[Hegemonia City-States Syracuse AAR/Story] Sikelia; Island of Ares [ON HIATUS]

[McScottish]

Introduction: Spring, 1st year of the 67th Olympiad (512 BC)

“Medes,” grunted the middle-aged figure, who now paced back and forth across the bare floor of his chamber, only a single onlooker nodding his head agreeably, as he always did during these rants, “medes, medes, medes! That is all that rings in my ears, all that permeates the air that we breath, from Ionia in the east to our island here in the west. The fear that, simply because they dare cross the Hellespont and subdue such a backwater polis as Maroneia, they may set foot even here...why, it is lunacy!”

The chamber, grand in scale and almost as large as most tyrants throne rooms, was less like a room where one ate and slept and more like a hall of trophies mixed together with a large influence from places of education and knowledge. At one end of the room, as you would expect, there was a bed large enough for three, but beside it a table covered in wax tablets and all manner of styli, which from the look of them had recently been used. These tablets did not just sit on the expertly crafted wood, but over the bed, in some alcoves where busts of great heroes and figures looked out, and where this self-opinionated man often decided to squat and drink a great deal of uncut wine. Like some barbarian.

Right now he paced the part of the room closer to the door, a door so large that four men abreast could wander through it without difficulty. The wood was at least a hands-width thick, hinges of heavy iron wrought on them, as was a firm lock which would except only one key. Here there was placed another table, leaving the middle of the room open and clear and much more appropriate for such pacing, but being where guests would be met first it would be their first point of contact with the man that some said was the most smooth-tongued in all of Sikelia.

What was most surprising were the other alcoves, deep set and arched enclosures of stone, where, placed upon pedestals and lovingly kept clean, were all manner of items collected from journeys made by this man, the famous Sosion of Kamarina. There were helmets, plumed and not, some of the Kretan style and others the Korinthian, aspides with a dozen different painted designs on there bronze-faced frames, and gifts, such as the flowing purple cape that had been given to the envoy of Surakoûsai by those bitter rivals of that city-state, the Phoenikians of Karkhēdōn that had founded colonies on Sikelia, much like those Hellenes before them.

It was due to the work of this one man that, in the course of the first year of the Olympiad, treaties had been signed with the prospering Rhodian colony of Gela, and the Lakedaemonian-led town of Selinus, both powers of their own on the island. Treaties of trade and peace between them, gifts exchanged as signs of good will, and with the colonists from Phoenikia spreading across North Africa, western Sikelia and the islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea, they were alliances that Surakoûsai could not afford to offer to the other Hellenes of the island. Not only this, but he had strengthened relations with the native Sikels of the eastern island, going so far as to entice nearly a thousand allied hoplitai into the service of the prosperous Korinthian settlement.

All this, and more, he had done, becoming quite the personified symbol of luck and with some more blasphemous citizens even calling him the son of Hermes because of his persuasive tongue. With the quite substantial support of the aged Epicydes of Surakoûsai, a man nearly as old as seventy years, and leader of the oligarchs of Surakoûsai and her larger settlements; Akrai, Heloros on the south-eastern coast, and Kasmenai nestled in amongst the rolling slopes and deep valleys of the Hyblaean Mountains of central Sikelia. Everywhere he went he was known, a man who knew things and could solve any problem, but it was his servant, a boy who stayed close to his masters heels at all times, that this tale concerns but who, as 'small folk' through the centuries, was ignored by almost everyone.

“Now news reaches us here that the Lakedaemonians have taken and sacked the polis of their great foe, those sons of the Argolid, mighty Argos herself.”

Sosion had never appeared this way to his young erômenos before, agitated and even a little unbalanced, briefly ceasing his erratic movements to be handed a mug of wine before continuing his tirade, those youthful eyes looking on.

“The Athenians! The damned Athenians! Always blowing so much air about opposing the Medes, then they go and sign a treaty with them. Even after they...”

Finally, seeing the confused gaze of the adolescent sitting comfortably on the rug-draped floor, Sosion waved an aggravated hand through the air and slumped into a seat at the table. Rubbing a hand through his thick head of brown hair, the curls spreading lightly over his hand, he then gestured for his young lover to come and take a seat next to him. It was not the boys place to refuse, and he did not, going willingly and taking a seat next to his mentor and erastes.

“Oh Leukokomas,” he sighed, the boys name meaning 'bright hair', “everything is moving so quickly...and Epicydes intends to send Tisandros to acquire Megara Hyblaea from the cities leaders.”

The boy, who was no longer a 'boy' but fifteen years of age, and who was not named Leukokomas but Euaristos, watched as his lover and teacher of the last five years drifted away into a slow slumber, catching the empty cup that nearly feel from his unconscious hand and placing a warm chalmys over his snoring form. It was not the first time that Euaristos had had to perform these duties, and would probably not be the last, but sometimes he did wish it would be.

Euaristos was a Kretan, born into a poor family from Eleutherna, who had more-or-less sold him into an uneven relationship with a man he had never met and did not much care for. Not at the time, and not much more over the following years either. He was an attractive boy, more feminine than any other he knew, with a smooth face ending in a pointed chin, broad shoulders for one his age, a narrow waist and lithe developing muscles that would one day be like those of a grown man but were still growing.

All this was topped off by his long blonde hair, long and braided because of the customs of the Kretans, customs taken to Sparta herself it was said, and hair which contrasted pleasingly with his rather pale skin for a Greek and especially someone raised on a sun-blistered island for ten years.

Although he did not know it, he suspected his father may have sold him simply because he considered him too effeminate. Then again, his father had always been a bastard, too lazy to teach him how to be a man and too abusive to ever say a kind word to him.

Perhaps it was Tyche, luck, that had bought Sosion to the island. Ordered, he always said, to visit the Kretan nobility and garner support amongst them. That did not matter to Euaristos, not much did, he had been well looked after by this celebrated diplomat and wanted for nothing, had seen parts of the world that others only spoke of, and been taught his letters all by the time he was twelve. For this he was truly thankful, but even Sosion was too much like his father, becoming drunk when something excited him too much or depressed him. It was particularly during the act of copulation, something that Sosion did rarely, thank the Gods, that he became violent, due to an affliction which caused a flaccidity the envoy could do without.

“No,” Euaristos thought to himself, “I should have been involved in the harpagmos...taken by someone I may have accepted. Given away to a drunk by a drunk. I am sorry, Sosion, but it is not the life I wished for.”

That was the point, watching Sosion wheeze away gently, that Euaristos decided to abandon him and make something of himself.

Tisandros he had said, the oligarch of Akrai...

With as much haste as he could muster, whispering a prayer to the Gods for both forgiveness and swift feet, he took the possessions that he owned and placed them in a hide bag which he could carry over his shoulder. Those possessions were not much; a stylus, a spare chiton and chalmys, a pair of Kretan boots which were a painful reminder of his home, and a felt cap which was reminiscent of those worn by Lakedaemonian helots. The only other thing he took was not money, although he could have taken a talents worth in silver if he had wished, but some items of food for a journey to Megara Hyblaea and the siege-lines there.

“Farewell,” he whispered to the dribbling man, his lover but also his willing enslaver, kissing him on the forehead and slipping the cap over his head before slipping like a phantasm out of the door.

[Fizban-]

Wow. This was really great. I especially liked the part the section about the bastard father, who sold his son for possibly being too effeminate. Really interested to see where this goes, and it might inspire me to pick up my greek city-state AAR as well. Thanks!

[McScottish]

Wow. This was really great. I especially liked the part the section about the bastard father, who sold his son for possibly being too effeminate. Really interested to see where this goes, and it might inspire me to pick up my greek city-state AAR as well. Thanks!

I thank you for the praise, even nice for modest men to be appreciated sometimes! I really do hope that it does inspire you, as reading your Carrhae thread has given me a lot of reading pleasure, being pretty damn good itself, and I would be thrilled to see what such a writer as yourself can come up with for the Greeks.

As for that particular section, well, there was nothing really wrong with being effeminate but on Crete they had a particular system of abduction which Euaristos has missed out on. Not only that, but his family are poor as dirt and Crete, like Arcadia a bit later, was one of the places to hire mercenaries. He may not be a mercenary, but you get money for slaves all the same.

I'll try and keep it interesting for you, not sure where its going to go myself, but we shall see.

Keep watching, keep commenting!

[McScottish]

Spring to Autumn, 1st year of the 67th Olympiad

Well, where could he go?

Euaristos knew the lay of the land, and its rules, well enough from his travels that he also correctly assumed that the places for an escaped slave to hide himself were far and few between.

Now, some vast stades away from Kasmenai, heading in a general north-easterly direction, the boy cursed himself for not taking what wealth he could have when he had had the chance to do so. It was this decision, rather than the very act he had just committed, that haunted him. Had he taken the coins, coins that his famous master would not even have missed, he could have bought food, shelter and possibly silence from anyone he came across, but that was not the worst part.

