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shoulder, presenting an ancient wooden image which must, tradition dictated, receive the spray of human blood.
    Two of the boy’s mates from his training platoon kneel at each shoulder to catch the lad when he falls. At any time the boy may terminate the ordeal by releasing the bar and pitching forward to the dirt. Theoretically a boy would only do this when thrashed to unconsciousness, but many pitched simply when they could no longer bear the pain. Between a hundred and two hundred looked on this day: boys of other platoons, fathers, brothers and mentors and even some of the boys’ mothers, keeping discreetly to the rear.
    Tripod kept taking it and taking it. The flesh of his back had been torn through in a dozen places; you could see tissue and fascia, ribcage and muscle and even the spine. He would not go down. “Pitch!” his two comrades kept urging between blows, meaning let go of the bar and fall. Tripod refused. Even the drill instructors began hissing this between their teeth. One look in the boy’s face and you could see he had passed beyond reason. He had made up his mind to die rather than raise the hand for quarter. The
eirenes
did as they were instructed in such cases: they prepared to wallop Tripod so hard in four rapid successive blows that the impact would knock him unconscious and thus preserve his life. I will never forget the sound those four blows made upon the boy’s back. Tripod dropped; the drill instructors immediately declared the ordeal terminated and summoned the next boy.
    Tripod managed to lift himself upon all fours. Blood was sheeting from his mouth, nose and ears. He could not see or speak. He managed somehow to turn about and almost stand, then he sank slowly to his seat, held there a moment and then dropped, hard, into the dirt. It was clear at once that he would never rise.
    Later that evening when it was over (the ritual was not suspended on account of Tripod’s death but continued for another three hours), Dienekes, who had been present, walked apart with his protege, the boy Alexandros whom I mentioned earlier. I served Alexandros at this time. He was twelve but looked no older than ten; already he was a wonderful runner, but extremely slight and of a sensitive disposition. Moreover he had shared a bond of affection with Tripod; the older boy had been a sort of guardian or protector; Alexandros was devastated by his death.
    Dienekes walked with Alexandros, alone except for his own squire and myself, to a spot beneath the temple of Athena Protectress of the City, immediately below the slope from the statue of Phobos, the god of fear. At that time Dienekes’ age was, I would estimate, thirty-five years. He had already won two prizes of valor, at Erythrae against the Thebans and at Achillieon against the Corinthians and their Arkadian allies. As nearly as I can recall, this is how the older man instructed his protege:
    First, in a gentle and loving tone, he recalled his own first sight, when he was a lad in years younger even than Alexandros, of a boy comrade whipped to death. He recounted several of his own ordeals in the Runway, beneath the rod.
    Then he began the sequence of query and response which comprises the Lakedaemonian syllabus of instruction.
    â€œAnswer this, Alexandros. When our countrymen triumph in battle, what is it that defeats the foe?”
    The boy responded in the terse Spartan style, “Our steel and our skill.”
    â€œThese, yes,” Dienekes corrected him gently, “but something more. It is that.” His gesture led up the slope to the image of Phobos.
    Fear.
    Their own fear defeats our enemies.
    â€œNow answer. What is the source of fear?”
    When Alexandros’ reply faltered, Dienekes reached with his hand and touched his own chest and shoulder.
    â€œFear arises from this: the flesh. This,” he declared, “is the factory of fear.”
    Alexandros listened with the grim concentration of a boy who