{"id":1651,"date":"2011-11-06T16:59:20","date_gmt":"2011-11-06T16:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=1651"},"modified":"2013-03-12T17:04:11","modified_gmt":"2013-03-12T17:04:11","slug":"the-end-of-sparta-an-excerpt-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-end-of-sparta-an-excerpt-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The End of Sparta: An Excerpt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Private Papers<\/em><\/p>\n

After the battle of Leuktra, and the defeat of Sparta, the Thebans parley with the Spartan general Lichas, who remains as defiant as ever:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0said hear your Lichas. You won a battle. A big one. But not this war. A bigger war \u2014\u00a0megas kindunos<\/em>. That you will have in days. Then my men from the coast get here with our other king\u2019s son. Or now we march out home. Then go home. Or will we stay here? And kill you all?\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether he smiled or grimaced, few could tell. So far his talk was nonsense. \u201cWe go in the night. It is written by the gods that Sparta survives Leuktra. You do the second thinking; Lichas does the first killing of the enemies of Hellas. No, you won\u2019t kill me, the last true Hellene. You\u2019d miss, need me too much. Kill me? Then you would kill Sparta. Then who would protect you weaker ones from the wild men from the north and east?\u201d<\/p>\n

Pelopidas came up and raised his spear, but he was checked by the hand of Epaminondas. Still, Pelopidas thought it better to kill this man now. Ainias nodded to him and grasped his hilt. Never again would such men as their own be together to get this close to the Spartan. If it was not done now, both sensed that this man would bring them and their own catastrophe upon catastrophe in the year ahead. But it was the softer Proxenos who already had his spear out. He was lowering it in the shadows for a groin stab, for a foul black mood had come over him as Lichas and his brood neared. He was a man of vast lands and black soil and halls with marble columns, while these lords of Sparta lived in hovels and knew not a plum from an apricot. Proxenos did not believe N\u00eato\u2019s prophecies about a bad end across the Isthmos, but he did sense that one day he would march safer in the Peloponnesos without the evil of Lichas and his tribe.<\/p>\n

Epaminondas stepped even closer, to within five palms\u2019 width of the Spartan\u2019s face. \u201cYou claim to be Lichas? You carried the dead king out. I apologize \u2014 for not killing you myself. But we had others of the royal blood today to deal with first. You yourself have lived too long, old man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lichas blustered at that. \u201cNone of us ever explain what we do. We do all for Hellas \u2014 make her free. I keep the good on top to take care of the weak like you on the bottom. You only talk of making the bad equal to the good so that we all end up bad. Yes, what you cannot be, you would tear down. But we are the Hellenes, you its polis destroyers. Sparta is Hellas, Hellas Sparta, nothing more, nothing less.\u201d
\nLichas spat out some of the dried goat meat he was gumming on. Then he continued, looking at M\u00ealon.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it to be more war? Or do my Spartans march out under truce? No difference to me. I killed ten of you today, and got back Spartan armor from the babe in diapers who thought he could wear it.\u201d Then he laughed at all that and stepped a pace closer\u2026.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a92011 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Private Papers After the battle of Leuktra, and the defeat of Sparta, the Thebans parley with the Spartan general Lichas, who remains as defiant as ever:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[297],"tags":[106,1066,1028,306,533],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-qD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1944,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/excerpts-the-end-of-sparta\/","url_meta":{"origin":1651,"position":0},"title":"Excerpts: The End of Sparta","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media The End of Sparta\u00a0[2] comes out today. Now and then I will post excerpts from the novel. Today\u2019s is the Theban council before the battle of Leuktra. As the Thebans debate whether to meet the Spartans the next morning on the plain of Leuktra,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Literature","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6534,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-end-of-sparta-a-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":1651,"position":1},"title":"“The End of Sparta” — A Review","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A classicist's exemplary historical novel. by Albert Louis Zambone \/\/ BooksandCulture.com Classicists should infuriate other humanists, in the way that the handsome scholar-athlete who volunteers to help dyslexic children and is a genuinely nice guy should infuriate the guy who just made it onto the football team and has a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1304,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-novel-vdh\/","url_meta":{"origin":1651,"position":2},"title":"A Novel VDH","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Reliving the fall of Sparta: An interview. by Katheryn Jean Lopez National Review Online Victor Davis Hanson, known as VDH to his fans, has a new book out. This time, it\u2019s a novel,\u00a0The End of Sparta. He talked with\u00a0National Review Online\u2019s Kathryn Jean Lopez about the Greeks and the novel.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Greece"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/europe\/greece\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1437,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-end-of-sparta-an-excerpt\/","url_meta":{"origin":1651,"position":3},"title":"The End of Sparta: An Excerpt","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson As the Thebans help the freed helots build their new city of Messen\u00ea, the Argive general Epit\u00eales decides his men are no longer needed and will head home to Argos, leaving the Thebans and Messenians to their work: Epit\u00eales did not back down. \u201cI and my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History"","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12797,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-spartan-way-of-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":1651,"position":4},"title":"The Spartan way of war","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 21, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ The New Criterion Sparta\u2019s check of imperial Athens in the inconclusive so-called First Peloponnesian War (460\u2013445\u00a0B.C.) foreshadowed a remarkable subsequent twenty-eight-year growth in Lacedaemonian power and influence. At the war\u2019s end, Sparta had established itself as the only impediment left to an increasingly Athenian Greece. Fourteen\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1647,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-ancient-world-as-it-was\/","url_meta":{"origin":1651,"position":5},"title":"The Ancient World As It Was","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Cody Carlson The Deseret News Review of\u00a0The End of Sparta\u00a0by Victor Davis Hanson, Bloomsbury Press, 2011 Having written extensively on the history of ancient Greece, it is no surprise that classics professor Victor Davis Hanson would set his first novel in that era. His new book,\u00a0The End of Sparta\u00a0is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1651"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1653,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions\/1653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}