Read Online Spartan by Valerio Massimo Manfredi - Free Book Online

passing seasons and their work in the fields.
    Talos had become a strong young man and, as he was often out on his own, he began to seek the company of other young people. The remote position of his grandfather’s cottage, near the high
spring, had kept him separated from other children throughout his boyhood. But the Helots were used to living such isolated lives in the fields and pastures because the Spartans had always
prevented them from gathering in villages. Only the old men recalled the ancient times when the Helot people had their own cities, surrounded by walls and crowned by towers.
    They told of the dead city, abandoned on Mount Ithome, in the heart of Messenia. The towers, crumbled and corroded by time, now served as nests for crows and sparrowhawks. Figs and wild olive
trees had sunk their roots among the dilapidated houses.
    But beneath those moss-covered ruins slept the ancient kings. The shepherds who passed with their flocks during the seasonal migrations had strange stories to tell. On the night of the first
full moon of spring, they said, eerie flashes of light pulsed through the ruins, and a great grey wolf could be seen wandering among the fallen walls. And if the moon disappeared behind a cloud, a
lament would be heard, coming from beneath the earth, from deep within the mountain: the cry of the kings, prisoners of Thanatos .
    Talos listened fascinated to these marvellous stories, but he considered them imaginings – fables told by old men. His thoughts were occupied, instead, by the work that needed to be done
and by his daily tasks: it had become his responsibility to deliver their produce to the family of old Krathippos. He knew that they could continue to live untroubled as long as nothing was lacking
in the home of their Spartan master, down in the valley.
    On his daily journey from the mountain to the plain he often met up with a Helot peasant who farmed another stretch of land near the Eurotas river that was also the property of Krathippos. The
elderly peasant, Pelias, was a widower. He had only one daughter, and had been finding it quite difficult to carry on his work in the fields alone. And so Talos sometimes brought his flock down to
the plain and entrusted it to the care of Pelias’ daughter, Antinea, while he took care of the heaviest and most pressing chores himself. He sometimes stayed several days in a row on
Pelias’ farm.
    ‘It seems that you have forgotten where you live,’ teased Kritolaos. ‘We see you so rarely here! It wouldn’t be, by chance, little Antinea infusing you with all this new
enthusiasm for working in the fields? By Zeus, I wanted to make you into a shepherd, and here you are becoming a farmer!’
    ‘Oh, stop that, grandfather,’ Talos replied brusquely. ‘That girl doesn’t interest me at all. It’s poor old Pelias that I’m worried about. If I weren’t
there to help him with the toughest jobs, he could never manage on his own.’
    ‘Naturally,’ replied Kritolaos. ‘I know that you have a good heart as well as strong arms. It’s only that I have heard that little Antinea is becoming very pretty indeed,
that’s all.’
    In fact, Pelias’ daughter was beautiful. She had long blonde hair and eyes as green as grass moist with dew. Her body, although forged by the hard work of the fields, was lithe and
graceful, and Talos was often distracted from his work as he saw her pass with her quick step, carrying an earthenware pot full of spring water on her head.
    But that wasn’t all. Sometimes he tried to guess the shape of her breasts and the curve of her hips under the short chiton that she wore gathered at the waist with a cord. And this threw
his normally serene spirit into such confusion that he was quite brusque with her, almost rude. He was afraid that she could read how he felt plainly on his face, and he did everything he could so
as not to be discovered. And yet, he couldn’t help but watch her as she bent down to gather a sheaf