Spartans 6

By Pueros

for Tom

Chapter 6 – Catamites

(Persepolis, Persia, January 478 B.C.)

Xerxes, name meaning ‘Ruler of Heroes’, was waiting patiently in Persepolis to enjoy the bodies of his latest young Greek catamites, consoled by the fact that he had many other boy and women concubines to enjoy, some of whose delicious forms he had not explored in a long time. The King, son of Darius I, the Great, and Atossa, daughter of Cyrus the Great, also had to consider his duty to his Queen, Vashti, to ensure the continuance of the Achaemenid dynasty.

The Great King, the ninth Achaemenid, whose birth name was actually Ahasuerus and who was now 41 years of age, was also busy with the daily affairs of his vast Empire, which stretched from India to the edge of Europe at the Hellespont and south to Ethiopia, 127 provinces in all. Xerxes was additionally oversighting the development of Persepolis, which he was making the new ceremonial capital of Persia.

Construction work on the city’s many magnificent buildings, designed to display the wealthy grandeur of the Empire and its rulers, had been initiated by Darius and Xerxes, who had succeeded his father in 486 B.C., not only wanted to finish what had been started but wished to add further splendours. His absence from the administrative capital, Susa, also meant that he did not have to endure the distressing sight of the returning remnants of the formerly vast army devastated by the Greeks.

Xerxes had been in Greece for the successful land battle of Thermopylae but had chosen to return to his palatial citadel in Susa after witnessing, whilst seated on his throne on a nearby coastal hilltop, the naval disaster at Salamis. He had left his principal general, Mardionus, who also happened to be his brother-in-law, to carry on the campaign. The Great King did not know that Lysander had played a key role in the subsequent destruction of his army at Plataea, or the boy would have spent many days dying horribly. However, the monarch was nevertheless looking forward to conquering at least one bit of Spartan territory once the l3 years old had fully recovered from his whipping and been properly trained in his new degrading role.

Xerxes considered the Spartans to be the prime cause of his military humiliation, as their commander had led the Greeks at Plataea, and wanted at least some revenge, no matter how insignificant, although Lysander would not consider his own disgrace to be minor. The pleasure would be enhanced by also making sexual incursions into fertile virgin Athenian, Phocian and Theban terrain. Accordingly, the Great King had left instructions with his court chamberlain, Haman, for the latest additions to his boy harem, Lysander, Alexias and the two new eunuchs, to follow him to Persepolis as soon as they were ready to assume their demeaning functions.

Haman, an Amalekite, had given the task of delivering the four boys safely to Persepolis to Mordecai, a Jew who was court gatekeeper, head of the palace guards. The men did not like each other. There had been enmity between the sons of Amalek and the sons of Israel since the Exodus, and this traditional dislike was compounded by the fact that the chamberlain considered the gatekeeper to be insufficiently respectful of his superior position.

Mordecai blatantly refused to follow court custom by bowing to the chamberlain and often gave contrary advice to Xerxes, gallingly frequently adopted. However, Haman could do little to undermine the Jew’s status with Xerxes as the Israelite, when just an ordinary guard, had uncovered and disclosed a plot against the Great King’s life by the then gatekeeper, Bigthana, and another senior officer, Teresh. Consequently, the monarch had rewarded and promoted him, and still regarded him with esteem.

Nevertheless, the Amalekite plotted quietly, wanting not only to ruin the Jew but also to destroy all of his people, now dispersed throughout the Great King’s provinces after originally being forced into exile from Israel by the King of Babylon, a city long since absorbed into the Persian Empire.

Xerxes’ principal adult eunuch, Hegai, who was in charge of the Great King’s harems, had personally supervised the recovery from whipping of the young Spartan and from castration of the young Phocian and Theban and their instruction, with the as-yet unharmed young Athenian, in the ways of the Persian inner court. All four boys were distressed to learn about their future demeaning servile roles, not least what was expected when they were within the monarch’s bedchamber. However, the disgrace was most felt by Lysander, who was very aware of the shame that such activity brought to his heritage.

The four Greeks were the first of their people to join Xerxes’ boy harem and they were to join in Persepolis Abagtha, Bigtha, Biztha, Carcas, Harbona, Mehuman and Zethar, beautiful gelded specimens of boyhood, aged between 10 and 15 and garnered for the Great King’s delectation from all around the Empire. The newcomers now travelled along the royal road from Susa in the back of a large horse-drawn ornately decorated wooden wagon, escorted by a substantial mounted squadron of Mordecai’s men, led by the gatekeeper himself.

The four boys were resplendently dressed in highly colourful Persian court apparel, which all found degradingly effeminate. The attire consisted of silk blouses, buttoned at the front, and soft slippers, but the lads were most ashamed about the matching garment that covered their legs and loins, as no respectable Greek male would ever be seen dead in trousers. However, the journey to Persepolis was much pleasanter than their original excursion along a royal road, when they had first been brought with fellow captives to Susa.

