headed for the temple. She chose to enter by the walkway on the long side, where the columns gave some protection. From there, running more easily on the marble floor and taking cover behind the thick columns, they might reach the east side, get into the temple and demand asylum in the sacred and inviolate space belonging to the goddess, where even condemned criminals were protected.

They got to the covered walkway, climbed the three terraces, and sheltered behind the wide, square base of a column. They stood there for a little while to catch their breath and find the strength to continue. The nursemaid seemed to have recovered and that made things easier, because the girl's hands were red from pulling and her arms hurt unbearably—she felt like a mule dragging a load of stones up a steep hill.

"Thank the great god..." she murmured and left the hiding place, giving the command to run to the east side.

Impossible. Before them two soldiers in blue capes were dismembering a Persian merchant with a colorful caftan and farther back the walkway was filled with the bodies of Persians and Lydians.

The two women stood frozen in the middle of the walkway, unable to move.

"From the back. We'll go around the temple from the back and get to the east side from there. It'll take us longer, but we'll make it" the girl shouted and started to push her nursemaid.

But before they turned the corner they heard the noise of heavy steps. The two soldiers had finished with the Persian and now they were coming after the girl and her nursemaid. It was just a matter of time before they reached them and plunged their iron swords deep inside their bodies.

"They're coming! They're behind us! They'll get us!" the nursemaid cried in terror.

Turning the corner, they stumbled over two dead Athenian soldiers. Their bodies were pierced by the arrows of Persian archers, who were famous throughout the empire. They stopped, but the steps behind them grew louder and louder. And then stopped abruptly.

The girl stood at the corner for a moment and looked around. The two soldiers had stopped to strip a body of its golden coins. In a little while they would finish their plundering and run after them again. At the opposite corner, more Athenian solders were looting a chariot that had come to the temple full of offerings for the goddess. They were trapped. Both directions were cut off. There was no way of escaping, there was no salvation.

It was not just a cry of terror any more. It was a resigned wail from the nursemaid. "They will kill us... We will die..."

"No!"

"No?"

"Not me!"


The girl ran up to the first dead soldier. She quickly examined his helmet, his breastplate, his leggings and blue cloak. Then she looked at the other soldier. His breastplate was pierced by an arrow and so was his helmet. No, that wouldn't work. The first one was better, his gear was in better condition.

She quickly bent and turned him over. She took off his helmet, then undid the clasp of his cloak, under the throat. She stood up and put the long blue cloak over her own shoulders and fastened the clasp around her own throat. The she took the helmet in her hands and tried to put it on.

Impossible. It was too small. The dead man's head was smaller than her own, even without the abundant masses of braided hair arranged around it. No matter how hard she pushed, the helmet stayed halfway down her head, and it wouldn't cover her neck. She was sweating from her feverish effort, her face had taken on the color of a flaming pyre.

Behind her, around the corner, she heard the heavy steps again. The Athenian soldiers had finished. They were coming. Any moment they would be at her back with their pointed spears and sharpened swords.

The girl did not hesitate for a moment. With the sharp blade of the sword she cut off two thick braids of her hair. Then she tried the helmet again. It was impossible to pull it down so that it hid her face. She raised the heavy sword above her head and used its flat side to push it down with all her strength. With one strong blow to the bronze crown, the helmet went down to her neck, taking the tips of her ears with it and making her eyes water from the pain.

At the moment the Athenian soldiers turned the corner and saw them in the walkway, the girl had her back turned. The soldiers saw a blue cape and a helmet with the characteristic double crest of an Athenian officer.

The girl did not speak. She had taken the stance for a blow, as she had been taught by her military tutor. Completely motionless, her feet at shoulder width, her arm stretched out and her palm firmly grasping the grip of the sword. The metal blade of the sword was held out vertically in front of her and its point touched the breast of her nursemaid, who stared at her, dumbfounded and terrified.

"Artemisia?" she stammered, feeling the point of the sword between her breasts that had withered up with feeding this girl who was now pointing a sword at her. "What are you doing, my child?"

The girl did not answer. She stood motionless, holding her breath, and listened to the exhausted panting of the two men behind her. Until she heard their steps begin again, hesitatingly.

"I am saving my life..." she murmured softly, looking into her nursemaid's eyes. "The fate Clotho has already spun yours out and you are close to death now. The sin is not so great..." she said softly, and with a decisive movement she plunged the sword into the nursemaid's body, piercing her heart and lungs.

The conical Persian hat fell from the aged head.

The body wrapped in its colorful robe fell to the ground.

The nursemaid's eyes were wide open and they still looked as if she could not believe what was happening.

Male laughter, hideous laughter, sounded behind the girl.

"You lost the bet, Pitya" said one of the soldiers behind Artemisia's back. "Our officer didn't take pity on the old woman. You owe me two cups of wine..."

"Damn... And she was wearing jewelry..."

"We can't do anything about that. The officer who killed her will take the jewels."

"Too bad..."

Then there were steps walking away.

Until complete, deep, deadly silence fell. At least, it fell in the mind and soul of the girl, Artemisia from Halicarnassus, the only daughter of the Satrap Lydgamis.

"May the gods forgive me..." she murmured and kneeled next to the lifeless body of her beloved nursemaid, closed her eyes, and covered her motionless forehead with the sacred ceremonial veil, dipped in the perfumes of musk and lavender.

Then she kissed the wrinkled cheek once, took out a silver coin, opened the governess's mouth and placed it softly on her tongue.

"To pay the boatman who carries you to the kingdom of the underworld..."


[ Athens, Greece ]

Dozens of voices sounded together, high up on the rock of the Acropolis, before the sanctuary of Athens. The eighteen-year-old youths of the city were giving the Ephebic Oath.

 I will fight alone and with others

 and when die I will leave my country

 stronger than I received it.

 I will willingly obey those who adjudicate

 and whatever the people establishes with a joint decision...

