Adapt To Survive (ON HOLD)

[McScottish]

Sparta, 3rd Year of the 104th Olympiad

Agesipolis III, son of Agesipolis and third monarch of that name, glared across the room at his Eurypontid co-ruler with an unconcealed lack of disdain. Although only seventeen years old, he nonetheless possessed all the attributes that made a great Spartan ruler, being educated and intelligent in thought and indomitable in his actions. The same intelligence ran in the mind of his adversary, Lykourgous, fifty-four years of age and still as sharp as he had been three decades earlier in his life, only this Eurypontid representative having a child that was kept under the watchful eye of the acting regent, Machanidas, a leader of mercenaries from Taras across the sea and as wily as they came.

This look did not go unnoticed by the defender and somewhat regent of the last king of the Agiad line, a tall and dark-haired Spartiate of pure blood, descended from one who died at the Hot Gates fighting the Persian menace. His name was Aristomache Euskopos, or Aristomache Keen-Sighted, for he had been given that title because he saw things that other men did not. Being a tower of a man, forged in the crucible of the Spartan agōgē and criss-crossed with puckered pink scars of battle, few people argued of flatly disagreed with anything he claimed to have 'seen'.

One such thing was the reason that Agesipolis received his co-ruler so icily, Aristomache having overheard the polemarchos of the Eurypontid kings hippeis discussing a scheme which greatly disturbed both Agesipolis and his self-chosen protector. A plot to completely dispose of the Agiad king, and therefore the entire Agiad bloodline, in favour of a single sovereign. No doubt this was to secure the succession of his son, Pelops, but was not something which a crowned head of Sparta should even be considering during these troubled times.

“A fair morning to you, brother. How do you fare?” Asked Lykourgous lightly, striding smoothly across the floor of the royal palace, accompanied by four of his own men, and smiling as he moved to embrace the younger man.

“I fare well...brother, I trust your son is in the best of health?”

Aristomache, never one to miss anything, noticed the body of Lykourgous stiffen momentarily but visibly as he kissed the cheek of his stony-faced opposite. It was such a subtle clenching of his muscles that blink and you would have missed it, the rough material of his crimson tribon cloak in which he now clutched to wrap himself completely doing little to obscure the reflex from the eagle-eyed homoios.

“My son is healthy,” came the half-choked reply, Lykourgous sweeping his cloak over his front as he took his throne to the right hand of Agesipolis, “now I think it is time to hear how our lands proceed, yes?”

Agesipolis inclined his head in agreement, the ghost of a smile playing briefly over his lips, his eyes turning from Lykourgous to the figure that stepped forward to address them. It was that same leader of men that Aristomache had overheard, a man entangled in the conspiracies of his king but an able man and firm warrior for all of that.

“My kings,” began the polemarchos, his back rigid and straight as a planted stick, his hard face as blank as a stone wall and his eyes only moving between the two rulers sat before him, “the poleis of Arkadia are remaining loyal to us, but the Koinon ton Achaion continues to oppose us in all that we do, this most recent action against Argos for example may cost us dearly,” he paused to gather his thoughts and spoke once more, “the Eleans equally continue to promote the independence of Messinia, and I believe the only way to regain land there would be to defeat the men of Elis in battle.”

“Aristomache, what about our army, will it hold against the Achaions and their allies?”

“My kings,” rumbled the large hippeus, his voice echoing about the room, “we have gathered all available and trustworthy perioikoi and neodamodeis that we could to put into the phalanx, with the xenoi of Machanidas away in the Argolid we field but a few thousand. Training progresses as usual, and the agōgē for every paidiskoi that can be gathered. There are some who challenge the decision to put outsiders through the upbringing, but that is for the kings to decide.”

“So, whether we rise or fall rests on the shoulders of some xenos from Taras?” Sneered Lykourgous, a man who was not used to leaving his fate up to others.

“It would seem so. Let us hope that he can subdue Argos without too much bloodshed."

Silence then came to envelop the throne room, a bird twittering in the spring sunshine outside and each man caught up in his own thoughts. If Sparta were to win, to survive even, then Machanidas would need to win a victory over the garrison of Argos and bring that troublesome and bitter enemy under Spartan suzerainty. If he was to lose, the Gods forbid, then not only the lingering fear of Sparta would diminish further but also, and far worse, the fighting strength of the reduced but evenly resurgent polis.

