The Wooden Walls of Thermopylae Read online

  I’d been there hours, shepherding crying and terrified families across the deck of Athene Nike and onto ‘The Breath of the Gods’ tied up next to us, when I heard a voice call my name. Looking down into the mass of humanity I saw the scarred face of Demetrius, the gate keeper for the flute girls.

  “Mandrocles, look, Lyra.”

  I looked closer and saw her standing by him like a young bird shielded under its mother’s wing. He forced his way a little distance through the crowd towards me and tried to hold Lyra in front of him. She was shouting to me but in the press of noise and confusion her voice didn’t carry. Then she tried to raise something above her head like she was trying to show it to me. A small bundle wrapped in cloth. I was trying to see what it was when there was another surge in the crowd and she and the bundle were swept away.

  I wanted to follow her, find her, I knew there was something of significance I’d missed but it was too late; she’d disappeared in the surge for one of the boats further along quay. I prayed Demetrius would see her safe to Troezen. Then the inevitable misfortune struck before our horrified eyes; the press of desperate people gathered sufficient impetus to sweep across the decks of that line of triremes, the crew were overwhelmed and the two outermost ships, one of which fully loaded, capsized and went straight down.

  For a moment there was a brief agonised silence before the mass of screaming and shouting struck up again: pure fear, hysteria. There was less control here than on a battlefield, as sailors fought to hold the crowd back and the crowd tried to storm the ships.

  Then a different noise, harsher and grating. A column of fully armoured hoplites with Xanthippus at the helm forced their way brutally between the screaming people and the ships. Shields and the flat of swords were used indiscriminately and gradually an empty but bloody strip of dockside was established between the weeping crowd and the ships. More troops fed into this space and the women, children and slaves were pushed further back. There was a standoff but at least in that stasis the pressure on the boats was relieved.

  There wasn’t time to wonder what would happen next as a blast from a series of horns like the ones that announce the spring Dionysia, only louder, reverberated round the Piraeus. Now there was silence.

  A funnel of space was created in the rank of the troops and a voice I recognised bellowed,

  “Athenians, the daughter of Miltiades, the hero of Marathon and saviour of Athens, is making her way to the ships. Do you wish to impede her passage?”

  There was no answer but the crowd stayed still and silent. Through the narrow passage way in the hoplite ranks a high born lady appeared, leading a small gaggle of mothers with their children. Tall, and dressed in a modest peplos but with head uncovered so the crowd could see her. Elpinice.

  Grave and calm as the goddess Athena herself, she approached the crowd leading her small following. As she drew near they gave way before her. From the deck of Athene Nike I saw this face on. In her bearing she could have been Miltiades. As the crowd gave way she smiled to the right and left, head erect, and you could feel a relaxing of tension spreading from her through the frightened masses.

  The voice, Themistocles of course, roared again.

  “Athenians, let the Lady Elpinice show you the way to safety on the ships. Let her show you how Athenians should behave in the face of danger.”

  She passed through the throng and people stretched out to touch her and kiss her hand as she progressed to the most central of the dockside triremes, one of the boats Callias had built. Once on board she didn’t, as I’d expected, make her way across the decks of the triremes moored to it and onto the next to depart. She climbed into the stern and turned to watch the crowd. So under the supervision of those calm penetrating eyes and directed by the hoplite officers the embarkation recommenced.

  Of course this being Athens it didn’t go smoothly, there was pushing and shoving, but the previous ruinous anarchy was gone. All the same it took through the night and well into the next day before most of those willing to go were aboard. Elpinice stood at her station throughout. Then, when there was only a single line of triremes left at the harbour side, Cimon joined her and their trireme pushed off towards the harbour mouth.

  The next hours were the worst as, one by one, the other triremes departed and we were left in the uncanny silence of a deserted Piraeus. We were waiting for the men tasked with sweeping up stragglers or the lame and halt up in the city. The Piraeus may have been like a ghost town, but sounds were beginning to drift down from Athens, and not reassuring sounds.

  Shortly after midday a fast skiff entered the harbour and shouted a message across to us that the advance of the Persian fleet had been sighted and was little more than an hour away. I hate the waiting most; it gnaws away at you, breaks down your nerves. We were tired and now we were scared, the Athene Nike was attached to the dock by only one rope and Theodorus had the rowers ready for the first stroke.

  My hands sweated and I couldn’t keep still. I thought back to the first time I’d seen Athens: the day I’d stood on the deck of the old Athene Nike with Miltiades, Cimon and Elpinice waiting for permission to disembark. The city of the Goddess had seemed so strong, calm and safe. Now I was back on board waiting to escape, homeless again. What bitter humour the gods enjoy.

  It ended quickly, a small group of armed men came skittering down on to the harbour. They were breathless and frightened. Their swords were bloody and some of them wore wounds. They were shouting, gabbling at us.

  “Persians, Persian skirmishers are in the city, couldn’t hold them off; right behind us.”

  They scrambled over the side as we were casting off. On reaching the harbour mouth we saw not more than half an hour away the forward squadron of the Persian fleet. Everything we feared was happening. The officer of the rearguard, a man I recognised from Xanthippus’s household and who’d been on the fateful mission to Aegina, clasped my arm and wheezed,

  “Didn’t think you’d wait, owe you lads for this, Luck Bringer.”

  Then he turned and vomited over the side. The sea gets to you like that. I’m going to have to put the next bit off, reader: the emotion is too raw. So in the meantime let me clear up another myth about the old days: that story about Xanthippus’s dog.

  You know, the one about how there was no room for animals on board and so Xanthippus’s faithful hound jumped in the water and swum after the boat all the way to Salamis and when it got there it just had the strength to lick his hand before it fell over, dead of exhaustion.

  It’s all made up you know, part of the myth these families create about themselves. I know it’s not true because we were last out and there certainly weren’t any dogs swimming in front of us.

  The Persian ships were either too tired or disinclined to give chase so we followed our distant fleet with its human cargo. Lysias was wiped out and dozing in the trierarch’s chair; the last two days he’d had no sleep. The rowers were resting and Ariston steered us, catching the offshore breeze. I was half asleep myself but, as officer of the hoplites, had to stay awake while Lysias caught some rest. Aeschylus was talking to me as much to help me stay awake as anything else.

  He was talking about how crowds behave; comparing the women on the quayside to the followers of the God, Dionysus. When in frenzy they tore King Pentheus into little pieces. He began to chant some lines from the idea of a play he was working on, can’t remember them now.

  Then he stopped.

  “Mandrocles, look.”

  I turned and followed the direction he was pointing: back to Athens. He always had better eyes than me; at first I couldn’t see anything. Then I could; smoke. Wisps of smoke over the lower parts of the city. I said,

  “Looks like something’s happening around the Agora.”

  “Not there, look up, look at the Acropolis.”

  I did; now I saw what he saw. Above the crowning glory of our city the sacred temple of the Goddess Athena herself, smoke, clouds of black smoke.

  “Athens is burning,
Mandrocles; Athens is burning.”

  Cheshire. Samos 2012-14

  About the Author

  Nick Brown has an archaeological background and is the author of the highly acclaimed Luck Bringer, Skendleby and The Dead Travel Fast.

  Also by Nick Brown

  The Ancient Gramarye series:

  Skendleby

  The Dead Travel Fast

  The Luck Bringer series:

  Luck Bringer

  The Wooden Walls of Thermopylae

  Copyright

  Published by Clink Street Publishing 2014

  Copyright © Nick Brown 2014

  First edition.

  The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN: 978–1–909477–61–2

  Ebook: 978–1–909477–62–9