A short time before, on the hill across from the Acropolis where the democratic assembly of Athens met, they had received the highest title of honor, the title of Citizen of the Athenian Democracy. That same day they received their honorary weapons, the shield and spear.

Now, dressed in white cloaks, they were lined up before the temple, right hands raised. They proudly repeated the words of the official oath of the democracy, read out from a papyrus by the wise adult man appointed by the assembly to supervise them.

Immediately after the end of the ceremony, each of those eighteen year old youths would officially be considered an Athenian citizen. The next day their military education would begin, and they would have to become soldiers as well.

"I can't wait..."

"It won't be long, Alkamenes. You can wait until tomorrow morning" Themistocles answered sourly.

"I don't think I can wait that long."

"The important part is today."

"For you."

"For everyone. The most important thing is for us to become citizens of Athens. Equals among equals, with the same rights and obligations to the city..."

Equals... It was a word that had come out of Themistocles' mouth thousands of times in all those years they were growing up together.

Alkamenes laughed. He had those words, his friend's obsession, dozens and even hundreds of times before. Themistocles had been repeating them continuously since the time they all learned to read and write, and later, when they were sixteen and wrestled together, naked and oiled, in the same palaestra.

"I know that it's your dream to be elected by the people, to have permission to speak and address the assembly. To cover yourself with glory..." he said, teasingly.

"You're wrong. My dream is simply to serve the city and more importantly, to serve the democracy and the people of Athens" Themistocles murmured irritably and then added in a bitter voice, "If the nobles and the aristocrats like you let me of course, because I don't..."

"Oh no. Don't start that again, please" his friend cut him off impatiently.


After a day of wild celebration, going from one wild symposium to another, and a night of debauchery, going from one hetaera to another, the six hundred youths of Athens who had been sworn in the day before were lined up with all their military equipment at the northwest gate of the city's wall and, singing military hymns, began their march towards every Athenian citizen's first duty. They would perform military service for two whole years away from the city, far from their families, friends and lovers.

Their backs loaded down with eighty pounds of military equipment– helmet, shield, sword, breastplate and greaves – they strode north, singing verses from the Homeric epics they had memorized in their first years in school. Before them walked the wise old man who would supervise them. At their side and behind them, with severe expressions and walking with short, quick steps, were the trainers who would teach them maneuvers and hand to hand fighting, the armed warriors who would direct the infantry exercises, the spearmen who would teach them to throw the spear, and the archers who would teach them archery.

The young men were dressed in black and wore sandals of the same color. They did not carry bedding, nor did they have warm clothes or boots for the winter. They did not carry any kind of supplies, food, water or wine. They were alone. And they would have to survive alone for two years, guarding the northern borders of the territory of Athens, high in the mountains.

After three days hard going they arrived at their destination and made camp high up on the mountain of Parnitha, on what everyone called the Black Earth because of their clothes and because of the psychic testing brought by two years of military training and complete isolation.

"Companies, take formation!"

The abrupt order sounded as soon as they arrived. The young men put aside their armor since they wouldn't need it except for exercises and in military training. They were divided into groups of forty and met their head trainers. Then each group started out for the point on the border for which it would be responsible, where it would be trained.

"Two years is a long time..."

Alkamenes laughed, lying on a bed of cut branches. "Don't feel bad, my friend. Our democracy won't be lost in two years. The assembly will stop in its tracks and wait for you to come back. And one day, who knows? Maybe you'll become a general, if the citizens vote for you."

Themistocles sighed heavily. He understood the importance of military training, but—if he could only have been closer to the city. If he could have met his philosophy and rhetoric teachers and talked with them at the market. And even the gymnastics teachers, the ones from the gymnasium of Cynosarges who prepared boys that were not pure Athenian citizens and were not from old aristocratic families. A couple of times he had tried to get into the gymnasia of the Academy and the Lyceum where the offspring of aristocratic families trained, and they had thrown him out without an explanation as if he were some slave beaten and dishonored in war. And that humiliation, one of the many he had endured all these years because of his humble origins, he still could not stomach.

"One day..."

Every time Themistocles thought about his childhood, his fellow students and his teachers, he felt the same bitterness. When he was growing up the city had not been a democracy as it was now, but a tyranny. Then, no one had had rights as a citizen, equality and freedom were unknown concepts, and the old noble families hung on to the city offices tightly. They made sure the dividing lines were clear, even between themselves and the rich merchants and seamen if they were not descended from the old aristocratic families.

His father Neocles was a rich Athenian merchant but his mother Euterpe was born on the other side of the Aegean Sea in Halicarnassus, on the shores of Asia Minor, which was under Persian control. Euterpe was the sister of the satrap Lygdamis, who ruled the city with an iron fist. Even though Euterpe, hard and relentless like her brother, had always been in charge in Themistocles' house, she was nothing but a foreignor outside their door, without full rights or equality before the law. Her son had inherited her impetuosity and her stubbornness, and he felt the same wounded pride at their treatment at the hands of the pretentious Athenian aristocrats.

"One day what?" Alkamenes asked him, after waiting for a long time for their conversation to continue.

Themistocles did not answer. He liked discussion, he was talkative by nature and had been taught the art of rhetoric by some of the best teachers, but he preferred to speak later, one day, with his works and not with his words. The problem of his humble descent was the only thing that could stop his irrepressible tongue. Then, his impetuous and passionate character retreated and he obeyed prudence and wisdom. He was cautious. He thought. And waited.

"Esset imar…" he murmured Homer's verse from the Iliad. "The day will come…"

"The day will come for what, Themistocles?"

"For them all to get their answer…"

His mind went to the words of Clearchos, his teacher, when he caught him in his seat, which was strictly forbidden. Just eleven years old, he had climbed up into the chair and was standing in it and passionately lecturing his fellow students, trying to convince them that the resourcefulness of Odysseus was a more important virtue than the bravery of Achilles. Clearchos, who had just taught them the opposite, had sat down unnoticed under the pilaster of the door and quietly listened to the whole of little Themistocles' speech without interrupting. Afterwards, he entered the room applauding. He praised Themistocles for his arguments and his bravery, and then told him to raise his robe and bare his bottom. He set him before the seat in front of the whole class and gave him twenty blows with the cane to punish his hubris and impudence against a teacher's authority.

