Pueros

Tribute
Φóρος

Part α΄ - Χίος
(Part 1 – Chios)

(Island of Chios, Ionia, Eastern Aegean Sea, summer 500 BC)

The summer day was glorious. The sky was virtually cloudless, with its colour so matching that of the shimmering blue sea that the horizon was barely discernible. However, a gentle but nevertheless cooling landward breeze thankfully lessened the heat. The temperature might otherwise have driven the exceptionally beautiful 11 year-old fair-haired and blue-eyed Dios and his similarly aged and featured best friend, Capros, to seek some cooler surrounds, instead of frolicking together naked on a quiet beach of golden sand on the eastern side of their island.

Dios’ prosperous eastern Aegean home of Chios, or ‘Χίος’, was located just off the coast of Asia Minor and geographically formed part of Ionia. The region, which was at the time mainly inhabited by Greeks, also included the religious centre of Mycale and the cities of Colophon, Ephesus, Miletus and Phocaea on the mainland, plus other islands such as Samos.

Chios, serenely located in the sky-blue Aegean Sea, was hilly but fertile and attractive. The many magnificent local scenes included pleasant cities, towns and villages, possessing splendid temples and other municipal buildings. There was also much greenery and colourful flora, as well as sand and pebble beaches and spa sulphur springs.

Chios’ prosperity emanated from the island’s successful agriculture and industry. Copious amounts of citrus fruits, figs, nuts and olives were harvested. Large quantities of goats and sheep were husbanded, and quarries produced lignite and marble. There was a substantial fishing fleet. Carefully supervised vineyards and woods also yielded the goods for which the island was perhaps most famous, namely Chian wine, which was stored in locally manufactured wax-sealed amphorae, and mastic.

Levkonion on the south coast, which had sadly lost much importance by Dios’ era because of the growth of other cities on Chios, especially the eponymous capital in the east, had once rivalled Troy on the nearby mainland of Asia Minor in significance. However, the temple of Athena on the local acropolis, which was almost two centuries old, was still the centre for many of the island’s main religious festivals.

Chios was rumoured to be the birthplace of Homer, although this probably inaccurately stemmed from the presence for centuries on the island of a school of epic poets called the ‘Homeridae’. There was also a similar establishment for architects and sculptors, which was the inspiration behind the Ionic order of architecture and was famed throughout the Greek world, as was the local system of constitutional government and law, which actually pre-dated that of Athens.

Solon of Athens used the Chian constitutional and legal model as the basis for his own relevant and highly significant reforms in his great Attica city. Chios could therefore perhaps lay better claim to being the cradle of democracy.

Fatefully for Dios and Capros, however, Greek Asia Minor and neighbouring islands, including Chios, were also renowned in the eyes of their Persian overlords for other human attributes. These concerned the beauty of the local children.

The whole of Asia Minor and many nearby islands, including Chios, had now been subject to the suzerainty of the Persians for 4½ decades, ever since the reign of Cyrus the Great, who had established the biggest empire the world had yet known. However, the local inhabitants had originally been allowed significant autonomy, as long as substantial annual tribute, or ‘φόρος’ in Greek, was paid to the foreign king. Unfortunately, such liberalism had ceased when his successor’s successor, Darius I, came to the throne and appointed ‘tyrants’ to rule all of his Hellenic possessions under the supervision of the provincial governor, the ‘Satrap’.

This development on Chios, which displayed no regard for local political customs, institutions and personalities, had fatefully caused a lot of resentment, much more than that incurred by the earlier more nominal subjection to Persian suzerainty. There had previously even been a popular view that being part of a vast, prosperous and currently peaceful empire was beneficial for the island, as the situation opened up many more potential lucrative trading markets.

Darius I was also known to some as the ‘Great’, but to others he was the ‘Bastard’, a title that to them did not just reflect his birth status. This king still reigned and was now about to anger the people of Chios even more by the nature of the addition to his latest demand for annual tribute, which invariably consisted of both cash and kind.

The expenses of Persian kings were heavy. Regal magnificence had to be retained, including the construction and maintenance of vast luxurious palaces and the keeping of many wives, large harems and enormous retinues of servants. There was also the management of the empire and the upkeep of the relevant civil and military infrastructures to consider. Annual tribute from subject states therefore needed to be substantial, especially when there was an additional need for large reserves to be set aside to pay the costs of any future wars.

Tribute basically consisted of taxes and gifts. Levies of about 20% of retail value were imposed on agricultural produce, as well as on the products from other industries, such as fishing, mining and manufacturing. Payment was made in gold and silver talents, each of which weighed 30 kilograms [66 pounds].

Gold talents were worth thirteen times as much as those of silver and were divided for currency purposes into 60 minas and 360 shekels or 100 drachmas. Each of the latter weighed 4 grams [0.14 ounce].

The poorer provinces, such as Arachosia, which paid only about 170 silver talents annually, naturally contributed the least. Meanwhile, the equivalent Indian satrapy contrastingly forfeited approximately 360 similar units of gold dust per year.

Such tributes were not entirely spent on royal extravagance or imperial administration. Darius I’s treasuries at Ecbatana, Susa and Persepolis managed, after defraying annual costs and other out-goings, to store the net equivalent of about 15000 silver talents per year.

When Alexander the Great ended the Persian Empire, over 170 years in the future from this present time, he found 380,000 silver talents in the Ecbatana treasury alone. That was after the last king, Darius III, had spent much of his reserves fighting the invading Macedonians.

Significant non-perishable gifts in kind, generally representative of the source, were also expected to form part of the annual tribute. For example, Arabs gave 3,000 kilograms [6,600 pounds] of frankincense, and the Egyptians 1500 horses, 2,000 mules and 50,000 sheep. Chios’ presents normally consisted of many amphorae of local wine, plus large quantities of lignite, marble and mastic. However, on this occasion, the currently unknowing islanders, along with some other Greek subjects of Darius I, were also to be required to supplement a rather grim part of Babylon’s yearly contribution.

The satraps were responsible for the collection of tribute, from which they took an agreed and generous cut to finance their own expenses and those of the subordinate tyrants. Chios formed part of a province combining the regions of Ionia, Lydia and Caria, the capital of which was at Sardis on the mainland of Asia Minor.

This satrapy had first been established by Darius I twelve years prior to the present date. The same reorganisation of the king’s domains in Asia Minor had also introduced the local tyrants.

Meanwhile, the same landward breeze that currently cooled Dios and Capros, as they happily played without care on the sandy beach because summertime meant no schooling, also unfortunately heralded potential personal disaster. The first foreboding sign of such trouble was the disturbance of the previously indiscernible eastern horizon by tiny black forms. These gradually grew larger, gaining shape and colour in the process to reveal themselves eventually as the expected small flotilla of Phoenician biremes and merchant ships, making their annual expedition to Chios to collect the tribute for the Persian king.

The narrow high-speed biremes were warships with two banks of oars and single red and blue striped sails. The vessels were about 30 paces long by 5 wide and possessed massive battering rams of wood-covered bronze on extravagantly curved bows, as well as decorative poops, abruptly bent and shaped like a scorpion’s tail. They were also externally adorned with colourful round shields affixed to the side.

The merchant ships possessed similarly ornate bows and poops. However, compared to the biremes, they were more cumbersome, having less oars and thereby being more reliant for motion on the single brown rectangular sails on their low masts, whose colour came from the leather quilt covering affixed as strengthening. The boats’ hulls were shallow but could nevertheless hold considerable amounts of goods for transport, supplemented in respect of the most valuable consignments by using the spare space on the upper decks. Here, garish red tenting at the stern provided the crew and any passengers with some shelter in inclement weather. As the vessels were expected to play a potential military role in times of war, their fronts were also fitted with battering rams and the lower planking was reinforced with metal protection in case of impact with the enemy.

The bows of both biremes and merchantmen displayed large painted eyes, a decoration which, like on similar Greek ships, had been adopted from sacred Egyptian practice. The depictions were supposed to help the vessels find their way. Some prows also exhibited carvings of deities and animals.

The majority of those who currently occupied the open upper decks of the arriving biremes were actually passengers rather than crew, as was indicated by the fact that they wore warrior uniforms and were heavily armed. They were also not Phoenicians, as most were instead Persian soldiers voyaging on hired ships.

The commercially-minded Phoenicians, of whom the Carthaginians were an off-shoot, were considered at this time to be the best seafarers of the ancient Mediterranean world. The famous cedar trees covering the slopes of the mountains of their native land, now called the Lebanon, had in fact first encouraged them to trade by water rather than land. The local timber was a perfect construction material for robust ships.

The Phoenicians then made important contributions to marine science. They designed state-of-the art ships, and cleverly adapted and developed the latest navigational technology, being credited in the process with the division of a circle into 360 degrees and establishing reliable celestial reference points.

The Phoenicians regularly hired out their seafaring expertise, and their merchant and war vessels, to foreigners. Given that their homeland was currently under the suzerainty of the Persian Empire, there was also at this time a particular reason why these efficient maritime mercenaries gave their present loyalty to one nation in particular.

The ancient Persians were not mariners and possessed no seagoing ships of their own. They relied instead entirely on mercenaries, such as the Phoenicians, as well as hired Greeks.

One exception to the presence of crew and soldiers on the upper decks of the biremes was what the locals would consider a very effeminately clothed and adorned, and unusually clean-shaven, young man in his early 20s, who was standing on the flotilla flagship. However, he was in Persian eyes exceedingly handsome and well-dressed, as befitted a former highly favoured catamite of their king.

His previous position had now led Aspamites to be appointed to his current important post. He was a ‘spasaka’, or one of the trusted ‘eyes of the king’, temporarily despatched from Darius I’s large and luxurious summer palace at Ecbatana to oversee the local collection of tribute.

The presence of someone like Aspamites was considered necessary to ensure that the provincial satrap and tyrant of Chios, and their local officials, did not cream off more of the largesse than their entitlement. However, the specific identity of this particular spasaka had more to do with the special commission with which he had also been charged by Darius I’s main court administrator, the Lord High Chamberlain.

For the same reason, Aspamites was accompanied by a native of Chios, who was to become notorious throughout Ionia, Lydia and Caria for his specialist profession, which he practised with clear personal satisfaction. The Chian’s name was Panionius.

Dios and Capros watched in fascination, as the Phoenician flotilla came closer, whilst clearly making for the harbour of Chios’ eponymous capital, which was situated further north on the island’s eastern coast from the beach on which the boys were currently standing. Of course, neither child appreciated that for one of them the appearance of the ships would not just mean the loss of some of their island’s material riches.

Chios would soon be additionally impoverished through the sad loss of, to some people at least, other far more precious goods.

(Pedasa, Caria, Asia Minor, same time)

Just like Dios on Chios, Hermotimus, who was the young son of a wealthy merchant, was playing with his similarly-aged best friend. However, the exceptionally beautiful blue-eyed 10 year-old boy, with long silky fair hair cutely curling into neat tendrils, was not on a beach but was instead involved in a ball game in the large courtyard of his Greek-style home.

Hermotimus, however, was not a Greek, as his city of Pedasa, close to Halicarnassus in Caria on the mainland of Asia Minor, was inhabited by Leleges. The boy’s race were famous for being tough, producing excellent warriors in war.

The Leleges had held out far longer than other local peoples when the Persians had originally invaded forty-six years previously. The local Lydian king, Croesus, to whom the Carians and Ionians, including the island of Chios, had then paid allegiance, had unwisely crossed the border river, the Halys, to attack Cappodocia, which was part of Cyrus the Great’s empire.

Croesus had considered his unexpected aggression to be an astute pre-emptive military move, having believed that he could not trust the expansionist Cyrus to invade him sometime and that his best form of defence was attack. The Lydian king’s trust in ultimate success against the Persians had earlier been reinforced after he had consulted the Oracle at Delphi.

After sacrificing 300 cattle to Apollo in his capital of Sardis, the enormously wealthy Croesus had gold and silver melted down into over 100 bricks, which were despatched to Delphi, along with precious jewels and statues, in a golden bowl weighing a quarter of a ton. With these gifts, the king sent his question to the Oracle, asking whether he should attack Persia.

The high priestess of the sacred sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, the Pythia, answered that, if he crossed a river, "Croesus will destroy a great empire!" Encouraged by this response, the king subsequently crossed the Halys to attack Cappodocia, only to suffer a decisive defeat in the subsequent war.

The defeat of Croesus and the transport of his famous fabulous fortune back to the treasury of Cyrus the Great had certainly immensely boosted the latter’s own financial resources. However, of greater significance for the future were the large numbers of Greek captives taken back to Persia, who included the initially chained Lydian king.

Most of these prisoners, including the Lydian king, whose supposed suicide on top of a funeral pyre to avoid capture was a false myth, were later graciously spared by the sagacious Cyrus, and also given positions in the royal household. From Persia, Croesus subsequently sent the iron chains, which had once restrained him, to Delphi with the question, "Why did you lie to me?" The Pythia correctly answered that her prophecy had been fulfilled, as the great empire that had been destroyed had been his own.