Brigands and bandits were not such a large worry in the hills and glens of Sikelia than in other lands, rather any traveller that was not a native of the island, any Greek or foreigner, had to remain ever-alert for those that had dwelt here before their coming. The Sikels, as they were known, had both given their name to the island and were also, it was said, the first peoples to dwell amongst its fertile regions, but they were also a race of people who detested the presence of outsiders on their coasts and further inland, outsiders that enslaved them and were seen by them as nothing more than pirates in their lifestyles and ambitions. It was well for the colonies and trading-posts of the island that the Sikels had never united against them, even being used as mercenaries by various poleis, but such was not sadly the plight of the weary traveller or runaway slave, and without coin to buy them, or at least have a greater chance of surviving, there was no telling what they might do if they caught him.

As he walked the well-worn road towards Megara Hyblaea, the tread of his boots kicking up dust in the spring heat, and merchants with their wagons full of produce or purchases eyeing him as they passed, he was thankful that although he was a runaway and a slave, he did not look like a runaway and a slave. The quality of his clothing, whilst not of the finest weave and material, was, thanks to the benevolence of Sosion toward him, better than that of many low-born who were ordinarily sold or simply taken into slavery. This, combined with his writing tools, was enough for any casual observer not to remark on his station in life or even to believe that it was somewhat higher than it truly was.

This and many other thoughts swam through his mind, like so many fish in the sea, whilst he walked and walked and walked in the general direction he knew the Megaran polis to be. For most of the journey he tried to keep himself to himself, avoiding others on the road when he could, hiding in the brush or flinging himself into shelter when he could not. When there was no way for him to avoid others, he would say as little as possible and keep from looking them in the eye, his opposite usually becoming bored or taking him for a mute and deaf fool. One thin he did not fail to notice was how many of their eyes seemed to linger on his face and rove over his body, a look he knew all too well, a look full of a hunger which none of them fortunately decided to indulge in.

It went like this for days, the Kretan ceasing his walking each evening and finding some form of shelter before starting the smallest fire he could and finally consuming some of his rations, either hot or cold, it made no difference to him. The three years he had spent being abusively trained in Krete by his ungrateful father, the training there beginning at seven years of age, had prepared him both bodily and mentally for life amongst the rocky and forested environment of both Krete and Sikelia, and so he adapted well to his new situation, but still did not wish to thieve from others if he was not required to.

Something of the Kretan inside him found this to be an irritant, even an offence, to his upbringing, his people known for their thieving and cut-throat ways, but the other more moral part of him considered such things to be beneath him. It was a lingering feeling from being a slave of the privileged, one that he would have to shake off if he did not want to end up dying of starvation or a blade across the throat in the middle of the night.

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

Summer was the hardest time him, a time of sweltering heat and little activity in Sikelia, many tradesmen and merchants preferring to do their business with other towns and cities during the more temperate seasons of spring and autumn, rather than being burnt or cooked to death by the arms of Helios above their heads. It was, however, the favourite time for farmers and the Sikel tribes to engage in agricultural pursuits, seeding their fields and planting their crops - and the best time for taking them.

Against his better judgement, this is what Euaristos forced himself to do when his rations had forsaken him, his stomach beginning to gnaw at itself and his entire body protesting against a lack of food and sleep. So, during the bright days he would locate the nearest farmstead or orchard and, under the cloaking darkness of late evening or night, attempt to 'relieve' their owners of as much of their property as it took to sate his hunger and, if possible, his thirst as well. This he did night after night until, bulging quite considerably as he walked, his bag contained enough to prolong him until the next time.

As summer neared its end, it was as though he had nearly become a different person, hiding from the eyes of others and stealing by the moons waning light. He did not approve of his actions, or of himself for having enacted them, but Euaristos was far more than the soft hands and face that others saw, those instincts which he had learnt as a child, but were dulled in his servitude to another, rising once more to the fore of his mind and acts.

A simple matter of making it to Megara Hyblaea, that was what he had planned, but, as with many of the plans of men, that is not how it was to be. The Gods, watching over the youth as he made what seemed to him a journey equal to the great Odusseus, had other plans and on a sunlit day during the last week of summer they came to fruition.

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

He was awake, his eyes moving this way and that, his body shifting beneath the warmth of his chalmys until he sat upright and looked out into the darkness. Beside him, just beginning to turn into nothing but ash, were the embers of the modest fire he had lit to keep himself warm, the days of the summer exceedingly hot but the nights not so. At first he was unsure of why he was awake; his bladder did not seem full, his body had not been in an awkward position and the fire remained warm.

No, it was something else.

Movement, there was movement, something moving about outside his circle of vision and trying not to make any noise. Euaristos coked his head to listen, and the movement stopped. As if hit by a bolt, his body began to shiver in fear, he was unarmed and no match for a band of robbers or rapists intent on a little sport. Neither did it seem he could make a run for it, the sounds that had halted for a moment now continuing, the definite sound of many pairs of sandalled feet. Frozen, he was frozen, unable to move or do anything but stare stupidly at the night.

Suddenly something moved on the periphery of his vision, the moonlight catching on something and causing it to gleam, the silhouette of an armoured man becoming larger and easier to see as it came closer and closer. Others had now began to appear, but still Euaristos did not move, remaining as still as a statue even when the tip of a nine-foot spear thrust forward to hover only inches away from his face.

“What do we have here?” Chuckled a voice from within a finely made helmet, adorned with a crest of horse-hair, the deep voice made even deeper by the all-encompassing bronze, “either I am a fool, or this is the Kretan boy that the fool Sosion let go.”

Two others stepped closer to the pair, their large aspides held by youthful servants no older than Euaristos, but their spears and xiphos swords in hand and under arm. The emblems on the faces of their shields varied, one with a large red scorpion and the other an equally large koppa letter, the symbol related closely with the mother-city of Surakousai, Korinth.

“Are you sure?” Muttered one, leaning forward, “this looks more like some maiden?”

The third, who until then had not spoken, began to laugh and gave his companion a slap on the shoulder, “if 'tis a maiden...well then, I've not had a decent hump in a long time,” slowly he stepped nearer and thrust his concealed face forward so that Euaristos could pick out the blue eyes in the helmets shadowy depths, “how about it, paides? Fancy acting the porne and playing my flute?”

“Leave him alone,” grunted the first, who had by now removed his spear-tip and simple observed the scene, “he is another mans property, and what do you think your wife would say?”

“Oh, blow it out your arse Gerasimos! Just because you are beyond your years and unable to get it up, no need to make the rest of us suffer.”

“What does the boy have to say on the matter?” Questioned the second speaker, all three heads now turning to look at the shocked fugitive as feet continued to sound in the distance, mingled with the snorts of horses and the cacophony of grunts, curse and laughter that spoke of an army on the march, his possessions and miniature camp in the process of being picked apart by even more warriors.

“I-”

Euaristos swallowed hard, knowing that what he did now would have repercussions either way. He might be raped and taken back to Sosion, might just be returned to him as was, or might even be saved somehow. Hades, what did he have to lose!

“I am the property of Tisandros of Surakoûsai...it would be unwise for me to play anyone's flute.”

There was a stunned silence, all three of the men apparently dismayed by what he had just told them, and for a second only Euaristos believed he may have overawed them into letting him go. He was wrong.

“You?!” Laughed the third man, the one that had made the sexual offer in the first place, “you belong to Tisandros of Surakoûsai?! What a bare-faced lie!”

The first talker turned away towards the dark, ostensibly about to leave, but instead he raised a hand to his mouth and yelled, “Tisandros, over here!”

Summoned by the shouts of a trusted warrior, Tisandros of Surakoûsai stepped forth from those picking through the Kretans pack, his helmet made of bronze but coloured black and silver, a great crest moving back and forth as a breeze picked up. From what Euaristos could see, he was tall and smooth of limb, his broad-shouldered torso covered by a muscled thorax and a sweeping cloak of the reddest red that the boy had ever seen. His legs were as well-muscled as his arms, and beneath the bronzed skin of both you could see them move like the ripples of an ocean.

“My lord, this boy claims to be your property.”

Two grey eyes shrewdly studied Euaristos for a moment, “funny,” he commented, “I don't seem to remember ever owning a slave boy before.”

It did not matter, because something had happened to Tisandros in that split second that had happened to Sosion before him. There before him, though covered in trail dust and dirt from digging up vegetables and clambering up trees, was a boy that possessed beauty often unseen, even in the women of Surakoûsai. Tisandros, like so many before him, had been struck by the influence of Eros, and immediately his lust was set ablaze by the sight his eyes drunk in that night. How he wished to see more, so much more, everything in fact.

“But...”

He gave his head a small shake, as if waking from a dream, and gestured to Euaristos and everything about the now dead embers of the camp-fire.

“Bring it all,” he commanded with a flourish of his cloak, “and have this one cleaned and bought to my tent.“

When Tisandros had gone, the three men exchanged glances, and Euaristos was half-lifted half-dragged to his feet. He did not notice the roughness of the grip, nor did he notice when they all started walking in the direction of the road to Megara Hyblaea.

No, his mind was focusing on something else, on a thought that gave Euaristos hope for his current situation and the future, hope of some influence that was often only the domain of the opposite gender, a hope that he had a sort of power. This power had been untapped, unnoticed by him even, but when Tisandros had paused and been unable to speak, in that moment, his mind had opened like one of Sosion's wax tablets and he had become in his own way enlightened.