"You have to know that insolence is always punished. Hubris is not related to the correctness of the action. Nemesis comes to everyone, young man" Clearchos said after he finished beating him.

"I know, teacher" answered Themistocles, and then bent and kissed his hand with respect. "I know..."

Clearchos put his hand on the boy's short, curly hair and looked at him in surprise.

"You, Themistocles, my child, are born for great things. For good or bad, time will tell."

The he pulled down his robe again and, shouting for the slave who served him, he sent the young student home so his mother could take care of the deep welts left on the tender bottom.

There, at home, Euterpe made him go without food and water for twenty four hours for his insolence to his teacher. After that punishment she prepared for him the most sumptuous meal ever eaten by an eleven year old boy, with her own hands.

"The day will come for what?" Alkamenes repeated the question.

"When it comes we'll both learn what it is, my friend. The training starts tomorrow before dawn, so good night…" he answered Alkamenes, and fell to the dry ground with sealed lips, thinking of the Homeric verse.

"The day will come when..."

Until then, he was determined to wait patiently.

But the chance he was waiting for would be given to him much sooner than he imagined.


Two years rushed by like the waters of a spring high in the mountains. Spear, bow, sword. Tactics of war and the art of making camp. Survival in the hot sun of summer and the freezing cold of winter, without any equipment because their armor was in the cave they used for storage. So the months of their isolation in the mountains passed. They had to kill what they ate by themselves and to discover sources of water to drink. Their shoulders became broader, their chests deeper, their hands full of calluses and their faces lined from the sun and rain. But most of all, they turned into real men, soldiers able to defend their city against any enemy.

As with every anniversary or celebration, the circle would be closed with the established games before the Athenian soldiers returned to their families and their tasks. All the young men of the same year gathered together on a little plateau formed by the three snowy peaks of the mountains behind them. They were still without weapons or helmets, and they carried no war gear. They wore only their black robes, faded and torn from the hard use of the last two years. They had only their bare hands and a short sword. And when they left the next day, they would want to have a myrtle wreath on their heads. That was the emblem of honor for the best among them, the emblem that would make them proud when they passed through the city walls again. The title of Athenian citizen would be conferred on the most able, the most thorough, the bravest, and those who would win in that day's games, even if their parents did not belong to one of the ten official tribes of Athens. Victory in the games would bring glory and the most important of the privileges of Athenian democracy: the right to be elected one day to one of the more important city offices--the right to govern.

After the sacrifices to the gods, the old wise man who had supervised them for two years now, explained the tests that would follow. They were not very different from the games that the same men had participated in while they were adolescents. They were contests centered around the educational triad of Athens: letters, music, sport.

Sitting behind his friend Alkamenes, who was pure Athenian, Themistocles thought that he could only hope to distinguish himself and prove his worth in letters and gymnastics. He had never been very good at music. He had played chords on the kithara until his fingers bled, many times, and he had blown on the reed pipe until his cheeks were swollen, but he was no good at them. But in letters he had always distinguished himself and now, after his training on the battlefield, he had become an expert gymnast.

While their leader explained the rules of the games, Themistocles observed the opponents next to him. On his left was Aristeides, a blond man, gentle and delicate, who came from a noble family and lived in the richest neighborhood of the city. He had clashed with him many times, but only for rhetorical showmanship and on political issues. Their battles were merciless, but Aristeides was never underhanded. He never used his wealth or his aristocratic origins to win.

On the other side, his right, was the man Themistocles hated more than anyone else, the arrogant and passionate Lambrias. He also had rich parents and he came from an aristocratic family that boasted that they were descended from the hero Thyseas himself, the founder of Athens. Large bodied, powerful and aggressive, Lambrias was always scowling with his lips pressed together. His courage, strength and perseverance were legendary. Until now, Themistocles had never confronted him or competed with him because they belonged to different companies and had lived in different areas of the mountains for those two years.

"So, besides the established pentathlon of running, spear throwing, archery, discus and jumping, what will count more than all the others together in determining the winners, is the two and a half mile race on a real field of battle. That is, it will be run not on a clean and smooth surface but in the woods, with all the natural obstacles, wearing armor and carrying full military gear. That is because endurance is the most important quality for foot soldiers like you," the leader finished, and he gave the order to the gymnasts to explain the rough road race.

"Damn! God damn it to hell!"

Alkamenes turned around suddenly when he heard his friend's disgusted exclamation. "Blasphemy is not the best way to start a competition" he rebuked him calmly, in the meek and bland style he kept to even under the worst circumstances.

"The race is not my best competition" Themistocles explained, and then he pointed covertly to Lambrias. "It's his."

"What do you mean?"

"I've seen him running in the stadium. He can do twelve miles without stopping, like a lion, even when he's loaded down like a mule."

"That's the point of the games, though. To show who is the best of us, so the city will know when it needs help in time of war or danger" Alkamenes murmured. Months ago, with the self-knowledge that characterized him, he had given up hoping to be crowned with a victor's myrtle wreath.

"The best person for the city in time of war is the one who can run fastest with his mind, not with his feet. Otherwise they wouldn't elect men to be generals. They'd elect horses..."

"Turn around and face front! Stop your chatter!" The leader shouted sternly, and then ordered the gymnasts to hand out the heavy military equipment and the musician to play on the reed pipe to give the signal for the start of the games.

When the young soldiers got up and stood at attention with their ankles together and their knees locked, completely motionless and silent like marble statues, Themistocles turned his head to the right. It was perhaps the last chance he would have to study and weigh his great opponent, Lambrias, undefeated in wrestling and in racing.

At that moment, as if a spirit had gotten into Lambrias's huge chest and warned his heart, Lambrias turned his gloomy face and looked Themistocles in the eyes.

