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Megistes makes no bones about being a Spartan. Since he can’t go back to Sparta, however, he sees no point in enduring the privations of Spartiate life. Spartiates are Sparta’s warrior class. They don’t farm, trade or do anything but prepare for war. This involves regular physical exertion, icy-cold baths and food so unattractive that after trying it one visitor remarked thoughtfully, ‘Now I understand why the Spartans do not fear death.’
Megistes was formerly a Spartiate. Then the outside world corrupted him. On a diplomatic mission to Thrace, Megistes realized that he liked wine that did not taste like vinegar, and blankets that did not feel like sheets of sandpaper. Albacore tuna cooked in cheese and honey was a world away from Sparta’s notorious ‘black broth’, and Megistes liked that world. Accordingly, he started planning his retirement.
His diplomatic mission to Thrace involved taking a beautiful bowl of pure gold embossed with hunting scenes as a gift for a local king. Regrettably, the Athenians also had their plans for the kingdom, and had arranged for its pro-Spartan monarch to be assassinated.
The kingdom was under new management when Megistes arrived to a chilly reception. Under the circumstances the Spartan ambassador decided that there was no point in presenting the bowl to the new king. Instead he quietly sold the bowl to a local merchant for two little strongboxes packed with silver.
Then Megistes sent a slave with a message to Sparta saying that the Thracian king had actually received the bowl. Sadly, the king was assassinated a few days later. The bowl was gone, with nothing to show for Sparta’s investment.
Then Megistes headed for Athens. Megistes intended to use his bounty to purchase a horse-breeding ranch in southern Italy, or a small villa adjacent to the fleshpots of Ephesus.
The Spartans made a bowl of bronze, with figures engraved around the outside rim. This had a capacity of 2,700 gallons. The intention was to make a gift of this in return for that present which Croesus had given them. But the bowl never got to Sardis [where Croesus had his palace].
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The people of Samos [the island where the bowl ended up] say that the Spartans bringing the bowl arrived too late. When the ambassadors discovered that Sardis and Croesus had been taken [by the Persian army] they sold the bowl to private individuals in Samos, and these buyers dedicated it in the temple of Hera.
When the men who had sold the bowl returned to Sparta, they probably claimed that the Samians had stolen it.
HERODOTUS HISTORIES 1.70
Then, on the road to Athens, Megistes met a courier with a terse message from the Spartan authorities. He was to report back to Sparta immediately. Megistes quickly realized that the slave messenger he had sent ahead to Sparta must have betrayed him. All that awaited him in Sparta was trial, condemnation and quite possibly death. It had been a very valuable bowl.
Megistes became an exile. Since the Spartan authorities have a very long reach and a very short sense of humour, Megistes decided to stay in Athens, which is firmly anti-Spartan and with a few fleshpots of its own.
The tavern of Phanagora is hardly a sink of debauchery, but today Megistes has rented a room at the back for a private party. The advantage of this particular room is that it has a separate door opening into the alleyway through which, for example, young ladies can slip in discreetly without their fathers knowing.
Megistes is slightly late because he spent a few minutes observing the alleyway behind the tavern to make sure that no one had followed the person he is meeting. This person is no nubile wanton but a short, bald fellow with a perspiration problem.
‘You’re late,’ he whines as Megistes pulls up a stool.
Megiste reaches into his tunic and drops a fist-sized leather bag on the table. It lands with a hefty thud, and the clink of coin settling. The bald man studies the bag with fearful, greedy attention until Megistes raises an impatient eyebrow.
The man carefully looks around the room, which contains nothing but a curtained-off cupboard, a table, a bench and an oil lamp. Satisfied, he unslings a satchel from his shoulder and pushes it across to Megistes.
‘This has all got to be back in an hour.’
Megistes carefully opens the satchel while the bald man pulls back the cupboard curtain and removes a jar of wine and two clay cups. He pours the drinks, which Megistes ignores. This is it. The information that Sparta has spent so much time and gold to obtain.
The bald man is a senior clerk at the Arsenal. Within the Arsenal’s cavernous halls Athenian warships are serviced. This is also where the records of the deployment of the Athenian triremes are kept, because it is convenient to keep the records with the ships.