[McScottish]

Spring to Autumn, 1st year of the 67th Olympiad (512 BC)

The journey along the remainder of the road, if it could be called that, took Euaristos and his captors straight into the heart of the Surakoûsan marching camp. It took enough time that by the time they reached the first of the outlying tents, mostly leather shelters known as skenai by Greeks and Greek-speakers, the sun had began to peek over the mountaintops and shine down to illuminate the gathering of military strength that was happening only a few miles south-west of Megara Hyblaea itself.

As they had been ordered, the three hoplitai took the young boy down to a small stream, gathering some of the female camp-followers as they went, bellowing strict instructions at them to clean the boy and then to give him something half-way decent to wear before being presented to Tisandros. None of the seven or so women looked happy, some Greek and some Sikel and most of them clearly not slaves or whores, but they did as they were ordered and walked with Euaristos like an all-female escort down a gently sloping hill to the stream, where other women washed their clothing and that of their menfolk.

Back the way they had come was a veritable town of tents, each one the temporary home of maybe ten or fifteen men at most, a suskenia or tent-party, the entire camp buzzing with all manner of activity that fascinated the Kretan youth at every turn. In spite of still being in a form of mild shock, he watched everything eagerly and paid little attention to the tall matronly woman that steered him towards the water where he would soon be washed. Inwardly he tried to control the fear that he felt at being held against his will, even though he was where he had wanted to be, and instead concentrated on the two types of men he could see within the encampment.

Foremost were the hoplitai, men born into or given wealth, able to buy their own full panoply and spend more time than the average farmer training to be a warrior. There must have been at least a thousand of them, probably more, all young to middle-aged and in the peak of their psychical fitness, the larger number of them being colonists from Akrai and a smaller minority from Surakoûsai herself, the smallest number being foreign citizens fighting for pay or on principle. Then came the psiloi, about three-hundred slaves, conscripted freemen and farmers, all unencumbered by armour or shields and armed with everything from stones and gravel to light javelins and stone-launching slings. Lastly, something of an oddity in Hellenic warfare, but not in Sikelia and Magna Graecia, were the hundred or so horsemen that, combined with their steeds, ate more than any of the others in the camp but would be a great advantage during battle over less mobile enemies.

Many things caught the eye of Euaristos, but he had little time to think on them before he was ankle-deep in swirling water and surrounded by a gaggle of cackling women. They had been told what to do, and they were intent on doing it whether he liked it or not.

One moment he was standing in his dirtied chiton and fraying chalmys, his boots and cap flung over to the shore of the river and taken away to where he knew not, and the next moment he was being completely stripped until he stood as naked as the day he was born. Perhaps he should have been flattered that his body drew admiring glances from many of the women within eyesight, most pretending to do something else as they snatched glimpses of him through the curtain of bodies rubbing chill water on even his most personal areas, or from the nearest of the men training on the riverbank, but he clenched his eyes shut and tried to block their stares and the feeling of their scrabbling hands from his mind completely.

It had been a matter of minutes before strong but feminine hands gripped him by the shoulders, his eyes still entirely shut, and pressed him to his knees in the lazily moving current. He let out a gasp, the water washing over his lower body and about his stomach, and an even larger one as water was poured over his head and his hair yanked this way and that by those same hands. Droplets of water dribbled from his mouth, Euaristos having shut it too slowly the moment before, as the teeth of a comb was run through his blonde locks and a distinct tutting sound filled his ears. Other hands lifted his arms and soaked them in water, splashing it over his body until he knelt shivering and his feeling of curiosity was replaced by a numbness of body and mind.

“Get him up,” ordered one of the women, one of the more elderly he assumed, being lifted back to his feet and guided back to the shore where the camp loomed up-hill.

That same voice commanded him to open his eyes, and he did, staring into those of a face that was of an older woman with curling black tresses and the slit of a mouth across her face. Her own eyes flashed a dazzling green, and although she was beyond the age of a young maiden, the features that had made her beautiful in youth had not been worn away by the cruel hand of time. She was dressed simply, her clothing that of a free woman and a lady, a chalmys wrapped against a biting wind that made Euaristos shiver again.

Whilst he was momentarily distracted, something was pulled over his head, and Euaristos looked down to see the flowing folds of a thigh-length peplos. With barely disguised mirth, even on the face of the dominating woman, the women gathered the female garment about his waist and pinned the fold at the top together at his shoulders. Only then did he finally realise what they had done, dressing his hair and body in the style of a young hetairai, a female Greek 'companion', his already overtly fair appearance now taken to even greater lengths and openly gawked at by those he passed.

Too stunned to protest, too embarrassed to bother hiding his shame, Euaristos was marched through the camp and straight to the heavy leather flap of the Surakoûsan lords own tent. Twice as large as those of his men, yet oddly empty for all that, the two guards watched the boy pass as he was shoved into the presence of the nobleman by that same woman that had watched over his transformation.

Inside, Tisandros sat at a travelling desk, tablets stacked neatly and his armour on a dummy next to him. He still wore his sword, but now he had changed into a chiton of purple and finished his writings before he eventually raised his head and looked at the pair. It was then that Euaristos discovered Tisandros was not a monster, but a well-built man in his late thirties, his short dark hair greying at the temples and his blue eyes filled with a calculating intellect which one did not find often in a violent killer, but which Tisandros possessed in abundance.

For a moment each looked to the other, Tisandros to the woman, and the woman to Euaristos, and so forth, before Tisandros leant back in his chair of Etruscan timber and rubbed a hand over his stubble-covered chin.

“You have done well Galene, but you may leave us now,” he spoke to the woman, giving a small wave toward the same way she had come and waiting patiently for her to leave. Once she had he stood from his chair and moved to stand before his newest acquisition, appreciating the slim outline of the Kretans body and the smooth thighs which enticed him so much.

“Now paides, tell me honestly, are you Euaristos the Kretan? Slave of Sosion?”

“I am, lord,” replied the younger man, his voice quivering slightly as he spoke, “I admit that I ran from my master and sought to hide amongst your army. As a psiloi perhaps.”

“I see...” Tisandros chuckled, leaning in close enough to see the small beads of nervous sweat running down the boys face, “you speak well for a slave, you are educated then?”

Euaristos nodded, the sick feeling leaving his stomach temporarily as he realised he would not be immediately pressed upon, “that is so, lord. My master taught me many things, but made sure that I could read and write most of all.”

This seemed to impress Tisandros, and he gave a small nod, crossing his muscled arms over his broad chest, “you can recite the Illiad?” He asked, Euaristos giving a nod and speaking that he knew both it and the Odyssey by heart, “can you sing boy, any hymns or songs at all?” Again, he said that he knew many hymns and especially those dedicated to Apollo, this seemed to satisfy Tisandros, who towered over the smaller and more lithe figure like a Titan.

“Have you ever been to war, or seen it with your own eyes?”

“No, but I have often dreamed of fighting. Most men see me as something else...someone unworthy.”

Tisandros nodded again, running a hand through his hair and wetting his lips, “take off your clothes boy,” he grunted, “now.”

There was not much to take off, the women had seen to that, all that Euaristos had to do was unpin the shoulders of his garment and let it fall in a heap to the floor about his feet. It was then that he began to worry, his skin prickling in the suddenly cold air, the tent abruptly beginning to press in around him, and the casually questioning man turning in his mind into something a lot more dangerous.

A pant left the lips of the Surakoûsan, unbidden maybe, and Euaristos shrunk to see the flush of blood in his face and the other signs of arousal which had meant brutal harm at the hands of Sosion. This domineering lord, on the other hand, did not move from where he stood, but reached out a shaking hand, calloused and rough from the handling of weapons and waging of war, and traced a finger over the smooth skin of the boy from chin to the bottom of his chest. It was not a sudden movement, but slow and deliberate, and, to the boys great surprise, not altogether unpleasant.

“Euaristos,” chimed the leader of more than a thousand spears, his voice breathless in the gloom of the hide-formed tent, “it may interest you to know that your former master is on his way to the mother-city, Korinth, as we speak. He came to me not a week after your 'escape', pleading with me to find you and return you. Oh I have found you now, but, as I told him, I shall not be returning you.”

The statement hit Euaristos like a thunderbolt, and for a moment he thought of hugging Tisandros, but he was the slave and had no right to touch his master without permission. Many emotions now battled within his slender frame; bitterness at his master, at being taken again against his will, but also joy and even hope at having come into the possession of a man who seemed sure of himself and determined but also kindly, at least to him.

“You are mine now, my Kretan paidika,” this was a term commonly meaning 'favourite' or 'boy-toy' and Euaristos took the claim without response, “but you will also act as my hupaspistēs and armour-bearer whilst on campaign, in return I shall teach you to fight and let no other man lay claim to you or your favours. I will also expect to take my rights and lie with you, when and wherever I decide to, do you understand?”

There was nothing the boy could do but nod, now that Tisandros had made everything as clear as a cup of fresh water. He would be used both as a slave and as a lover, being taught the art of warfare by a man he barely knew but who had 'freed' him from the clutches of Sosion for all that.

“Excellent,” murmured the Surakoûsan, “I will see to it that you have a place to sleep in my tent, and clothing to wear as you desire. For now you will continue to wear that particular garment, it suits you.”

