The End of Sparta by Victor Davis Hanson

Author:Victor Davis Hanson [Hanson, Victor Davis]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2011-12-28T13:31:23+00:00

Much of the way they had kept to the scrub oak of the low hills and dared not go into the long walls of Megara. Islanders were coming into the port there—and at Aigosthena and up to Perachora on the gulf. A few northerners going south tried to get the two to join their camps, but most backed off when they saw the blades on the shoulders of the two women, unsure whether the two might be two beardless ephebes eager to mix it up. Erinna flung a couple of arrows at three wayfarers with sticks and packs who were closing the distance behind them and full of threats and taunts. When the shafts whizzed over their heads, they tailed off into the scrub. “Thieves and worse,” she laughed, as she hung her bow back over her shoulder.

After another day of hiking, now with the Isthmos in their faces, the shadowy night-beast grew closer to the scent of the women. The four-leg had trailed them for three or four stadia, on a parallel course on the higher ridges where the olive groves ended. Both had seen it, or at least its outline, and had taken turns on the watch this night. Erinna warned of their danger. Was it the man-bear of Kithairon or a worse monster from Helikon? “Nêto, I think it is no bear, but a dappled wolf. My eyes are better than yours and I can see the big wolf has left his pack. Tonight he comes by the fire. He’s either a man-wolf or a wild dog that has the thirst madness. He will only get bolder when he scampers to Arkadia and he meets his own kind in the packs up on Lykaion, the mountain of the man-wolves. This follower of ours is as bad as the man-bear, if not his brother in evil. Draw that long knife. I string my bow. It has the man-wolf mania and his fangs will turn us into something like himself. Lichas no doubt sent it. Or your Gorgos.”

No sooner had Erinna pointed out the shadow than the wolf circled at the edge of their camp. Suddenly the wild thing broke out of the dark, changed course, and ran, heading right toward their fire with teeth bared. Nêto froze. She could not lift her knife in time. But then as the animal neared, she pointed to Erinna, “Put down the bow. Stop. Stop!”—just as the large dirty hound charged her at full run and jumped up to her bosom and knocked her flat.

“Porpax, Porpax. No wolf. No wolf. My Porpax, Porpax of Helikon.” Nêto wrestled with her dog with the bared fangs. Nêto laughed. “Living in the high caves on rabbits? Or on worse up on Kithairon? But you’re home with me, your Nêto—and ready for our long march.” The dog was growling but at least put his head down, as Erinna kept her bow taut.

“He may well have been your dog. But who knows what sort of flesh this Kerberos has tasted? He’s changed to man-shape and back many times, I wager.

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