The wise move of Cyrus to absorb the captured Greeks into his own service was to prove to be of considerable practical and cultural benefit to the Persians. The conquest of Asia Minor had brought them their first comprehensive contact with Hellenic civilisation, which was in many ways totally different from their own in terms of government, religion and other life concepts.

Although Cyrus was contemptuous of the overt commercialism of the Hellenes, he respected their other skills, as well as a lot of their institutions, even consulting their oracles. The king therefore recruited many of their most able officials, soldiers and craftsmen to the benefit of his empire, with their numbers quickly boosted by voluntary arrivals, some from still independent states of Greece, who were seeking to make careers and fortunes in Persian service.

Cyrus’ affection for the Greeks was shared by his distant illegitimate cousin in the royal house and successor’s successor, Darius I. Unfortunately for Hermotimus, the present king’s tastes also encouraged him to be attracted to the appearance as well as the skills of young Hellenes and those who shared their culture and looks, such as the Leleges.

As Hermotimus played with his best friend, the boy was, however, currently oblivious to the disasters that would befall him and his city during the course of the following year.

(Island of Chios, Ionia, Eastern Aegean Sea, 1 week later)

All of the 11 year-old boys and 13 year-old girls of Dios’ small town and surrounding villages, located to the south of the Chian capital, had been unprecedentedly ordered to assemble just after dawn in the main square for inspection by a special visitor. However, many parents were very reluctant to let sons and daughters to be so paraded, for a reason diplomatically carefully kept from the children.

Word had quickly spread to adult ears about the chilling purpose behind the parade. However, the absence of any relevant child would undoubtedly be noticed by the efficient local authorities, who had scrolled school records to assist them to take a roll call and had promised extreme penalties for those failing to comply with the summons. Consequently, no one had disobeyed.

Dios stood patiently in a line of about another hundred children, beside his best friend, Capros. Both boys, like their young male companions, were wearing simple and light but also clean and neat short-sleeved white summer tunics, extending to midway between groin and knee, with loincloth underwear and sandals.

The local scene was notable for the chatter amongst the paraded children, excited at their unusual display, and the utter silence emanating from their parents. The latter had crowded together nearby to watch the dreaded event, whilst effectively guarded by a large contingent of local armed Chian militia, present to prevent any subsequent riotous behaviour on the part of the adults, all of whose faces currently exhibited immense worry.

The chatter amongst the children eventually came to a halt when two horses entered the square, followed by a few uncovered ox-drawn wagons, escorted by Persian cavalry on locally requisitioned steeds. One of the carts was already transporting an exceptionally beautiful but currently tearful 13 year-old girl, collected from the first visit of the day to a nearby town by the foreign arrivals, who were led by Aspamites and Panionius.

Aspamites then wasted no time in slowly riding along the parade of waiting children, whilst Panionius and the rest of the arriving entourage came to a halt and remained at the edge of the square. The spasaka stopped on several occasions in front of a few of the boys and girls, often to the sound of muted cries from the nearby parents.

Aspamites lingered for a particularly long time in front of Dios and Capros, his eyes taking in all of their remarkable physical attributes, before moving on. The spasaka then repeated his inspection from the other end of the line of paraded children, again stopping in front of the pair of especially gorgeous boys as he proceeded.

In response, the gregarious and unafraid Dios and Capros grinned at the handsome unusually clean-shaven visitor. The latter was attired in one of the two-piece robes, or ‘candys’, which was common in Persia and comprised a cape and skirt with regular stylised folds, linked by a broad sash belt round the waist. Underneath, the spasaka wore trousers, covered to the calf by laced boots, whilst above his long carefully groomed hair he sported a domed Median cap tied onto his head by a ribbon.

Aspamites’ trousers were currently fully exposed. In order to accommodate his horse riding, the spasaka had tucked the skirt of his candys into its sash.

Aspamites’ particular garments were of very expensive and colourful materials, decorated with embroidery, encrusted with precious stones and pearls. The young man’s rather spectacular personal ornamentation was completed by much jewellery and a lavish use of cosmetics.

The heavily sweetly scented Aspamites wore gold earrings, and a neck torque and amulets of the same precious metal. Meanwhile, the spasaka’s handsome face showed evidence of the use of bistre and rouge to highlight his undoubted handsome features.

The grins of Dios and Capros, as they looked up towards Aspamites, were not just caused by their natural friendliness. The boys were also highly amused by the young man’s extraordinary costume and use of cosmetics, the extravagant likes of which their small town had never previously seen and in the like of which no self-respecting Greek would ever wish to disport himself, even in death.

The grins of Dios and Capros were eventually wiped from their very pretty faces when Aspamites, riding in front of them for the third time to conclude his inspection, shouted to the Chian, Panionius, in a high-pitched boyish voice but also in excellent Greek, "These two boys only!" The spasaka’s announcement was accompanied by loud wailing from the parents of the pair of 11 year-olds, who were restrained from rushing to their sons by the efficient local militia.

Dios and Capros subsequently noticed that they were being approached by some dismounted Persian cavalrymen and the wagon already containing a girl. The two now shocked and incredulous 11 year-olds then found themselves being forcibly bundled into the open cart, where they saw for the first time that the child already present was quietly sobbing.

The boys also saw for the first time the leg irons that would manacle an ankle apiece to iron rings immovably embedded into the sturdy wooden sides of the wagon to prevent them from trying to run away. As they were being compulsorily attached to these sinister chains, the petrified Dios asked desperately of the nearby Aspamites, who was now the one to be bearing a broad grin, "Where are you taking us, Sir?"

"To Persia," Aspamites answered, "after you have first been castrated. You are to be a fresh eunuch tribute to the King of Kings, my lord and master, Darius I!"

Part β΄ - Έκδΰεσθαι
(Part 2 � Escape)

(Island of Chios, Ionia, Eastern Aegean Sea, summer 500 BC)

Dios and Capros could both hear and see their respective parents shouting and screaming loudly as the uncovered ox-drawn wagon on which the boys were now resting, with one ankle apiece manacled to the wooden side of the cart, left their hometown�s main square. However, the deeply distressed adults concerned could not come to the rescue of their sons because they were effectively restrained by armed members of the local militia.

The involvement of the other fathers and mothers present might have made a difference in respect of the desperate and forlorn efforts of the parents of Dios and Capros. However, they were simply too thankful for the safety of their own children to assist, as well as too fearful of the potential consequences of such action.

Dios and Capros, now sobbing along with the older girl who shared their wagon, were therefore allowed to leave their hometown without hindrance to face their apparent sad fates.

(Island of Chios, Ionia, Eastern Aegean Sea, evening of the same day)

The distressful day had so far been very long for Dios and Capros. They had been selected and then taken from their hometown during the early morning and the little convoy, of which they now formed a sad part, had slowly moved through other similar communities.

In some of these other towns, more parades of 11 year-old boys and 13 year-old girls had been assembled. The unusually smooth-faced and garishly attired and adorned Aspamites had then again chosen particularly exquisite examples of Chian childhood so that, by the time darkness began to fall and the eponymous capital city and main port of Chios had been reached, the previously empty wagons were all fully occupied.

Dios and Capros had been permitted no food during the day. Only regular supplies of water had been issued to them, which was gratefully received, given that the weather was very hot and sunny and they had no shelter in the back of the uncovered wagons.

Dios and Capros were still not given any food when they and the other chosen children were finally unchained and unloaded from the wagons on that part of Chios� harbourside where the Phoenician flotilla was moored. All of the generally still sobbing boys and girls were then separated according to gender and ushered by the heavily armed but now dismounted Persian cavalrymen into separate buildings, which were normally large two-storey stone dockside warehouses but were to be their temporary homes.

For security reasons, the buildings had no openings on the ground floor apart from the lockable and sturdy double entrance doors and some regularly spaced narrow slits designed to allow daylight to illuminate the interior. However, the upper storey possessed some unshuttered windows.

The main purpose of the boys� building was confirmed by the presence, filling the whole of the ground floor, of copious amphorae, full of Chian wine, which formed part of the yet-to-be loaded tribute for the Persian king. The young male children were forcibly guided along a passageway between these stored viniculture goods towards a narrow staircase and, apart from two, were ushered up the steps.

Dios was alarmed to see that one of the duo, personally randomly selected by Aspamites to remain on the ground floor, was his best friend, Capros. However, he could not immediately do anything about the worrying development. The press of the other boys, who were being hastened upwards by guards using the flat edges of their menacingly unsheathed broadswords to punish slowness with slaps from the cool metal surfaces, meant that climbing the stairs was enforced.

When Dios arrived on the second floor, he saw that the cavernous room was full of apparently new straw mattresses, arrayed in five neat rows across the width, with a leather bucket at the side of each. Some of these beds were already occupied by naked boys, who had been chosen from the capital and other communities visited by Aspamites on previous days.

A quick count by Dios� agile and highly intelligent mind then established that there were ten beds in each row, which therefore provided accommodation for precisely fifty boys, who now all appeared to be occupying the room. However, one particular child�s mind was focused on a friend who was not yet present.

Fifty happened to the required amount of freshly gelded beautiful 11 year-old boys who were to form part of that year�s annual tribute from Chios to Darius I, along with a similar volume of gorgeous young virgins of the other gender. The Persian kings possessed, within each of their main palaces, enormous female harems, which required regular refreshing with new recruits. As girls of this era often married in their early teens as soon as they had emerged through puberty, 13 year-olds were considered ideal for enlistment, as they should still be virginal whilst also being ripe for royal delectation.

The Persian kings also had a need for regular large supplies of fresh young eunuchs for the fulfilment of many roles. Such geldings were ideal for guarding or performing other traditionally masculine tasks in the female harems or the quarters of the monarch�s many wives and children. They were also considered perfect for more important aspects of royal service, particularly in imperial administration, because they were usually far more trustworthy than men who still possessed their balls.

Eunuchs had no distracting wives or children to consider during their careers, to whom they might also attempt to bequeath accumulated power. They could additionally not realistically aspire to the position of king regardless of how high they progressed in imperial service, whereas other mighty officials and nobles might rebelliously harbour ambitions to secure the throne for themselves and their heirs. In fact, treacherous revolts of this kind were common in the Persian Empire, with Darius I himself having to fight nineteen battles in the first three years of his reign in order to secure his position.

Persian nobles also liked to emulate their kings by having eunuchs in their service, for similar reasons to those of their monarchs. However, the aristocracy only received their proportion of freshly gelded young servants after the Lord High Chamberlain had selected the invariably most choice specimens for the royal palaces.

Part of the annual tribute to the Persian kings paid by the city of Babylon, which had been conquered by Cyrus the Great thirty-eight years previously, currently comprised the gift of 500 young freshly gelded young boys to meet the avaricious need for eunuchs for the royal palaces and elsewhere. However, this was the first occasion on which some of the Greek communities of the western empire had been forced to supplement such a grim contribution. There were two reasons for this sinister development.

Firstly, Darius I was building another enormous and magnificent palace at Persepolis to supplement the ones he already possessed in places such as Ecbatana, Susa and Cyrus the Great�s old capital of Pasargadae, and he therefore needed more eunuch servants for his new royal residence. Secondly, the king had a sexual penchant for young and pretty Greeks of both genders.

Aspamites had now completed his task of gathering the fifty most exquisite 11 year-old boys and 13 year-old girls on Chios, who would be supplemented by similar numbers from another nine Greek communities, such as the more northerly island of Lesbos. The spasaka had been appointed to the role because he was fully aware, not least through personal experience as a former royal catamite, of the sexual tastes of his regal master, Darius I.

Dios felt a chill run through him, as he contemplated the scene, his future dreadful fate and the mysterious retention downstairs of Capros by Aspamites. The sudden shivering of the 11 year-old boy�s form did not, of course, emanate from any atmospheric coldness, as the room he was in on this hot summer evening was very warm. The grievous nervous reaction he was experiencing instead resulted from his alarm and anguish at his transfer from home and family to such a foreboding place, plus worries about his hideous prospects and those of his best friend.

Dios then observed Aspamites climb the steps to arrive on the upper floor, worryingly unaccompanied by Capros or the other boy retained downstairs. The spasaka subsequently immediately ordered, in his excellent but accented Greek, all of the new young Chian arrivals to take their clothes and sandals off and leave the discarded attire in a heap near the top of the staircase before choosing an unoccupied mattress for themselves.

All of the boys complied reluctantly but rapidly. Their reluctance had not resulted from any aversion to public nudity, as they were accustomed to disporting themselves naked in the gymnasia and on the sports-fields of their communities, but from concern that they might all now suffer castration without further ado. Meanwhile, their rapidity of action stemmed from Aspamites� threat to beat anyone who proved recalcitrant in respecting his order.

All of the boys were also accustomed to receiving intermittent beatings, across extended palms or exposed bottoms, from their fathers or schoolmasters for supposed occasional naughtiness. Nevertheless, none currently wanted to repeat the experience at the hands of the garishly and rather effeminately presented but sinister Aspamites.

