Prelude to Hoplite

Chapter 2 - Shame

As he made his way back home he fantasised about how his father would extract retribution on his aggressors and it made him feel better. He imagined their cries as Lysander beat them while Alexander looked on. He knew who they were and where they lived and consoled himself by looking forward to what was coming. The people in the village were scared of his father. He was a hoplite, a soldier, in the Athenian army. He was a veteran of many campaigns and he was tall and powerful, his body hard from marching, training and fighting. He kept his beard thick and bushy in the manner of the fighting men, instead of short and trimmed like the other men in the village separating him even further from them and making him stand out, if his size didn't already accomplish that. It was the intensity of his gaze that made people look away, and although Alexander didn't understand it, he could see the impact it had on people.

Would his father deal with his attackers all together or individually? Would he force their parents to deal with them? Would he allow Alexander to take his own revenge? That last thought lifted Alexander's spirits as he imagined exacting punishment, the other boys having to take a beating, unable to fight back through fear of his father. He created a romanticised image of how it would go, not taking into account how little impact he would be able to have on the bigger boys in the condition he was in now, but it distracted him from the pain he felt as he made his way home.

Lysander stood waiting in the yard of the smallholding where they lived, watching Alexander as he came down the track but making no move to go to him. Alexander couldn't read his expression and continued past him into the house, followed by Lysander, and flopped on the bench. He explained what had happened, leaving nothing out including the words he had used to trigger the attack as his parents listened without comment. He saw the hard look Lysander gave to Kallias but couldn't fathom any meaning from it, so he paid it no attention. Alexander was still thinking about his revenge but his pain receded when his father asked him if he knew where the boys would be, Alexander nodded his assent.

"Come on, we're going to see them all" said Lysander, striding out of the house paying no attention to Alexander's struggles to keep up. Although it wasn't far from the farm to the village, a ridge between them made it impossible to see the village from anywhere on the farm. They followed the track up the ridge which skirted the area where they kept the few dozen cattle and goats. Once they crested the ridge, they continued down the slope into the village. They could see the rough assembly of dwellings and buildings that surrounded the village square at the centre and from their position coming down from the ridge, they could see the Panathenaic stadium on the far side where the slope levelled. As they entered the village they followed the houses around, skirting the main square. His father knew where he was going.

They found the boys together and with their fathers. The three men were in the middle of a heated discussion as one of the boys spotted their approach and tugged on his father's tunic to alert him. The three adults stopped their discussion and looked over as one, fear etched on their faces. The three boys could not raise their eyes to meet them and Alexander noted that the ground at their feet seemed to be interesting at that moment.

One of the fathers started to stammer out a greeting but Lysander stopped him dead with a gesture of his hand. The man's mouth slammed shut, eyes wide. Beetle-Brow shuffled from foot to foot, still studying his sandals. Alexander tried to hide the smile that threatened to explode onto his face.

"Alexander, apologise to these boys and their parents," Lysander said, his voice hard and uncompromising. Alexander's head snapped up to look at his father staring at him in confusion, eyes wide and mouth agape.

"Wh, what?"

His father hit him with a single, back-handed slap. The blow was shocking, a whole beating in a single strike, much shorter but much worse than the first beating from the three boys. It was not a beating, but it had the impact of one and he would have rather taken a repeat of the first one than suffer this one.