Themistocles did not hear the words he said.

They were said without sound and without sound they crossed the ten feet between them.

But he saw his lips move.

"I will beat you, you miserable bastard..." Lambrias murmured with his eyes fixed on Themistocles, full of hatred like the piercing eyes of Zeus getting ready to dart like a terrific thunderbolt from the summit of Mount Olympus. "I will crush you, son of a barbarian bitch from Halicarnassus..."


For the first thousand yards the whole group ran together like a pack of wolves falling hungrily on their prey. The eighty pounds of bronze armor seemed like a light sack and their feet flew over plants and branches, stones and pits. Besides, the first thousand yards were the easiest. They were still in the cleared valley, on an even and level field.

But after a mile the way became steep and the path wound through a thick forest, climbing the mountain. Fewer than a hundred of the six hundred runners remained in front when the forest gave way to dry, bare stones with sharp edges that could cut a runner's foot from end to end. Now the eighty pounds of armor felt more like a hundred and eighty, the muscles of their shoulders ached from exhaustion and their heads leaned toward their chests from the weight of the bronze helmets.

Lambrias was in front, just as Themistocles had predicted. In full armor, holding the heavy spear in one hand and the iron sword in the other, with his back straight as a statue's, he strode forward confidently and securely. Neither the dry branches that threatened to flay his body nor the sharp rocks that could cut his feet managed to slow him down.

Several yards behind him came Themistocles, gritting his teeth, and with him ran about ten other athletes. To his surprise, when he looked to the side to assess the situation he saw the delicate Aristeides, red from the effort but running with a steady rhythm. Physical strength and endurance were not his strong points; in spite of the palaestrae, his body had not become tough and well-knit. But on that difficult day Aristeides was the living proof that sometimes, as the philosophers say, spirit rules over matter.

In spite of his surprise, Themistocles smiled. For him, Aristeides was also the proof of his own argument that the mind and the will always come before physical strength. At this moment, his permanent opponent in the rhetorical competitions was also a model for his own attempt to overcome Lambrias's physical superiority.

Themistocles turned his gaze to the front again. He saw with dissatisfaction that Lambrias had increased the distance between them while he was looking back. The front runner had already reached the great trench with the steep drop. He stood at the edge for a moment and then, balancing his body, threw himself into the void without hesitation. He tumbled down the steep slope curled up like the wheel of a cart and stopped softly at the bottom of the gorge. He got up and, plunging his sword deep in the earth, pulled his heavy body up. Then he raised his spear and stuck it in, pulling and raising his heavy muscles that twisted like the roots of a hundred year old tree.

Imitating his example, Themistocles curled up and jumped into the void. However, his attempt was not so successful. When he landed on the bottom of the gorge and tried to stand up, he felt pain so intense that he thought his left foot must have been torn off and stayed on the slope behind him. And his left arm was in no better condition. When he stood up and examined himself, he found a deep wound in his ankle. He must have hit a stone or something while he was going down. Clenching his teeth and limping, he hobbled to the beginning of the steep slope on the other side of the gorge and thrust his spear into the ground as Lambrias had done.

But not with the same success. In spite of his best efforts, the tired muscles of his arms could only pull him up slowly. It was almost more than he could do to balance in this new, higher position, and he could not hang on with one arm to thrust the spear in with the other.

"Use your legs" he was astonished to hear Aristeides' advice coming from behind.

"My left leg is useless. I can't move my ankle."

"Your knees... Use your knees... Carve out a place for your knees before you raise the rest of your body."

It took him a long time, but he made it. When he reached the top he turned his body and rested until he felt the sharp pain in his foot recede and the hammering in his breast quiet down. When he got up again, he saw that only three other athletes had made it across the gorge, one of the worst obstacles in the race. Aristeides was one of them, but now he was lying on the ground with his face sweaty and twitching and his chest rising and falling like a boat in a storm. His arms and legs trembled uncontrollably and his nails were scratching the ground.

Unfortunately, Lambrias was nowhere to be seen. With his eyes Themistocles carefully searched the bushy area that stretched out for half a mile in front of him and ended in a thick forest of pine and plane trees, but he could not make out the huge, running figure. Finally, a great distance ahead, he saw Lambrias advancing confidently. With disappointment Themistocles had to admit that, except if some miracle happened and Hermes lent him his winged sandals, the race was lost.


Someone else might have given up. Not him. Not the young man nicknamed mule, not the personification of stubbornness and perseverance.

Biting his lips, he picked up his sword and spear from the ground and started to run towards the thick forest. His bronze breastplate was an unbearable weight, it felt like a tombstone on his chest, it made it hard to breathe and it was burning hot from the summer sun. He thought about taking it off to make moving easier, but that would be impossible. Those who finished without full military gear were disqualified.

Things got better when he got to the forest. There, the thickset trees offered shade from the burning sun, the air was cooler and his flaming lungs felt the relief, allowing him to lengthen his stride. A wave of optimism passed through him. If the protection of the shade and the soft ground continued until the finish line, then he would be able to speed up and, by Zeus, he might still win the race.

The smile that had etched itself on his cracked lips for about half a mile started to fade when he heard a strange clamoring noise. Step by step the noise increased, while the air grew moist and suffocating. His skin grew wet and in his eyes he felt fine drops of water like spring rain. When he got to the end of the forest and saw the source of the sound, his legs felt weak. In front of him and to the right was a swift waterfall, at least a hundred feet high. Its waters gushed out and fell to the earth with a demonic noise, churning up foam like a winter gale on the sea. A few feet away from the spot where they fell they became calm, of course, but they formed a lake almost a mile long and half a mile wide. An insurmountable obstacle that Themistocles couldn't get around, because at the end of the mile, a steep gorge created a second waterfall.

His burning legs froze on the bank of the mountain lake, his arms fell limp at his sides and in his sight, the landscape was drained of color like the sky before a storm. He sat down in despair on the green grass and looked dispiritedly at the waterfall.