Nevertheless, as guards subsequently gathered the shed clothing to take the items below for subsequent resale, Dios bravely decided to risk Aspamites� wrath by abandoning his selected mattress to approach the spasaka. The now naked 11 year-old then nervously asked the surprised young man, "Excuse me, Sir, but can I enquire why you�ve retained two boys downstairs?"

Aspamites initially experienced some anger at Dios� impertinence. However, the sight of the boy�s beautiful but sorrowful and pleading young face, adorned by sparkling blue eyes and long straight silky fair hair, culminating in curled tendrils, fortunately calmed the spasaka.

"It�s really none of your business," Aspamites then replied, "and I have every right to ignore your query and instead beat that pert bottom of yours for having the cheek to abandon your bed and speak to me without permission." Dios� gorgeous face, which was stained by recently dried tears, now displayed even more grief on hearing the spasaka�s response. However, such intensified unhappiness became very short-lived when the young man relented and added, in a whisper so no one else could hear, "But I won�t on this occasion, as long as I�m satisfied with the reason why you want to know the answer to your question."

Dios therefore told Aspamites, in a similar whisper, "One of the boys you retained downstairs is my best friend, Capros." The spasaka grinned in response to this information on realising why the young Chian had taken the risk of incurring his wrath and consequently being subjected to punishment. The young man admired pluck, especially when brought to the fore by compassion for another.

Aspamites then advised Dios "I�ll answer your question as long as you promise not to tell anyone else about my answer. I don�t want to increase the worries of the other boys."

Despite sudden fright that what he was about to hear was obviously going to be disturbing to him, Dios now straightened his delectable young body and stood almost at attention before giving his word of honour that he would not betray the young man�s trust. The boy�s solemn oath also happened to mention his name.

Aspamites then answered the original question candidly, unperturbed about increasing this particular brave boy�s worries because the child had, after all, wanted to know the truth. He whispered "As you undoubtedly already know, Dios, you and the other forty-nine occupants in this room are to be castrated, although your bodies will first be starved and purged over several days before the geldings take place." The spasaka could not subsequently refrain from smiling, after managing to notice, before the young Chian hid the embarrassing development with his hands, that the 11 year-old�s cock had grown and quivered in reaction to the mention of the imminent sad loss of his balls.

Aspimaites nevertheless continued to advise that "Unfortunately, despite the well-practised skill of the castrater, either because of the slip of his knife on a boy desperately struggling within his tight bondage or subsequent infection, some children are badly mutilated or do not survive their gelding at all. Such losses rarely amount to more than one in ten and so I take the precaution of choosing 10% more potential eunuchs than I need as reserves."

"Although the reserves are similarly starved and purged in readiness for potential castration," Aspamites then informed, "I rather considerately initially accommodate the, in this case, five boys elsewhere. I believe that there�s no need to distress them by allowing them to see their companions return one by one to their beds, with bandaging affixed to their groins after recent gelding."

"Your Capros is one of this potentially lucky quintet," Aspamites next commented, "so perhaps you, Dios, should pray to your Greek gods that there are no losses amongst the fifty boys, including you, who will shortly lose their testes. Your deities might be able to save your best friend from a similar fate. Now, before I go do you have any other questions?"

Despite the atmospheric warmth and his relief that Capros might be spared castration and despatch to Persia, Dios� bodily chill intensified at being reminded in greater detail about his imminent fate, whilst his small unruly cock continued to remain incongruously and mischievously hard behind the cover of his hands. Nevertheless, the boy did want to ask more questions.

"Why, Sir, do the other boys and me have to go to Persia," Dios next enquired, "and also be castrated to become eunuchs?" "Because," Aspamites patiently answered, "you are to form part of your island�s annual tribute to my lord and master, the King of Kings, Darius I. You are to become servants in his household or in that of one of his nobles."

"Darius and his nobles," Aspamites remarked, with continued candidness, "appreciate attractive and well born and educated eunuchs in their households, which is why born slaves are seldom recruited for the purpose. The king and the aristocracy like their women and children to be guarded and attended by such geldings, who will not be sexually tempted by their feminine and juvenile allures."

"Unlike some of the prominent nobility," Aspamites advised, "including unreliable members of his own family, Darius also expects eunuchs, because of their emasculated state, not to possess any realistic ambitions for the throne but instead to be consequently worthy of being entrusted with important administrative positions. The Lord High Chamberlain himself, who is the head of the king�s civil service and whom you will inevitably meet if you survive your castration and the long journey to Persia, is himself a gelding."

Aspamites� exceedingly handsome smooth face then noticeably saddened, at obvious recall of a dark moment in his life, when he added: "I too am a eunuch, as I formed part of the Babylonian tribute of a decade ago!" However, the spasaka quickly overcame his sudden melancholy when he suggested, with a smile of attempted reassurance and whilst running his right hand gently through the boy�s long silky fair hair, "So you see, Dios, being castrated and taken to Persia can actually be beneficial for you. It could lead you to far greater power and influence, as well as wealth because the King of Kings is very generous to those who serve him well, than you could dream about, let alone otherwise realistically aspire to secure."

Dios would have much preferred to keep his balls and remain on Chios rather than become very rich and powerful. However, the boy now bravely began to accept his inevitable destiny, with his courage bolstered by his pride, which encouraged him not to want to display continued misery or any cowardice, and his hope that Capros might be spared a similar fate.

"I hope that�s all of your questions for now, Dios," Aspamites then commented. The young Chian actually had many more that he would like to ask, but he did not want to test the clearly busy spasaka�s patience any longer. He therefore nodded affirmatively and received the instruction from the young Babylonian in reply "Then go to your bed. The castrater will be here shortly to assess the work he has to do and to give all boys their first portion of purgative. The bucket by your mattress is to defecate and be sick in, which you�ll then be doing a lot, as the potion comprehensively clears your body in readiness for your castration in a few days� time!"

Dios� depression was, of course, not helped by this further revelation. However, the boy subsequently bravely lay on his back on his straw mattress and spread his legs to allow the bearded castrater to assess his forthcoming task in respect of this particular imminent young victim of his very sharp and well used gelding knife.

The castrater was ironically and rather treacherously a fellow Chian, who previously initially practised his craft on slaves elsewhere in the Persian Empire. Panionius, who gained immense sadistic sexual satisfaction from gelding young pretty boys, had later first come to the attention of the Persian authorities in Babylon. He had deliberately and happily gone to the great Mesopotamian city to offer his services to help remove the balls of that year�s annual 500-strong tribute of fresh juvenile eunuchs.

Panionius was now to gain notoriety amongst fellow Greeks in the Hellenic part of the Persian Empire by castrating the boys chosen to be the first similar tribute from the subject peoples of ten states in that region of the world. The evil man would also go on to enhance his appalling reputation in other places currently not selected to make such awful offerings to the Persian king. For reasons that will be detailed in later parts of this story, these included the cities of Calchedon and Pedasa on the mainland of Asia Minor.

Dios now allowed Panionius, who was very pleased to be preparing for his favourite pastime, to inspect the naked boy�s completely smooth genitals, which were nicely proportioned for an 11 year-old. As would be expected, the man concentrated mainly on the child�s pleasantly spherical scrotum, on which he would perform his craft in a few days� time. However, after delicately feeling the balls of his fellow Chian, which would soon be extracted at his hands, the castrater also could not resist running his fingers gently up and down the youngster�s cock, which was currently flaccid again in marked contrast to the version hidden under the adult�s tunic.

Given his tastes, Panionius would have loved to enjoy sex, especially of the penetrative variety, with any of the fifty boys presently surrounding him, particularly Dios, whom he considered exceptionally exquisite, surely the young epitome of Apollo. However, the man knew that the young eunuchs he was to create had to reach Darius II�s court in a virginal state or the person who had been responsible for any despoiling of their charms would suffer greatly.

Panionius would therefore just have to content himself with castrating the boys instead, as well as gaining pleasure from the allures of his new pretty 12 year-old eunuch slave, Atrios. The man had recently personally gelded his new young servant, after buying him in the city on the coast of Asia Minor in which he had established a home base, Atarneus, although he currently spent little time there.

Panionius� attention to Dios� cock caused some embarrassment to the boy, as the unruly penis began again to harden. The child had of late begun to notice that such genital phenomena were starting to increase in number. He was not innocent or ignorant enough not to know the reason, as he had also recently started to indulge in secret masturbation, currently unproductive in terms of ejaculate but nevertheless highly pleasurable. He had instead been rather proud of his gradual advance into proper manhood, which alas appeared to be about to come to a sudden premature and tragic end. However, his pride did not extend to wanting to display his young virility in public.

Dios was therefore rather ashamed when, after forcing the boy to drink some of the purgative, poured for the purpose into a small pottery beaker from a larger jug, both of which were being carried by Panionius, the smirking man moved on to the next frightened child. The 11 year-old therefore rushed to hide his new erection behind his hands. However, his worry about such a genital display was short-lived, as both his oral and anal orifices subsequently quickly demanded to expel some of the contents of his insides, just as those of the other eunuchs-to-be, previously visited by the castrater, were already noisily and odorously doing. Fortunately for the smell within the room, adult male slaves, temporarily requisitioned by the Persians to aid their cause on Chios, disposed of the resultant waste into the nearby harbour at regular intervals.

(Island of Chios, Ionia, Eastern Aegean Sea, a few nights later)

Dios, feeling very weak and hungry through lack of food and the debilitating effects of the purgative, was sleeping fitfully on his straw mattress. The room was illuminated only by the full moonlight filtering in from the windows, although one of the shafts of light fell on the sleeping boy, which helped his rescuer to locate him amongst the other somnolent children.

Dios was awakened by a gentle hand shaking his shoulder and the sound of his father whispering his name. The boy recognised the voice and shape of his male parent in the moonlight and he was about to shriek in delight when the man quietened him by placing a firm strong hand across his son�s young rosy lips.

"Shhh," Dios� father whispered, "and just follow me very quickly but also quietly!" The still naked boy, somehow immediately overcoming his previous physical weakness, did as he was told and soon found himself at one of the rear open windows, against which a ladder rested.

Dios then needed no second invitation to begin his escape, or, matching the title of this part of the boy�s story, �έκδΰεσθαι� in ancient Greek. He rapidly climbed down the ladder after his father and soon the pair was running speedily towards the high wall that attempted to protect the dock area of Chios city from thieves and other unwanted intruders.

Evading the guards, who occasionally patrolled the wall, Dios� father reached a section of the stone perimeter that he recognised from earlier, as it was the scene of his previous furtive entrance into the docks, and threw a pebble over the tall structure. He was rewarded by the appearance of a rope, thrown from the other side and linked there to an ox-drawn wagon.

"You climb first, Dios," the father ordered, "and I�ll follow. Your uncle is on the other side waiting to receive you!" The naked boy again needed no second invitation to make his escape and soon both him and his parent were riding in the ox-driven wagon.

Dios� father was riding at the front of the wagon, sitting alongside the uncle. Meanwhile, the boy was hiding under a tarpaulin in the back, next to much recently harvested fruit.

Dios� father was of the Chian middle class. Like many similar people, he lived in a town and ran some businesses there, whilst he also owned farmland, tended by trusted slaves.

The rural land possessed by Dios� father happened to be covered by lucrative orchards. Meanwhile, his urban enterprises included the retailing of fruit and, in a joint venture with his brother, who was currently sitting next to him on the wagon and owned a couple of seagoing boats, fish.

Dios� father whispered to his concealed son that he and the boy, along with the child�s mother and younger brother, would now flee Chios in one of the uncle�s boats, taking as much of their portable wealth as possible with them. They would then seek to settle elsewhere in a Greek town outside the Persian Empire, where they would secretly be sent the value of their other assets as soon as they had been sold.

Dios immediately realised that the plan should succeed and that his balls and freedom would therefore be saved without any recriminations befalling his parents or younger brother. Consequently, the boy began to relax for the first time in days under the safety of the tarpaulin covering.

Dios then suddenly remembered Capros.

(Island of Chios, Ionia, Eastern Aegean Sea, 1 hour later)

The wagon slowly but successfully travelled in the full moonlight to a remote cove, south of the Chian capital, where the uncle�s boat was waiting. However, when the tarpaulin was finally removed from the back of the cart, Dios� father, who had previously presumed his son had succumbed again to sleep, now discovered that the reason for the recent silence from the boy actually resulted from him not being in the vehicle at all.

At the same time in the Chian capital, Dios, hands now tied tightly behind his back with rope, was being led by the man who had insisted upon the precautionary manual bondage. The astonished dock guard, to whom the still naked boy had surrendered at the harbour gate, was guiding his young captive into the presence of the specially awakened Aspamites. The spasaka was boarded under the tent awning at the back of the Phoenician bireme on which he had travelled to the island.

It was now the turn of Aspamites to be astonished when Dios explained to him that he had just tried to escape by climbing out of a rear window of the building in which he had been housed but had then thought better of his intent. "Why did you do that?" an incredulous spasaka asked, referring to the boy�s amazing change of mind.