“Master?”

“Yes, my paidika?”

“What will happen tomorrow?”

A great laugh came from Tisandros, Euaristos pulling the peplos back over his naked form as the lord returned to his seat, “tomorrow...tomorrow I march on Megara Hyblaea, extend my influence and wealth, and you shall watch.”

[Rex Anglorvm]

Very brave writing having the lead character enslaved in such a manner, I know that it was a matter of form in ancient Greece, but its quite an unusual perspective on the boards.

Rep+

For some great writing again.

[McScottish]

Very brave writing having the lead character enslaved in such a manner, I know that it was a matter of form in ancient Greece, but its quite an unusual perspective on the boards.

Rep+

For some great writing again.

I wouldn't consider it particularly brave, though I realise it is indeed unusual amongst writers on the boards, but if someone dislikes it then they can take it up with the Ancient Greeks.

This is the way it was and the way I will write it; simple as that really.

Thank you for the rep Rex, hope you keep on reading/commenting.

[Rex Anglorvm]

This is the way it was and the way I will write it; simple as that really.

Thats a pretty straight forward statement

[McScottish]

Thats a pretty straight forward statement

Why make it complicated? The more I read about Ancient Greeks, the more laconic I seem to get.

As for continuing (thanks again for the rep ), this shall be continued until completion, or until the Spartan stacks get too much and overrun the entire map.

[McScottish]

Spring, 2nd year of the 67th Olympiad (511 BC)

War is glorious to those that do not know it, but Euaristos was soon to experience it with his own eyes, if not by actually participating in battle. For months of inaction he had been learning the duties that were required of him, how to clean a thorax, how to sharpen a sword and to polish a shield until it shone in the sun enough to blind an adversary. Tisandros, his newest master and greatest admirer, had given him only fleeting moments of attention in between the marshalling of his army, organising the supplies, and sleeping off vast quantities of wine, and after two weeks had even allowed him to begin adopting masculine clothing again.

The Kretan, who had become known amongst the more comedic of the warriors as 'the Beauty of Tisandros', had his own bed in the corner of the large tent and pent most nights awake. Each day he became more tired, and tired again the next, but so much ran through his mind that he could not find the will to slip into a slumber deep enough not to wake from mere seconds later. The worst part was not even knowing why, but soon enough he would find that he could sleep much better than he had before.

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

“Again!” Yelled Gerasimos, the eldest of the three men that had captured Euaristos, with nearly forty-two years to his name, but also the most dangerous of the trio, “how do you ever expect to kill anyone, with wild swings like that?” His voice came loud and without any quickening of breath, even as Euaristos swung his kopis again and found it stuck in the rim of his larger opponents aspis, “oh dear..” grunted the silver-bearded veteran, kicking Euaristos straight in the chest and sending him again to the floor.

It was a mild day in the bay formed by the Xiphonion promontory, on the east coast of the island and just downwind of Megara Hyblaea, within walking distance of the Megaran polis, but the Kretans clothing stuck to his body as he moved. So much was the sweat from hours of training, spaced between short pauses for water and a little food, Tisandros keeping to his promise of turning the soft envoys slave into someone worthy of standing next to his warrior-lover in the front line of a phalanx.

“Gerasimos,” panted the boy, taking a seat on a jutting rock and looking momentarily down at his hardening arm-muscles, but speaking as if he were looking right at the foreigner, “why do we not take Megara? The city is without walls, and do we not outnumber them as well?”

The old fox of a man gave a bark of laughter, slapping the Kretan a little too enthusiastically on his back, “you do not understand war,” he said in a serious tone, “Tisandros, our lord, is cautious by nature. When the Megarans are ready to come out of their city and fight, then he shall tear them apart as the lion does the hare. We have been encircling their city for three seasons now, burning their farmlands after we have looted them and taking whatever supplies they may have received from beyond their lands.” His shaggy head moved slowly in a sad motion, “even now the citizens of Megara Hyblaea are starving and yearning to either surrender or die,” he gave a shrug and a wry smile, “it all depends on which they choose to do first.”

He liked Gerasimos, the man rarely speaking except to give advice on a military lifestyle, or on some strategy or great battle, but when he did speak he did so with respect for his subject and enthusiasm almost unmatched amongst younger and less seasoned fighters and, as at that moment, he was very rarely wrong about his topics.

Tisandros was indeed cautious, and had done exactly as Gerasimos said, marching his infantry to within a couple of stades or so of the enemy city and then simply making camp right in front of their eyes. Psiloi, under noble officers, he had sent into the surrounding countryside to forewarn him of any approaching dangers, and to forage wherever and take whatever they could, and half of the hundred cavalry patrolled about the encircling force to pursue any within the trap that tried to escape.

Megara Hyblaea was never an exceedingly wealthy or militarily strong polis, but their leader, a coward named Lasthenes, was a supporter of the democratic form of government prevalent in Athēnai and had to be removed.

This was helped by an oligarch of the city who had been a guest-friend in the house of Kallippos of Surakoûsai for some time, a certain Herakleides of Megara Hyblaea, a nobleman's son who had been exiled with his family and spent most of his energies on courting Timo, fifteen year old daughter of Kallippos. It was he who, upon hearing of Tisandros and his plans, leapt to horse and rode immediately to the Surakoûsans camp, where he knelt down and placed his hands in those of Tisandros and was welcomed warmly.

A second bond between the two peoples did also exist, and that was in their blood ties.

Both Surakoûsai and and Megara Hyblaea, the child of Megara near the Isthmus of Korinth, were bound by Korinthian ancestry and blood. Both were colonies of people in a foreign land, and each could have been firm allies, had not Lasthenes come with his head full of politics and his mouth full of honey-soaked lies to turn the Megarans heads. Tisandros had already sent heralds to request that the oligarchic faction in the city hand him over, but they were ousted by the larger democratic faction and so it meant war.

“Not even eight-hundred hoplitai can they muster,” continued the now stretching hoplite, bones clicking as he bent and twisted this way and that, “and each day more of them die from starvation or Apollo's arrows shot into them,” with a sigh he stood once more and splashed water over his face from a leather hide drinking skin, “mark my words, boy. They will not last another week, by all the Makhai, daimones of battle and war, I swear this.”

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

Again, he was not wrong, and Euaristos had his first look at a conflict between two rival cities.

The approach to Megara Hyblaea, on the south-facing side of the city at least, was the perfect setting for a clash of shields and shivering of spears. It was an almost completely flat plain, absent really of any rocks or nuisances underfoot that would upset the step of the warrior-aristocrat going into battle, the weather only matching this with the idyllic blue it was coloured and the bright sun of Helios burning away in the heavens and causing the mortals on earth to sweat inside their helmets and thoraxes of moulded bronze.

Euaristos had been allowed by Tisandros to keep the curve-bladed kopis he used to train with, a sign that at least his master did not think he would kill him in his sleep, a sure symbol of trust between them, and the half-boy half-man of six-and-ten years old idly placed a hand on the expertly weighted hilt as he watched the two armies assemble to meet each other. He had been expressly ordered to remain out of the battle, and even allowed to sit on one of the few elevated positions from where one could see the engagement in relative safety and comfort.

Some thought it odd that he had been given such liberties with armament and freedoms unknown to most of the other slaves, putting it down to his bewitchment of their leader. Euaristos, however, was not some barbaroi with a taste for Hellenic blood. He had been born into a Greek world, moulded by it, and although sold into slavery he had never been treated as harshly as others, his appearance and abilities acted as a double-edged xiphos to be sure. Not only this, but he had given his word that he would not try to escape, and whether it was his Kretan upbringing, his remembrance of the heroes in the Illiad, or something else entirely, he planned to honour his word-bond.

This was why he had been allowed such liberties, this was why Tisandros did not need to worry about a kopis in the back or across his neck, this was why Euaristos now sat upon that hill and looked down on that sunlit day on an pastoral field that would soon be drenched with blood, with no thoughts of escape or release surfacing from the ever-moving waters of his mind.

[McScottish]

Spring, 2nd year of the 67th Olympiad (511 BC)

Cloying and close was the air within the white walls of the largest tent in the camp, the tent of Tisandros, the largest yet sparsest by far. Inside stood the man himself, Tisandros of Surakoûsai, his arms held up on either side of him whilst a Sikel slave tried to hurriedly strap the back and front pieces of his muscled bronze thorax into place. Already the lord of men, an oligarch to the marrow of his bones, had pulled a red-dyed chiton over the top of his head and placed two sandals on his feet, the unembellished bronze greaves fitting snugly but not painfully about his lower legs, and his distinctly coloured helmet remained on the wooden dummy where it was. That piece would be the last item which he would furnish himself with.

Standing in the middle of his tent, the Sikel muttering to himself in his own language as he fiddled and jiggled the backplate for a better fit, gave Tisandros and his mind plenty of time to wander. Wander into a world of daydreams.

