The Wooden Walls of Thermopylae (27 page)

That wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was our lack of military sense. A good commander knows and chooses his ground. We had no idea of the ground. We were told by our Thessalian allies there was only one route through the mountains that an army could use, narrow and steep sided. Our leaders never bothered to verify this, just moved the whole of our makeshift force to defend the pass at Tempe.

There were two passes. Two passes and we hadn’t bothered to check, hadn’t bothered to scout it properly. But there was worse news to follow: the Persian army was moving at a speed we’d not predicted. There were even some optimists who claimed that it would be impossible for such a great army to live off the land during their march. These fools claimed that army would exhaust all food supply and drink the rivers dry.

Whoever it was charged with the provisioning of that army must have been a genius. Their whole army was at Tempe almost as quick as our small force and was neither starving nor parched but in prime condition to fight. At the same time, anyone standing on the windswept crags of Mount Athos could have seen the entire Persian fleet – over twelve hundred strong – sweep round the peninsula to support the army.

Euainetos, the Spartan commander of our force at Tempe, had about ten thousand men with him and was able to trust less than half of them in battle. Once informed of the existence of a second pass, which was being approached by a substantial Persian force even as the news was being delivered to him, he took the only sensible decision any commander could.

He got his troops out of there as quickly as possible, abandoning Thessaly without having struck a blow. The Thessalians then took the only sensible decision any state could, although in truth this had been the preference for more than half of them as soon as war was even rumoured. They went over to the Great King, an act that other states now followed. The whole of northern Greece was abandoned.

In the fleet we had our own problems. We managed to put together a Greek fleet of about two hundred and seventy triremes, with some merchants following with supplies. But we had to sail early and the weather was poor. For experienced seamen it wasn’t too bad although we all feared the type of late winter storm that could wreck a fleet. But for the rookies being tossed about in their unstable craft half a mile from shore, it was far worse. The gunwales swam with vomit as the green faced recruits heaved up their guts into the sea. We never came close to the army, having to pull up onto a beach in southern Thessaly rather than risk riding out a storm at sea.

That’s where we were when we heard the news that northern Greece was abandoned without a fight. It’s also the place where, huddled by a camp fire, I first heard the name of a place that was to acquire a terrible and bloody name. The news of Euainetos’s retreat reached Sparta at the same time as a message to them from the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. Not a particularly helpful message either. It informed them they had a choice: they could lose a king or their city to the Persians.

The two Spartan kings, Leonidas and Leotychidas, conferred with their allies including Themistocles at Corinth. Here many of the allies attempted to resurrect the plan to abandon the rest of Greece and fight from behind a wall built across the Isthmus of Corinth. I wasn’t there; I don’t know
how the debate went, but I do know what plan emerged. We would withdraw our forces to make a stand at the next narrow pass further south in Phocis.

This plan must have been cobbled together by the two kings and Themistocles. The fleet was given orders to retreat south to Artemisium and prevent the Persian fleet from sailing down the coast and to support a Greek army. A Greek army led by Leonidas, the senior of the Spartan kings. He would lead a Spartan army and a mixed force of Greek allies. Lead them to a strange place with a strange name. A narrow defile on the road to Athens with high cliffs on one side and the sea on the other. A place where hot stinking springs bubble out of the earth. Hot springs that gave the place its peculiar name.

Thermopylae.

Right from the beginning we made heavy going to Artemisium, rocked by gales and caked with salt spray. The Athene Nike pitched and rolled and she had the best crew in the fleet; the Gods alone know what it must have been like onboard the other triremes.

Themistocles sailed with us as commander of the Athenian contingent, which comprised the heart and lungs of the fighting ships. Somewhere behind, towards the rear was the Spartan flag ship on the deck of which Eurybiades was, no doubt, heaving up his guts into the disturbed waters.

It was the best place for him; he’d no feel for fighting at sea and led in name only. This had been made clear to him by the leaders of all the other contingents. I think he was relieved. Even for a Spartan he was cautious and whatever the situation all he could do was react, and he was slow at that.

It wasn’t that he lacked courage; just that he was lost once he boarded a ship. At least we’d sorted out the practical issues of command before we went into action. There was no such problem in the Persian fleet. Their Phoenician fleet commanders had generations of sailing fighting ships in their blood.

The Athens we’d left behind was a graveyard, devoid of men. We’d managed to build Themistocles the ships he’d
demanded but we hadn’t the men to crew them. Think about it. To put crews on board the Greek fleet, ours and the reserve fleet left guarding approaches to Athens called for sixty thousand men. Far more men than we had.

The cream of the crews sailed with us to Artemisium. But the triremes we left in reserve were undermanned and sailed by inexperienced men. We’d had to draft in recruits from Chalcis and the brave and willing Plataeans to sail the fifty-odd ships held in reserve. They were mainly hoplites farmers with little, if any, seagoing experience.

So it was a desperate and forlorn venture. But at least Themistocles and Leonidas had patched together a plan between themselves. We’d stop the Persian army at Thermopylae and stop the Persian fleet at Artemisium. We would fight two back to the wall defensive engagements. If it worked, the Persian army would be held and the Persian fleet would be prevented from supplying it.

