Authors note: I originally wrote this poem in the summer of 2013 where I was very inspired by Thomas Babbington Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome and thinking deeply about virtue and historiography. I recently rediscovered this while going through my old computer and wanted to put it up before LLMs totally take over all writing. I have also done some minor cleaning and edits to make it publishable. It is not as polished as I would like but it is better to see the light of day than gather dust on my hard-drive. I will also try and clean up and publish some of my old other fiction and poetry. 06/06: I made major revisions and edits to clean up and finish a lot of the core ideas.
Our tale begins at Marathon,
Only ten years before,
When Darius and all his host
Were routed on that shore.
For now his first son Xerxes
Sits on the Persian throne.
His mind adream with conquest,
Of lands beyond his own.
Always aflame for glory,
And always bored with peace,
Drenched in the blood of Egypt,
He turns his gaze to Greece.
Before the winged lions stood
Proud Magi, grave with age,
Tall beneath the cedar beams,
And held the Great King’s gaze.
“Your father’s wound at Marathon,
Still stains the Persian name,
Yet hasty and ill-omened war,
Will only deepen shame.”
“Egypt yet writhes beneath your boot,
First let those hatreds fade.
Let men who marched through deserts
Rest awhile in the shade.”
“Let your treasury brim with tribute,
Let all your granaries fill,
Let all Persia see a springtime,
With men at home to till.”
“Persian might stands unquestioned,
The satraps are secure,
Let what you have be strengthened,
Before you hunt for more.”
The peacock fans were motionless,
Scribes dared not take a breath.
Xerxes sat still as hammered gold,
His eyes as cold as death.
“I hear your words of wisdom,
But see the trap it lays.
A great king cannot languish,
Or be buried by his days.”
“Though you call your counsel prudence
You know the truth as I;
All earthly things are nought but dust,
Yet name shall never die.”
“The shepherd and the potter pass,
The ploughman and the slave;
They eat, they sleep, they love, they weep,
Then vanish in the grave.”
“The spear that never leaves the wall
Will rust without a song;
The king who only keeps his crown
Has merely lived too long.”
“But he who stamps upon the world,
The image of his flame,
Though all his mortal bones are dust,
Still walks this earth in name.”
“What worth has breath without renown?
What worth has peaceful age?
If unborn eyes pause not to mark
My shadow on the page.”
“For what worth has hoarded treasure,
Or a crown that wins no fame?
For what is war but a temple,
Built to sanctify my name?”
…
At dawn the bronze gates opened wide,
By dusk the horsemen swore,
“All Persia, rise and rally forth.
The Great King calls for war.”
From the deserts of Arabia,
Five thousand camels ride.
Through sparkling Grecian waters,
Twelve hundred warships glide.
From steamy Indian jungles,
War elephants in tow,
From the barren Scythian steppe,
Which moans under the snow,
From murky Lydian forests,
And from the Caspian shore,
Came ranks of steel-eyed soldiers,
Their swords the final law.
Through all the lands of Persia,
A heavy silence falls.
In a hundred thriving cities,
Old men patrol the walls.
On the high mountain pastures,
Young boys now watch the sheep.
In ten thousand obscure hamlets,
Now only women sleep.
On the floodplain of the Tigris,
No scythe disturbs the grain,
For all the men of Persia
Have marched to Greece again.
…
Now several Grecian cities,
Sensing war hung in the air,
Sent spies to the Persian camp,
To learn what gathered there.
Xerxes saw through their shadows,
So vigilant was he,
But rather than a tortured death,
He showed a strange mercy.
He took them to his gilded tent,
Above the muster plain.
“I hear you Greeks are honest men,
So let me be the same.”
“You came to count my armies,
To measure my empire,
So feast your eyes upon my might;
I grant your heart’s desire.”
His host stood spread before them,
Glittering in full array.
He saw their courage waver,
And smiled at their dismay.
“Fifty thousand bowmen,
And ninety thousand spears.
Ten thousand Immortals,
Who never have known fear.”
“Forty thousand horsemen,
Drawn from the Persian plain,
Who spent their whole life riding,
In hot pursuit of game.”
“I have a thousand chariots,
Adorned with gold and jewels,
All the world shall tremble from
The thunder of their hooves.”