One such daydream, a particular favourite of his for the last few months, rose above the others and very soon he was captured by it once again. It included, as would be expected, the Kretan boy that he had so readily taken from Sosion and his fawning clutches. Tisandros was a sensualist of life, a hedonist to some degree, a lover of all things beautiful, and Euaristos was nothing if not beautiful. Favoured by the Gods themselves, even. He imagined the first time he had seen him, cowering somewhat in the dirt, covered in unwashed sweat and grime from his journey. He saw in his minds eye the firm body of the sixteen year old, the exquisite and smooth flesh of his unmarked torso, the feminine face and pointed chin, the narrow hips and slender but softly muscled legs and arms...and other things beside.

How he wanted to ravish the boy, to dominate him completely, in body and in mind, but he was not the former master of Euaristos. He was not especially violent towards his slaves and chattels and saw no need to pounce upon the boy at night like some common and low-born brigand, but to make the boy love him instead. Already he had given him freedoms that he would not have given others; the right to bear a weapon even in his presence, permission to wander where he would within the confines of the camp, to train with one of his senior warriors and - only this day - approval to find a space from whence to watch the coming slaughter.

“Ah!” Hissed the noble, bought straight back to reality by a pin-prick, a backhanded slap catching the dull Sikel across his face. “Next time, you will get more than that, now how do I look?” The cowering slave peeked over the edge of his up-flung arms, expecting more punishment on the spot, “exquisite, massster, like Akhilleus himssself,” replied the Sikel in a lisp that Tisandros found somehow greatly irritating.

“Helmet!”

Tisandros grabbed the Korinthian helmet in one hand and placed it on his head, tipped back against his forehead like some statue, the horse-hair crest of black and red trailing down between his shoulder-blades.

“Flap.”

The flap of the tent was opened, and beyond it the Surakoûsan could see his mounted retainers, each dressed for battle in their finest armour and mounted on their best steeds. It made Tisandros smile to note that the weather was fine and dry - the fresh air touching him as he stepped out onto the space of the field left behind the lines of his infantry now drawing up to face their foes.

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

The battle which took place that bright and airy day, on that almost too perfect field outside Megara Hyblaea, was, it could be said, nothing more than 'normal'. Both sides formed their own lines, the Surakoûsan line distinctly overlapping that of their outnumbered and enfeebled enemy, singing paeans to the Gods and listening keenly for the order to advance into the fray. Most of them anyway, some being nothing more than farmers who had spears thrust into their hands, and at least three of the Surakoûsan taxies made up of native Sikels led by Hellenes, men who were none too thrilled to be fighting for the very same people that used others of them as disposable slaves or hunting them as military training.

Tisandros had thought well, inter-spacing his Sikel formations between those more loyal to him, holding his psiloi in reserve behind the thick bronze-armoured line, and making sure that his cavalry were ready on the flanks to sweep in when needed or to sweep away and opposition they were commanded to destroy. On the other side of the field, outlined against their own homes and temples, the Megaran colonists extended their lines as far in each direction as they could without breaking it, their own 'small-people' milling about in confusion and the only cavalry on their side being the mounted nobles who were loyal to and followed Lasthenes and his commands.

Both strategoi knew that Lasthenes was no leader, no figurehead on the battlefield, and the near-dead hoplitai of the Korinthian founded settlement allowed their spears to waver in the days breeze. It was well known to all men of war that ones men should stand with their spears upright and unmoving, showing no fear to your enemy, but it was clear on that day that the Megarans were either too weak from the encircling siege, scared of what would become of them once the battle commenced and after, or more probably all three.

The oligarchic leader of Akrai looked over his army with a smile on his neatly bearded face, not that anyone could see beneath the helmet which made him as anonymous as any other warrior on the field, his horse shifting impatiently beneath him and a hooded figure striding over to him with one arm covered up to the elbow in blood.


“So Nisos, what do the Gods say?”

Nisos, the most senior priest in Akrai, an old ex-hoplite who travelled with Tisandros and his army when it went to war, raised his bloodied knife to the blue-filled sky and made his divinely guided proclamation, “the liver was clear and all the signs we good, you shall win a great victory here and take the city of your blood-cousins. The false figurehead shall be cast down from a great height and it is to you that Megara Hyblaea shall look for their future.” This was what Tisandros wanted to hear, the smile on his face only widening, but also what he already knew would come to pass. It was as he was about to order the men forward that Nisos appeared at the side of his large chestnut steed, “be wary, lord,” he spoke, “this action displeases your father – and shall incur the wrath of your brothers.”

A laugh echoed from inside the helmet, the crest bobbing up and down as Tisandros threw back his head, “worry not priest, for my life or my safety, my father Epikydes is bed-ridden and nearly dead, and I fear none of my brothers save one. Go, and be content, once I have crushed these here I shall go to see them all.”

Stern, almost regal in his bearing, the head priest removed himself to the rear and safer part of the field and watched with the lower priests that which was going to occur.

One grave nod to a young aulètès at the rear of the nearest phalanx was all that was required, the adolescent boy, not yet old enough and far too skilled to join his comrades in the rank-and-file, striking up a marching rhythm as the Spartans did and the men all about beginning to stamp their feet but going nowhere. Each formation did likewise, stamping the left and the right and preparing their spears as they did so, a slight change in the tune of the double reeds and an unspoken signal sending over a thousand hoplites straight at the enemy, the chiton-clad psiloi jogging or sprinting along behind with their brace of javelins over their heads, slings whirring, or just stones clutched in their fists.

Left – and – right and left – and – right, one foot in front of the other they went, walking to meet their foe in the time-honoured tradition of Hellenic warfare. Tisandros knew that this attack was unprovoked, having given Lasthenes not even the chance to cease his democratic murmurings and leave peacefully, but it was far too late for that now and blood would be shed.

On the other side of the field the Megarans proved to be braver men than first thought, coming on in a similar style, crests shifting in the breeze, all hunger tightened faces and gritted teeth, some men pissing themselves as they walked and others muttering oaths and prayers to the heavens, the designs of a trieres bough or a flying pegasus showing starkly in the sunlight as they marched. Their own psiloi cantered forward with whoops, heaving their weapons into the air and hoping to strike down even one of the attacking army, stones bouncing from bronze-faced aspides and javelins scratching away the paint, one man even falling here and another there but not enough to even give the aggressors pause.

Riding over to the right flank of his army, cloak whipping in the wind, it was the Megarans next actions that caused Tisandros to hesitate and even to salute his opposition. They had began to gather some speed, their steps doubling that of his own force, the Megarans screaming from parched throats as they hurled themselves straight into the Surakoûsan front ranks and by the Gods very nearly broke it! Had there been more like these, thought Tisandros with a slight shiver, he may have just lost the battle. As it was, the men of Megara Hyblaea had less than eight-hundred hoplitai which were outnumbered by their own psiloi, and one they had made the initial charge it began to show.

Oh, they had made a fine show. Even Euaristos was able to hear the clatter of arms and hammering of one mans shield against another from where he sat, but now that their charge had been absorbed their was little to do but shove and keep shoving until one side gave way. This would not be allowed to happen, however, and the Surakoûsan line began to turn its flanks inward, marching along the face of their own formations to attack the flanks of their enemy phalanxes. It was a rather complex movement, especially in the heat of battle, but Tisandros had drilled his men well and they knew what they were about.

“Look at them!” Yelled Tisandros above the din, watching approvingly as his psiloi melted between or around the armoured combatants to get at their opposites on the other side. The Surakoûsan horsemen on either flank, cavalry of a higher quality than those found anywhere on the island, darted about the fringes of the central combat and plunged headlong into their dirt-scraping prey, like hawks on a common bird or ravenous wolves converging on a newly born calf.

It was the glint of sun on a helmet that gave Lasthenes away, the cowardly orator seeking to escape towards the coast with a few picked men. Tisandros would not allow this, giving a great bellow and waving for his bodyguard to follow, stretching his horses legs to their fullest in an effort to catch the one that had bought Megara Hyblaea to this crossroads. A crossroads it would not recover from quickly. Dust choked and half-blinded him as he swept on, clods of turf kicked up by his mount and all the while Lasthenes and his men got smaller and smaller in the distance. His and his own were not riding common nags though, nor the imported Italian horses which Lasthenes had managed to buy, but thoroughbred Sikelian animals that ate up the stades and would have outpaced the enemy in any weather.

“Lasthenes!” Roared the upright Tisandros, flailing his kopis about in the air, mere metres away from the Megaran demagogue “face me you coward, face me now or die a tired man.”

By now his retinue had caught up with him, the horses of Lasthenes and his followers almost blown, and the battle behind them decided as soon as the two lines touched. Lasthenes knew that he had nowhere to go, could run no further, knew full well that there was no escape. Right at the end, when his life was forfeit, it passed that he was no coward after all.

Two feet hit the flanks of his horse and he was away from his followers, charging headlong at the Surakoûsan nobleman with his own blade drawn and his lips pulled back into a snarl between his cool cheek pieces. Tisandros rode forward to meet him, leaning his body forward as the distance closed, each combatant weighing up a strike that could kill one of them and save the other.

