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CHAPTER 1
After a Greek Proverb
TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE I ASCII]
We're here for the time being, I answer to the query —
Battle of Plataea: Aftermath
Out of Book Nine of the Histories of Herodotus
THE SPARTAN GENERALS
After the blood-brimmed field, we were amazed to stride into those empty silken tents — bright tapestries, wrought silver ornaments, the furnishings of solid gold. Eyes glazed at all the untold booty: gods be praised! Our king bid foreign cooks spare no expense to make the meal our foes would eat, prepare their pastries, spices, wine. Such slowly braised flesh melting off the bone! Such colors, scents! Our king laughed as he laid out on the cloth, beside the feast, our ration of black broth: "Behold! They came to rob us of our fare!" We also laughed, though fed up with that food, the soldier's mess, the black broth of blood.
THE CONCUBINES
We heard the Greeks had won. At once I went and decked myself with every bracelet, ring, gold necklace that I owned, and rouged my cheeks, and hastily had my maids arrange my hair. The other concubines slumped in despair; but I'd been snatched from Kos; my people, Greeks! Dressed in white robes of silk, we fled the tent, and drove through corpses, far as the eye could see, until I saw Pausanias, the king. I stepped with golden sandals through the gore, the lady that I was, and not the whore, and knelt, a supplicant, Please set me free. The roar of blood like silence in my ear, until: "Lady, arise, be of good cheer."
LAMPON THE AEGEINITE
"Your glory after this victory is sealed," I told Pausanias, to please him. "Now crown it with revenge for Leonidas beheaded at Thermopylae. Remember the restitution that Xerxes denied us, and how he said Mardonius would pay it? Well, here is the cadaver — you just say it — and we'll impale Mardonius's head." He stood in silence as his face went somber. "Stranger," he addressed me, "on this field the crime was well avenged." As for that corpse, who knows what happened to it? There are versions — the truth is not so straight it never warps. Someone interred it — so I've heard it said — and reaped a handsome bounty from the Persians.
THE IMMORTALS
He called us the Immortals — the select companions who would battle at his side, Mardonius on his white charger. Pride, we felt, of course; maybe we half believed we were that day, not helmeted or greaved, no golden scales under the robes we wore. We wielded wicker shields for catching arrows. We were surrounded, as on mountain hunts a pack of Spartan hounds surrounds the boar. In that tight space, we knew our hopes were wrecked, like ships, frail bridges over Hellesponts, the horsewhipped waters bridling at the narrows. We were caught up in doom, as fish or sparrows, grateful like other men to die but once.
ARISTODEMUS THE COWARD
I lie here without honor, as I willed. Alone among those at Thermopylae I lived — if it is life to loathe each breath. They say I was the bravest Spartan here, but that I broke formation, and I fought not only as one not afraid of death, but one who seeks it, battle-mad, distraught. A Spartan soldier never leaves the line. It took so many Persians to get killed, I slogged on, drunk with slaughter as with wine. And when at last I met the foeman's spear, I laid my body down like shame, now free to fall amidst the dust, having fulfilled the ranks of the two hundred and ninety-nine.
Bedbugs in Marriage Bed
Maybe it's best to burn the whole thing down,
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Like"
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