“So flee back to your masters,
And tell them what you see,
That I possess the greatest host
That there will ever be.”
…
Unceasing were his soldiers,
As waves upon the sand,
Unnumbered were their footsteps,
By day they shook the land.
The proud lords of Macedon,
Bowed low before his might.
The fierce chiefs of Thracia,
Just fled without a fight.
Yet three hundred sturdy Spartans,
Though heavy in their heart,
While all Greece was struck with terror,
Set out to do their part.
Led by their king Leonidas,
Each man ready to die,
They marched forth to meet the foe,
At the pass of Thermopylae.
…
The Persian host is upon them,
A great and furious mass,
But unless their line is broken,
The Persians cannot pass.
Out rode the Great King Xerxes,
Whose speech was lacquered lies,
“Throw down your arms and kneel,
And you shall keep your lives.”
“We do not wish to parley,”
The Spartan King so spoke,
“Our lives would be worth little,
Under the Persian yoke.”
“We know no hope awaits us,
And here our futures end,
Amid the shattered ruin,
Of the lands we hoped defend.”
“We do not fight for victory,
But only for delay,
We buy our brothers time with blood;
Fate hangs upon a day.”
“Though every man may die with me,
The living have their time,
And unlike them, our deeds this day
Eternally will shine.”
“When bards sing of the three hundred,
Who fought unto the grave,
When maidens sigh in their goodbyes,
‘Be like them; they were so brave.’”
“And for our broken bodies,
Heaped in the earthen womb,
We need no earthly splendour,
History shall be our tomb.”
“You say you want our weapons?”
Roared the king and all his men,
“Well if they are so precious,
Come and take them then!”
Xerxes roared with laughter,
“How foolish you must be,
To place your faith in History,
One as fickle as she.”
“History shall never know you,
Unknown your stand will be.
For the victor writes the histories,
And the victor shall be me.”
“The fates decree you die here,
Your gods have fled away,
History marches with my host;
She blesses us this day.”
“The ranks of all my spearmen,
Spread more than one day’s run.
The arrows of my archers,
Will blot out the mid-day sun.”
Leonidas saw the archers,
Fifty thousand arrayed,
“Good,” he replied, laughing,
“We shall fight in the shade.”
“Your words seem idle boasting,
But if all is as you say,
And fate has turned against us,
We still shall fight this day.”
“For how may one die better,
Than in the final strait,
Crushed by the wave of history,
Pierced by the spear of fate?”
Xerxes spurred about his charger,
His face was livid red,
“You have spurned all my offers,
By tonight you will be dead.”
“If death is all you wish for,
I shall gladly give you that.
For the glory of Persia,
Come, my soldiers, attack!”
So cried forth the Great King Xerxes,
Seeing all his talk in vain,
To his archers he commanded,
“Let loose an iron rain!”
The arrows buzzed like locusts,
Under the bright noon sun,
A blackened sky of iron,
The great battle had begun.
The feathered missiles clattered,
Upon their shield-locked wall,
The Persians gazed in wonder,
For no Greek was seen to fall.
“Now come my Median warriors!
It is time to serve your Lord.
Break their line! Bring me their heads,
Or die upon their sword.”
All fury-filled and reckless,
Medes rushed the Spartan spear,
Yet broke like surf on cliff-face;
The phalanx found no peer.
Cold to the dreadful carnage,
The Great King scanned his line,
“Come forth my brave Immortals,
The flower of Persia’s prime.”
“Destroy the fell defenders,
Spill Spartan blood this day,
Crush them down beneath your strength,
And sweep their line away.”
The Immortal charge was frenzied,
But the Spartan line held firm,
Each stroke of Persian valour,
Was met by Greek return.
Though Greek and Persian blood did mix,
As the sun sank that night,
Yet the Spartan line still stood,
Against the Great King’s might.
Another day of battle,
Another clash of bronze,
In that day more heroes made,
Than in all ancient song.
Xerxes threw off his gilded chair,
And raged and cursed his line,
With all his host and all his might,
He could not break their line.
…
With easy hope extinguished,
Xerxes sought another way,
Around the stout line of Spartans,
And for this he could pay.