A little to the left of the foaming water a steep path climbed the slope, but he would have needed the abilities of Pan, the goat-footed Arcadian god, to climb it. It reminded him of an enormous snake that wound back and forth about twelve times from one side of the cliff to the other as it climbed before disappearing under the waterfall, tunneling into the cliff and passing to the other side of the river. At some points it narrowed to a palm's breadth and a human foot would barely fit there. It was scattered with huge boulders and sharp rocks and at some points the smallest weight would have made it crumble away. On that path, loaded down with his military gear, Lambrias was walking carefully, and he had already reached the third turn. His sword was sheathed and he had tied his spear inside his robe.

Themistocles was overcome with boundless sorrow. He was not strong enough to attempt such a difficult and dangerous climb. He would be almost certain to fall and be crushed on the rocks below, especially if he had to drag his heavy military equipment with him.

"Oh Goddess Artemis, protector of the forests, guide me, give me strength..." he murmured abjectly, since only a miracle could give him the victory he so desired, the victory that would turn him from a bastard into a real Athenian citizen with full rights in the elections, that would allow him to realize his political dreams of glory and power.

A quick glance showed him that Lambrias had reached the fourth bend in the path and was climbing steadily. Themistocles calculated that he himself would not be able to reach the summit of the path before the sun set. At that speed, given his arrogant opponent's monstrous strength, how could he overtake Lambrias on the way down and reach the finish line first?

"It was not my destiny to be equal with the others..." he murmured bitterly. "Even democracy has its limits..."


He sat without moving and watched the water in intense frustration. The large lake was an insuperable obstacle. His mind was paralyzed, he had fallen into a languor in which scenes from his childhood played before his eyes, sights he had seen in the Agora when he was going to his teacher's house and even earlier, in stories and myths he had heard from his father's friends in the courtyard of their house.

Looking at the reflections of the sun on the water, a Babylonian myth came into his mind. It was a story told to him by their Persian slave Sanacheirim before he was forced to change his name to a Greek one and call himself Sikinos. The myth told of the creation of the world and the two great Assyrian gods of water, Apsou and Tiamat, who sent endless rain to the earth in an attempt to kill their children because they were making a lot of noise and wouldn't let them sleep. All of the children of the gods drowned except for Marduk, who managed to survive by clinging to the trunk of a tree that floated on the water. When the rains finally stopped, Marduk found a dry place, stepped on the ground, and was safe and sound.

Themistocles suddenly raised his head and looked at the water that spread out before him, blocking his way. He pushed himself up with his hands and took out his sharp sword. He went back a few feet into the woods and looked around feverishly, with dilated pupils. He chose four small pines with straight, tender trunks, and struck them with his sword just above the ground, near their roots. The green wood gave way quickly under the sword strokes, and the trunks fell to the ground. He cleared off the branches, grabbed them and pulled them to the lake, where he laid them one beside the other.

Then he looked up and down the shore. He saw small plane trees, tall pines and low willows. The willows would work for him. He cut an armful of their longest and most flexible branches, the ones that fell from the top of the tree to the bottom like a woman's hair. Then he went back to the pine trunks, cleaned the leaves off the flexible branches so that they looked like thick cords, and tied the trunks firmly together. When his makeshift raft was finished, he pulled it into the water and climbed onto it, carrying his sword and long spear.

The trunks rocked under his weight and sank about two feet at first, but then came back to the surface and stabilized. Themistocles smiled in triumph. A shout of victory burst from him. He felt he had conquered the water.

Mind against muscle.

Human ingenuity against brute force.

Resourceful Odysseus against fearless Achilles.

That was his strength.


He used the spear to push the boat, sinking the point to the bottom of the lake and poling steadily and firmly. The raft started to move towards the opposite shore. At that slow speed, though, it might take hours to cross the distance of half a mile.

While pushing on the spear with all the strength he had left, he raised his eyes and looked along the path. He saw that Lambrias had reached the last curve in the path and was starting slowly towards the waterfall. If he managed to pass under the water and come out on the other side, everything would be over.

With his eyes following his opponent's progress, he tried to speed up the raft. He sank his spear more quickly and pushed harder. The raft swayed but continued on its course. When Themistocles had reached the middle of the lake, Lambrias had reached the edge of the foaming falls and was preparing to pass through the narrow gap between the cliff and the arc of water.

Themistocles bent his head and concentrated on what he was doing. In his mind he heard the rhythmic beating of the drum that gave the tempo in every warship. Sweat dripped from his face, his legs were going numb and the muscles of his arms were going red. It had to work. He had promised himself.

Victory.

In his mind there was only victory.

Until he heard a screeching cry that echoed in the rocky valley. He stopped poling with his spear and raised his head, wondering. There wasn't a soul on the shore in back of him, nor in front of him, on the far side of the lake.

But the cry came again.

He looked to his right.

And then he saw him.


Lambrias was hanging from the vertical cliff like a bunch of grapes from a vine. His hands gripped an outcropping of rock and his body swung a hundred feet above the water of the lake. The path had crumbled away underneath him, pulling him with it. Lambrias's hands were trembling uncontrollably from his desperate attempt to hold up his two hundred and twenty pounds and the eighty pounds of gear. His feet were searching desperately for a support, but the cliff under him was sheer and steep so they only scratched its surface.

His agony lasted ten minutes. Then his fingers slowly but surely slipped to the edge of the outcropping and then fell away completely. A last scream was heard and then a splash from the huge body falling into the water.

Themistocles watched without moving, as if turned to stone. He looked at the shore behind him. It was empty and deserted, no help could come from there. Then he looked at his destination, the place that would give him his victory, the shore across from him. In fractions of a second the vile mean words filled his mind: I'll beat you, you miserable bastard… I'll crush you, son of a barbarian bitch from Halicarnassus..." the shameless words that had come from Lambrias mouth a few hours before, as he looked at him with hatred.

