Spartans 2

By Pueros

for Tom

Chapter 2 – Marathons

(Plataea, Greece, August 479 B.C.)

Lysander decided that his only hope was to try to run past the Persians barring his way back to the river. The naked boy therefore rushed towards a gap in their ranks. However, despite his nimble speed, the opening closed before he reached it and he was soon completely surrounded by soldiers. He therefore chose to attack the nearest with his bare hands, hoping for death, but the warriors did not oblige him.

The officer in charge correctly realised that the boy had to be a Greek scout who might have important information about enemy dispositions and plans. It was therefore essential that the lad was taken alive. The officer also hoped that, if the youngster survived interrogation, he would receive some reward from the King’s slaver for providing an addition to his already substantial and highly lucrative coterie of select local captives, certain types of Greek slave being much sought after in Persia. The officer did not, in his wildest dreams, expect to receive the significant sum that he eventually secured. Because of the gloom, he did not know that he had captured a Spartan until later, but was very pleased indeed to receive the subsequent huge bonus for apprehending such a rare specimen.

The officer issued orders for his men to drop their weapons to tackle the young Greek manually. Lysander lashed out at the first soldiers he reached, who towered above him. However, the boy’s brave determination to fight until the Persians had to kill him was betrayed by the physique of a 13 years old. The lad was quickly overwhelmed, although four soldiers had to carry the continuously vigorously struggling young nude back to their encampment, where many of their colleagues came out of their tents to see what the commotion was all about.

Lysander’s fruitless efforts to escape his captors were finally brought to an end when he reached the splendid tent of the Persian general, Mardionus. The boy was first punched in the genitals by the officer to quieten him whilst he was then engulfed in heavy chains. A metal collar was fixed around the young Greek’s neck, from the back of which dangled a short chain to which the lad’s hands were manacled half way up his back. His legs were then shackled together. The overall effect was to leave the 13 years old mobile only by walking very gingerly and slowly.

Mardionus emerged from his tent to see what was happening and his officer happily showed the now subdued naked young captive to his commander. The general instantly knew that he had a young Spartan standing before him because he recognised the tiny accessory that dangled from the only item worn by the boy, a silver medallion. The ornament was in the shape of the Greek letter ‘lamda’, which stood for ‘Lakedaemon’, the correct name for the Spartan state.

The delighted and smiling man then slowly walked round the nude lad, whose arms were held tightly by two guards. The adult’s cock rose underneath his tunic at the sight, for he had never seen a boy so beautiful.

Mardionus took in the delightful vision of Lysander’s straight silken hair, extending to just below his sweet young neck and unusually golden for a Greek. Below the neatly trimmed fringe, two large sensuous blue eyes peered at him. The commander was happy to ignore the look of hatred, mixed with trepidation, that they currently displayed as he moved his observations downwards past the cute nose and rosy seductive lips. The boy’s body was immaculately proportioned, not awkwardly lanky as so many of his age. Lovely lithe limbs were attached to a marvellously svelte torso, adorned with exquisite pink nipples and the small delectable indentation that comprised the navel.

Mardionus almost came in his undergarment when he concentrated his attentions on Lysander’s sublime completely smooth genitalia. A nicely rounded scrotum hung invitingly under an impeccably delicious uncut cock, which was beginning to rise. The boy, now blushing, had recognised that the general was carefully inspecting his young nude body and was currently focusing on his reproductive organs.

Greek males were not generally ashamed of nudity, unlike the Persians who usually reserved such shameful spectacle for those being punished or slaves at market. Greek boys frequently disported their naked forms in the gymnasia or at games, and the athletic Lysander, who had won many laurels for his running, was no exception. However, the boy was now deeply ashamed that the man’s close visual examination of his body had caused guilty excitement within him, unwillingly resulting in the inexorable and highly noticeable growth of his penis.

Mardionus went to take in the view of the young Greek’s rear and was rewarded by the sight of the glorious lustrous mounds of the captive’s sublimely curvaceous bottom. The commander ordered the guards to bend their young charge over and the appalled Lysander soon felt the general’s hands prising apart his buttocks.