Dios answered with one word, which happened to be the name of his best friend. On hearing the answer of "Capros", Aspamites again grinned in admiration at the brave naked boy in front of him.

Aspamites also glanced at Dios� exposed genitalia and began to regret the need for the imminent gelding of the sexual organs of such a brave boy. However, he additionally realised that the characteristics that he admired in the child were much required in the service of his lord and master, the King of Kings, Darius I.

There would therefore be no salvation from becoming a eunuch for the lovely 11 year-old nude standing before Aspamites, who also needed to be taught a lesson that he should not try to resist his fate. The spasaka would instead reward Dios� courageous consideration in different ways.

"For your attempt to escape and as a lesson to yourself and the other tributes," Aspamites now advised the newly distraught Dios, "you will be publicly flogged in front of the others at first light. You shall receive twenty strokes of the heavy leather scourge across your back, buttocks and the rear of your legs."

"For your consideration in abandoning your escape and returning," Aspamites next informed the newly re-petrified Dios, "I shall not torture you to establish the full story of your breakout, in which I�m sure you had outside help, probably familial. The back window, to which you refer, is too high and the exterior walls too smooth to climb down from safely, otherwise I would not have left them unguarded. I�m sure that somewhere nearby I�d find a ladder, which was instead the means of your flight. However, as I shall not seek your confession as to the truth, your daring family will not be punished for trying to secure your release."

"For your consideration in abandoning your escape and returning," Aspamites next told Dios, who was still worried about what he would suffer at dawn but was also relieved to learn that he was not to be tortured or his family arrested and punished, "I�ll additionally give you another undertaking. If I receive your word of honour, which I know you will keep, that you will never attempt flight again and will instead go compliantly and obediently to your new life, your beloved Capros will be released unharmed and be allowed to stay on Chios."

A suddenly ecstatically enthused Dios immediately provided Aspamites with the required solemn oath. The spasaka then smiled again when he finally advised the boy about another supposed favour.

"For your consideration in abandoning your escape and returning instead to swear the oath to which you have just irreversibly committed yourself," Aspamites informed Dios, "I shall additionally grant you the honour of being the first to be castrated. You will be gelded immediately after your comprehensive flogging at first light!" On hearing this dreaded news, an embarrassing phenomenon reoccurred, which the appalled boy, with his hands currently bound behind his beautiful naked body, was both helpless to prevent and could no longer hide.

Dios� slender unruly cock immediately rose rapidly to full erection.

Άυαπυοή

(Pause)

Part γ΄ - ‘Έυνούχος’
(Part 3 – Eunuch)

(Island of Chios, Ionia, Eastern Aegean Sea, summer 500 BC)

Aspamites smilingly observed the sudden growth to horizontal hardness of Dios’ smooth slender cock and immediately realised that he could render the beautiful brave boy one further service before the child was flogged and castrated with the advent of dawn. The spasaka, or ‘eye of the king’, therefore instructed the Persian night guard, who had been summoned to replace the less ethnically reliable local dock sentinel to watch over the 11 year-old, to bring the child closer.

Quietly observing the scene, which was illuminated by the bireme’s night lanterns, were three other nearby men and one boy. They shared with Aspamites the accommodation provided under the scarlet awning at the stern of the flagship and had also been awakened like the spasaka by Dios’ unexpected arrival.

One adult was the vessel’s Phoenician captain and another was the Persian officer in charge of the warrior escort, whom Dios had presumed shared their commander’s nationality. The third was Panionius, who unashamedly slept with his pretty 12 year-old eunuch slave boy, Atrios, whose rectum was still very sore from being the recipient earlier of much attention from his master’s large erection.

The men’s four bunks were at night separately enclosed by curtains to permit some personal privacy. Given such skimpy partitioning, Panionius’ pleasurable groans, as he slowly sodomised Atrios during the hours of darkness, plus the boy’s simultaneous but more pained moans, could easily be overheard by the others. However, the bearded naval and army officers did not complain about the noise, as they were at the same time enjoying the company of a female prostitute apiece, before finally paying the women and kicking them out of their beds so that they could sleep alone in greater comfort. Aspamites also did not object, as he was not the type of person to deny his most important subordinates their pleasures as long as they served him well. The spasaka’s generous attitude was helped by the fact that he had been so weary after another long day, spent selecting delectable Chian children to serve the King of Kings, that he had slept soundly through the sexual commotion.

The curtains originally surrounding the four bunks had now been drawn back by the occupants. Aspamites had, of course, done so to address the arriving dock guard and his young still naked captive, Dios, whilst the others had replicated the spasaka’s action simply out of curiosity.

Despite Dios being accustomed to public nudity in the gymnasia and sports-fields of his hometown, the boy somehow now felt ashamed at appearing naked before the witnesses to his conversation with Aspamites. His feeling probably emanated originally from the fact that his hands were tied behind his back, as if he was a miscreant slave stripped to await chastisement. However, his embarrassment was certainly subsequently acutely intensified by the sudden development of his unwanted erection.

Dios’ discomfort was worsened by the presence of the smirking Panionius. The boy, after all, knew he would be castrated at this man’s hands shortly after the arrival once more into the world of the sun god, Helius, to give mankind light.

Dios had also noticed the slightly older boy sharing the castrater’s bunk. However, despite his own distressing circumstances, he actually felt some sympathy for Atrios, who was obviously Panionius’ bumboy. The young Chian could think of no worse fate that to be a catamite, especially for such a clearly sadistic man like the professional castrater.

Dios, of course, had not yet realised that the fate of many freshly castrated boys destined for service in the households of the Persian elite was to play such a degrading role, usually alongside other duties. Young pretty eunuchs did not just serve in the harems of females but also formed more informal ones comprising themselves, especially if selected to be an intimate personal servant of Darius I, King of Kings.

Darius I actually had a preference for boys over girls and women. The king also had a particular penchant for young Greeks with fair hair and blue eyes, which was why most of the children of both genders chosen by Aspamites to form part of the Chian tribute sported such features.

Dios’ sympathy for Atrios was actually reciprocated, especially as the former had apparently bravely and sacrificially aborted his flight out of selfless consideration for a friend. The 12 year-old slave now knew about the courageous free boy’s recent escapade and new sad destiny, which involved a comprehensive flogging as well as castration, through overhearing the earlier conversation between the slightly younger Chian and Aspamites.

Having been castrated by Panionius in the previous year, Atrios appreciated what Dios was about to experience, and his suffering was also to be compounded by a harsh preliminary whipping. Some dampness then invaded the young slave’s eyes at the thought that he would actually soon be helping his evil master to geld the courageous young Chian.

Atrios had been born into slavery in Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, which was north of Chios but just opposite Atarneus on the coast of Asia Minor. The boy’s ancestors were actually Macedonians, captured in war with mainland Greeks, who considered their northern neighbours to be barbarians and therefore worthy of nothing better than death or enslavement.

Philip II of Macedon, and his son Alexander the Great, would, of course, later try to encourage the southern Greeks to alter their opinion. However, the beginning of the reign of the first of these two great kings was still 141 years in the future.

Atrios had been tearfully separated from his family and sold when he was an 11 year-old by their owner, who only allowed slaves to breed so that he could profit from their children when the latter were old enough to go to market. The boy had been bought by a trader whose residence was in Atarneus, which happened to be Panionius’ home base.

Panionius bought Atrios, mainly for his looks, at market and immediately castrated his new slave for two reasons. Firstly, he sadistically enjoyed gelding pretty young boys. Secondly, successful conversion of such purchases into eunuchs actually increased their resale value, which was useful because the man proposed to exchange the child for another when he eventually tired of the youngster’s charms.

Atrios hated Panionius intensely, and not just because his new owner had castrated him and then forced him to help perpetrate the cruel deed on other boys, as well as degradingly and painfully used him as a sex toy. The young Macedonian was also badly treated by the sadistic man, who regularly beat his 12 year-old slave at the slightest provocation.

Atrios’ lovely body was frequently spoiled by the marks of recent cruel chastisement, which also made being Panionius’ bumboy more painful. For example, when the castrater sodomised his slave earlier on this night, his manly thighs crashed against curvaceous young buttocks bearing the vivid stripes of a recent beating by a sturdy leather crop. The child’s offence had been to drop the man’s precious gelding knife whilst sharpening it on a small pedal-powered revolving grindstone owned by the evil adult Chian.

Atrios had often considered trying to run away from Panionius. However, the boy refrained for two main reasons. Firstly, he really had nowhere to flee to, and therefore might actually end up in worse circumstances, such as being forcibly enlisted into the service of an even more evil master or becoming a starving street urchin, of which there were many in the ancient world. Secondly, the punishments for recaptured escaped slaves in the Persian Empire were horrendous, and he did not relish the concept of being mutilated by the loss of his nose, ears and feet, or alternatively being crucified.

Atrios therefore simply stoically endured serving Panionius, hoping someday to be sold on to a kinder master. The boy also contented himself for now by dreaming of sometime extracting vengeance for the man’s cruelty.

Dios was brought by the attendant guard to stand within easy reach of Aspamites. In order to deal with the boy, the spasaka had moved from his bunk to sit, still under the awning at the stern of the bireme, on one of the chairs located in the communal section, which served as a dining and rest area.

Aspamites then astonished the bound Dios by reaching out to rub the manicured nail of his right forefinger gently up and down the boy’s personally very embarrassing erection, before equally carefully moving on to the 11 year-old’s completely smooth scrotum. "I think you deserve one final orgasm from your genitals before they are changed forever," the spasaka subsequently explained to the suddenly red-faced young Chian, who was held firmly in place to prevent retreat by the now grinning attendant guard.

Dios’ initial sense of affront and shame at such intimate manhandling made him unsure whether he wanted to be brought to climax by someone else in such public circumstances. However, the blushing boy’s unruly penis apparently possessed a mind of its own and reacted by becoming even harder, rising almost to the vertical and beginning to dribble some clear fluid from the uncut cockhead.

Dios’ real mind then rapidly became attuned with his cock. The speedily accumulating ecstasy now being engendered by Aspamites’ fingernail within the boy’s beautiful frame could increasingly not be denied ultimate satisfaction, regardless of the shameful nature of the child’s circumstances.

Dios closed his sensuous blue eyes and could not help himself emit a low groan of pleasure. Aspamites had earlier correctly presumed from the evidence of the boy’s erection, which was quite decently proportioned for someone of such tender years, that the young Chian would occasionally masturbate, albeit probably without producing any sperm. The spasaka therefore continued his gentle genital fingering, whilst trying to ensure that the beautiful and brave child standing naked before him was building up to the best orgasm of his undoubtedly short sex life.

Aspamites became aware that he was about to succeed in his aim of bringing Dios to a climax of previously unprecedented pleasure when the boy’s moans grew in quantity and volume, in line with the heavy breathing exhibited by his bare cute belly. The spasaka then realised that his objective had indeed been achieved when the gorgeous young nude form visibly vibrated within the firm confines of the attendant guard’s resolute grip and generated some creamy white fluid at the engorged cockhead.

Aspamites viewed the semen with a degree of sadness, as he believed that the sperm would probably be not only the first that Dios would produce but also the last. However, the spasaka’s slight melancholy at the sight did not deflect him from his intent of ensuring that this particular very worthy boy entered the King of King’s service as a eunuch.

Aspamites was sure, from experience, that Dios would eventually be chosen to serve in Darius I’s own select retinue of eunuchs. The spasaka was very content with this thought, as he still deeply loved the King of Kings and so wanted to ensure that his royal master was only provided with the best possible tribute, including that comprising the young human kind. The beautiful and brave naked Chian boy, who had just orgasmed in front of him, certainly matched such expectancy.

The attendant guard and the naval and army officers watching the scene laughed heartily at Aspamites’ achievement in bringing such a young boy to obvious ecstatic and productive climax. They were joined in the hilarity by Panionius, although Atrios remained sullen, appreciating that Dios’ pleasure would be not only short-lived but also the last of its kind.

All three of the naval and army men preferred women to boys. However, they would nevertheless have happily accepted the particular specimen of young Chian masculinity represented by Dios into their beds.

The threesome also secretly thought that the very handsome smooth-chinned Aspamites was rather wasted in his current role, as the charms of his body would surely keep any discerning man happy, regardless of the strength of his taste for females. However, as the spasaka was an ‘eye of the king’, and therefore far superior in rank to them, none ever actually shared their opinion with anyone.

Just a little wave of the powerful Aspamites’ manicured little finger could signal the demise of any of the men by whatever means the spasaka chose, and without reference or explanation due to or wanted by anyone else. The Babylonian eunuch’s position meant that he acted on behalf of and in accordance with the direct instructions of the King of Kings, to whose regal and sacred form he had ready access when at the royal court.

No other authority was needed to enable Aspamites to do virtually anything he pleased within the Persian Empire, short of acting directly against local satraps and tyrants. However, even these powerful local potentates were wary of spasakas, as the very influential ‘eyes of the king’ could recommend to their regal master the dismissal and even possible punishment of incompetent, corrupt or potentially rebellious regional rulers.

