Worlds That Weren't

A sword proved not so much. In the front line, Sokrates had more room to wield what was left of his weapon than he would have farther back. He swung the beheaded shaft as if it were a club. It thudded against the Syracusan’s shield. The next blow would have caved in his skull, helm or no helm, if he hadn’t brought the shield up in a hurry. And the third stroke smacked into the side of his knee-he hadn’t got the shield down again fast enough. No greave could protect him against a blow like that. Down he went, clutching his leg. In a scene straight from the Iliad, the hoplite behind him sprang forward to ward him with shield and armored body till comrades farther back could drag him out of the fight.

Sokrates used the moment’s respite to throw down the ruined spear and snatch up one that somebody else had dropped. He dipped his head to the Syracusan across from him. “Bravely done, my friend.”

“Same to you, old man,” the other soldier answered. “A lot of hoplites would have cut and run when they lost their pikes.” He gathered himself. “Brave or not, though, Athenian, I’ll kill you if I can.” Fast as a striking snake, his spearhead darted for Sokrates’ face.

Ducking away from the thrust, Sokrates answered with one of his own. The Syracusan turned it on his shield. They both stepped forward to struggle shield to shield. The Syracusan kept up a steady stream of curses. Panting, winded, Sokrates needed all his breath to fight.

He drew back a couple of paces, not because the enemy hoplite was getting the better of him but because the rest of the Athenians had had to retreat. “Should have stayed, old man,” the Syracusan jeered. “I’d have had you then, or my pals would if I didn’t.”

“If you want me, come and fight me,” Sokrates said. “You won’t kill me with words.” I might fall dead over of my own accord, though. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so worn. Maybe-probably-he’d never been so worn before. Maybe my friends back in Athens were right, and I should have stayed in the city. War is a young man’s sport. Am I young? He laughed. The Syracusan hoplite who’d been trying to kill him knew the answer to that.

“What’s funny, old man?” the Syracusan demanded.

“What’s funny, young man? That you are what I wish I were,” Sokrates replied.

In the shadowed space between his nasal and cheekpieces, the other man’s eyes widened slightly. “You talk like a sophist.”

“So my enemies have always-Ha!” Sokrates fended off a sudden spearthrust with his shield. “Thought you’d take me unawares, did you?”

“I am your enemy. I-” Now the Syracusan was the one who broke off. He turned his head this way and that to look about. With his helmet on, a hoplite couldn’t move only his eyes. Sokrates looked, too, with quick, wary flicks of the head. He saw nothing. For a moment, he also heard nothing. Then his ears- an old man’s ears, sure enough, he thought-caught the trumpet notes the Syracusan hoplite must have heard a few heartbeats sooner.

Sokrates looked around again. This time, when he looked…he saw. Over the crest of a nearby hill came men on horseback, peltasts-light-armed foot soldiers-and a solid column of hoplites. No possible way to doubt which side they belonged to, either. At the head of the column rode Alkibiades, his bright hair shining in the sun, a chiton all of purple-an outrageous, and outrageously expensive, garment-marking him out from every other man.

Shouting out their war cry, the Athenian newcomers roared down on the Syracusans. “We are undone!” one of the Syracusan hoplites cried. They broke ranks and ran back toward their polis. Some of them threw away spears and even shields to flee the faster.

Other Syracusans-perhaps a quarter of their number-tried to go on against the Athenian phalanx they’d been fighting. One of those was the hoplite who’d tussled so long against Sokrates. “Yield,” Sokrates urged. “Yield to me, and I will see to it that you suffer no evil.”

“I serve my polis no less than you serve yours, Athenian,” the man answered, and hurled himself at Sokrates once more. Now, though, with the Syracusan line melting away like rotting ice, he fought not Sokrates alone but three or four Athenians. He fought bravely, but he didn’t last long.

“Forward!” an Athenian officer cried. “Forward, and they break. Eleleu! ”

Forward the Athenians went. Hoplites in a body had a chance, often a good chance, against peltasts and horsemen, even if they moved more slowly than their foes. Peltasts could only use their bows and slings and fling javelins from a distance. Likewise, cavalry had trouble closing because the riders would pop off over their horses’ tails if they drove home a charge with the lance. But the panicked, running Syracusans, also hard-pressed by the Athenian hoplites, went down like trees under carpenters’ axes.