Yet there’s more, much more. Here is a list of accounts of military expenditures and budgets. And a list of allied forces, and of the military reserves of Athenian subject states. Only years of Spartan discipline enables Megistes to keep his face impassive as he looks up from the treasure trove.
SPARTAN WARRIORS EXERCISING AT THE RACECOURSE (DROMOS) AT SPARTA
‘Is this all?’ he asks, as though this is not everything he was sent to find.
Megistes is a spy. Espionage in the Greek world is a hit-and-miss affair, but the Spartans are more professional than most. In fact, Megistes was trained for his role almost from boyhood. Over a century ago, Sparta took possession of the neighbouring state of Messenia, which it holds through fierce repression and terror.
Every year, the Spartans pick out those youths who most excel in the agoge – Sparta’s brutal system of education for young warriors. The selected young men are enrolled into the krypteia – ‘the secret ones’. The krypteia’s members are sent into the Messenian countryside as scouts and spies. They identify the Messenian leaders most respected in their villages and communities, and kill them. It does not really matter if their victims are pro- or anti-Spartan. The point is to keep the Messenians leaderless and terrified, and the krypteia does this job superbly.
The krypteia is wonderfully severe in toughening us up. Men go barefoot in winter and sleep without blankets. They have no attendants, but look after themselves as they roam the countryside, night and day.
THE SPARTAN MEGILLUS IN PLATO LAWS 633
Having shown their readiness to kill for Sparta, members of the krypteia are afterwards automatically appointed to the hippeis, the elite of the elite Spartiates. Every year five men retire from the hippeis and are dispatched on missions of reconnaissance and espionage. Megistes is one of those five.
Lichas was one of the Spartans called ‘doers of good deeds’. These men are the five oldest of the hippeis, who retire each year. The year after they retire they are sent here and there by the Spartan state, unrelenting in their efforts.
HERODOTUS HISTORIES 1.67
The plan was always that Megistes should ‘embezzle’ the golden bowl and thus have a convincing reason for being in Athens. It was pure good fortune that the Thracian king had helped by getting himself assassinated. Megistes regards this as proof that Hermes, the god of con-men, merchants and spies, has personally blessed his operation.
This is a critical time for Sparta. The Spartans will never publicly admit it, but the Athenians convincingly won the recent war between the two states. Sparta intended the war to curb the growing Athenian empire, and Sparta failed. Today, Athens is more proud and powerful than ever.
Last year, rumours circulated that Athens was re-arming, and Sparta became very worried. Allegedly, the Athenians intend to invade Sicily. The Spartan authorities, however, are sceptical. What if the Athenian fleet suddenly swerves north as it reaches Cape Malea, and a huge, well-equipped army marches on unwalled Sparta? It is a chilling prospect.
On the other hand, perhaps the Athenians are daring and reckless enough to attack Sicily. In that case, with the Athenians hundreds of miles away, perhaps Sparta might launch a surprise attack of its own? It will only work if Athens is overstretched and vulnerable. Megistes has been placed in Athens to find out.
Other states frequently use merchants for espionage, but a trader from Sparta would be more suspicious than a declared spy. Sparta does not have a lot to trade. The state is agricultural and self-sufficient, its currency is unusable iron spits, and any Spartiate would rather disembowel himself than be involved in filthy commerce. Greed and corruption, however, are considered Sparta’s secret vices, and Megistes carefully lived up to that stereotype while he infiltrated Athenian society.
Cyrus said, ‘Now listen; there is a way that you do me a great kindness and your comrades a great service … if you went to the enemy, pretending that you had fled from me, they would probably believe you … Then you will come back to us, with complete information about the enemy’s affairs. If I am right in my expectation, they will trust you and you can discover all their plans, so that you miss nothing of what we wish to know.’
XENOPHON CYROPAEDIA 6.38
Now he looks through the scrolls, secretly excited and appalled. So many men, a mighty fleet and so much gold! He looks through the budget, noting the vast sums spent on bribing Sicilian politicians. Other spies have reported on the state of Syracuse’s city walls and military preparedness. There are detailed descriptions of the main Sicilian harbours. The Athenians really mean their madcap plan.