One, two, and they were beside one another, Lasthenes seeking to strike an overhead blow into the oligarchs arm, Tisandros avoiding it by countering with a swing at the wrist of his foe. Flop, and a hand separated from a wrist, the hand still holding a finely crafted blade as it fell to the earth, Tisandros past Lasthenes by now but twisting in his saddle to hack at the back of the groaning and bleeding mans neck. His own sword cut beneath the rim of Lasthenes' helmet to expose tissue, bone, and fountains of blood, the entire body of the dead democrat slumping forward across the neck of his eerily calm mount.

Cries of victory reached the ears of the only living leader, his hands skilfully turning the horse about to see Megaran soldiers tossing away shields, helmets and anything else that would hinder them. Behind them came the men that had beaten them, and would very soon ransack their city, taking their wives and daughters and killing or enslaving any men of fighting age that trembled inside houses or tried to resist.

“See to it that each man gets his far share of the spoils, in both flesh and coin,” chuckled Tisandros to the man he trusted most after himself, a young Akraian of noble blood named Elatreos, “I have things to take care of.”

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

He had known it would be that night, he had known as soon as he had seen the enslaved Megarans bought out onto the field and shared between their oppressors. Euaristos was not a clever as he liked to think, but he was far from stupid. Inside the tent of his master he waited, his kopis next to the small straw and sheep wool pallet on the floor where he slept and now sat, facing the only entrance into the structure, a bowl of cool water and a cloth within arms reach. Yes, he had known it would be that night and arranged everything accordingly, sending away the slippery Sikel slave, dressing in the starkest chiton that his master had given him and braiding his hair so that it curled in a sort of 'tail' over one shoulder and around the back of his neck.

When Tisandros arrived he broke his stride in the doorway, giving a shake of his head and then a grunt as he espied the Kretan. Regaining his purpose for the moment, he walked over to the wooden dummy and slid his helmet from his head, placing it at the highest point of the upright pole, all the while trying to not look at Euaristos. It was not his choice really, as there was no-one else to held him remove his armour, the boy having already moved from his bed and walked over to the sweat-stained lord with a bowl in one hand and a cloth in the other. These he placed down beside them both, and began to take off his masters sandals and thorax.

“Euaristos,” murmured the Surakoûsan in the half-darkness, only a small fire illuminating the tent, “you do not have to agree to anything if you do not wish it, I have slaves and...” he stopped when he realised that it all sounded like so many excuses, because he wanted his paides and he knew that Euaristos would not refuse. “What I mean is, I do not want to force you and you should make your own choice.”

“I have made my choice,” replied the Kretan quietly, having removed every item of clothing from his master, picking up the bowl and soon covering the scarred torso in water, “you are not Sosion, and treat me as a human. You have not raised a hand to me and I do not fear you as I feared him. You could have simply had me without asking, but you are more than that.”

Placing the bowl aside once more, Euaristos went to stand before the man that was both his master and would soon become much more, taking in the strong body and not unkind face, looking up into those grey eyes and lifting his chiton over his head to stand in equal starkness.

Neither had to say anything more, because love, or what mortals call love, is undefined by station in life, by gender or by anything that man could fathom. Tisandros looked on the beauty of a boy he had chosen to protect from another, to possess and make his own, and realised that this was so. Euaristos looked back with the thoughts of one who knew hardship, sold because of his appearance, but now coveted for it. Both felt a draw to the other, and while the Surakoûsan army celebrated late into the night, soldiers drinking too heavily and already losing their plunder to other men and women, none of the army caught a moments sleep and neither did they.

[McScottish]

Winter in Akrai, 2nd year of the 67th Olympiad (511 BC)

Farmers looked to one another and smiled, thanking the Gods for the weather of Sikelia but each urging their neighbour to prepare for one of the common storms or high winds that blew in from the sea. This, not snowfall or deathly freezes, were the worries of most farmers in the territories governed from the grand polis of Surakoûsai, and unlike their cousins on the mainland of Hellas, the lords of that city were able to continue playing at war and have their slaves and freemen gather harvests throughout the year. There was one city that stood above this though, and it was here that Tisandros had once more retired to, leaving Herakleides to calm the people of Megara Hyblaea and bend them to the will of their larger and more prosperous brother and sister poleis.

Akrai was that place, a colony of a colony, a city founded by Surakoûsan immigrants into the interior of the island. Seventy years after the founding of Surakoûsai, within the living memory of some in the past, families shifted from the coastal polis of their birth and moved due west into the south-eastern innards of the fractured island. It must have been a military mind that founded the city, a keen intellect that thought to keep away the native Sikels, for the fledgling colony was founded on a hill of soaring height. From those heights one was able to see most of the surrounding countryside, and on a clear day even the coast of the island and Surakoûsai herself.

For all this, it had never been a prosperous place, dependent on the mother-city for most things, after all it was not exactly an excellent place for farming and agriculture. Two theatres it had though, a larger one for plays and acts, and a smaller one intended for musical performances, as well as temples to the Gods, statues of the city's greatest leaders, cave tombs in the hillside, and lastly a procession of life-size figures carved into the very native rock.

It was over this polis that Tisandros claimed lordship, in the guise of an oligarchic ruler who took council with friends and listened to the orders of his dying father. Here is where he bought his share of the enslaved Megarans, nearly two-hundred of them, and along with them came Euaristos. Unknown to the Kretan, most unfortunately unknown, was that Akrai was also where dwelt Anteia, the wife of Tisandros, and with her his four year old son and eight year old daughter.

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

“How many of my siblings have arrived?” Grunted the riled oligarch, reclining on an imported couch of Latin make, his handsome face a mask of irritation.

Well should his expression be so...

Only days after leaving Megara Hyblaea, hearing of his victory and his return south, his father had sent a herald to arrange a meeting in his city. Whilst his home and furnishings were enough for his three kin, and two other guest-friends not of Surakoûsai, being the largest building in Akrai and with enough rooms for three times that number, he was in no mood to hold one of his fathers boring and utterly pointless councils. No doubt the old man - nearly seventy years old and unable to move from place to place without being carried on a litter - would moan at him for having the audacity to take another city without his leave, his brothers looking on with smirks on their faces, and he would once again be shamed in his own home.

That was not all!

For ever since reaching his homestead, his wife meeting him at the door with a cup of wine, dressed more for a pyre than a welcome for her husband, her manner toward him had been frosty at best and non-existent at worst. He knew why of course, it was because Euaristos was never far from his side and outshone plain Anteia at every turn. Not that she was truly plain, being of good noble blood and fine breeding, beautiful and willowy in the same way as a delicate flower but often prone to sickness and liable to blow away in a stiff breeze. Tisandros would often wonder how she had managed to birth his two children, Euthaleia and Damoxenos, without dying in the process. No, he knew she was harder than she looked, having felt her knife-like tongue often enough.

Now he was home, his oldest and most loyal slave, an Iberian who he simply called Audax, putting to work those he had taken from his conquest and finding those that would be willing to fill the ranks of the taxis of Akrai. Some would be good for battle, some for the farm, and others good for nothing at all - such was always the way with slaves.

As for Euaristos, he was given a room all his own, but forced by the situation to keep his distance from his master and lover, going each day to find Gerasimos for further training. These trips often ended with a few bruises, but slowly Euaristos was beginning to learn the skills of a man, even if he still did not look like one. Gerasimos was a retainer of Tisandros and his family, accepted into the families service when Tisandros was still a young man, and so he was always around if the Kretan wished to speak to someone of life and love and woes and death, the much older man listening carefully and then answering in his usual laconic fashion – his answers commonly short but always to the point.

Back in the hall, Tisandros awaited an answer to his question from that same simpering Sikel who acted as his baggage-bearer on campaign. A man he neither trusted nor cared for.

“None, assss of yet my lord, but Archimelosss of Kasmenai arrived this afternoon. Should I bring him into your prescence?”

Giving a hiss like his slave, Tisandros sat upright on the long seat and ran a hand through his hair, a grimace now replacing the irritated look, “no, keep him away for now.” He idly waved a hand towards the door of the hall, “leave me.”

Archimelos was a known supporter of democracy and Tisandros had no desire to see him just yet, his smug face and his deliberately effeminate airs. No, not yet. He would wait until they all arrived and only then would he deign to speak.

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

Four from Surakoûsai there were on the eve of the meeting, the sons of Epikydes and Epikydes himself, Kallippos being the eldest son at two-and-forty years, then Tisandros, and the youngest at one-and-twenty years, Dionysios.

With them came others, up those steep hills and along the central rode that avoided the Hyblaean Mountains, named after the Sikel chieftain Hyblon, a road that ran west from Surakoûsai, past Akrai, Kasmenai and Akrillai – all apoikia or colonies of Surakoûsai themselves – and on to Gela and Akragas that owed their allegiance to Kreto-Rhodion colonists and by now had conquered the great portion of the island, leaving the Lakedaemonian-led polis of Selinunte and the Phoenikians to scrap over the westernmost parts of the island. Some, such as Herakleides of Megara Hyblaea and Archimelos of Kasmenai, were well known to those members of the oligarchic elite, that ruled from Surakoûsai over the south-eastern corner of Sikelia, whilst others were rather unknown entities.