Dios gradually recovered from his unparalleled ecstasy. As the boy did so, he still displayed a red face, which also now additionally betrayed guilt at enjoying his climax, as well as shame about the public circumstances in which his orgasm had been achieved. However, there was also a hint of amazement and pride, presumably at the new ability of the 11 year-old to ejaculate some sperm, although he appreciated that such a capability was sadly destined to be short-lived.

Dios might only have been an 11 year-old. However, the boy fully appreciated, mainly from chatter at school, what being a eunuch entailed, despite their scarcity on Chios. Castration was rarely practised in the ethnically Greek elements of the Persian Empire but was rife in many other parts.

The six people watching Dios then noticed that the boy’s slowly softening cock was oozing some extraneous cum, some of which was embarrassingly beginning to form into a long narrow thread. This humiliatingly developing string of semen started to expand and point downwards in the direction of the bireme’s wooden deck, where a few small droplets of the same spilt spermatic substance had already accumulated.

Recognising Dios’ abashment and now considerately deciding to put an end to it, Aspamites then ordered the attendant guard to return the boy to his bed in the nearby dock warehouse to await the dawn and his destiny. However, as the Persian warrior turned the young nude in order to be able to walk him to the steep gangplank, which linked the bireme to the quayside, the spasaka caused the pair to pause and look back to him once more.

"By the way, Dios," Aspamites advised, "you were correct to be concerned about Capros’ welfare if you had successfully escaped. My anger would undoubtedly have encouraged me to choose him in particular to restore the required number of fifty boys who are to be castrated. As it is, I now can only hope that, after your friend’s release, Panionius here does not require more than four replacements to compensate for losses or I’ll be forced to conduct another selection exercise."

The thought of the toll that the gelding process might cause then tempted Aspamites unusually to comment that "I hope you, Dios, are not one of the losses." The spasaka also provided the boy with unprecedented advice, as the Babylonian eunuch normally left such duties for Panionius to perform once he had individuals strapped to his castration table.

"When you are resting on Panionius’ castration table,Dios," Aspamites thoughtfully and sagely suggested, "do not struggle but remain still whilst he gelds you. Fighting the inevitable is not only a waste of energy but also displays cowardice and stupidity, which could be damaging to not only your honour but also your body!"

"Although boys are tightly bound in a spreadeagled position on top of the castration table, Dios," Aspamites continued, "some slight movement is still generally achievable, which could cause Panionius’ gelding knife to be deflected and result in unwanted genital damage. I’ll tell you, by way of illustration, of an unfortunate incident that recently occurred on Lesbos, where we recently called to collect that island’s annual tribute for the King of Kings, including the new requirement for fifty fresh young eunuchs."

"One particular young Lesbian," Aspamites informed, "struggled so much under the knife that Panionius’ blade slipped after almost completing the gelding process. As a result, the boy’s penis was virtually severed and our proficient castrater here had little choice then but to sever the child’s sexual organs completely. However, the poor youngster’s tribulations had still not finished."

"Such severe genital mutilation," Aspamites next commented, "naturally made the young Lesbian unsuitable for service in Persia, where nullified eunuchs are not particularly liked. The boy was therefore returned to his parents, who clearly themselves did not want such a damaged child. I understand that, after healing, he was retailed cheaply to a slave trader, who guaranteed that, in order to help alleviate the family shame, he would be sold on in some faraway country."

As Dios, whose now re-softened penis still dribbled a little embarrassing thread of cum from his cockhead, heard Aspamites’ story about an unfortunate young Lesbian, he realised that the spasaka was considerately only trying to provide him with sensible advice. However, the tale only increased the boy’s worries about the nature of the dreadful deed that Panionius would soon inflict on him.

After Dios’ guard then disembarked his naked young charge off the bireme, the Persian army officer turned to Aspamites and asked "Surely you don’t really intend to flog the boy twenty times with a heavy scourge? Such a whipping would undoubtedly damage him for life, therefore rendering him useless as tribute!" However, the spasaka just smiled mischievously in answer before returning wordlessly to his bunk to resume his interrupted slumber.

Later, as Dios lay on his straw mattress once more, surrounded by 49 other fitfully sleeping boys waiting to be castrated, whilst the full perimeter of their warehouse prison was patrolled by guards intent on preventing further escape, he continued to contemplate what would happen to him at dawn. As he did so, he could not make his mind up whether the fact that first light arrived quite early in summer in the eastern Mediterranean was unfortunate or the opposite.

Dios, now thankfully released from his earlier bondage but understandably unable to sleep, did not want, of course, to be flogged or castrated. However, if such dreadful actions against his vulnerable young body were inevitable, the brave boy wondered whether it would be best to endure his sufferings sooner rather than later. The mental anguish of the wait for the deeds to occur was currently extremely painful to him.

Dios therefore prayed to the gods to grant him some immediate respite from the mental torment. The deities obviously felt pity for the boy because he then amazingly succumbed to deep sleep within moments.

The possibility, however, that the gods’ pity would extend to what was scheduled to happen to Dios, after the sun deity, Helius, next began to dispel darkness from the world of mortal men, remained distinctly unlikely.

(Island of Chios, Ionia, Eastern Aegean Sea, dawn, next day)

The amazingly soundly sleeping Dios was awoken at dawn by one of the adult slaves who had been appointed to look after the young eunuchs-to-be and their duties did not only comprise frequently emptying slop buckets. They were also required to ensure that their young charges often drank fresh water, which was necessary to offset the dehydrating effects of the consumed purgative plus the hot weather, and were regularly washed. Neither Aspamites nor Panionius wanted to lose any of the precious youngsters through lack of other care whilst they were being purged and starved.

The awakened and rightly freshly petrified Dios was now again subjected to a sponge, dipped into a leather bucket of cold water, which carefully cleansed his young and, despite the recent purging and lack of food, still delectable body. However, the boy’s simultaneous shivering was not mainly caused by the coolness of the liquid washing him but rather the sight of the warrior standing next to the attendant slave and what the soldier represented.

The warrior, whose sword was menacingly but, given Dios’ oath to Aspamites, unnecessarily unsheathed, had obviously been sent to collect the freshly cleansed boy for his imminent flogging and castration.

(Royal Road, Asia Minor, same time)

The large caravan of covered wagons, heavily protected by a significant force of Scythian cavalry, had set out at first light from Sardis in Asia Minor along the very lengthy Royal Road. The famed route would eventually lead to the Persian heartland but was currently beginning the long easterly ascent onto the Anatolian Plateau.

Before the advent of the Persian Empire, the majority of international arterial roads had been little more than caravan trails between one centre of civilisation and another, and these risked attack from marauders and thieves. However, Darius had created a network of better routes, made much safer by the presence of military patrols and garrisons at key locations.

The Royal Road of 2,672 kilometres [1,670 miles] was the most important of these significant improvements in land connections, which substantially assisted essential communications and lucrative coomerce. The route was basically a cleared and widened track, paved only where soft subsoil demanded. Nevertheless, it was designed to accommodate the rapid passage of not only trading caravans but also large armies accompanied by many horses, chariots, ox-drawn wagons and pack-animals.

The route ran from Ephesus on the western coast of Asia Minor through the inland Lydian capital of Sardis before ascending and traversing the Anatolian plateau. It subsequently passed through the old Hittite capital of Hattusas [modern Bagazkale] before tackling the Antitaurus Mountains in Cappadocia and descending into Mesopotamia and then proceeding to Persia and Media.

The present large caravan was transporting the annual tribute to the King of Kings donated by the island of Lesbos, which had recently been collected by Aspamites. The accompanying spectacularly attired Scythians were formidable horsemen and cavalry archers and were escorting the convoy to deter brigands from attacking. They carried bows and arrows in a dual-purpose quiver slung at the hip and were also armed with the ‘sagaris’, which was a nasty chopper similar to a carpenter’s adze.

Scythians were spread across Europe and Asia. Some lived within the Persian Empire, were subject to the King of King’s authority and therefore provided him with permanent forces for the imperial standing army. The contingent of cavalrymen escorting the caravan was such a unit.

The cumbersome caravan being escorted by the Scythians would take over three months to reach its destination. In contrast, messages, conveying imperial commands and despatches, verbally or in Aramaic script carved on tablets or more usually written in ink on papyrus or parchment, could traverse the route in relay in a week, with both carrier and horse changed at regular staging-posts. The service was complemented if needed by a primitive but efficient system of signal communication using hilltop fire towers.

The Lesbian tribute in the caravan included 50 freshly gelded beautiful 11 year-old eunuchs and the same number of lovely virginal girls, two years older. As with the similar goods to be soon despatched from Chios, most of these children possessed fair hair and blue eyes.

One exception was Theanos. He featured black hair and eyes. However, he had nevertheless been selected on Lesbos by Aspamites because the boy’s looks were truly exceptional and so might still be desired by Darius I. The King of Kings liked some variety in his informal harem of eunuch catamites, of which the spasaka had once been a member until he had become too old for his royal master’s tastes.

Theanos’ castration wound, skilfully inflicted and then repaired by Panionius, had quickly healed. However, the boy’s mental scars, caused by the loss of his balls, family and homeland, and transfer to demeaning servitude in distant Persia, would take a much longer time to repair. Such a situation was evident by the quiet sobbing of the 11 year-old, whilst he rode with some other freshly gelded and similarly aged and sad Lesbian eunuchs in the back of one of the wagons.

In fact, Theanos’ mental scars would only begin to heal when he eventually met in a Persian palace a boy of another nationality, who nevertheless shared his language and predicament.

(Island of Chios, Ionia, Eastern Aegean Sea, same time)

The quayside of the harbour of the Chian capital did not possess a whipping post, as the locale was not normally the scene for formal public punishments. The officer in charge of the supposed Persian warriors accompanying Aspamites therefore elected to use as a substitute one of the tall wooden contraptions, full of pulleys and rotating arms, which was actually an ancient version of the modern dockside crane, and whose feet were resolutely embedded into the ground.

The naked and freshly washed Dios now found himself firmly bound in a spreadeagled pose by rope firmly fixing his wrists and ankles to the crane contraption’s two thick and sturdy rear feet, which immediately faced the warehouse in which he had recently been kept. From the boy’s degrading pose, he would have been staring directly ahead at the harbour waters and the blue Aegean Sea beyond if the bireme on which he had been aboard in the middle of the previous night had not been in the way.

Dios subsequently could just about turn his head enough to confirm a further humiliating development in his fortunes. He had expected his imminent flogging to be witnessed by his fellow eunuchs-to-be, who had considerately been extracted only from homes where there were brothers to propagate their family lines. These boys were indeed currently being ushered out of the warehouse, in which they had been detained with him, and were now being aligned in neat lines behind him to watch the spectacle. However, he had not thought that his flagellation was also to be witnessed by the fifty girls, who comprised the other half of the Chian child tribute to the King of Kings and were additionally being escorted out of the adjacent building to form tidy rows behind his naked rear.

Dios’ increased humiliation emanated not just from the fact that the girls would witness his cruel chastisement. His previously nonchalant attitude to public nudity was coloured by the reality that females on Chios were not allowed anywhere near the gymnasia and sports-fields, where naked males would practise and play their sports. Outside the marital bed, Chian girls and women were not supposed to see the bare masculine form beyond a boy’s infancy.

Dios’ acute abashment at the unexpected and unwanted debasing development was shared by his fellow eunuchs-to-be, who were as naked as he was but could at least hide some of their embarrassment because their hands remained unfettered. Forty-nine sets of young and endangered genitalia were therefore quickly hidden from the clearly interested gaze of the girls, who had compounded the boys’ misery by still being clothed. There had, of course, been no need to purge or starve the young females, who had consequently been allowed to retain their attire, simultaneous to being well fed and otherwise looked after.

In fact, there had only been two embarrassments for the girls to endure. Firstly, the young females had recently been humiliatingly inspected by slave women, appointed by Aspamites to check that their hymens remained intact and that they were therefore still genuine virgins. Secondly, in ancient Greek fashion, the 13 year-old Chians, being of a marriageable age, would normally have been attired in public from head to toe, including being veiled. However, their current predicament meant that they had been originally paraded for selection by the spasaka and subsequently kept dressed in the simpler tunics they would have worn in the sections of their homes where only closest family members ventured. Their current garments therefore disrespectfully and disgracefully defied cultural convention but their helpless parents had been unable to do anything about such sacrilege. Nevertheless, most of the victims appeared to be presently unconcerned about the matter because they were more interested about either their worrying futures or, more immediately, the unusual delight of viewing naked pretty boys, one of whom appeared about to be flogged.

Dios’ humiliation was subsequently increased still further when some local dock-workers and native and foreign sailors additionally began to gather to watch the shameful flogging of a naked miscreant boy. Any thoughts that any of the more considerate Chians present might have had about attempting to intervene to save a fellow national from such degrading punishment had already been dispelled by the earlier appearance, from some of the moored Phoenician ships, of a large number of heavily armed warriors.

