Warriors in Bronze by George Shipway Page A

beacons summoning Eurystheus - which made Atreus' exploit such a shattering success. Augeas' defeat discouraged a repetition: commanders reverted to orthodox habits and fought their battles in daylight.
    I have lingered over this episode for two reasons: it intro­duced me to combat and, more important, invigorated the ex­pansion of Mycenae's power which began when Electryon stormed Corinth sixty years before; continued when King Sthenelus laid Nemea under tribute; and had wilted since in Eurystheus' languid hands. The escalade at Midea helped to found the mighty empire Mycenae rules today.
    It also had another curious aftermath. A quarter-century later, brooding on Scamander's banks, I remembered Atreus' tactic and devised the fall of Troy.
    As a newly-fledged Hero I abandoned my palace quarters near Atreus' and my mother's apartments and started a separate establishment in a commodious house by the northern gate. Supported by revenues from my Midean estates I furnished the rooms luxuriously, buying marble tables inlaid with rosettes of ivory and gold, cedarwood chairs intricately carved, bronze cauldrons and tripods, vases of dark green mottled stone from Laconia, patterned rugs and hangings woven in the town. Tunics and mantles and gaudy robes filled beechwood chests in store rooms, and jars abrim with fragrant oil and mellow vintage wine sentinelled the walls. Clymene was pleased, but not so pleased when I sent to Nauplia for slaves and she found herself sharing favours with a brace of willowy Cretans : good house­ maids, handy at the looms and remarkably agile in bed. Cly­mene sulked.
    'Who expects one woman to satisfy a Hero?' I asked her brusquely. 'You run the house and order the servants. Isn't that enough?'
    'Common peasant bitches,' she sniffed. 'I wonder you bear the smell ! '
    'It's part of your job to see they wash - and don't be such a snob. When next we sack a city I'll take a royal daughter. That'll put your nose out of joint - your father in Pylos was only a lordling!'
    Clymene feigned humility. 'My breeding is coarser than yours, I know - who can match Pelopian blood ? - but all my arts in love I learned from you.' She smiled demurely. 'Is Agamemnon's pupil less versatile than a couple of Cretan sluts?'
    I laughed, and fondled her breasts; and hastened out to inspect a pair of thoroughbred sorrels a dealer had brought from Euboia. Besides providing myself with horses I had to order armour from the smiths. While tradition governs warriors and war, and accoutrements remain unchanged through many years, in the matter of mail two schools of thought contend. One swears by the ancient fashion - somewhat modified - our ancestors brought from Crete: a leather corselet, helmet and greaves - all of which depend for proper protection on a body-length shield of the waisted or concave kind. (The bards insist that Zeus and his followers fought naked, disdaining even corselet and greaves.) This school - the traditionalists - say a soldier so equipped is quicker and more active than one weighed down in mail.
    Their opponents hold the opposite view: Heroes riding chariots don't jump around like fleas; a warrior wounded is a warrior the less, so protection is of paramount importance. Hence they wear the strongest armour that hammer and bel­lows can forge, virtually impenetrable by any brazen blade. These clanking Heroes deride the conservative school and pride themselves on moving with the times - though the type of mail they favour was introduced, so Atreus said, by a former Lord of Midea far back in Perseus' time.
    The fossilized thinking of military minds was a factor that hindered me later.
    I held no strong opinion either way and followed the example of Atreus, a convinced 'modernist'. The smith forged me backplates and breastplates, chin-high gorget, shoulder- guards and arm-shields and a knee-length skirt descending in triple overlapping flounces. All were solid metal, tried and tested bronze. The leather-workers'