These 'unknowns' were mostly delegates and envoys from other colonies, even a couple from the native peoples of the island, and on the day that the council met, the house of Tisandros – more like a palace but called a house nonetheless – was filled with splashes of colour and the sound of dialects formerly unbeknownst inside those sturdy stone walls. Amongst the sombre black items of clothing usually worn by the Surakoûsans and their 'children', those from colonies like Akrai, there could be seen the browns and beige of the Rhodians, the greens and deep oranges of the Kretans, and even one or two carmine cloaks signifying that Sparte – or at least those who considered themselves to be Spartan - were present.

In amongst the mass of twenty-or-so grown men, Euaristos stood in a spotless black chiton and a pair of Kretan boots, drawing admiring and lustful glances from many of the attending parties. These he did his best to ignore, staying close to Tisandros as he moved about the room, carrying his wine jug and feeling at each moment the sharp prick of pain that was Anteia boring holes and jamming figurative daggers into his back.

After an hour of milling about like headless chickens, Tisandros raised his voice and announced that all should be seated, the usual furniture of the eating hall having been replaced temporarily with a whole series of couches and any number of wine and food-bearing slaves. Each representative had likely bought their own slaves, but the children of Epikydes had a reputation of grandeur to maintain, and Tisandros would not let others see him fail.

“Epikydes of Surakoûsai!” Announced Audax, immediately silencing himself again as a stretcher supported on the shoulders of four men was carried into the room and set down at the head of the two rows trailing down either side. Euaristos gasped when he saw Epikydes, such a feared man in his own lifetime, looking like nothing more than a withered husk. He had features similar to Tisandros, and all three of his sons stood until he was 'seated', but hair of the purest white and a scraggly beard which would have looked more suitable on a mad ventriloquist. Over his skeletal body he wore a blue chiton, and it was plain to see that he had once been a fine-looking man, but now fallen into the slow decay of the elderly and nearly dead. One and the same to most.

“I bring greetings to you all from Surakoûsai and her children,” intoned Epikydes in a voice like dust being carried on a whispering wind, “I have assembled this council to discuss matters of war and peace, but first...” he bent a finger towards Tisandros, asking him to come forth and kneel, which he did with some embarrassment, “I congratulate my son, mighty Tisandros, on his victory over the Megaran democrats!”

There was some murmuring, and Euaristos noticed the soft face of Archimelos, almost as feminine as his own, twist briefly into the look of someone who had just eaten an insect. An interesting figure, this man from Kasmenai, rich on trading profits and dressed in fineries which emphasised both his position as a wealthy individual and his slender body, which he draped across the couch with all the poise and grace of a lounging feline. Yes, there was something oddly androgynous about his long dark hair, the lashes of his eyes and his maiden-like frame. Yet, for all that, he was respected and even feared by more than a few of those in the room, and this piqued the Kretans interest quite a bit.

“Now, my largest concern” pressed the aged man once his son had retired back to his own seat, the size of the room alone luckily carrying his voice to all ears, “Gela and Akragas.” His eyes lit up, casting themselves casually over the Kreto-Rhodian heralds, their faces already pinched with looks of worry, the smile that came to his face was one that showed the younger man he had once been, “it appears to me that you men of these cities have become quite powerful, fighting through Sikels, Chalkidians and Megarans to rule the greatest part of this island. Yet in the process, you have made a mistake. You appear to have stretched your forces too thinly and left your guts exposed to any sharpened blade.”

“I will not stand for this!” Squawked the representative of Gela, rising from his seat with his fellows and sweeping towards the doorway of the hall in haste.

“Wait!” Epikydes called after them, the five men pausing on the very threshold of the room, “leave this place now, and I shall consider it an act of open war.”

Pride – it often gets in the way of more rational decisions, and is one of the lower emotions of man, but these envoys were so full of it that they ignored the truth that was right under their noses. Gela and Akragas were both exposed, sorely so, their garrisons stripped by Metrodoros of Gela and Theron of Akragas for their expansive campaigns across Sikelia. If the leaders of Surakoûsai wished to have those wealthy coastal towns, well, all they had to do was march an army in and occupy them. Or near enough. Pride, those heralds walked out of that room and bought doom upon their people from the first, no-one knowing what Epikydes may have offered them had they not.

“So be it...” muttered the old warhorse, genuine sadness slipping over his face, only those closest to him able to tell what he was thinking.

Regaining his composure, he now looked to the two figures swathed in their roughly woven cloaks of red, each one a fine specimen of manhood with hair braided and knotted and neatly shaped beards on their chins. Both wore an equally red exomis or one-armed chiton beneath their distinctly Spartan tribon cloaks, leaving one shoulder and half of the chest bare, as well as a short xiphos beneath their arms, known to the Spartans as an encheiridion due to the famously short length of the blade.

“My friends from Selinunte, I trust that I can count on the support of your arms when this matter reaches its climax?”

The pair glanced at one another, he who was clearly the older speaking for the both of them, “we are pressed by the Phoenikians,” he spoke, meaning there is little chance of sending help, our forces are already engaged on that front, “but we shall do as we can,” which meant exactly that. As a gesture of good will between the two powers, the older warrior offered his own son, the second and younger man, as a sort of hostage, Tisandros immediately offering to house him as a guest-friend. His name was Adrastos, a name meaning 'he who stands his ground', and if the decision displeased him in any way then it did not show on his face – a face that to the onlooker seemed handsome and without flaw, but to those that looked closely was also full of danger.

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

Night moved in swiftly, and men left the evenings event in twos and threes, and very soon it was only the Surakoûsan oligarchs and their Lakedaemonian hostage that remained. Four seated and one standing, as he had all evening. Herakleides had been sent back to Megara Hyblaea to keep the polis under the Surakoûsan thumb, whilst Archimelos rode back to Kasmenai to make sure firm defences were in place if Gela or Akragas tried to attack from the western frontier.

“Tell me Kallippos,” worried the old oligarch, speaking to his eldest son and heir, “what does Diogeiton of Leontinoi send against us?”

Kallippos was almost the spitting image of what Epikydes had once been, packed with muscle and broad across the shoulders, his face much like that of Tisandros but little like his youngest brother, his hair beginning to turn silver in streaks and his face rather serious. Married to a girl two years his junior, she had produced two sons for him, the eldest of which was the same age as Euaristos and named Hieron. Tisandros was the only other with a son, for the moment, and the tension between oldest and middle son was palpable in the air.

“That democrat sends few true warriors, his army made of light troops and some cavalry for the most part. Perhaps two-hundred hoplitai, no more and probably less. For now he sits an army on the border between our latest conquest and his own fertile lands. He will strike us if we do not hammer him first, that I promise.”

“Eight miles inland and with so much fertile land surrounding it, bordered by Katane and my own Surakoûsai. Chalkidian scum.” Taking a large two-handled krater from a nearby slave, the stick-ruler of one of the rising Greek polis placed it to his lips and drank deep, spilling blood-like wine down his chiton and, upon taking it away from his stained face, glared about like some cannibal who had recently feasted, “you must destroy this army! Take what men you need and do it, that is my will!”

Dionysios , who had been sitting silently throughout the proceedings, now spoke up, “what of me, father?” His voice was soft, sounding as if he were making insidious threats every time he spoke, “what would you have me do whilst my brothers claim victories?” To Euaristos, silent as the stone of the walls and just as inconspicuous, that sounded very much like a threat. Dionysios, only one-and-twenty years of age, married to a girl of thirteen years, was a known supporter of tyrannical government and openly despised his blood-kin for their oligarchic ways.

Epikydes knew that his son would get out of hand if not given something to do, even though he looked so harmless in his saffron-coloured chiton, his face still that of a growing boy and not that of a full-grown man. Nonetheless, he commanded a substantial army from a fortlet that had been built on the coastal routes between Gela and Kasmenai and his soldiers loved him. He believed himself superior to lower men, but treated his followers as if they were his own blood. More than his true family in fact.

“Dionysios...to you I give the heaviest task – it is you who shall place your spear in the heart of Gela and who shall bring them to their knees.”

Euaristos could see the face of that young and glory-hungry tyrant-in-the-making begin to glow, a glow coming from beneath his skin, a rush of power no doubt. Power that he had always craved, and now that he would soon have. Gela, a city on the southern coast of the island and founded by Kretans and Rhodians forty-four years after Surakoûsai, always at war with the Sikels of the interior and now a conquering force in its own right, becoming powerful enough to found the colony of Akragas and rising ever higher. A perfect target for a tyrant to take, and to rule like the despot that Dionysios sought to become.

If Epikydes or any of his brothers had any fears or thoughts on this political matter, they did not say, content to recline and drink. Euaristos could see that something troubled the stoic Adrastos, and their eyes even met for the briefest of moments, but both kept their thoughts inside their heads and let no words pass the fences of their teeth.

“Tisandros, you shall accompany him,” ah, so here was the linchpin in the scheme, Tisandros acting as a counter to his brother ruthlessness, “take this young Spartiate with you...and that ravishing Kretan lad who thinks I had not noticed him, yes you!”

It was now that Tisandros rose and moved to stand between both Adrastos and his lover, “I shall take them, I shall even make this Spartiate his personal trainer,” announced the richest man Euaristos had ever known, “now, if you please, this symposium is over.”

[SonOfApollo]

Very good, merry Christmas McScottish!

[McScottish]

Very good, merry Christmas McScottish!

