Gates of Fire
An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
Chapter One
I had always wondered what it felt like to die.
There was an exercise we of the battle train practiced when we
served as punching bags for the Spartan heavy infantry. It was
called the Oak because we took our positions along a line of oaks
at the edge of the plain of Otona, where the Spartiates and the
Gentleman-Rankers ran their field exercises in fall and winter. We
would line up ten deep with body-length wicker shields braced upon
the earth and they would hit us, the shock troops, coming across
the flat in line of battle, eight deep, at a walk, then a pace,
then a trot and finally a dead run. The shock of their interleaved
shields was meant to knock the breath out of you, and it did. It
was like being hit by a mountain. Your knees, no matter how braced
you held them, buckled like saplings before an earthslide; in an
instant all courage fled our hearts; we were rooted up like dried
stalks before the ploughman's blade.
That was how it felt to die. The weapon which slew me at Thermopylae
was an Egyptian hoplite spear, driven in beneath the plexus of the
ribcage. But the sensation was not what one would have anticipated,
not being pierced ... read full excerpt from: Gates of Fire ebook