The Gods help us if either fleet or army was outflanked. Our commanders reckoned the fleet would be the easier to outflank as the Persians, if checked by us, could sail right round Euboea and come up behind us. That’s why we’d had to divide the fleet, leaving almost half to guard the straits between Andros and Euboea and the approaches to Sounion.

Our worst fear was that they’d find a way to get to Athens; our city was deserted, and any man capable of fighting was on board a trireme. While the men of fighting age were with the fleet our women and children were unprotected and, if taken, could expect little mercy.

And this being Athens there was the usual strong possibility of betrayal. Not all the exiles had returned, some were with the Great King and somewhere beyond our horizon Hipparchus was pacing the desk of a Persian warship.

After two days beating up and down the narrow channel dividing the mainland from Euboea in the unseasonably
strong winds, we pulled the triremes up onto a flat stretch of white sandy beach about ten miles long. It was a relief to be on dry land. On the way we passed Thermopylae; there was no sign of Leonidas and the Spartans. The pass was unguarded.

Unsettled, we dispatched a squadron to scout the waters ahead for Persians. Themistocles dispatched a fast skiff under the command of his most trusted agent Habronichus to Thermopylae to find our land forces. In the meantime we set up camp around the ships. Round my camp fire were Themistocles, Cimon and Aeschylus and some hoplites who’d fought at Marathon. For all its murder and bloody grimness war, at least, brings the best company.

The site had fresh water; a network of small streams drained through patches of marsh into the sea. Ahead of us were the islands of Skiathos and Skopelos and the narrow straits through which the Persian fleet would have to sail. We ate a poor meal of barley porridge seasoned with a thick sauce of cheese mush and onions then settled down to sleep.

Sleep wasn’t easy as the wind rose in the night and howled through our flimsy shelters. Aeschylus used the experience to imagine the Greeks by their ships at Troy and scribbled snatches of verse through the night. But for the rest of us there was only one question reverberating round our heads in the dark. Where were the Spartans?

Two days later the skiff reappeared, sailing into the teeth of a gale. A risky business that; so we knew that whatever message they carried must be urgent. Themistocles must have felt that too. As soon as Habronichus leapt from the prow onto the beach Themistocles shushed him up then led him away inland where he and the other commanders could speak unheard, without rumour and misconception spreading through the fleet like wildfire.

They’d wasted their time; when they returned to us their
faces told the story and it wasn’t a happy one. Themistocles said nothing, merely ordered that the Athene Nike prepare itself to sail. The weary Habronichus reboarded his vessel and set off back for Thermopylae. Within the hour we were following.

Let me tell you about Thermopylae, reader; even if you’ve been there, which I doubt, don’t skip this bit because you couldn’t have seen it through our eyes; the eyes of fear. Thermopylae was perched directly above us. We moored up at the base of some steep sloping bluffs and slogged up to the pass. If the Gods ever created a perfect spot for a small, vastly outnumbered force to stand and hold that was it.

The Greek army had arrived and was making camp behind a battered ancient wall. They were in the process of strengthening this wall at a spot where the pass was only wide enough to let three ox carts, packed together side by side, struggle through. On the landward side the cliffs rose sheer and to the seaward the land fell straight to the sea. In other places the pass narrowed to the width of one ox cart. The place has a strange feel and sound is strangely distorted. Hot springs bubble out from under the cliffs, shrouding Thermopylae in a faint smell of rotting eggs.

Leonidas himself greeted us as we disembarked; he looked different, there was a light in his eyes as if a God had touched him. This version of the man was not the one I remembered from my time in Sparta. Maybe it’s true what they say about Spartans being unable to cope with the freedom and temptations of life outside their repressed state. Leonidas greeted Themistocles like an old friend, it wasn’t an act either; it was clear that he was genuinely relieved to be reassured that the Athenian fleet would meet its promise to hold the sea straight.

Amongst his officers I was delighted to see Brasidas, and while the two leaders went to Leonidas’s headquarters tent he showed Cimon, Aeschylus and me around the camp. At
the rear of the camp there was a Theban contingent; Brasidas pointed them out.

“We’ve put them where they can do least damage. They don’t like being here any more than we like having them.”

Cimon asked,

“So why bring them?”

Brasidas shrugged.

“I’d have thought that the son of Miltiades and companion of Themistocles would have understood the treacherous art of politics. They’re here to make sure their friends back in Thebes don’t go over to the Persians.”

He spoke bitterly, and looked tired. Whatever ailment he had was quickly sapping his strength, I wondered how he managed to get himself drafted into this army. I think Aeschylus must have been thinking the same; he asked,

“But you’ve an unassailable position here, numbers count for nothing in this gorge, the more men, the more cramped the fighting space. It’s far better than we had at Marathon.”

Brasidas smiled.

“Well said, poet, perhaps we’ll make a Spartan out of you after all.”

Aeschylus ignored this and moved on to the point that I think had occurred to all of us while he was speaking.

“In fact, the only way a determined body of fighting men could be dislodged from here …”

Brasidas finished it for him,

“Would be if their flank was turned and they were attacked from the rear.”