I do not believe in Christmas, except for presents, but thank you anyway. A merry Christmas to you too, sir! May you receive everything you desire.

[Knonfoda]

I do not believe in Christmas, except for presents, but thank you anyway. A merry Christmas to you too, sir! May you receive everything you desire.

Oh don't give me that you big scrooge! Drink and be merry! Christmas isn't about actually *believing* in it, it is about surrendering yourself to the festivities, getting bloatedly fat with yuletide treats, all that between bouts of getting yourself blindly drunk with all manner of alcoholic assortments the lord(s) have seen fit to put under the sky!

So it is in that spirit that I have to say I spent the last two or so hours, with a nice glass of whisky and a full stomach, reading your latest saga, and what can I say? The tale is about as "real" as they come, and I love that. When I think of something "realist" - I think of your writing McScottish. You pain both picture and character with an expert brush, nothing remains untouched - the scenery, the setting, the politics of it all, the characterisation, nothing! I like it all.

In particular, I second the comment that says you are indeed brave in portraying the main character - Euaristos - in such a way, as not only a slave, but a paedos too. While in antiquity and in particular classical antiquity, such relationships between even free men and older Greeks were common, they are quite distasteful to today's senses (pederasty anyone?) and yet, you stick to your (historical) guns and go with it, and I salute you for that - verisimilitude is everything, down to the small details like using the proper names and terminology for cities, ranks, apparel and so forth, to the more elaborate details such as these.

As always, your writing flows with that feel and emotion that only someone who both knows what they are writing about but also who can write about it well, telling a good tale in the making and making me really want to know what will become of Euaristos, and even his master, and what destiny will allow him to carve out of life.

My only gripe would be that a screenie, tiny as it may be, would be very helpful. It wouldn't have to be anything major, just say a city on the campaign map (with everything else around it cropped) or a character image, or a character scroll, or even just a little bit of the map. Not every update, hell, not even often or frequently, but now and again - to situate the reader in the actual plot of the game, and even if just for a bit of colour. That would be it, in regards to everything else, don't change a thing!

So on that note, yes, MERRY CHRISTMAS (thanks for making it a good one for me with your writing) and all the best, be merry and prosperous!

[McScottish]

My great and deepest thanks to you Knonfoda; and I hope you enjoyed the birthday(s) of Mithras as much as I have, and that you got everything you desired.

As for the tale, well, I can't really say anything that I've not already said to you before, for you have supported me in most of my endeavours and are yourself a writer of some fame upon these forums (and maybe away from them too?). I'd no idea I was such a 'realist', but I can only say that I am happy to oblige you in your assessment of my writing if I can.

Screenies...not something I commonly do, but from time-to-time I may post up some, if this is truly the will of the council.

[Audacia]

I've really enjoyed this McScottish, I too wouldn't mind some screenshots but your work is really quite enthralling. Keep it up!

[Rex Anglorvm]

I've just finished reading your excellent recent updates to this tale; I think Knonfoda has hit the nail on the head quite nicely, your writing although always historically accurate also manages to engage the reader in the everyday little details of life, I just wish you would finish one of these fine saga's

Rep+ (when I can)

[McScottish]

The Year of Expansion, 3rd year of the 67th Olympiad (510 BC)

Using Euaristos, his lover and baggage-carrier, as a scribe had not come readily to the mind of Tisandros since the day he had taken possession of the boy. As he strode from one end of his chamber to another, having allowed the Kretan back his writing instruments and wax tablets, he now realised what a mistake that had been on his part. Yes, the boy was exceptionally beautiful and skilled where it counted, but he also possessed an education such as that given to most aristocrats and not the dull and cloddish mind of some of the more base slaves which served him.

“Do the Gods exist?” He mused openly, waiting for the scribble of the Kretans stylus to die away before continuing with his monologue, “and, if they do, do they listen to the words and prayers of men?”

It was a question that had been playing on the mind of Tisandros ever since the fourth year of the current Olympiad had began, and since things had began to change...

Only a few months after the meeting held at Akrai did Epikydes of Surakoûsai go to meet his ancestors, nearly seventy years of life gifted to him by Zeus Hypatos before Hades decided to take him down into the Underworld where heroes and mighty warriors dwell.

Being the eldest, and a most loyal son, Kallippos swore by the Gods and his ancestors to follow the will of Epikydes by conquering all of Sikelia and bending it to the will of Surakoûsai. Such an action had been expected, and so Tisandros and Dionysios were both prepared to lead their warriors into battle and pacify any that would stand against their mother-city. Just as Epikydes had promised, the Kreto-Rhodians of Gela and Akragas were some of the first to feel the sting of Surakoûsan spears, Dionysios and Tisandros moving east whilst Kallippos pushed north-west into the lands of Leontinoi and defeated their leader, Diogeiton. He enslaved those citizens that resisted, a policy that would continue to be used with all enemy poleis, but left alone those that would accept his will and judgement on all matters.

This was the first moment that Dionysios, the youngest of the three brothers at one-and-twenty years and the largest supporter of tyranny amongst them, began to make his way towards becoming the most powerful of the three. No-one would have suspected that he was capable of such subterfuge, such blind ambition, or that he would one day make of himself an impregnable target.

He had began innocently enough, and logically too, asking Tisandros after the taking of Gela to go and besiege Akragas and take it for Kallippos. Tisandros was only too happy to oblige, unknowingly leaving his brother to begin asserting his dominance over Gela. Dionysios had always wished to be a tyrant, and becoming the tyrant of Gela was something that highly appealed to him, a web he began to spin as soon as the last of the Akraian men were out of the city and on the road westward.

Kallippos had defeated the Leontinoi on their own ground, tearing apart any number of musters sent against him, with spear and sword and horse, and after installing an oligarchy under several prominent leaders he marched his wearied but elated forces into the fertile wilderness that was known to most on the island as 'Sikania'. It was known as such for good reason; the Sikeloi or Sikels had inhabited the eastern half of the island, even giving their name to it, but had therefore been the first peoples encountered by the Men of Bronze when they emerged from the sea to stake claims on a land that was not their own. The Sikels were swiftly enslaved or absorbed into the domains of the Hellenic interlopers, a highly developed people that were nonetheless respected by their captors and survived more in cooperation than in opposition of the Greeks and their colonies. Over the following decades, as the men of Phoenikia drove in from the east and Hellenes from the west, the Sikanians retreated from the coasts and hid themselves in the interior of the island. They were related to the Sikels, and their retreat did little to hide them or protect them, but few Greeks ever ventured into the interior and it was for this reason that they remained safe where their cousins had not.

Now Kallippos moved towards a polis known as Kentoripai, a city of Sikanian origin and peoples ruled over by a Sikanian chieftain named Dasios. This Sikanian was known to support tyranny, and had it not been for the fact that it was the choice of Kallippos to attack the city, one may have even believed that Dionysios had a hand in it. What is certain is that Kentoripai was taken with the death of only seven-and-forty good solid Hellenes, Dasios killed quickly in combat, and his people not enslaved but left to their own ways. In hindsight this may have been a mistake, for not long after his victory, when he tried to place an oligarchic faction over the Sikanians, a revolt flared up which claimed the life of Kallippos and a number of his men.

Further suspicion arose when Dionysios, apparently tired of life in coastal Gela, handed regency of both Gela and Akragas over to his second eldest brother and went with half of his own forces to calm the people of Kentoripai. This was achieved with spectacular success, but rumours of circulated Surakoûsan gold used to incite the uprising were never far from the ear of Dionysios or his remaining sibling. Now, as if the Gods had ordained it, Dionysios found himself ruling with absolute power and authority over a semi-civilised warrior-people and nearly half the interior lands of the island. His only opposition was the surviving Kreto-Rhodian forces that occupied the vastly important Sikanian settlement of Enna, a settlement and strategic point that they would not willingly give up without determined resistance.

By the winter of this year Dionysios was the new polemarchos of Surakoûsai, as well as Tyrant of Kentoripai and now effective 'ruler' of nearly half of the island. Poleis such as Naxos and Zankle remained independent along the eastern coast, whilst Akragas and Gela fell under the dominion of the new strategos of Surakoûsai, Tisandros himself. How it was that Dionysios became more dominant than Tisandros was unknown even to that Akraian oligarch, but the amount of power one now held was almost equal to the other and one major shift would topple it in favour of one leader or the next.

So it was that, with much reluctance, Tisandros marched unannounced on the occupied Sikanian polis of Enna, taking his scribe and favourite bed-warmer along with him, in an attempt to cease more strength than his brother from the island. This would be no easy task, Enna was the largest city that the Kreto-Rhodian colonists now possessed and to take it would be both bloody and fierce.

“Tomorrow we attack Enna, and spill our blood that Surakoûsai might know a greater leader. So, Euaristos, my companion and historian, gird yourself with sword and shield and spear and drill till you can drill no more. First I break the back of the enemy, then I break the back of my brother the tyrant.”

[McScottish]

You wanted some screenies, so here you go.

First up, some characters.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And, just so people know where everything is, a nice series of island shots!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

World Overview Map







North-Eastern Sikelia







Western Sikelia







South-Eastern Sikelia







The Peloponessos