The wagon’s interior was luxuriant, with many splendidly decorated pillows softening the discomfort caused by the occasional bump in the roadway. Urns of cool refreshments and dishes of exotic fruits and sweetmeats had also been provided. In fact, the only real physical annoyance that Lysander and Alexias had to endure was the continued wearing of the leather chastity cover on their genitals, although both preferred the presence of such an attachment under their trousers to the lack of testicles suffered by their two young companions. However, all four experienced mental anguish when they considered the life that awaited them in Persepolis.

Hegai sat with the young Greeks in the wagon during the twenty-day journey, ensuring their behaviour and supervising their regular cleansing, grooming and toilet as the appearance and bodily wellbeing of all four boys were to be kept perfect. The adult eunuch also possessed the device that humiliatingly placed a fresh seal on his ungelded charge’s chastity equipment after its occasional removal for urination into chamberpots and subsequent genital washing. Lysander and Alexias found the process deeply embarrassing but the watching Phocian and Theban, named Hesperus and Philemon respectively, envied the requirement.

Hegai, fluent in Greek, frequently conversed with the boys in an effort to continue their education in courtly manners and procedures and in the Persian language, the necessary rudimentaries of which the young Greeks were already beginning to master. The talk also helped take the lads’ minds off their destinies, as did the highlight of the journey, passage through the Persian Gates, a spectacular high-sided mountain gorge. The four boys drew back the curtains of the narrow windows on either side of their wagon to observe the magnificent scenery.

Persepolis was finally reached a few days later and the boys’ nerves began to gain in intensity as they appreciated that their debuts as Xerxes’ latest young male catamites were now imminent. Lysander in particular was dreading the shame of again encountering the Great King, knowing what was now expected of him. The 13 years old’s sensuous blue eyes became damp as the wagon stopped before the monumental double-ramped stone stairs leading to the enormously impressive ‘Gate of All Countries’.

The ‘Gate of All Countries’ was so named by Xerxes because all visitors from all lands had to pass through this sole entrance to pay homage to the Great King in his audience hall, although the grand extant structure is now known to many as the ‘Gate of Xerxes’.

The first building phase at Persepolis, undertaken by Darius' men, had levelled the ground and created a huge terrace at the heart of which the vast square audience hall, called the Apadana, was built, adjacent to a large building in the south-east, the so-called Treasury. The Apadana could accommodate thousands of subjects at the same time and was the largest and most beautiful of the buildings at Persepolis. The 72 columns that supported the roof, of which 13 can still be seen, were 25 metres high. The founding inscription read ‘ Darius the Great King, King of Kings, King of Countries, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, built this palace.’ In the treasury, booty from conquered peoples and the annual tribute sent by the Great King's loyal subjects, on the occasion of the New Year festival, were stored. Over 1000 servants were employed to keep the gold and silver shining.

The ‘Gate of All Countries’ stood to the north of the Apadana, its roof supported by four stone columns with bell-shaped bases. Parallel to the inner walls ran a stone bench. The exterior walls of the structure, made of thick mud brick, were decorated with numerous niches. Each of the three walls on the west, east and south had a very large stone doored entranceway, with the one to the south, opening toward the audience hall, the widest. A pair of colossal bulls guarded the western whilst two Assyrian lamasus, bulls with the heads of bearded men, stood at the eastern. Engraved above each of the four colossi was a trilingual inscription attesting to Xerxes having been responsible for building the edifice.

The four apprehensive young Greeks were now being escorted by Hegai and Mordicai up the steps towards the eastern entrance. Massive doors, made of wood and covered with sheets of ornamented metal, pivoted open as they proceeded. Lysander could not yet read Xerxes’ inscriptions above the frightening lamasus but had been acquainted with what it said by the chief eunuch, who knew it by heart.

‘A great God is Ahuramazda,’ they read, ‘who created this earth, who created yonder sky, who created man, who created happiness for man, who made Xerxes King, one King of many, one Lord of many. I am Xerxes, the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing many kinds, King in this great earth far and wide, son of King Darius, an Achaemenian.

Proclaims Xerxes the King, by the favour of Ahuramazda, I built this Gateway of All Nations. I built many other beautiful things in Persia. I built them and my father built them. All beautiful things we built, we have built by the favour of Ahuramazda.

Proclaims Xerxes the King, may Ahuramazda protect me from harm, and this land, and whatever was built by me as well as what has been built by may father.’

Lysander, unusually for a Spartan, began to shiver in fright when these words were repeated by Hegai as the party of four boys and two men ascended towards the giant doors. The 13 years old from Lakedaemon was finally beginning to appreciate fully the unrivalled history, power and influence possessed by the man he was about to serve.

(To be continued in chapter 7 ‘Persepolis’)