Did you have any thoughts for Athens when you murdered a helpless, fettered man, Xenophon? Did you give any consideration to all you had been taught, to the ideals you had learned at the knees of Socrates, to the benevolence of the gods upon whose belief you sacrifice daily? Perhaps not, and in hindsight it was for the best, since your actions, both then and in the days to follow, successfully brought the army closer to its final destination. Men are needed in this world who are able to block out the fear and consequences of their immediate actions, to look beyond the sordidness of day-to-day suffering, warfare and squalor, to commit base deeds for a greater good. Men are needed like Gryllus and Clearchus, for it is by such men that civilization is advanced and the inferior is eliminated, or made beholden to the superior. Such brutal, unthinking men are needed; our most sublime institutions could never have been created without them, at least in some misty past that may be best left forgotten. This is one of the world's darkest, most unspoken secrets, for such is the evil-such the beauty-of war. The Spartans are trained their entire lives to close their eyes and their minds to physical fear and suffering and to seek victory at all costs for the common good. But they are Spartan, and you Athenian, or at least you had been until now; and I suddenly remembered the fervent wish I had expressed to the gods the night after Clearchus' head had been thrown into our camp, and I realized that it had been fulfilled in you.
CHAPTER FOUR
XENOPHON DREW A deep breath, holding the air in his chest for a moment with his eyes half shut, and summoned every depleted reserve of self-control to regain his rigor as an Athenian noble and an officer. He then turned his attention slowly and deliberately to the second prisoner, who had watched the entire proceeding with eyes wide in terror. He was shivering violently, his teeth chattering and his knees barely able to support him, both from having stood cloakless for hours under the freezing rain, and from fear; and Xenophon had barely approached him before he began singing like a bird. The man said he would guide the army to an alternate road along which even the animals could travel, which would lead us behind the heavily guarded pass. A separate detachment must precede the main force, however, because the new route also passed under a height that must be occupied first, or nothing else could get by. He also confessed that the first prisoner had denied knowledge of that other route because his daughter lived there with her husband and family.
Xenophon turned away in exhaustion and nodded to Chirisophus, who called over the senior captains of both the heavy and light infantry to determine whether any of them would volunteer their units to follow the guide and seize the heights. Two Arcadian officers stepped forward to volunteer their two thousand heavy and light troops, and since by now it was late afternoon, they wolfed an early supper and slipped away into the blinding torrents of rain before darkness overwhelmed them completely. The surviving prisoner was bound and gagged and sent with them, while Xenophon and Chirisophus led the heavy infantry of the rear guard forward to the guarded pass we were facing, to draw the enemy's attention away from the Arcadians slipping behind and above them.
The Kurds had placed huge boulders in our path, and whenever a knot of our men gathered to try to lever the stones out of the way, they became targets for missiles and more boulders, some as large as wagons, hurled down on them from above. Xenophon finally ordered us to pitch camp when it became too dark to shoot our arrows, and he forbade all fires, for that would give the enemy too easy a target for their missiles. We spent a miserable night huddled in the cold, pouring rain with the warm campfires of the enemy clearly visible on the heights above us. All night the Kurds rolled their infernal boulders down among us, adding to the hellish atmosphere.
Meanwhile, the detachment with the prisoner tramped through the rain and dark and caught the enemy outposts unawares, destroying them utterly and seizing their camp. In the morning, the Arcadians blew a trumpet as a signal that they had taken the hill, and Chirisophus then charged straight up the main road with the bulk of the army, his scouts climbing the cliffs to attack the enemy defenders above, hoisting each other up the sides of boulders with their spears, to unite with the Arcadians on the heights.
Xenophon and his rearguard backtracked to join the baggage train laboring up the path the Arcadians had supposedly secured the night before. Alarmingly, however, every hill we climbed was occupied anew with enraged Kurds, and we would no sooner chase them off one than more would appear on the next, or on the one we had just left, flowing like water over and around the boulders and rocks, giving us no respite. On our own we could have easily climbed off the path and run the Kurds off the ridges above; but the path was the only means by which we could force the terrified pack animals and baggage through, and so we had a long and bitter struggle that day before the three dispersed units of the Hellenic army were finally united.
Though this battle was like so many others we fought on the march, I risk the reader's impatience by recounting it, because of a singular event that befell me. Xenophon was leading a charge up a rocky incline while I carried his shield. I tripped over a root, however, and rolled down a steep ravine, twisting my ankle and hitting my head so hard against a rock it cracked my helmet and knocked me momentarily senseless. Xenophon had been looking the other way and had not seen me fall, and when he turned and saw I was not there he became furious, thinking I had deserted him in fear of the rocks rolling down on us from the barbarians above. In part he was right, for I was terrified, as was every man among us that day having to fight boulders rather than flesh and blood warriors we could defeat. But as for deserting him-I was infuriated by his accusation, for in all the battles we had fought together, never once had I left his side, never had I failed to shelter him faithfully behind the shadow of my shield, even at the risk of exposing myself to the enemy. Another hoplite, Eurylochus, saw him standing in the field alone, and bravely ran up to cover him with his own shield.
When Xenophon later saw my swollen ankle and bloody head as I limped into camp, he understood and promptly apologized; I am not sure that I, however, have ever forgiven him his unfounded suspicion, which drove another thorn into my heart, contributing to the widening gulf being created between us.
BOOK NINE
Listen closely to me. Heed what I say.
Of all the creatures that move and breathe in this world,
Mother Earth breeds nothing more feeble than man.
As long as he prospers, has strength in his knees,
He believes no thing can harm him, nor evil befall him.
But when the same blessed gods bring him sorrow,
Man must endure it, come what may, and harden his very heart.
– HOMER
CHAPTER ONE
THAT NIGHT I lay alone on a coarse, moss-filled mattress in the stone hut I had commandeered for Xenophon and myself, unable to sleep, my mind troubled. At about midnight he walked quietly into the room, pausing to let his eyes adjust to the lamp's low light and glancing at me to see if I was awake. From the lateness of the hour and the sounds of soldiers carousing in the village, I would have expected him to be smelling of wine and feeling in high spirits. He was completely sober, however, and stood motionless, gazing out of the tiny, plaster-edged window punched through the thick stone walls, while the drizzle fell softly outside.