Gates of Fire

Diomache and Xeones disobey her father and avoid the city. They come across Bruxieus the next day. The invaders have spared him due to his blindness and status as a slave. Xeones, Diomache, and Bruxieus come upon a man burying a baby. The man is half mad and insists that Astakos would have been saved if it had only been defended by a few Spartans.

The trio find the bodies of Diomache’s mother and Xeones’s parents, but a troop of Argives are camped around their homestead. One of the Argives spots the party and convinces them that the soldiers have had their fill of killing and allow the cousins to perform funeral rites over the bodies. Once the rites are completed, the soldiers rape Diomache.

Xeones, Diomache, and Bruxieus hide in the wildlands surrounding the town. They encounter a gang of wild boys led by a boy called Sphaireus, or “Ball Player.” The boys try to force Xeones to join them, but Xeones refuses in order to avoid being separated from Diomache.

One night, Diomache confesses to Bruxieus that she had been thinking of her wedding day and begins to cry, declaring that “this shows what a fool I have become. No one will marry me” (57). Xeones offers to marry her, but she laughs.

Winter arrives, and Bruxieus’s health deteriorates. They are forced to beg, and at one farmstead, Xeones hears of a battle at Sepeia, where the Spartans have inflicted a massive defeat upon the Argives. Eager for revenge against the Argives, Xeones becomes obsessed with the Spartans.

As winter progresses, Bruxieus’s condition worsens, and the cousins must resort to stealing. Xeones is caught stealing a goose and his hands are nailed to a tanning board.

Xeones break off the story of his childhood here to tell the story of Teriander, or “Tripod,” a Spartan boy he saw beaten to death by his instructors two summers later. Xeones explains that the whippings are a common part of the agoge and that the boys are beaten not for stealing food, which they are actively encouraged to do, but for getting caught. The boys grasp a horizontal iron bar and are beaten until they let go of the rod and collapse. Tripod, in his pride, refuses to let go, until he has been mortally injured.

Alexandros, the Spartan youth to whom Xeones has been assigned as a servant, is very upset by Tripod’s death, and his mentor, Dienekes, takes him on a walk. Dienekes gives his pupil a disquisition on the nature of fear, telling him that flesh is “the factory of fear” (64). He further tells Alexandros that “this flesh, this body, does not belong to us” (64) but, rather, that it belongs to the gods, to their families, and to their city. It is knowing that his life is not his own that gives Dienekes his courage. Dienekes says he thinks that Tripod was foolish; that his death denied the city his strength. But Dienekes also expresses admiration for the boy’s contempt for physical pain and danger.

Xeones’s narrative now returns to his youth. He endures being nailed to the board until it is dark enough for Diomache to sneak down and free him.

Xeones’s wounds fester, and he begs the others to let him die. Xeones is also ashamed of the way he begged for mercy while nailed to the board. Bruxieus tries to console the boy, noting that he is only 10 years old, but Xeones rejoins him with “[b]oys are men at ten in Sparta” (69). Bruxieus becomes angry and explains to Xeones that men take courage from standing shoulder to shoulder with the men of their polis and that “[n]o one may expect valor from one cast out alone” (69).

Xeones’s hands do not heal, and he knows that he will be unable to ever grasp a spear and shield. One evening, when the others are gone, Xeones leaves their hideout and goes to die of exposure. While waiting to die of cold, he sees a strange man before him with a silver bow on his shoulder. He believes the man to be Apollo Far Striker and realizes that his hands still work well enough for him to fire a bow. Just as he makes this epiphany, Diomache discovers him and rescues him.

Xeones relates how Phobos, or “fear,” spread throughout Greece as Persia rose to power. He recounts one instance in which he accompanies Dienekes on an embassy to the island of Rhodes. The island has recently been conquered, and Xeones first witnesses the military might of Persia there.

Dienekes becomes friendly with Ptammitechus, or “Tommie,” a captain of the Egyptian marines. Tommie takes the Spartans on a tour of one of the warships, and the Spartans and marines get along well together.

The Spartan mission to turn Rhodes from the Persian side is unsuccessful, and, upon returning to the Grecian mainland, the Spartans hear that most of the other Greek islands have also offered tokens of submission to the Persians.

Immediately upon returning to Sparta from Rhodes, Dienekes and Xeones are dispatched to Olympia. On the journey, Xeones notices that Dienekes is troubled and surmises that it’s due to an incident in which Tommie had unrolled a map of the Empire. Tommie had reveled in noting the empire’s massive size and had tried to convince the Spartans to accept the Persians as overlords. He assured the Spartans that they would be accorded a place of honor within the Empire, but Dienekes rebuked him, saying that “[y]ou have never tasted freedom, friend...or you would know that it is purchased not with gold, but steel” (86).

At Olympia, Dienekes shows Xeones a stele of honor bearing the name of his brother, Iatrokles, on it. Dienekes confides in Xeones that his wife, Arete, had originally been married to Iatrokles. When Iatrokles died young in battle, Dienekes was overwhelmed with guilt and could not bring himself to claim Arete. Arete took matters into her own hands, confronting Dienekes at the gymnasion in front of the other men. Xeones thinks that Dienekes believes that he and Arete have been denied sons as divine retribution for his desire for his sister-in-law.