Having confirmed Lysander’s intact purity, Mardionus immediately recognised that there was only one person who should enjoy the privilege of depriving such a wonderful, very rare, specimen of boyhood of his virginity. The commander therefore decided to try to keep the lad alive and undamaged until he could be presented to his King. He knew that his royal master would relish ravishing a youngster not only of exceptional looks but also one who was that great rarity, a captive Spartan.

Mardionus eventually emerged from his almost hypnotic reverie at being confronted with such unparalleled beauty, and immense scarcity, and his mind returned to the present urgent need to elicit information from the young Greek. After returning to the naked boy’s front, still displaying a humiliating erection, the commander therefore began his questioning. However, Lysander did not respond, remaining silent. Several slaps across his face from the officer responsible for his capture did not result in answers and neither did a knee in the shamefully excited groin. The general, respectful of the lad’s courage but also growing impatient, therefore ordered the youngster to be taken to the soldier responsible for overcoming such resistance to questioning.

Lysander was dragged in his chains through the crowded encampment to a large tent, many soldiers gazing lecherously at him as he passed. The boy almost fainted when he saw what was inside the canopy for it contained a vast array of torture implements. There were many canes, flails and whips, a wide selection of vicious-looking clamps, needles, spikes and skewers. There were several different stocks and a bloodstained table with leather straps at each corner. Wooden-handled irons were embedded in a lit brazier. The lad could not even guess the obviously cruel purpose of some other tools. Many shackles also dangled from the roof. However, the operator of the facility, having received his instructions from the guards who had escorted the fearful 13 years old, decided not to start with any of these. The terrified lad was instead placed on the rack.

The torturer asked his questions as he turned the wheel to stretch Lysander’s beautiful naked body. The boy resisted answering at first until he was agonisingly fully extended, causing the lovely curves of his buttocks to rise from the wooden surface. The inquisitor then secured the first news of the Greek dispositions. However, he had to turn the wheel another excruciating notch to elicit something more.

Hardness had returned to Lysander’s cock during his racking, not an unusual phenomenon for those so interrogated, and it spurted semen vertically, to accompanying agonised shrieks, as his shoulder-blades were dislocated by yet another slight movement of the wheel. Voluminous data now flowed from the boy’s trembling lips, which the torturer accepted as the fulsome truth, as the lad was not to know that the man had received instruction to go no further. More stretching would cause permanent damage but Mardionus had forbidden such harm.

Lysander was released from the evil device and the torturer quickly and expertly, but also very painfully, restored the boy’s shoulder-blades to their correct locations. They would remain very sore for days. The young captive, hurting nude body now embarrassingly stained with his own semen, was then taken by guards to a stockade in the middle of the camp containing some other prisoners. He was again lustfully gawked at by many warriors on the way. The lad was eventually tied, in a sitting position, to a stake firmly embedded in the ground whilst his tormentor reported the information he had gleaned to the Persian commander. The darkness of night had descended and blazing torches, placed at the top of tall iron stands, now illuminated the vast encampment. Several fresh guards were placed in the youngster’s vicinity to ensure that he was not raped overnight. They knew from their commander that, if the precious Spartan was molested, their lives were forfeit.

Lysander had managed not to cry during his inquisition but, in the dark privacy of the stockade, the boy broke down and began to sob quietly. He did so not because of pain resulting from his racking but from the shame of his capture, tinged by abashment at his unwanted ejaculation under torture. However, his distress was not total as he hoped that the forthcoming battle would result in a Greek victory that would see him regain his freedom.

Sparta was different from the other warlike Greek nations in maintaining a permanent standing army. Others resisted the formation of such bodies as they represented the most obvious tool by which ambitious despots could gain control. However, the Spartans took the view that, if they were to be repeatedly embroiled in conflict, they should be better prepared than their enemies. As a result, all male citizenry received compulsory military training from the age of 7, leaving serf labourers, called ‘helots’, to perform most of the menial work required within the relatively impoverished and always land-hungry state. The Spartans overcame the problem of potential tyranny by retaining a monarchy of two kings, whose actions were kept in check by five chief magistrates known as ‘ephors’. One of the kings was only granted unchallenged power, as army commander, during time of war.