It was in his mind to pole to the opposite shore without giving another thought to the arrogant aristocrat, to let him meet the end he deserved. When you came right down to it, the gods punished the sin of hubris severely, you could see that in all the tragedies that played in Athens every year.

But if he let him drown—which was sure to happen because of the armor—wouldn't that be the sin of hubris, too? Hubris and mercilessness? Wouldn't he become an indirect assassin? Didn't that bring the ire of the gods with it, and severe punishment under the law? The words of Clearchos, his teacher, came to his mind: pride is not related to the correctness of the action. Nemesis comes to everyone, young man…

He shifted his weight to the right side of the raft, plunged his spear in the water and turned the raft in the direction of the waterfall. Stronger and stronger, faster and faster he poled, trying as best he could to make out some sign of life in the water, a head or hands sticking out, someone trying to come to the surface for air.

When he got to the point where Lambrias had fallen, he stopped the raft and pulled out the spear to let the water calm down so he could make out Lambrias's bronze armor.

He saw him a few yards further on. His huge body had sunk to the bottom and didn't seem to be moving. Themistocles pushed the raft one last time with his spear. Then, hesitantly, he poked the bulky body with it. Nothing. No movement. Lambrias's body floated a little and then was still again. He looked like a monstrous nymph of the waters swaying softly in the dance of death.

"I came too late... his soul is already with the boatman, waiting to take the last great journey..." Themistocles murmured numbly, and relaxed his grasp on the spear.

Then he felt the pull. It was weak, but at least it was a reaction. He bent down and saw that Lambrias's hand was grasping the pointed end of the spear.

He kneeled on the raft and, bracing himself with his leg, he pulled with all the strength he had left.

Slowly he managed to detach the three hundred pounds from the depths and bring it to the surface.

He pulled Lambrias's limp body up and dragged him until his head and neck rested on the raft. He undid the leather fastenings of his armor and freed his chest. He started to push his chest with short, sharp jabs.

A few moments of motionlessness and suspense. Then, suddenly, the shut mouth opened and water rushed out. Then he was sucking in the air in great, choking gulps and his broad chest started to spasm.

"Thanks be to Artemis..." Themistocles murmured. Then he turned back to the raft, almost dead himself from exhaustion. He looked up at the sun that had reached the third quarter of its path through the heavens. There was no way, now, for him to finish the race before the sun set. All was lost.

Then he heard a familiar voice from the shore. "Themistocles... What happened?"

When he turned his head he saw first the blond hair, the color of sand. Then the features. The blue eyes, the white skin and the delicate physique.

"Lambrias. He almost drowned, Aristeides. He fell from the waterfall" shouted Themistocles, pointing to the crumbled path high on the cliff.

"Bring him here and go finish the race."

"I won't make it. The sun is already setting.

Aristeides looked up though the thick leaves, under which it was already getting dark because the weak rays of the sun could not pierce them. "You're right... It's too late..."

"It's all right. I lost the crown of victory in the race, but I gave Athens a valuable soldier for time of war, which won't be long coming."

"We're at peace."

"Not for long. Not after what happened at Sardis. The Persian emperor will not let that insult go unpunished. Nor will his empire, and he's at its borders now…"

"Only the gods know that. And maybe the Pythia at Delphi…" Aristeides murmured, smiling. "But we'll find out later. Now we have to think about the present. The games and the prize."

"That I lost…"

"You haven't lost anything, Themistocles. There is a prize that is more important than the ones they give in the military competitions. The prize for great deeds, the sacred olive branch that the city awards every year at the Panathenaic feast.

Themistocles laughed. "The prize received by Theseus and the other heroes who saved Athens from destruction?"

"That was in time of war. In time of peace, like now, they give it for lesser achievements. And you, by Zeus, with what you managed to do today, could very well be chosen for that honor."

"I can't go to the assembly and talk about what I did, and try to convince them to give me the olive branch. It would be arrogant and besides..."

"Not if I do it."

"You would do that for me?" Themistocles asked his implacable opponent and future enemy in the city's political life, since Aristeides was a declared follower of the Oligarchs and he was a follower of the Democrats.

"Yes. I'll stand up and speak to the assembly." Aristeides added "I don't like it that I'm going to honor you, but I have to do it because it's the right thing."

Themistocles looked at him closely. There was no ironic smile, there was no mockery in Aristeides' face. It was more serious than the face of a priest performing a sacrifice to the gods. He meant what he said. He meant it honestly.

"Aristeides... Aristeides, my enemy..." Themistocles murmured and then, with unfeigned admiration at the ethos of the man, he gave him the nickname that would follow him for the rest of his life. "Aristeides the Just..."


[ Susa, capital of the Persian Empire ]

The summer heat in Susa, capital of the Persian Empire, was unbearable. The place was bare of trees and the low shrubs and rocks heated up under the burning sun. The Choaspes river ran near the city, very close to the emperor's complex, but the coolness brought by its waters was too weak to overcome the fiery sun. The bases of the walls caught fire and burned like sacrificial altars.

But that particular morning, the heat was not the reason the King of Kings woke up soaked with sweat. It was the dream. For the third night in a row now, he had had the same dream and heard the same words. And it was the face. The knitted brows, the pursed lips, the words uttered slowly, falling one by one, heavy as lead, casting doubt on the decision he had made just three days ago.

The man who came to him in his sleep was huge, dressed in expensive royal robes. With a wide pleated caftan and a high cylindrical hat, holding in his hand the scepter topped by a winged lion. The same curly black hair, the same conical beard. Hooked nose, thick brows, eyes like coals. Undoubtedly it was his forefather, the founder of the Persian Empire himself, Cyrus the Great.

Xerxes got out of bed and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Mechanically he stretched out his hand to the cord hanging from the right side of his bed and pulled it hard. Before he could take his hand off the cord the double door of aromatic cedar wood opened and his personal servant came into the bedroom with small, noiseless steps so as not to disturb the king's morning serenity. On his right arm he carried, carefully folded, the mantle embroidered with winged lions, and above it the spiral gold necklace with the head of the sphinx. The symbols of the power of the Achaemenids, rulers of the Persian Empire, the greatest power the world had ever known, that stretched from India to Egypt. In his left hand he held a carved gold chalice, full of the blessed liquid prepared for him every morning by the priests of the god Ahura Mazda, the famous Persian Mages.