These soldiers were in fact not actually Persian, as Dios had presumed. They were Assyrians, who carried tall ‘gerrhon’ shields but, unlike most other members of the empire’s ordinary heavy infantry and cavalry corps, wore no iron scale armour under their quilted tunics, although they did sport conical bronze helmets with ear-protectors. They were also not combined archers and spearmen like the other units but were technically only the latter, although they did carry an array of side arms in the form of swords, daggers and clubs.

The Assyrians were supported in their current duties by a few Phoenician marines from the moored ships. These sported Greek-style bronze helmets, which engulfed the whole of the head except the eyes, nose, mouth and chin, stiff linen cuirasses and small round shields, and were armed with short swords and javelins.

Dios, however, did not have too much time to reflect on his deepening degradation, caused by the arrival of more spectators. He was instead now distracted by the sight of Panionius and his bumboy, their normal dress covered by leather aprons and assisted by a few slaves, manoeuvring a large sturdy wooden table down the gangplank of the bireme immediately in front of his eyes. The purpose of the specialist furniture was clear to the appalled 11 year-old by sight of the leather bondage straps fixed to metal rings embedded in each corner, plus the obvious evidence of bloodstains on the upper wooden surface.

It appeared evident to Dios that, as he was being flogged, Panionius and his bumboy would be readying the castration table to receive his flagellated body for subsequent immediate gelding, as ordered by Aspamites. To exacerbate their imminent young victim’s distress, the 11 year-old’s intelligent mind also realised that many of the Chian dock-workers and native and foreign sailors, already gathered to observe his whipping, would undoubtedly remain to watch his shameful emasculation, although he presumed that his fellow child tributes would be excused the spectacle.

As Dios contemplated these awful developments, he next saw, disembarking from the nearest bireme, a big, immensely strong, muscular and hairy warrior, stripped to the waist and attired for the duty to come only in a leather kilt and sandals. The man held a long heavy thick leather whip in his right hand, which he was already flailing around, presumably in practice for his imminent task.

Despite Dios’ determination to try to display bravery during his sufferings, the accumulation of his various humiliations and the imminent devastating threats to his young form caused some tears to leak from the boy’s sensuous blue eyes and run down his cheeks. These droplets began to flow more comprehensively when Aspamites also began to disembark from the nearest bireme, presumably to initiate events.

(Egypt, same time)

As was common, a naked Darius woke up with a beautiful and similarly nude young eunuch sleeping next to him in the royal bed. However, the king was not in one of his many palaces but on a royal Egyptian ship.

As was also frequent, Darius’ sexual appetite had been recharged by his overnight rest. The King of Kings, who was also Pharaoh of Egypt, therefore woke the 13 year-old Babylonian eunuch, who was currently one of his favourite catamites, and pulled back the shared silk bedclothes.

Darius did not need to issue the well-trained boy with any order for a young tongue and sweet rosy lips to begin obediently to lick and suck the similarly reawakened and now re-aroused royal penis. After being sexually sated again, the king would then proceed to open the new canal that linked the Red Sea and Persia to the Mediterranean by sailing a fleet of twenty-four ships north along the amazing watercourse.

The canal, designed to unite in sea trade Mesopotamia and India with the eastern Mediterranean, including Egypt, was 45 metres [150 feet] wide and 144 kilometres [90 miles] long. Including the natural channel through the Bitter Lakes, the watercourse extended 200 kilometres [125 miles].

(Island of Chios, Ionia, Eastern Aegean Sea, same time)

The big, immensely strong, muscular and hairy Assyrian warrior, stripped to the waist and attired for the duty to come only in a leather kilt and sandals, took up his position behind the petrified Dios, as did Aspamites. Whilst the soldier continued to flail his heavy whip in practice behind the now quivering and quietly sobbing boy, the spasaka addressed the gathered crowd of young child tributes.

"This boy," Aspamites announced, "is to be punished for attempting to escape. You others have been gathered to watch in order to learn a lesson regarding what you too might suffer if you try to replicate him."

"I have sentenced the boy to twenty lashes from the heavy leather scourge," Aspamites next declared, in reaction to which the resultant noisy exclamation of horrified sympathy came mostly from the watching civilian adults rather than the child tribute. The latter had no real appreciation of what immense excruciation and damage such a punishment with such a whip would cause, whilst the appalled men did. However, the presence of the heavily armed Assyrian warriors and Phoenician marines prevented any of them from even contemplating an attempt to rescue the grievously threatened young Chian.

Aspamites then turned to the Assyrian holding the whip and advised him that "You may begin!" On hearing this command, Dios, attempting to stop his sobs, prayed to the gods again, this time to let him bear his penance with quiet courage. However, the boy’s entreaty appeared this time to go unheeded, as the first agonising and damaging lash of the scourge landed with speedy efficiency across his slender bare back.

In reaction to the excruciating blow, which tore his flesh to open a sanguine wound, Dios could not help but scream very loudly and then cry vociferously, whilst begging for mercy between his sobbing. The feel of blood trickling down the boy’s back compounded his immense distress. However, he did not have much time to contemplate such grief because the next strike of the wicked whip then rapidly landed with expert precision across his bare buttocks, creating similar damage to the first, this time across the luscious curvature of his exposed bottom.

The damage to Dios’ naked body was now such that, even after just two blows from the evil scourge, it was now obvious to everyone, including the watching children and the young victim himself, that the ultimate result from twenty strikes would be permanent scarring. However, the warrior performing the flagellation ignored the boy’s continued shrieked pleas for mercy and next expertly struck the rear of the child’s legs, creating similar bloody damage to that already inflicted on the screaming youngster’s back and buttocks.

Dios’ agony was now so acute, and his appreciation of the serious damage that his small body would suffer from twenty blows from the scourge was so pessimistic, that he began to believe that he would be dead by the time that he arrived on the waiting castration table.

(Royal summer palace, Ecbatana, Media, same time)

Darius I’s octogenarian Lord High Chamberlain, or ‘Hazarapatis’ or ‘Chiliarch’ in respectively ancient Persian and Greek, who had not accompanied his king to Egypt because of his advanced age and frailty, was inspecting the latest array of 11 year-old Hellenic eunuchs to arrive from the west. The 200 young gelded boys had been despatched with the other tribute from cities on the mainland of Asia Minor, including a similar number of girls, two years older, by the highly efficient Aspamites.

To improve efficiency, Aspamites had combined the tributes from four relatively close cities to form one huge caravan, just as he had previously done with a preceding similar convoy. They represented four-fifths of the largesse due from the Lydian satrapy of western Asia Minor and had both taken almost one hundred days to reach Ecbatana.

Only two more, smaller caravans were now due from Asia Minor. These convoys were from the offshore islands of Lesbos and Chios, which were geographically inconvenient and untimely to combine.

The Lord High Chamberlain had already been advised by official courier that the caravan from Lesbos was on the Royal Road and that the one from Chios would soon follow.

(Island of Chios, Ionia, Eastern Aegean Sea, same time)

Dios awaited the fourth blow of the awful scourge but the hit never materialised because the warrior wielding the whip already had his orders to stop at this point. Aspamites therefore did not need to command the soldier to cease but instead turned again to the horrified watching child tributes to address them, although he fully appreciated that the crying young Chian victim of the lash would be listening to his every word.

"Punishment is now suspended," Aspamites now announced, "with the boy only receiving the next seventeen lashes if he errs again. Naturally, as I’m sure that you can all judge, if he goes on to receive full punishment, he would be marked grotesquely for life. He would therefore not then be any good as tribute to Darius I, or the King of King’s nobility, but would instead be sold in a Persian slave market. However, the three wounds you see on his body, although severe, will heal completely because others have not been inflicted on top."

"I am compassionate to this particular boy," Aspamites advised, "because he wisely thought better of escaping and instead surrendered himself. However, having been shown this lesson, I shall grant no mercy to anyone else who attempts flight or otherwise becomes a nuisance. All of you should therefore heed most carefully what you’ve been taught by witnessing this child’s flogging!"

Having provided the tributes, including the still quietly hurting and sobbing Dios, with their salutary lesson, Aspamites then returned purposefully to his nearby bireme, having given orders for the children, with the exception of the recent young victim of the scourge, to be returned to their accommodation. The spasaka had no wish to see the joyous Panionius now begin his genital cutting of fifty 11 year-old boys, commencing with one whom the Babylonian had come to admire. However, he did take the trouble, as he advanced to his flagship’s gangplank, to pass close to the first imminent victim of the gelding knife to suggest to him, in a whisper, "Remember my advice as to what to do when on the castration table!"

Dios, somehow rapidly restraining his sobs and tears, bravely replied "I shall!" The boy then discovered that Panionius and Atrios, accompanied by some warriors, had also approached him. They quickly became engaged on releasing the young Chian from his bondage, presumably because the table, aforementioned by Aspamites, was ready for immediate use.

The warriors had undoubtedly accompanied Panionius and Atrios in order to ensure that a probably struggling Dios was delivered safely to the castration table. However, after the boy, who had now ceased crying, had been released from his bondage and been firmly gripped by the soldiers, he surprised everyone by loudly requesting "Please release me. I’m no coward and shall go to my fate compliantly, in line with the oath that I have given to your superior, whom I’m sure would welcome the chance to observe me being honourably obedient to my word."

The loudness of Dios’ request had caused Aspamites to stop walking up the gangplank onto the nearby bireme and instead turn back to look at the boy, who was clearly now displaying courageous determination and fortitude in his lovely blue eyes. The spasaka also noticed that those attending to the young Chian were reluctant to comply with the 11 year-old’s request, probably because they were concerned about another attempt at escape.

Aspamites therefore intervened to inform "The boy is correct. I would like to see him honour his word." He then commanded "So release him!" Few dared even question an instruction from a spasaka and therefore the young Chian’s wish was immediately granted.

Aspamites was then rewarded for his consideration by the sight of the naked Dios, three cruel bloody marks from the scourge spoiling his otherwise gorgeous rear, advance unhesitatingly towards the nearby waiting castration table and climb on top. The boy then lay face up and spreadeagled himself, despite the agony induced by his recent whip wounds meeting the cool wooden surface.

Dios considerately positioned himself so that the leather strapping at each corner of the table touched either his hands or feet, thereby allowing himself to be firmly fixed without much further ado to the sturdy wooden surface, now made even more bloodstained by his fresh whip wounds. Meanwhile, Aspamites could not help but admire such courage and was tempted to grant the boy amnesty from castration, making up the fifty required eunuchs from Chios with one of the reserves. However, the spasaka then again realised how such a spirited child could be invaluable in the service of his beloved King of Kings.

Aspamites therefore just turned back to walk up the gangplank of his bireme in order to hide himself from the distressing dockside scene under the scarlet awning at the flagship’s stern.

(Ephesus, Ionian mainland of Asia Minor, 2 weeks later)

Dios looked in awe at the largest building in the known world, the almost finished temple of Artemis, known to the Romans as Diana, in Ephesus on the Ionian mainland of Asia Minor. The former king of Lydia, the fabulously wealthy Croesus, who once ruled the city, had begun the construction of the edifice about fifty years previously. However, the Persian conquest and the borrowing of many local craftsmen to help erect palaces in the homeland of the new overlords had prolonged the enormous time-consuming project.

"What do think of the temple?" a smiling Aspamites, who was sitting on a magnificent white horse, asked of Dios. "I’ve never seen anything so huge, Sir," replied the boy, who was mounted on a smaller but excellent pony, issued to him by the spasaka for the splendid bravery the 11 year-old had recently exhibited.

Dios, like the other Chian child tributes, was also now dressed in the costliest Greek-style simple light summer tunic that he had ever sported. The worth of the garment, of which he had several duplicates to allow a fresh one to be worn every day, came from the excellent material and workmanship.

Aspamites’ flotilla of Phoenician ships, the merchantmen amongst which were capable of sailing up to 130 kilometres [80 miles] in a day and transporting up to 200 tonnes of freight by sea and half that amount on the shallower great rivers, had recently sailed southeast from Chios. The vessels were laden with tribute from the island for the King of Kings.

The ships had crossed the short stretch of the Aegean Sea that the Romans would someday call the ‘Sinus Caystrius’, or ‘Gulf of Caystrius’, towards the mouth of the eponymous river, near which the great Ionian city of Ephesus was situated. The metropolis was now the western terminus of the long Persian Royal Road that would take the Chian tribute to the King of Kings.

The various transport components that would make up the relevant caravan were already efficiently assembled at the quayside to receive the variety of commodities destined for the King of Kings. The goods, of course, included fifty beautiful 13 year-old virgin girls and the same number of gorgeous, freshly gelded but rapidly recovering eunuchs, two years younger, who, apart from one boy, were all loaded into covered and relatively uncrowded and comfortable wagons for the long journey.

The exception was Dios, who was surprised but also honoured to be presented with a lovely pony by Aspamites. However, the boy was also initially hesitant to accept the transport, and not just because mounting the animal could still induce some hurt from his mending whip and other wounds.