Nicias and Lamarchus
Nicias was at this time in his mid-fifties. Born to an aristocratic family, he got along well with the like-minded Pericles who helped his rise to political prominence. The Athenian democracy was happy to vote aristocrats to high office provided they used their wealth and influence on behalf of the state. Nicias was a supporter of numerous public events, and sponsored at least one of the playwrights at the Great Dionysia.
Nicias was the type of general that the troops liked: cautious to a fault, and never risking lives in battle unless victory was almost certain. In this inter-war period of relative calm, Nicias is active in politics, trying to keep the peace he was largely responsible for brokering with the Spartans.
Nicias’ main opponent was Alcibiades, who wanted a war to increase his personal reputation. Alcibiades was behind the bold plan to attack Sicily, a plan which Nicias opposed. As the incident just described illustrates, the Spartan ‘peace’ was packed with intrigue, both inter-city and domestic.
Lamarchus was an ally of Nicias. He was from a poor background, though this did not stop the Athenians from electing him as one of their generals.
That’s the good news. Megistes flips through scroll after scroll, committing columns of figures to his trained memory. The bad news is that Athens has the men and resources to fight on two fronts, at least for a while. Megistes glances up from the scrolls at the bald clerk, who is already on to his third beaker of wine. ‘These scrolls could be fake.’
‘Check them for yourself,’ says the clerk sullenly. ‘I’m sure you have other sources.’
That is true, and actually Megistes is sure the scrolls are genuine. The entries are in different hands, and judging by the age of the ink and the papyrus, they go back years. Also, the most recent entry records the departure of a squadron of triremes for Thrace – a departure noted by Megistes’ agents that very morning.
As he jots the most crucial details on a wax tablet, the spy comes to a decision. He will go to his rooms and spend the night writing what he has memorized. In the morning, he will visit his banker and retrieve for the Spartan state what silver coin he still has remaining. Then he will hurry to Sparta to present the information in person. The data he has obtained matter that much. In one swoop, Megistes has completed his mission.
He looks thoughtfully at the despicable little man who made all this possible. There is a curved dagger tucked behind the buckle of Megistes’ belt, and he is a trained killer. But … no. The clerk is needed to put the documents back exactly where they were taken from, or the Athenians will know their plans have been revealed. The clerk has been well paid and is not going to risk his life and his payment by talking. Let him live.
The clerk gathers the scrolls back into his satchel after Megistes has hurried from the room. The little man looks different now – deft and competent. ‘You know,’ he remarks to the empty air, ‘for a moment, I thought he was going to try to silence me.’
There is a scraping noise as the wardrobe is moved aside, revealing a doorway into an adjoining room. Two men duck through and join the clerk. One of them, a fifty-ish bird-like fellow, says, ‘And I hope you would have allowed him. We really need the Spartans to get that information.’
Pausanias
The scene of luring a spy into a room where he can be overheard by the authorities actually comes from a near-contemporary event in Sparta, recorded by Thucydides ( History of the Peloponnesian War 1.133). The Spartan general Pausanias was colluding with the Persians. A go-between who carried messages to Persia invited the Spartan Euphors to listen from an adjoining chamber as he confronted Pausanias, and the authorities heard the man’s guilt at first hand.
The second man, a veteran commander called Lamachus, looks unconvinced. Clearly, he feels that the whole performance is a roundabout way of doing things. If the Spartans wanted to know, and the Athenians want them to know, why not just tell them?
The reality is that it is not so simple. The Spartans are suspicious by nature, and Athens is trying hard to assuage those suspicions. Earlier in the afternoon the council sent a messenger telling the Spartans of Athenian intentions – but there’s no certainty that the message will be believed. Anything the Athenians tell the Spartans about the size of their fleet, or the extent of their financial reserves will simply be dismissed as Athenian braggadocio. So the only way to be convincing is to let the Spartans find out for themselves.
It is Nicias’ opinion that once the Spartans know that Athens is serious about invading Sicily, they’ll stand back and hope that Athens and the Sicilians fight each other to a standstill. Then they’ll aim to pounce on whatever is left. What worries him is that that’s a viable strategy.
But he has done what he can. Hopefully, the Spartans are sufficiently convinced of Athenian strength to stay out of this round of warfare. As to Sicily – that’s up to Alcibiades, and whatever fool they appoint to command with him. Nicias does not envy him, whoever he may be.
