Ancient Sparta Story - Part One
-Look! How strong he is!
Cynisca let the days-old infant clasp her forefingers and slowly draws him up. His head lolls backwards but he does not let go.
Cleitagora feels his arms and legs and barrelly torso.
-And how firm
They stretch him out on the table and measure him with their hands
- Over three spans!
-How does he take to the nurse?
Hagesichora lifts herself on her elbows and beckons to a maid standing in the shadows.
The three Spartan women are wearing short tunics in fine white linen. They are open at the sides and belted at the waist, earning the women their nickname, ‘thigh-flashers’. They tie across one shoulder and are held in place by an ornamental clasp with a sharp spike which doubles as a weapon.
The Helot maid, Nanno, wears a similar tunic, but longer and more shapeless, being made of leather. At Cynisca’s command, she undoes the shoulder ties and lets it drop to her waist.
-A fine milk factory there.
-Look, you can see it oozing out.
Cynisca and Cleitagora are fascinated. Only Hagesichora looks away, ashamed. Cynisca uses her finger and thumb to draw milk from a swollen nipple, and lifts the resultant drops to her lips, then nods to her sister, who passes the infant to the maid.
The boy seizes on the breast readily and sucks lustily. The two women watch approvingly, Hagesichora now watching too, unable to look away.
-He’s a fine feeder, that’s for sure!
-She has another one, doesn’t she?
-Her own boy, the same age
Cynisca, a foot taller than the diminutive maid, takes Nanno’s chin in her hand, looks into her tilted face. It would be beautiful, is still beautiful, but for a heavy ridged scar running completely across her face and passing over the bridge of her nose.
-You are to feed Anaxis whenever he wants – you understand? You will feed him until he sleeps or drops off the breast.
She squeezes the chin, fingers digging under Nanno’s delicate jaw. The maid can neither nod nor talk, but speaks her submission with her eyes.
-And only then – only when Anaxis has taken all he can – only then can you feed your own brat. Do you understand?
She twists the face to and fro to punctuate her last words. Nanno struggles to keep her balance and not to upset the baby at her breast. This time Cynisca needs no acknowledgement but her fear.
-Bring the brat here, I want to see it
Cleitagora signals and another maid slips out from the shadows to return with a baby bundled in goatskin.
-Put it on the table
The child is undersized, with dark wrinkled skin. He labours for breath.
-You should throw that child away
-As you would, Mistress
The infant can smell the milk. He opens its tiny mouth wide and begins to make sucking movements with his lips.
-I hope it won’t be a greedy baby, sister, and take milk from Anaxis
He raises his arms and legs into the air and his tiny body begins to convulse. He is building up to a cry. The women watch until the first tremulous wail breaks out of him. His thin cries gradually build to a desperate mewling.
-Mistress-
-What?
-I can take one baby to each breast, Mistress.
-No. You take Anaxis to one breast, then the other. Only when he has had his fill of each, can you feed yours. Did I not make myself clear earlier?
Cynisca’s voice is icy. She signals for the Helot boy to be removed. Out of the room, his cries can still be heard. Nanno moves Anaxis to the other breast, where he continues to suck vigorously.
Cynisca is smiling now. She approaches Hagesichora, gives her sister a rare embrace.
-At last you have done well for the family. The Gods are pleased with us, that they have sent us this fine son. Whatever displeased them before, that is over now. Our family’s reputation is intact, we are all fine bearers of men.
The frantic wails of Nanno’s baby are distant but distinct. Anaxis is sucking slowly now, lingering at the breast, almost sated. Cynisca and Cleitagora watch the maid to see how she will react, with a mixture of cruelty and interest. But Nanno’s eyes are lowered and she does not give to move, even when the baby finally drops off the breast, tiny mouth open, eyes closed in a puffy, satiated face. Only Hagesichora seems anxious, her face wretched.
-I’ll take him to his bed
-Let her do it
-Sister?
-You won’t want to waste time mothering him, not at this age. Plenty of time for that later.
-You need to get your figure back first. Your sister and I were always back to full fitness ten days after the birth.
-Yes. You’ve lain in bed long enough.
Nanno has laid Anaxis in a rush basket beneath the window. She stands and waits, her eyes still lowered. She has refastened her tunic. The screams of the far off infant, are more intense, more desperate.
-Your brat’s still crying
-Yes Mistress
-Got any milk left?
-Yes Mistress
-I suppose you want to feed it?
-Yes, Mistress
-I don’t know why you waste your milk. That thing will die before long
-Yes Mistress
-Go on then!
Nanno runs from the room, and shortly afterwards the crying stops. All three women listen, but it does not start up again.
-She did have some milk left, then
-It’s a pity she did. I should be ashamed to raise a child like that.
-I don’t like it, sister. However we might police her, she’ll be sneaking off to feed her brat whenever she can. Milk that should be for Anaxis.
-We should get rid of it
-We should. But we can’t afford the fines.
-If it were only October…
October was the month of the when Helots could be legally culled, when a word to the right person could remove a troublesome servant, an insolent labourer or an unwanted rival. Remote villages where rebellion festered could be destroyed overnight in exercises that also provided useful military training. And any Helot who was considered too bold or bright, could be picked off at this time, for the Helots were not suffered in any way to compete with the wit and beauty of their masters.
Nanno’s father had been well known in their village for his size and great physical strength. Indeed there had been talk, when he was a baby, of the masters adopting him and raising him as one of their own, but it had come to nothing. A close eye was kept on him nonetheless, and a closer eye still as his sons grew as fine and sturdy as himself. Nanno was his only daughter.
When Nanno was five, during the month of October, the Krypteia came to her house in the night. They killed her father and her three brothers with the implements of their own household. She and her mother were spared. The soldiers inspected the little girl and noted that, even in her distress, she was markedly beautiful. They did not rape the mother or the girl; they considered that to be licentious and wrong. Other Spartans might lower themselves to mate with Helots (incurring a fine at this point in time), but the Kryptes were the Spartan elite, ultimate enforcers of the will of the state. They were the strongest and fittest in body as well as the purest in mind.
So they left the females alone. But before going, one of them held Nanno’s head back by her hair and used the family’s kitchen machete to strike her a blow across the face with its heavy blade.
It was enough, enough to maim but not to kill her, enough to make sure that her beauty would never rival a Spartan maiden’s.By Sabreena 2010
The next part of this ancient Spartan story will be posted soon.
For more interesting information and facts about Sparta and Spartan women in particular, see my suite 101 articles on wife of Leonidas Queen Gorgo of Sparta and Princess Cynisca of Sparta, the first woman to win an olympic gold medal.
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