The boy explained to Aspamites, who was accompanying this last caravan with his personal Assyrian guards, because his mission was completed, that he had never ridden a pony previously. The smiling spasaka replied "Well then, Dios, doing so now means that you’ll be an accomplished horseman by the time we arrive in Persia!"

Aspamites had then discreetly whispered to the boy, whilst glancing at the nearby Panionius and cavalry escort, "I’d like you to ride beside me because I’d appreciate good company on our long journey!" The Babylonian eunuch was, of course, kindly hinting that the obviously courageous and intelligent young Chian would fulfil such a role whilst the others would not.

With the assistance of good advice from Aspamites, who was already an excellent horseman, having been personally trained in the art as a boy by a certain King of Kings, Dios quickly became accustomed to riding his pony with skill. He did so despite the lack of stirrups, which would not be introduced into the western world by Mongols from China for another 1½ millennia.

Steps on all sides led up to the temple of Artemis, which measured 55 by 110 metres [180 by 360 feet]. The building had double rows of very tall and massive fluted columns on three edges, and a more deeply colonnaded entrance porch on the other.

Above the marble columns, colourful friezes ran round the sacred place of worship, with mythological scenes carved between windows onto the pediments. Golden sculptures adorned the corners and side apexes of the sloping roof, whilst a huge statue of Artemis herself was located inside the huge edifice. Meanwhile, most of the current construction work was being performed on another colonnaded building in front of the entrance porch. This structure formed the external altar and would be considered a temple in its own right in most other cities.

"Who are they, Sir?" Dios politely enquired of Aspamites, whilst pointing at some men attired in the Persian manner and strangely carrying a bundle of sticks. "They’re Magi," Aspamites answered.

"Magi are the priests of Persia, Dios," Aspamites continued in his accented but otherwise excellent Greek, "who are traditionally recruited on a hereditary basis from the Median tribe of the same name. They carry bundles of sticks, or ‘barsoms’, to denote their status."

"Unlike in the beliefs of my fellow Babylonians, Dios," Aspamites next advised, "the Persians are similar to the Jews in that they accept that there is only one god, whom they call Ahuramazda, after their word for ‘Wise Lord’. Their faith is called ‘Zoroastrianism’, after the prophet, Zoroaster, who centuries ago first established the tenets of the religion."

"Why are the Magi here, Sir," Dios then asked, "in a temple dedicated to one of the many Greek gods? Have they displaced the worship of Artemis by instead introducing that of Ahuramazda?"

"No, Dios," Aspamites replied, "as my lord and master, the King of Kings, respects the different religions of all people in his vast empire. For example, he has supported the Jews, who were returned to their homeland from exile in Babylon by Cyrus, with not only good will but also money for their reconstruction of their great temple in Jerusalem. He additionally offers regular sacrifice to the deities of Egypt’s ancient pantheon, especially Apis. However, the priesthood is a powerful influence in Persia and, despite culling their hierarchy on ascending the throne, for reasons I’ll tell you about later, Darius therefore also feels occasionally obliged to defer to the wishes of the Magi."

"In respect of the presence of Magi in this temple in Ephesus, Dios," Aspamites informed, "such a policy also happens particularly to suit Darius, as it is an example of an attempt to increase his status amongst his subject peoples. You see, the Persian monarchy is based on the theory that god has delegated someone, the king, to be his representative amongst mankind. In times of peace, such a person is often anticipated to adopt a priestly role, whereas in wartime he is expected either to be a great military leader or be clever enough to select suitable generals to fight victoriously on behalf of him and the deity."

"It is a current dogma of Zoroastrianism, Dios," Aspamites commented, "that Darius is directly descended from Ahuramazda and the Magi want the other religions of the empire also to believe that the king is divinely appointed. My fellow Babylonians have been encouraged to consider that he is a descendant of the main local deity, Marduk. Meanwhile, in Egypt, he is supposedly the begotten of Amun and, for their efforts in helping them, both he and Cyrus are regarded as amongst the most blessed of the Jew’s god!"

"Darius has also allowed the Persian Magi, Dios," Aspamites remarked, "to promote the relevant tenet of Zoroastrianism into some parts of the wider empire where kings are not normally supposed to be descended from the local gods. Members of the order therefore now operate in this great temple, as well as in others in the likes of Sardis, alongside the normal priesthood."

"The job of such Magi, Dios," Aspamites concluded, "is to attempt to shape local opinion about the divine status of the King of Kings. They do so by encouraging other priests to promote such an idea to the adherents of their faith within the context of their own religion."

"Do you believe that Darius is divine, Sir?" Dios next enquired of Aspamites, who took no affront at what would be considered serious impiety by the Magi. However, the spasaka preceded his answer by gently warning the boy about asking such questions in the company of people who might be dangerously offended, as those who allegedly insulted the King of Kings could be punished horribly for such a crime. The handsome Babylonian eunuch also obtained from his younger companion a promise not to tell anyone else about the reply he was about to give.

Having received such a reassurance, Aspamites replied to the boy’s question by advising "Darius personally, but also by necessity, does not, Dios, consider himself to be divine. Who am I therefore to question the King of King’s own judgement?"

"Please excuse me for asking," the ever curious and inquisitive Dios then queried, "but how do you know Darius’ secret views, Sir?" Aspamites again took no affront at one of the boy’s questions, as the spasaka had actually not just recruited the child as his companion for the long journey to Persia as a reward for earlier bravery and personal company.

Aspamites had two other reasons for giving Dios his pony and having the boy ride alongside him as they traversed the Royal Road to Persia. Firstly, the child’s constant intelligent curiosity thoroughly entertained the spasaka. Secondly, the Babylonian eunuch had quietly identified the youngster as an ideal candidate to serve Darius I personally. Providing him with comprehensive background information about his impending new life should give him an enormous advantage over the others during the eventual selection process, overseen by the Lord High Chamberlain, when the human tribute came to be dispersed amongst various functions.

Aspamites also believed that Dios’ new question provided him with an ideal opportunity to advise the apparently rather innocent boy about one possible aspect of his new life that he might, initially at least, consider awful. The spasaka therefore bluntly answered "Darius told me his view once, during pillow talk after he had made love to me!"

Dios’ face blushed bright crimson on hearing Aspamites reply but his insatiable curiosity, now regarding his own future, nevertheless still encouraged the boy next to splutter "Do�do�you think, Sir, that D�.D�.Darius might want to make l�.l�.love to me?" The spasaka felt that the young Chian should receive another blunt and truthful answer in response.

"Given your marvellous attributes of mind and body, Dios," Aspamites informed the boy, whose facial blushing intensified in colour in response, "I think that the King of Kings will undoubtedly take you to his bed on a regular basis!"

(Plain of Nesa, Media[modern Kermanshah in Iran], almost 3 months later, late summer, 500 BC)

Dios was asleep on his bed in the large luxurious pavilion tent he was kindly allowed to share with Aspamites. The caravan had camped for the night alongside both the Royal Road and a stream on the plain of Nesa [modern Kermanshah in Iran].

Dios had previously been amazed at the distances the long caravan, of which he formed a part, had covered on most days because of the excellence of the Royal Road, which had no parallel on his home island of Chios. The boy’s very clever mind estimated that on level terrain the convoy regularly traversed roughly 12½ dolichoi [28 kilometres or 18 miles]. Each dolichos comprised 6 diauloi or 12 stadia [1 stadion = 185.4 metres or 608.5 feet].

Dios had also been amazed at the existence for the convenience of travellers of regular staging posts, with official inns or other types of resting place, which were maintained along the entire Royal Road and thoughtfully became more frequent with any increased local geographical difficulty. The boy was told by Aspamites that no other routes in the Persian Empire were provided with similar government amenities, although the main passage through the Sinai to Egypt was equipped along the desert stretches with caches of water stored in large Greek-style amphorae previously used for wine.

When the caravan eventually attained the central Anatolian plateau after leaving Sardis, the convoy passed through the ancient Phrygian city of Gordium, later famous for its knot. The border between Lydia and Cappadocia at the Halys River was reached shortly afterwards.

Dios discovered that a heavily-manned military checkpoint was located at this border. The pontoon bridge over the river possessed gates to enable the local garrison to check the credentials of all who passed, possibly confiscating illicit goods or censoring any carried unauthorised messages in the process.

Aspamites described to Dios in an amusing anecdote how a certain Histiaeus of Susa had allegedly overcame this problem of privacy for his own correspondence. He had the wording pricked onto the freshly smooth scalp of one of his slaves before letting the hair grow back and sending the poor man to Miletus with the instruction ‘Bid Aristagoras shave your head and look thereon’.

As Dios was to discover, there were other similar checkpoints situated in the Cicilian and Armenian borderlands. Travellers were also liable to be stopped and searched by smaller military garrisons placed at provincial boundaries and at other key locations along the Royal Road, such as at bridges, ferries and mountain passes. However, a tribute caravan personally led by one of the King of King’s spasakas naturally elicited no trouble or delay whatsoever at such places.

Dios’ caravan next passed through the Cappadocian city of Comana, where Aspamites showed him the great temple of the local goddess, Ma. The deity was served by thousands of attractive priestesses, who regularly indulged in orgiastic rites with male celebrants.

The fertile plain of Melitene was then traversed, after which the Royal Road headed northeast round a spur of the Antitaurus Mountains, from which the route descended into Mesopotamia. Dios’s caravan subsequently crossed the Euphrates at Tomissa [modern Izolu in Turkey] and followed the eastern bank of the Tigris to the old ruined Assyrian capital of Nineveh, which was across the river from modern Mosul in Iraq.

Dios’ caravan later crossed the Khawsar [modern Great Zab], a tributary of the Tigris before continuing southeast to the ancient Assyrian city of Arbela [modern Irbil in Iraq]. Aspamites told the young Chian that Darius I had had the rebel leader, Tritantaechmes crucified here twenty-one years previously. The spasaka also showed the boy the local temple dedicated to the fertility goddess, Istar, where priestesses regularly went into ecstatic trances in order to pronounce the latest desires of the deity.

The Royal Road then moved further south to another ancient Assyrian town, Arrapha [modern Kirkuk in Iraq]. This was on a river now called the Khasa and was dominated by a citadel built on an artificial mound.

Dios’ caravan next proceeded to the ancient Babylonian city of Opis, which was situated on the eastern bank of the Tigris, close to the southern confluence with the tributary river, the Diyala. Aspamites told the young Chian that the locale had been the scene, thirty-nine years previously, of a major battle between Cyrus the Great and Nabonidus of Babylon, from which the Persian king had emerged victorious.

Aspamites also showed Dios the beginning of the great canal built by the Babylonians to link the mighty Tigris and Euphrates, which was close to Opis. The spasaka additionally allowed the boy to view the nearby ruined walls that Nebuchadnezzar had once built between the two rivers to try to discourage invasion by the Medes.

The Royal Road split at Opis. The southern route continued to Babylon, Susa and Persepolis, whilst the easterly one ventured to Ecbatana [modern Hamadan in Iran] and beyond. The convoy, of which Dios was a part, now proceeded to the city where the King of King’s summer palace was located.

As the Royal Road ventured east towards Ecbatana, it encountered a sheer rock face lining the northern edge until, where one of the adjacent peaks rose to a height above of about 1,160 metres [3,800 feet], an angular crevice was reached just before the alluvial plain of Nesa. At its foot, a spring welled out in a broad pool and meandered across the adjacent broad vale. The local rains of spring were also kindly and so the locale was covered with grass, whilst the mountain crannies contained many colourful flowers.

On the face of the crevice, about 90 metres [300 feet] above the road, the rock had been polished into a big rectangular frame, similar in size to a large modern cinema screen. From the Royal Road, it was difficult to make out the detail enclosed within but Aspamites advised Dios that twelve large figures were carved above cuneiform inscriptions in the ancient Persian, Elamite and Akkadian languages.

Darius’ successful battles of accession, including one that took place on the adjacent plain, were depicted on this still extant tableau on Mount Behistun. Nine rebel leaders, including the crucified Tritantaechmes, were portrayed, hands bound behind backs, chained together by the neck and kneeling, awaiting vengeful judgement at the feet of the victorious king, who was attended by two servants and had one foot on the main insurgent.

The inscriptions listed each rebellion and its suppression. They also repeated invocations by Darius to the Persian god, Ahuramazda, through whose favour and battlefield assistance the king had been victorious and who was portrayed above the twelve figures as a man within a winged disc.

Whether subconscious recall of this monument caused Dios to have his nightmare that same night, the boy could not subsequently confirm. However, he suspected that the depiction of chained men kneeling at Darius’ feet, along with the continued presence of Panionius and Atrios in the caravan, did indeed instigate other painful remembrances.

Panionius and Atrios were accompanying the caravan for two reasons. Firstly, the man was charged by Aspamites to ensure that the genital wounds, of all of the last fifty of the five hundred Greek eunuchs he recently created, mended completely. Secondly, the castrater proposed to practise his trade in the Persian heartland until it was time in the following year to collect one thousand more geldings in tribute, first from Babylon and then from western Asia Minor.