They found a willing shepherd,
(and unnamed shall he be,
for his deeds are so heinous,
he deserves no memory).
From traitor’s mouth came whispers;
They found the hidden pass.
Quietly by night there marched
most of the Persian mass.
Leonidas woke surrounded,
His scouts had seen the foe,
Slipping past the mountain posts,
Pooling on the plain below.
There was no time for counsel.
With a shout he roused his men,
If they stayed their death was sure,
The only question when.
“The Persians are upon us,
Closing in on both sides,
Each man who will should leave now,
Retreat and spare your lives.”
“The Persian horse outruns you,
Upon the open plain,
Unless we can hold them here,
By men sure to be slain.”
“Bright souls must hold the narrow pass.
Yet some must fight again,
For such a death as ours will be,
Must live on in living men.”
“Go now,” he told the others,
“Not all are called to die.
The deed that has no witness
Is lost beneath the sky.”
Thus many of the allies,
Chose to fight another day,
But all of the three hundred,
United, chose to stay.
And seven hundred Thespians
Refused the road away;
Beside the men of Sparta
They chose to die that day.
…
The Persian host advances,
With shouts of hope and cheers,
For all that stood of Spartan might
Is an island ringed with spears.
Xerxes rode out to parley,
To offer life and land,
For he had begun to grasp,
The romance of their stand.
“You fought long enough for glory,
Now think of your own lives;
Let men bloodied by battle
Return to homes and wives.”
“Come kneel, and I shall name you
The lords of all your race;
Why trade the rule of Hellas
For death in this poor place?”
“I grant your skill and valour;
You fought a hero’s fight
A satrapy of Persia
Shall be your bloodline’s right.”
Leonidas saw the Persians,
That great mass of bronze and hate,
He lived to die a hero.
He wished no greater fate.
“We are men of old Laconia,
To bow is not our way,
We shall fight until our end here.
Our blood shall flow this day.”
“Far better die a Spartan,
Than live to be a slave.
A hero’s death is grander,
Than any gift you gave.”
“For life is not the breathing
Of lungs another day;
The grave that has no meaning,
Is but a common clay.”
“You think this field decides it,
Who holds these stones this night?
Our lives shall teach the nations;
From page our deaths burn bright.”
“The hands that write the histories
Are not the hands that slay.
The eyes of unborn ages,
Are drawn in their own way.”
“You offer us our bodies,
Our shields and spears laid down;
Yet by our final valour,
We buy a deathless crown.”
Yet Xerxes only smiled,
“I understand your play,
But if my armies conquer,
All shall be wiped away.”
“This day shall be forgotten,
On that I must insist,
This obscure mountain skirmish,
Will vanish into mist.”
“And in this game of glory,
Your fame is mine, you see?
Against the bright Leonidas,
A dark Xerxes must there be.”
“So fight till death, O Spartan,
Oblivion waits for you,
And if fate decrees you triumph,
I share those spoils too.”
Leonidas was silent then,
And saw beneath the throne,
For in that press of spear and blood,
The two men stood alone.
“Not all who lose are lost,” he said,
“Nor all who conquer stay.
Let time decide whose form, my friend,
shall touch the coming day.”
“I see shadows from the future,
Hands stretching back in time,
For them we stage our dances;
Our witness is their rhyme.”
“This game is set, O Xerxes,
Shall we don the masks we made?
Come let our shadows mingle;
Share a dance before we fade.”
…
None of those Three Hundred
Lived to watch Athens burn,
Nor lived to see that bright day
When the tides of war did turn.
Nor cheered the day at Salamis,
Where in that narrow strait,
Greece hurled Persia’s fleet on rocks,
To break beneath their weight.
Nor saw the sun at Plataea,
Glint golden on the shield,
As the allies rout Mardonius,
Upon that fatal field.
In all the courts of Sparta,
Across the Messenian plain,
Wait many an anxious maiden,
For a love who never came.
Yet as they fell a tale was made,
To outlive the victor’s dawn,
And while men still yet walk the pass,
They learn how names are born.
There stands a stone inscription,
“Here, obedient, we lie,”
That is all that now adorns,
The pass of Thermopylae.