Lysander could not recall his happy early years, spent with his loving mother. The boy instead only remembered the more recent six years spent suffering the austerity, iron discipline and awful food of the army, either in grim barracks or in the field. The tough discipline to which free Spartan boys were subjected became legendary. The story of the lad who hid a fox up his tunic, and allowed himself to be chewed to death rather than submit to pain and confess to possession of the animal, is probably apocryphal but nicely sums up expectations.

Spartans were also strong believers in being guided in life by certain morals, deliberately trying to improve on the standards they believed existed in earlier heroic ages. Plutarch summed this up by his tale about the old man who arrived late at Olympus for the games and could not find a place to sit. He was derided and moved on by all he came across until he came to the Spartans, all of whom rose to offer him a seat. “All Greeks know what is right,” declared the old man, “but only the Spartans do it!”

Amongst the Greek nations, only the Boeotians and the Thessalians produced mounted cavalry. The main strength of the rest, including the Spartans, was their heavy infantry, the ‘hoplites’. This citizen soldier wore armour and used weapons of his own provenance. The former invariably consisted, at this time, of large round shield, helmet, leather cuirass covering the upper torso, reinforced apron protecting the loins and leather greaves shielding the lower legs; the latter of a long thrusting spear, which could also be thrown like a javelin if need arose, and a sword.

Hoplites were taught to manoeuvre and fight in tight formation, their tour de force being a swift disciplined charge, crashing into the enemy with the minimum of delay. The opposition line would be thrown off-balance at the first shock by a push from the round shield before being broken up with spear-thrusts and swordplay. A few archers, protected by hoplite shields, would help their comrades by firing their stave bows. The hoplites were also supplemented by light infantry peltasts, name derived from the ‘pelta’, or light crescent-shaped buckler that was their only protection. The otherwise unarmoured peltasts’ role was to sprint in and out of enemy range to make hit and run attacks with showers of javelins.

Because of his nimble speed, Lysander had been trained as a peltast but would now be deprived of his first opportunity to practise his skill in battle. However, the brave lies that the boy had told under torture were far more important for the great victory that the Greek allies, comprising 40000 hoplites and 50000 assorted peltasts and archers, enjoyed over the Persians’ less numerous but better co-ordinated 35000 infantry and 12000 cavalry, dubiously supported by 15000 co-belligerent Greeks, over the next two days. The untruths had caused Mardionus to launch his initial attack against the force of Megarians, which was the closest of all the Greek formations to the low ground of the plain that separated the two armies and which the young captive Spartan had indicated was weak.

Lysander had actually known that Megarians were renowned fighters and were also secretly protected by a 300-strong contingent of Athenian archers. One of these brought down the Persian cavalry commander, Masisius, who was eventually killed, after much trouble caused by the excellence of his armour, by a spear-thrust into the eye-slit of his helmet. As a consequence, the fierce Persian horsemen rode off in dismay and later played a crucially feeble role in the long bloody two-day battle, which culminated in the storming of the Persian encampment fortifications by Athenians and Tegeans. Only a few thousand Persians escaped the slaughter that ensued, amongst the dead being Mardonius.

The Persian cavalry covered the retreat through Thessaly into Macedonia and Thrace before establishing a temporary bridgehead in the Chersonese. The Greeks were unable to pursue because of their lack of horsemen. However, the marathon battle of Plataea was at least as important for the Greeks as the battle of Marathon against the Persians 11 years previously. Helped by success in the naval battle of Salamis of 480 B.C., Plataea was one of the great ‘battles without a morrow’, as it ended the Persian threat to Greece forever.

Unfortunately, Lysander, who, unknowingly to his compatriots, had played a vital role in gaining victory despite his capture, was not to share in Greek celebrations but had instead begun his own marathon journey. Mardonius had taken the precaution of sending his most valuable prisoners back to Persia before the battle had commenced. The accompanying royal agent did not bother to try to break a Spartan boy’s spirit on the way this time as he believed, from the experience of the previous year, that castration in Susa would neatly accomplish that feat.

(To be continued in chapter 3 – ‘Xerxes’)