Arzanes, the old royal servant that Xerxes had inherited from his father, Darius, came towards him with bowed head so as not to meet the eyes of the king without his permission. With slow, studied steps he came before him, his arms outstretched, softly murmuring wishes for prosperity and health, in a fixed ceremony that he had carried out every morning for thirty years. He had carried it out since the day when, still a youth, Darius had chosen him for his personal servant. The years he spent by the side of the great king, splendid years during the conquest of India and gloomy years when the king was defeated by the Athenians at the battle of Marathon, had weighed down his shoulders and whitened his hair. But even at this advanced age, when his hands had started to lose their steadiness and his legs were tired before the sun had lighted up the whole palace, he still carried out the ceremonies down to the last detail. It was his role. It was his world. Without that, his life would have no meaning.

He waited, holding his breath. He kept his eyes low. He looked at the naked feet of the king. His arms hurt, but he kept them stretched out. His gaze had not yet received permission to be raised from the ground.

Xerxes was thinking. One image after another went through his mind. Images he had lived through himself, images painted like the palace reliefs, images he had imagined listening to stories of old battles of the empire.

The best of these was the conquest of Egypt by Cyrus the Great. The worst: the great defeat in Greece, six years before.

When his father Darius learned from messengers of the crushing defeat of his army, he went out to the palace courtyard, bent the great royal bow and shot a flaming arrow toward the west, towards Greece and Athens. At that same moment he promised the Greeks that they would pay the most terrible price the world had ever known. He passed the obsession with revenge to his son Xerxes, who swore on his father's deathbed that he would keep his royal promise to the full.

Now, after he had suppressed the rebellion that had broken out suddenly in Egypt, the hour for revenge had come. Decisions had to be made. But the recurring dream that had oppressed him for three nights in a row, would not let him make them or announce them to his advisors or the officers of his court.

Xerxes clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. Until his nails dug into the soft flesh of his palms. Until he felt his rage recede, flow away and be lost from his clenched hands. Only then did he allow the burning air to leave his chest. Only then did he open his eyes. Only then did he extend his right arm and take the golden scepter that symbolized the glory of the Persians and his own power over the world.

The servant saw the king's movement out of the corner of his watchful eye. It was the sign he was waiting for. Like a well-trained animal, he immediately took a step forward and stretched out his left arm holding the liquid, blessed by the priests of Ahura Mazda, that gave strength, wisdom and health to every one of the king's days.

After the feet and the hands, the lips of the servant moved. Slowly and steadily he pronounced the same phrase he said at every sunrise, on the orders of Darius himself, so as not to allow cunning sleep to soften his hatred and his will to take cruel revenge.

"King, do not forget the Greeks and Athens."

When he heard that phrase, Xerxes' left arm shot out straight and then to the right with the strength of rage. The chalice was swept from the servant's aged hand and clattered on the tiles. The blessed liquid spilled on the floor.

Arzanes' hands started to tremble, his legs almost collapsed under him, his few white hairs stood up on his uncovered head.

"A bad sign, my king..." he dared to stammer, looking at the spilled liquid and shuddering with fear of divine rage at this terrible sacrilege. "A bad sign..."


The men in the hall of hearings were standing upright in a line with their heads bowed, waiting for their king to call them near him and speak to them. The first was Xerxes' aged uncle, the wise Artabanus. The second was his advisor Mithrates and the third was the general Mardonius, his childhood friend and commander of the imperial army. Xerxes had chosen them well for the matter he wished to discuss, the expedition to Greece he had promised his father.

The emperor sat on his golden throne on its marble base, at the end of the long and narrow hall. To his left and right burned aromatic myrrh and frankincense in high metal censers, intended to propitiate the god Ahura Mazda for the disrespect and contempt he had suffered that morning.

"Approach..."

Just one word, and that in a low tone. The Great King did not stand as he usually did, with his chest thrown out, his head high and his spine straight. He was not even holding the royal scepter in his hands. He sat hunched over, his shoulders bowed, his eyelids drooping and the corners of his lips turned down.

They went in and stood before him. Upright. As one would stand before one's god. They waited with bent heads, full of respect and obedience, for the order to raise their eyes and look him in the face.

Xerxes' words came from his mouth with anguish: "My heart is heavy, my thoughts are confused. For three nights in a row a man resembling the glorious Cyrus in form and in stature, has come to me in my sleep and spoken to me."

"About what?" old Artabanus asked, puzzled. He always had the right to speak first because of his close family relation to the king and his advanced age.

"About the expedition to Greece."

"What does he say to you?"

"To put it into practice immediately, as I planned at the beginning, and not wait a few years so that my army could rest after the war in Egypt, as you advised me. Or to give it up completely, as is Mithrates' opinion. That is why I called you here today, to hear your opinions again and to decide. Speak freely, because the power of every king is founded on correct decisions and correct decisions are made with good council."

"I will start first, son of glorious Darius" said the aged Artabanus, and began with slow words, each of them weighed carefully. "A few days ago, when we were gathered here for the same reason, you listened to my words. You thought that it was not time for hasty movements, and you decided to wait. You were correct. After the great battles in Egypt, the army is not yet ready. He who hurries makes mistakes and finds disaster."

"Yes, that is what I thought, Artabanus, but my dream and the words I hear every night are urgent. So the idea came to my mind of changing my decision and starting the expedition as soon as possible.

"And you will do well, King of Kings," said General Mardonius. "Announce to the Persians today that you will conquer Greece and Europe and extend our empire so far that from the point where the sun rises to the point where the sun sets, it will shine upon no other country foreign to us. That news will give great glory to your name."