[McScottish]

Sparta, 3rd Year of the 104th Olympiad

It was Autumn by the time Machanidas returned to the now walled city of Sparta, although refugees from the desolated polis of Argos had been sighted all across the Peloponessos from Tegea to Pylos in Messinia, proceeding to return but also heralding it, for it was clear he had triumphed and would not let such a victory go unrewarded by the joint monarchy of the city he served – for the moment – faithfully.

An escort had been assembled by Lykourgous, the more fervent supporter of the mercenary and his terror tactics, as well as his irreverence for the laws, religion and population of the Greek city-states. It was made up of eight of the bravest hippeus from the Kings own bodyguard, but when the Tarantine finally appeared before Agesipolis and his partner-in-rule he came alone and stained with blood and the stench of week-old conflict still lingering over him.

“My friends!” He hailed them, a broad smile wide across his face but one that did not reach his eyes, “Argos now belongs to your majesties and the threat of Argive repercussions is slim indeed...” As an afterthought, he gestured to a nearby man, a man clothed in a ragged chiton and wearing the felt cap that marked him as a member of a revived system of Helotry, “get me some win and be quick about it.”

“You come before us reeking of death and marked in blood, why?”

When Machanidas looked at Agesipolis there was no joviality in his eyes, only a cold and calculating stare, the sort of stare that a lizard might give to it's next meal. It was true however, he could not deny it, standing before them with his silver armour covered in patches of blackening blood and with his cape torn ragged by the thrusting of spears and sweeps of swords, even his hair encrusted with the grey matter from the hacked skull of an Athenian adversary.

“Great Kings of ancient Sparta,” he spoke as he opened his hands with in a placating gesture, “there was no time for me to cleanse myself before coming to you, attacked as I was on the road here by a band of Achaians who have turned to looting and rape,” now he took a knee, as well versed in these theatrics as any spear-for-hire, “help had been given to the Argives by the Athenians, they fought the hardest, barely a handful of my men surviving the carnage in the streets of Argos. Even now an Achaian host, Athenians and Arkadians and men from the savage cities of Bœotia, gather near Nemea to retake the city. Though all they find shall be ruins and my forces.”

“What would you have us do, Machanidas?” Asked Lykourgous, scratching at his grey beard as he bent forward to hear the answer, Agesipolis going through possibilities in his mind instead.

“Let me take the host of Sparta against these fools, let me show them that the city of my ancestors can overcome Sellasia as they did the defeat at Leuktra. Allow me to take the morai and crush them. The forces arrayed against us are inferior, and all the men the enemy can muster...defeat them, and you have all Greece south of the isthmus open to you.”

“So be it,” snapped Lykourgous, it seemed to the Agiad King almost without thinking, “take the phalangites, lowly hypomeiones, and all that can be spared. A triumph against these fools would show them that Sparta is reborn.”

************

“What do you believe?” The youthful Agesipolis asked his protector and most trusted advisor, pacing the floor of his simple home built on his own kleros, the patch of land allotted to each Spartan citizen. Such packages of land were not equal, no matter what the philosophers or historians claimed, and after the reforms of Kleomenes the Third and his predecessors nor were they any longer owned by the elite class of homoioi and tilled by their Helots, their human beasts of burden.

Aristomache stood straight-backed and silent for a moment, just watching his King and friend worrying himself, although he did have the right to be so. The decision that Lykourgous had agreed to was one that could ruin any chance of Spartan supremacy ever being achieved once more in her history, one that could finally silence the agōgē and the temple of Artemis for good. If Machanidas took the men of Sparta to war and lost, even though stone walls now surrounded the diminished polis, there would be no defence against reprisals from their bitter foes.

“I believe Lykourgous acts without thinking,” replied the stalwart warrior, half-musing to himself as he went, “or he has come to an arrangement with Machanidas.”

The adolescent King stopped his pacing then, freezing in time almost, only a small nod of his head giving any indication that he was not suddenly completely made of stone.

“Yes, you may be right,” his tone was full of bitterness and his words speckled with feelings of betrayal, “Lykourgous would do anything to see his son take the throne, and act in the manner of a tyrant.”

“I request that you allow me to march with them, my King, to watch Machanidas and return in victory or in defeat.”

A sigh escaped the lips of the King, his hands wringing themselves behind his back, but he knew better than to oppose his companion in this.

“Very well, go with him, but do not die if you can escape. None will call you a coward, for you act on my orders. Come back and tell me of our glorious victory, or of our dark defeat.”