Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield

his clamped jaws.
    Polynikes turned upon him in fury. Ariston had three sisters, all what the Lakedaemonians call “two-lookers,” meaning they were so pretty that one look was not enough, you had to look twice to appreciate them.
    Polynikes asked Ariston if he thought this was funny.
    â€œNo, lord,” the boy replied.
    â€œIf you think this is funny, wait till you get into combat. You’ll think that’s hysterical.”
    â€œNo, lord.”
    â€œOh yes you will. You’ll be giggling like your goddam sisters.” He advanced a pace nearer. “Is that what you think war is, you fucking come-spot?”
    â€œNo, lord.”
    Polynikes pressed his face inches from the boy’s, glowering into his eyes with a look of blistering malice. “Tell me. Which do you think will be the bigger laugh: when you take an enemy spear eighteen inches up the dogblossom, or when your psalm-singing mate Alexandros takes one?”
    â€œNeither, lord.” Ariston’s face was stone.
    â€œYou’re afraid of me, aren’t you? That’s the real reason you’re laughing. You’re so fucking happy it wasn’t you I singled out.”
    â€œNo, lord.”
    â€œWhat? You’re not afraid of me?”
    Polynikes demanded to know which it was. Because if Ariston was afraid of him, then he was a coward. And if he wasn’t, he was reckless and ignorant, which was even worse.
    â€œWhich is it, you miserable mound of shit? ’Cause you’d better fucking well be afraid of me. I’ll put my dick in your right ear, pull it out your left and fill that chamber pot myself.”
    Polynikes ordered the other boys to take up Alexandros’ slack. While their pathetic dribbles of urine splotched onto the wood and leather-padded frame, over the good-luck talismans that Alexandros’ mother and sisters had made and that hung from the inner frame, Polynikes returned his attention to Alexandros, querying him on the protocol of the shield, which the boy knew and had known since he was three.
    The shield must stand upright at all times, Alexandros declaimed at the top of his voice, with its forearm sleeve and handgrip at the ready. If a warrior stand at the rest, his shield must lean against his knees. If he sit or lie, it must be supported upright by the
tripous basis,
a light three-legged stand which all bore inside the bowl of the concave
hoplon,
in a carrying nest made for that purpose.
    The other youths under Polynikes’ orders had now finished urinating as best they could into the hollow of Alexandros’ shield. I glanced at Dienekes. His features betrayed no emotion, though I knew he loved Alexandros and wished for nothing more than to dash down the slope and murder Polynikes.
    But Polynikes was right. Alexandros was wrong. The boy must be taught a lesson.
    Polynikes now had Alexandros’
tripous basis
in his hand. The little tripod was comprised of three dowels joined at one end by a leather thong. The dowels were the thickness of a man’s finger and about eighteen inches long. “Line of battle!” Polynikes bellowed. The platoon of boys formed up. He had them all lay their shields, defamed, facedown in the dirt, exactly as Alexandros had done.
    By now twelve hundred Spartiates up the hill were observing the spectacle, along with an equal number of squires and helot attendants.
    â€œShields, port!”
    The boys lunged for their heavy, grounded
hopla.
As they did, Polynikes lashed at Alexandros’ face with the tripod. Blood sprung. He swatted the next boy and the next until the fifth at last wrestled his twenty-pound, unwieldy shield off the ground and up into place to defend himself.
    He made them do it again and again and again.
    Starting at one end of the line, then the other, then the middle. Polynikes, as I have said, was an Agiad, one of the Three Hundred Knights and an Olympic victor besides. He could do anything he liked. The drill