Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield Page A

instructor, who was just an
eirene,
had been brushed aside, and could do nothing but look on in mortification.
    â€œThis is hilarious, isn’t it?” Polynikes demanded of the boys. “I’m beside myself, aren’t you? I can hardly wait to see combat, which will be even more fun.”
    The youths knew what was coming next.
    Tree fucking.
    When Polynikes tired of torturing them here, he would have their drill instructor march them over to the edge of the plain, to some particularly stout oak, and order them, in formation, to push the tree down with their shields, just the way they would assault an enemy in battle.
    The boys would take station in ranks, eight deep, the shield of each pressed into the hollow of the boy’s back before him, with the leading boy’s shield mashed by their combined weight and pressure against the oak. Then they would do
othismos
drill.
    They would push.
    They would strain.
    They would fuck that tree for all they were worth.
    The soles of their bare feet would churn the dirt, heaving and straining until a rut had been excavated ankle-deep, while they crushed each other’s guts humping and hurling, grinding into that unmoveable trunk. When the front-rank boy could stand no more, he would assume the position of the rearmost and the second boy would move up.
    Two hours later Polynikes would casually return, perhaps with several other young warriors, who had themselves been through this hell more than once during their own
agoge
years. These would observe with shock and disbelief that the tree was still standing. “By God, these dog-strokers have been at it half the watch and that pitiful little sapling is still right where it was!”
    Now effeminacy would be added to the list of the lads’ crimes. It was unthinkable that they be allowed to return to the city while this tree yet defied them; such failure would disgrace their fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins, all the gods and heroes of their line, not to mention their hounds, cats, sheep and goats and even the rats in their helots’ barns, who would hang their heads and have to slink off to Athens or some other rump-split
polis
where men were men and knew how to put out a respectable fucking.
    That tree is the enemy!
    Fuck the enemy!
    On it would go, into all-night shield drill which by mid second watch would have reduced the boys to involuntary regurgitation and defecation; they would be puking and shitting themselves, their bodies shattered utterly from exhaustion, and then, when the dawn sacrifices at last brought clemency and reprieve, the boys would fall in for another full day of training without a minute’s sleep.
    This torment, the boys knew now as they stood under Polynikes face-lashing, was yet to come. This was what they had to look forward to.
    By this point every nose in the formation had been broken. Each boy’s face was a sheet of blood. Polynikes was just taking a breath (he had tired his arm with all that swatting) when Alexandros thoughtlessly reached with a hand to the side of his blood-begrimed face.
    â€œWhat do you think you’re doing, buttfuck?” Polynikes turned instantly upon him.
    â€œWiping the blood, lord.”
    â€œWhat are you doing that for?”
    â€œSo I can see, lord.”
    â€œWho the fuck told you you had a right to see?”
    Polynikes continued his blistering mockery. Why did Alexandros think the division was out here, training at night? Was it not to learn to fight when they couldn’t see? Did Alexandros think that in combat he would be allowed to pause to wipe his face? That must be it. Alexandros would call out to the enemy and they would halt politely for a moment, so the boy could pluck a nosenugget from his nostril or wipe a turdberry from his crease. “I ask you again, is this a chamber pot?”
    â€œNo, lord. It is my shield.”
    Again Polynikes’ dowels blasted the boy across the face.