"Great glory or great hubris to the gods, son of Darius?" interrupted the self-possessed Artabanus. "Because everyone knows there is no greater hubris than for someone to allow his spirit always to want more than he has. The gods punish arrogance and forbid pride, except for themselves.

"No, do not listen to him, that is a mistake, King of Kings. First of all because you promised your father at the moment of his death, and such a promise is sacred, it may not be broken" Mardonius was ready with his arguments at once. "Second, and just as important, everyone knows that Cyrus and Darius, our emperors before you, subjugated all known nations in their victorious wars and made them our slaves. The only thing you should think about, the only thing worthwhile, is not to be less than your ancestors but to extend the power of our empire even farther. And there is only one way to do that. The West. Greece and Europe. And from information I have received, the Greeks always start wars out of foolish egotism, without any strategy. They rush into battle without thought or planning and do not even think of sending ambassadors to resolve their differences with diplomacy, even though they speak the same language and can understand one another."

Xerxes thought to himself for a little while. "And you, Mithrates? What do you say of all this?"

"I say that it is foolishness..."

"Foolishness?" asked Xerxes, wondering at the insulting word his advisor had uttered.

"Yes. Foolishness, audacious foolishness. For the danger of such an expedition is great. The distance to Sardis alone is three day's journey. And then? You must land on shores inhabited by Greeks subject to us, then you must cross a sea and journey for another three months to get to Greece. How will such a great army as ours be kept alive for so many months? With what food and what water?"

"Foolishness..." the great king muttered to himself, as if he could not believe the insulting word. Or as if he could not get used to it. "And the promise I gave to my father?" he asked, gloomily, trying to conquer the uneasiness rising inside him.

"You said it yourself, Great King. It is nothing but a promise. A foolish promise like the promises sons usually make to their fathers. A promise you are not obligated to fulfill, all the more so because the glorious Darius is not alive anymore, and therefore you do not have to answer to anyone. That is my opinion on the expedition to Greece."

"Are you sure, Mithrates? Are you sure of what you just said?"

"Yes. I am sure."

"Then I am sorry, but you are not looking at things in the right way. And if you are not looking at things in the right way, then you have no reason to see at all."

"What do you mean, my king?"

Xerxes did not answer. He simply made a sign toward the door, calling the leader of the Immortals, his personal royal guard. The leader came up to him and bent to hear the commands Xerxes whispered in his ear.

Then he stretched his arm toward the end of the hall where the guards stood, brought it down suddenly and pointed at Mithrates.


Two guards approached swiftly and held him tightly by the shoulders. A third held his head steady, pressing the temples with his open palms.

Without wasting time, the leader of the Immortals reached out his hand to one of the two censers, took the metal tongs with which the lighted coals were stirred, and without hesitating for a moment, touched them to Mithrates' eyes, first the left and then the right.

The horrifying screams slashed the stale air and shook the guts of Atravanos and Mardonius, who stood on each side of the unfortunate royal councilor trying to fight off the nausea they felt as the red hot iron melted the tender flesh and the balls of the eyes.

Immediately afterwards, dragging the blinded Mithrates who was uttering heartrending screams, the guards left through the double door with its golden ornaments. The scent of frankincense and myrrh was gone. The whole hall smelled disgustingly of burned skin and cauterized flesh.

Xerxes arranged the double golden chain across his chest, wet his hands in an ivory cup filled with rose water, and washed his face and his bald head. Then he turned to Mardonius who was standing before him with his head lowered, trying to hide his smile. His greatest enemy, his most certain opponent in his attempt to convince the king to carry out the expedition, had got his lesson and was out of the way.

"I realized what you said earlier, Mardonius. I have heard it too. That the Greeks are not one great, unified state but little independent cities that argue, conflict and clash with each other continually, without ever being able to agree on anything" Xerxes said calmly. "That is exactly why I am thinking to start the expedition as soon as possible. Because the discord among them is our greatest ally. It will make it easy to conquer their cities and destroy them for revenge. Then there will be no obstacle to me becoming ruler of all the countries that spread out to the west of Greece. The dream I had is the command of my glorious ancestors, that I shall make the empire they gave to me even more glorious..."

"My thoughts are the same as yours, King of Kings. We must move as quickly as possible, without doubt or hesitation. We shall crush them like an insect under our foot, or a worm on the ground."

"And you, wise Artabanus? What do you say?"

The old man did not speak for a long time. He was still trying to overcome the nausea that churned his insides, to hold down the liquids from his stomach that were rising into his mouth, pushed by the hideous odor of burnt flesh.

"What you are thinking is correct, son of Darius, I have no doubt of that" he said in a quiet and measured voice. "But my opinion is that you must not rely only on a dream for such a serious decision. The dreams we have at night are nothing more than the thoughts we have during the day that take refuge in our souls. And just precisely because this expedition is in your thoughts these days, that is why you have that dream."

"What are you trying to say, Artabanus?"

"I believe that one must think carefully before making a decision. Then, if something goes wrong, fortune will be to blame. Otherwise, if from the beginning the decision was a bad one, even if fortune favors us the thought will still be bad. The Greeks humiliated us once at the battle of Marathon. And that was only the Athenians. What will happen if they make an alliance amongst themselves? Do not forget what they did to Troy when they were united."

"Centuries have passed since then" Mardonius reacted immediately, knowing that the words of the old man affected the king. "Athens and Sparta are nothing but little unimportant towns..." he said abruptly, and then he suddenly raised his hand and pointed to the gallery behind the throne. "Go outside your palace, great king, and look at the horizon from the East to the West and from the North to the South. Thousands of peoples and innumerable men. Think of the territories and the peoples you have conquered until now. Think of the power and the supplies that they can provide. What power of men and what insignificant cities could withstand such a crushing army?"

For the first time, Xerxes smiled in satisfaction. "Everything you say, Mardonius, fits with the dream I had and the words I heard while in the embrace of the god of Sleep."

"The god of Sleep, however, is the brother of the god of Death" Artabanus murmured thoughtfully.