Download 2. Gerousia Leaving morning mess on the third day after his return

2. Gerousia
Leaving morning mess on the third day after his return, Styphon heard his name called and
turned to find that the caller was no less than a king.
Halting, Styphon waited patiently for Agis to catch him.
“You are wanted before the Gerousia,” the king declared.
Such a summons was rarely occasion for the smile with which Agis delivered it, a disparity
which gave Styphon pause.
Agis clapped him on the shoulder. “I know. Since when do the old men send a king as their
page? I volunteered for the task. Come!”
Together they walked the arrow-straight, stone-paved Hyakinthian Way, through crowds of
thronging Spartiates emerging from mess, crowds which parted readily for Agis.
“You shall meet my cousin today,” the king said en route. “Two days since your homecoming,
and she tells me you have yet to call on her. Hippolyta is not one whom a man should keep waiting.”
“Apologies, sire,” Styphon said.
“Be sure you do not apologize to her,” Agis scolded. “She would scant like it. If I know her,
and I do, the silence has only made her wetter.”
Styphon gave the king a half-hearted smile which faded at first opportunity. Hippolyta, who
was no mere woman but a cousin to the Eurypontid king, would be Styphon's second unplanned
encounter of the day, after the Gerousia. And the day had scarcely begun. He was not sure which
appointment caused him the greater worry.
The crowd thinned, and conversation became easier as they left the Hyakinthian way and found
the well-pounded dirt path to the agora where sat the meeting hall of Sparta's administrators, the
ephors.
“There is a matter you might help me with, sire,” Styphon said, glad to put his mind from the
business ahead.
“Name it,” Agis said with enthusiasm. “And stop calling me sire. Zeus willing, we might be
family in a month.”
“Zeus willing,” Styphon echoed faintly. He had begun to picture Hippolyta as an ill-tempered
dog-face. Agis swore to her beauty, but then he was her blood.
Knowing that it could only increase the pressure on him for a successful match, Styphon
stamped down pride and doubt to pose his favor.
“My daughter, Andrea, excels in her learning,” he said, “so much so that her teachers dissatisfy
her. Yet they will not allow her to study with the older girls. I am loath to ask, but for her sake—”
“Say no more.” Agis raised a hand adorned with its plain iron ring of kingship. “I shall find her
a private tutor myself if need be. She studied in Athens, did she not? I should hate to see her run back
there at first opportunity saying we stifled her intellect. Our system works, but allowances must be
made from time to time.”
“Thank you, si—” Styphon began, and corrected, “Agis.”
A pity the gods could not hear silent prayers, or Styphon would have sent them one just then to
that at least one or the other of Hippolyta's face and personality prove not to be completely
objectionable.
***
The administrative building in which the elders of the Gerousia convened was, like all the
structures of Sparta, a plain thing. The laws laid down long ago by Lykurgos forbade grand, columned
halls of government full of gilded statues that might distract those within from the vital business of
running a state. The ephors might not have met behind walls at all, but beneath the open sky as did the
citizen assembly, the Apella, which elected them, but the Apella gathered out in the country. Here in
the bustle of the agora, walls were a necessary evil.
Well, that and the fact that the governance of Sparta was perhaps not always as transparent as
the Lawgiver intended.
They reached the whitewashed box at the agora's edge, with a single door and small, high
windows set, likely not by coincidence, well above the height of prying eyes. The unarmed Spartiate at
the door, more gatekeeper than guard, waved them inside.
Arranged in a single row on a slightly elevated platform at one end of the single chamber were
the current crop of twenty-eight men of the Gerousia, all past the age of sixty and serving until death.
With the power to overturn the decisions of kings, it was effectively the highest law-court of Sparta. In
the current contest for power underway between the reform-minded supporters of Brasidas and the
traditionalists, the Gerousia was strongly on the side of Agis and tradition, but a shift was not out of the
question. In the past year, two elders had died of natural causes and been replaced by men who showed
signs of tilting toward Brasidas.
Brasidas already had on his side an arguably more important ally in the form of three of the
current year's five ephors, the annually elected magistrates who reigned supreme in the affairs of the
Spartan state. Since they reached decisions by majority vote, the favor of three was as good as that of
all five. It was those three votes (or one vote, it might be said) that had stripped command of the attack
on Athens from Agis and granted it to Brasidas instead.
As one of Sparta's two kings, Agis was counted a member of the Gerousia regardless of his age,
and so after arriving in the hall with Styphon, he went to take his rightful place on the platform.
Sparta's second king, the bland and unpopular Pleistonanax, was present, too. He stood as far
apart from Spartan public life in spirit as he stood physically now from the body of elders. His father
had been a disgraced traitor, and Pleistonanax himself had been convicted and sent into exile twenty
years earlier for accepting an Athenian bribe. A few years ago, the Gerousia, ever wary of upsetting
gods who were already in the habit of visiting every generation of Spartans with an earthquake or a
Helot revolt, had only begrudgingly reversed the king's exile on the insistence of a vaguely worded
Delphic oracle. Since then, Pleistonanax had been a king in name but in practice a pariah, arguing for
peace with Athens now and then lest Sparta suffer a defeat and decide to blame it on him. With the war
now won, the only thing which likely stood between friendless, gray-haired Pleistoanax and a return to
exile was the intrinsic aversion to hubris which the Spartan elders shared in common with all Greeks.
