Gates Of Fire by Pressfield Steven

Author:Pressfield, Steven [Pressfield, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Military
ISBN: 9781428153141
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1998-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

I had watched the army marshal on the plain beneath Athena of the Brazen House perhaps fifty times over the previous nine years, in various strengths of call-up as it prepared to march out to one campaign or another. This one, the corps dispatched to the Hot Gates, was the slenderest ever. Not a two-thirds call-up as before Oenophyta, when nearly six thousand warriors, squires and their battle train had filled the plain, nor a half-mobilization, forty-five hundred, as before Achilleion, nor even a two-mora, twenty-five hundred, when Leonidas led the force to Antirhion which Alexandros and I had followed as boys.

Three hundred.

The meager tally seemed to rattle about the plain like peas in a jar. Just three dozen pack animals stood in the fore along the roadway. There were only eight waggons; the sacrificial herd was marshaled by two scared-looking goat boys. Supply trains had already been dispatched and dumps set up along the six-day route. In addition, it was anticipated, the allied cities would provide provisions along the way, as the Spartan forerunners picked up the various contingents which would complete the force and bring it to its full complement of four thousand.

An august silence pervaded the valedictory sacrifices performed by Leonidas in his role as chief priest, assisted by Olympieus and Megistias, the Theban seer who had come to Lakedaemon of his own volition, with his son, out of love not of his native city alone, but of all Hellas, to contribute without fee or reward his art in divination.

The entire army, all twelve lochoi, had been drawn up, not under arms because of the Karneian prohibition but yet in their scarlet cloaks, to witness the march-out. Each warrior of the Three Hundred stood garlanded, xiphos-armed with shield at the carry, scarlet cloak draped across his shoulders, while his squire stood at his side holding the spear until the sacrifices were completed. It was the month, as I said, of Karneius, the new year having begun at midsummer as it does in the Greek calendar, and each man was due to receive his new cloak for the year, replacing the now-threadbare one he had worn for the previous four seasons. Leonidas ordered the issue discontinued for the Three Hundred. It would be an improvident use of the city’s resources, he declared, to provide new garments for men who would have use of them for so brief a time.

As Medon had predicted, Dienekes was chosen as one of the Three Hundred. Medon himself was selected. At fifty-six he was the fourth oldest, behind only Leonidas himself, who was past sixty, Olympieus and Megistias the seer. Dienekes would command the enomotia from the Herakles regiment. The brothers and champions of Olympia, Alpheus and Maron, were likewise selected; they would join the platoon representing the Oleaster, the Wild Olive, whose position would be to the right of the Knights, in the center of the line. Fighting as a dyas, the paired pentathlete and wrestler towered invincible; their inclusion greatly heartened one and all.

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