“That would mean another pass through the mountains.”

“Right again, poet.”

Brasidas wasn’t smiling now and I think Aeschylus realised what was to come, asking,

“And?”

“And what?”

“Is there another pass through the mountains?”

“Yes, unfortunately there is. A route we weren’t informed about when we made our decision to hold the line here.”

He pointed directly above us to where a ridge line of cliffs dominated the skyline.

“Just the other side of that ridge, about half an hour’s march to our rear, there’s a hill track. It’s just a goat track really; steep and difficult going but passable all the same. As yet we think the Persians don’t know of it.”

None of us wanted to push him further and we didn’t need to.

“And in case we are betrayed and they do manage find it we’ve put our Phocian contingent, whose ground this is, to defend the track where it’s most difficult.”

It sounded convincing but there was something in his manner that didn’t quite ring true. Cimon changed the subject.

“The Spartan contingent seems smaller than the others.”

For a moment I thought that we were going to hear some Spartan boasting that one Spartan was worth ten of anyone else, but we didn’t.

“Yes it is.”

Cimon asked,

“How many?”

“Three hundred.”

We stood in silence looking over the small campsite, trying to work out its strength including Thebans who couldn’t be trusted and the Phocians in the hills guarding the track. But whichever way you looked at it, there weren’t enough of them. Eventually, almost as an afterthought, Brasidas muttered,

“But we’re only the advance guard: the ones who could be mustered straight away. The main army will follow. It’s
probably already en route. Once they get here even the gods would be hard put to shift us. Let’s go back to my tent and remember Marathon over some good Spartan wine.”

The wine wasn’t any better than I remembered, sour and overwatered, but it was good to sit and drink with an old friend. Interesting too, being able to watch how the Spartans live in their war camp. Some were practising with sword and spear; others were oiling and plaiting their long hair. What none of them were doing was fraternising with the other Greek forces.

We ate with Brasidas and his tent mates that night. It was of a better standard than we’d ever had in Sparta. One of the tent mates, also strangely enough called Brasidas, explained why. He was a grizzled man who’d had several teeth knocked out by a sword jab, giving his mouth a shrunken sour look.

“We’re not going to run short of supplies here. We came in the way Xerxes’s army will and we’ve stripped every bit of food out of that area, burned what we couldn’t carry. So the bastards either wait for supplies or starve to death on the march.”

He laughed, which twisted his mouth into an unnatural angle which the lamplight emphasised. His mates roared with laughter though. He was evidently what passed for a joker in the Spartan ranks. But it was a good-spirited night. Partly because we were friends of Brasidas but mainly, I think, because we’d fought at Marathon.

Later we walked back through the camp to the ship, stopping briefly by the wall they were strengthening. Somewhere beyond it in the darkness was the full might of the Persian army preparing to attack a crumbling wall defended by only three hundred Spartans and a ragbag of troops who distrusted each other.

The night in that pass was disturbed by strange noises.
Maybe just the wind gusting through rock crevices and across the ridges but I think ghosts walked in the night at Thermopylae even before the battle.

Next day as we were preparing the Athene Nike to sail, Themistocles and Habronichus returned from Leonidas’s tent where they must have stayed the night. Leonidas and some of his officers came with them, but not Brasidas I was sorry to note. Spartans are not prey to the emotions of other men, but it was clear that between Leonidas and Themistocles there had sprung up a respect and trust which bordered on friendship. They embraced before Themistocles climbed aboard and we pulled away from the shore.

Leonidas and his men stood and watched us leave. Above them towered the cliffs leading up into the high mountain and somewhere up there lay a path that bypassed the pathetic little wall they were trying to defend.

I was relieved as we pulled away from Thermopylae; even then there was a reek of death about the place. Once out in the channel the rotten smell of the hot springs was replaced by clean sea air. But the mood on board didn’t lift as I’d expected. Maybe that was down to Themistocles. Whatever he and Leonidas and had talked about obviously hadn’t been optimistic for the Greek cause. No point in asking Themistocles.

But I’d learned enough about him to know that having few close confidants, he needed someone to unburden himself to. Someone who could be trusted and was of no account and therefore couldn’t use the information for personal gain. I’d also learnt that there’s nothing like feeling yourself alone at sea to loosen a man’s tongue.

Towards sunset I was sitting in the prow with Cimon and Aeschylus, watching the sun sink red in the west as we were approaching a mooring for the night. The winds had dropped but it was still too risky to consider sailing through
the dark to rejoin the fleet. Themistocles, who’d sat like a stone figure in the trierarch’s chair, suddenly said,

“So what do you make of the chances of our small band of Spartans?”

Cimon answered him.

“Their lives depend on factors outside their control. I wouldn’t want to be with them at the mercy of events beyond my control.”

He’d summed their situation up perfectly; I couldn’t have come up with an answer like that. Themistocles looked surprised and asked,

“And what factors would those be then, son of Miltiades?”

He always retreated into this formal and pompous style when put off his guard. Cimon replied,

“Well, when are the reinforcements going to arrive? And when is the location of the track over the mountain that outflanks their position going to be revealed to the Persians by a traitor?”