Since Sparta was not that big a place, Styphon also recognized nearly all of the other men
packed into the room, conversing in clusters. Most were from prominent families, since it naturally
was such men, here as in other cities (democracy or not) who dominated affairs. In those other cities,
these men would possess wealth and be called aristocrats. Here, they were just men to whom others
chose to yield out of respect—until some relative disgraced the family name and another rose to replace
it. Though one Equal was not supposed to be more equal than the next, the reality was different.
Several of these men, strangely, nodded to Styphon and greeted him by name, almost as though
he were one of them.
Absent from the hall's audience of fifty or so men were Sparta's five most powerful and
prominent, the ephors themselves. Technically, the five magistrates presided over all gatherings of the
Gerousia, but in practice they only made an appearance when the matters up for discussion were
particularly momentous. Evidently, this day's meeting did not qualify.
The man who had the favor of three of the current ephors, Brasidas, who had been an ephor
himself once, was present. Styphon had not encountered Brasidas since their return from Athens, but
now the polemarch treated him to a raised hand and welcoming look from across the room.
The chairman thumped a ceremonial staff on the wood a single time to bring the room to
silence. A prayer to Zeus was invoked, and the gathering commenced. Matters that were perhaps
important, perhaps not, were raised, discussed, and finally dismissed, referred to the assembly or the
ephors, or otherwise deemed worthy of action. Though he appreciated the necessity of such
proceedings to the healthy function of the state, and naturally upheld his duties voting in the general
assembly, Styphon could hardly help but allow his ears to fall halfway shut. If the higher-born for
some reason wished to claim that their birthright included having some additional meetings to
themselves, that seemed just fine.
Styphon's ears opened again at the sound of the word, “Lastly...” It was spoken by the elder
who kept charge of the agenda, and Styphon gave the man his focus.
“A commendation is to be given this day,” the old man said, “to an Equal who has distinguished
himself in battle.”
Without hearing any more than that, Styphon flushed with the realization of why he had been
summoned today.
“Styphon, son of Pharax, in battle against the last Athenian holdouts at Dekelea, took it on his
own initiative to shift the ranks of his enomotos to ensure that his best men, and not ones as old as I,
received an enemy cavalry charge. Five of those best men were fortunate enough to give their young
lives in stopping the charge cold, and because of their sacrifice, the enemy's hipparch now sits in a cell
just yards from this place.
“Outsiders are fond of saying we have a system which rewards only obedience, but we know
this is not so. Sparta prizes quick thinking and the taking of risks, too, and these qualities are what
Styphon displayed at Dekelea. For that, following the recommendation of Agis, who held command
that day, Styphon hereby receives official commendation on behalf of the Gerousia of Lakedaimon, as
well as the thanks of all Sparta.”
The speaker gestured to Styphon in the crowd, and the few eyes which had not already turned
upon him did so. Styphon did not acknowledge the attention, did not smile or speak words of gratitude,
and no round of applause filled the small chamber. Neither would there be any tangible reward apart
from this brief recognition. The white-bearded elder lowered his hand, and Styphon's moment in the
sun reached its end.
Shame in Sparta lasted a lifetime, glory but an instant.
But the elder was not done: “However much we value quick thinking,” he went on, “the fact
does remain that Styphon acted without orders, an offense punishable according to its severity and the
history of the offender. The sanction decided upon by this body is a fine of ten medimni of barley per
month, for six months, over and above his normal contribution to the mess. I have no doubt that as an
Equal in good standing, he shall make the payment with pride.”
The staff thumped wood, a clerk at a writing desk in one corner entered a final note on
parchment, and the meeting was adjourned. As all began to stand and file out into the midmorning sun,
Styphon found himself the recipient of not a few subdued words of congratulation. Just outside the
door he found Brasidas, who managed to seem as though he had not been waiting for him.
“Well earned, Styphon,” the polemarch said, and appeared to mean it. He smiled his thin smile.
“The award, if not the fine. I consider you to be my protege, and I could not be prouder if I had
received another commendation myself today.”
Brasidas, of course, had been the recipient of countless honors throughout his adulthood, and
would receive yet more for his victory against Athens. Those would come from the ephorate, however,
not the Gerousia which, if Agis was correct, had expected Brasidas to fail. Some elders might even
have hoped thus, but to ever admit such a thing would be highest treason.
Moments after Brasidas made his leave, Agis found Styphon and aimed a look of distaste at the
departing polemarch's back.
“The fine came as news to me,” the king said. “I just now finished arguing to have it
overturned, but no luck. I will pay it for you, if need be.”
“It is my honor to contribute,” Styphon said, and it was. At worst, it did not matter much.
“You only say that because you have no wife to feed,” Agis returned with a grin. “Speaking of
which, if you are quite done having your head swollen, let us go see if my cousin doesn't swell your
cock!”