In Dios’ nightmare, he remembered that Atrios had been delegated by Panionius to attach and secure the leather strapping at the corners of the castration table to the young Chian’s waiting wrists and ankles. The 12 year-old Macedonian did so proficiently, knowing that it was in the interests of the next imminent victim of his master’s gelding knife to be tightly and virtually immovably bound.

Atrios then told the petrified but still bravely compliant Dios to grip a strong leather chew between his perfect array of sparkling white teeth. "It’ll prevent you from damagingly biting your lips or tongue," the sympathetic young Macedonian advised the naked younger boy, whilst attempting to smile reassuringly.

Dios complied with the instruction of Atrios, whom he had subsequently come to know well during the long journey along the Royal Road. However, as soon as he had obeyed the young Macedonian on the quayside of Chios, the slightly older boy’s very pleasant smiling smooth face had been quickly replaced by the ugly and smirking bearded facade of Panionius.

Panionius appeared to take great delight in displaying his well-used very sharp gelding knife before the clearly alarmed and frightened sensuous blue eyes of the spreadeagled Dios, who was trying his best to show further courage by not shedding any more tears. "This, dear child," the cruel castrater then needlessly but sadistically commented, whilst referring proudly to his blade, "will now deprive you of your aspiring manhood!"

The smirking Panionius then nodded to Atrios, who understood the signal to hold Dios’ currently flaccid cock out of harm’s way, whilst his master proceeded with his latest gelding. As the castrater subsequently presented the tip of his blade to the young Chian’s completely smooth and presently pleasantly fulsome exposed scrotum, a noticeable bulge appeared in the groin area of the man’s leather apron.

Dios tried to concentrate his mind on a little wispy cloud passing far overhead in the otherwise totally blue sky, in order to try to ignore what Panionius was doing to him. However, two factors diverted the boy’s attention from the small cirrus.

Firstly, Dios heard a few muted squeals and his eyes instinctively moved from the overhead cloud to seek the source of the noise. The boy was then appalled to see that many of the tribute girls, recently returned from the quayside to their warehouse prison, were watching his castration from their windows. Some of their obviously fascinated faces displayed horror, whilst others exhibited only keen interest, sometimes accompanied by rather sadistic grins.

Secondly, the pain from Panionius’ knife, as the man began his scrotal incision, was so great that Dios could do little but immediately forget both cloud and girls and issue his own muted shriek, although he thankfully managed not to dislodge his protective chew in the process. The boy also felt the shame of tears reappearing on the cheeks of his gorgeous face.

Dios’ agony was acute during the thankfully quick gelding procedure, which was conducted rapidly and efficiently by Panionius, despite the fact that his inherent sadism would have much preferred to prolong the, for him, highly pleasurable pastime. The castrater knew that Aspamites would dismiss him from his enjoyable job if he proceeded unprofessionally. He therefore contented himself with the quantity rather than the quality of cruel genital operations he was asked to perform.

Dios’ excruciation was such that he did not appreciate that Panionius had conducted the first little snip that cut one of his spermatic cords to separate the first of his testes from his body until the happy man held up the little white orb for visual inspection. The former owner also looked at the small organ that represented half of his true masculinity before losing sight of it when it was placed a bowl situated for the purpose between the boy’s splayed legs.

Dios’ suffering also did not allow him to appreciate fully that he was now a eunuch until a happy Panionius held up for inspection the second of the boy’s testes before placing the organ alongside the first in the waiting bowl. The man subsequently carefully and successfully stitched the freshly gelded boy’s now empty scrotum with very thin animal gut, in a procedure that, to his young victim, was more anguishing than anything the 11 year-old had previously experienced. However, such torment also proved a blessing when the young Chian then fainted.

Dios awoke unbound in the hold of one of the Phoenician merchant ships. The boy’s genitals had been carefully covered in healing salve and then bandaged, and his whip marks had been similarly treated. However, both sets of wounds remained very painful.

Dios was lying on one of fifty new straw mattresses located in the ship’s hold, where he was alone apart from Atrios, who was standing next to him, holding a pottery beaker. "Drink this," the young Macedonian suggested, proffering his new fellow eunuch the cup, "as it’ll dull the pain."

Dios again did as he was told, despite being disgusted at the taste of the strange brown liquid filling the beaker. The boy was rewarded for his compliance when Atrios’ promise subsequently came true and the bodily anguish lessened. However, the young Macedonian had not waited to see the result of the medication, as he instead reluctantly rushed off to assist Panionius with the second castration of the day.

Atrios only told Dios much later that, after the young Macedonian had finally removed his protective hand from the now unconscious younger boy’s cock, which had hardened during the castration process, he had needed to wipe sticky semen from his fingers and palm. The 11 year-old Chian had not known that he had ejaculated again whilst being gelded.

A long day subsequently passed in the gloomy hold of the Phoenician merchant ship, during which Dios observed forty-nine other freshly gelded new beautiful eunuchs of his own age slowly occupy one-by-one the other mattresses. Recall of this subsequently caused the boy to ask Aspamites another question, as they rode side-by-side along the Royal Road towards Persia.

"Why, Sir," Dios enquired, "did you accommodate the Chian boys kept in reserve as possible replacement eunuchs elsewhere from the rest of us? After our castration, we were not returned to the warehouse but were sent on board the merchant ship straight away."

"The boy reserves," Dios then commented, "would therefore not have been distressed by the sight of us returning with our genital wounds, which was a reason you gave for accommodating them separately." In reply, Aspamites initially remarked, with a smile that indicated his satisfaction with the boy’s astute memory, "It’s clever of you to remember the reason I gave for housing the nominated replacements concerned differently."

Aspamites then advised "I did so out of habit, as in cities that were not ports the freshly castrated boys were returned to their original accommodation. Even if they weren’t, I’m sure that the reserves would have been very disturbed at the sight of their companions slowly disappearing to meet their fates, whilst appreciating that they too could follow if something untoward happened to the original selection."

On this night, however, on the alluvial plain of Nesa in western Media, the smile that Dios now saw on Aspamites’ handsome face did not reflect satisfaction at the boy’s memory but rather the reverse. The spasaka had been compelled to leave his own bed to comfort the young Chian, who shared his tent and had woken up screaming from his nightmare, which recalled his recent castration.

Aspamites’ smile was an attempt to reassure and calm the tearful Dios, whom he was amicably swaying in a gentle hug in a further effort to repair the boy’s emotions. "There, there, child," the spasaka soothingly commented as he held the young Chian, "everything’s fine. You’ve just experienced nothing worse than a nasty nightmare, which I suppose involved your recent castration. I used to suffer such bad dreams regularly but they eventually went away, helped by someone’s love."

Dios subsequently broke Aspamites’ embrace to enable his lovely but currently damp blue eyes to peer into the older eunuch’s similar but dry variety. The boy then asked another of his many questions.

"Who’s love cured you of your castration nightmares, Sir?" Dios enquired. Aspamites, who had maintained his reassuring smile, was both happy and proud to answer the boy’s latest probing query.

Aspamites answered "The true love of the King of Kings, which I sincerely believe that he still has for me, although I’m no longer needed for his bed!" Dios, who had tried to banish the distressing idea of becoming a bumboy like Atrios to the back of his mind, immediately began to re-evaluate his attitude.

Dios realised that he was currently very far from home and family but still desperately desired someone to love, cherish and care for him in his new life, like his devoted parents had once done. The considerate Aspamites clearly liked him but his job kept him away for long periods from the Persian court.

‘Who was therefore better to provide him with true love in his new life,’ Dios now asked of himself, ‘than the King of Kings?’

(Plain of Nesa, Media[modern Kermanshah in Iran], next day)

In reply to a request from Dios, Aspamites was now telling the boy about the Persian kings, as they rode side-by-side across the water-rich and therefore very green and fertile Nesa Plain, heading for Ecbatana. As they proceeded, they passed numerous ponds, springs and streams, which were the source of the longest river in Iran and were testament to the beneficence with which nature had blessed the area, which was also famous for wild horses.

Aspamites spoke of a relatively obscure tribal family of Asiatic origin, who had created in little more than a generation the vast Persian Empire, which was the first of its kind that the world had known. It incorporated more lands and diverse peoples and cultures than its more parochial Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian predecessors. Many of the component nations also actually enjoyed net benefits for being part of this entity, which granted them military protection and fostered trade and commerce and the exchange of ideas.

Tribal lands that had for the previous three millennia been mainly noted as a place of transit for merchants and armies between east and west Asia now became the centre of the first commonwealth of nations, where the king was the unifying symbol, as well as the all-powerful ruler. This Persian hegemony eventually reached a zenith during the reign of Darius I, known to posterity as ‘the Great’. He ruled an empire that extended over five million square kilometres [over two million square miles], with an estimated population of ten million souls.

The term, Persia, was actually first applied by the Greeks and was derived from the area, separated from the sea to the south by an inhospitable strip of coast, which comprised the south-western lowland part of the eponymous plateau. This was called Parsa, or ‘Persis’ to the Hellenes and ‘Fars’ to the Arabs, and was the homeland of the Achaemenian clan, who rose from obscure tribal leadership to become the kings of the vast empire.

The wider land incorrectly called ‘Persia’ was actually named by the local inhabitants ‘Iran’, which evolved from the collective description for the peoples who shared their Indo-European languages, ‘Aryan’. They had invaded and settled in the region during the second and first millennia before the birth of Christ.

Iran was and still is geographically, climatically and ethnically a land of great diversity. The central part comprises a vast plateau, mostly between 1,000 and 2,000 metres [3300 and 6600 feet] above sea level, positioned between the Caspian Sea to the north and the Persian Gulf to the south.

In the centre and east of the Iranian plateau are two great salt deserts, which are dried lakes where settlement is virtually impossible. However, most of the rest of the region enjoys a largely pleasant warm climate, although crowded cities can become almost intolerably hot in summer and snow regularly falls in winter.

In the west, Iran is separated from the lowland Mesopotamian plains by the high Zagros Mountains. The northern Elburz range forms a similar barrier to accessing the Caspian Sea.

The Zagros represents a particularly imposing defensive bulwark, with the only practical routes through the tall peaks being the passes termed the ‘Gateway to Asia’ and the ‘Persian Gates’. Darius I had led his conquering armies westwards through the first named channel, whilst Alexander the Great’s victorious forces would march in the opposite direction almost two centuries later through the second. Meanwhile, the Elburz Mountains could be crossed via a defile called the ‘Caspian Gates’.

Eastward passage through the ‘Gateway to Asia’ led to Ecbatana. Similar transit through the more southern ‘Persian Gates’ led ultimately to Susa and Persepolis.

Situated on the south-western flanks of the central Zagros, where the Karun River flows from the mountains to the Persian Gulf, was the large triangular lowland plain of Susiana [modern Khuzistan]. Here, the earliest organised civilisation in the region, the kingdom of Elam, was established, with its capital at Susa on the Kerkha River, which was later to become the chief administrative centre of the Achaemenian empire.

The Achaemenians achieved their eventually supremacy under Cyrus the Great. He first defeated the similar tribal group called the ‘Medes’, who originally had their capital at Ecbatana and had previously been ascendant over the Persians. These people had allied themselves with the Babylonians to destroy the previously regionally predominant Assyrian Empire, obliterating the great city of Nineveh in the process.

The culminating battle between the Persians and Medes, who were led by their king, Astyages, took place at Pasargadae on the high Dasht-i-Morghab, or ‘Plain of the Water Bird’. Defecting Median nobles, seeing more of a future for themselves and their people with the enemy rather than with their own ageing leader, substantially assisted Cyrus’ conclusive victory.

As Cyrus was to do with other conquered peoples, he treated the defeated Medes well. He absorbed them seamlessly into his growing empire, including granting them positions of honour and adopting many of their cultural practices, in the process effectively uniting them with the Persians.

Cyrus went on to subdue Greek Asia Minor and obtain the subjection of the offshore islands of Ionia, including Chios and Lesbos. The latter had succumbed to the king’s suzerainty after their pleas for Spartan military assistance had been refused.

Cyrus subsequently took Babylon and its empire, relatively bloodlessly. He managed to penetrate his forces into the surprised city through cleverly bypassing the formidable fortified walls by means of fording the Euphrates when the river level was particularly low. He then forbade sacking and pillaging.

Cyrus’ remarkable achievement in taking Babylon was helped by the fact that the local population was somewhat distracted. Internal dissent had arisen because the local king, Nabonidus, was highly unpopular. He had usurped the throne and had subsequently become something of a religious fanatic, creating unrest and provincial revolt.

Narbonidus had then handed responsibility for security and military affairs to his son, Belshazzar, who unfortunately proved more interested in pleasure than in the safety of his subjects. The prince and many of his people were indulging in a great feast to celebrate a religious festival when Cyrus and his army invaded the streets of Babylon.

The capture of Babylon also brought the lands of Mesopotamia, Assyria, Syria, Phoenicia and Palestine, down to the borders with Egypt, into the Persian Empire. The event also brought Cyrus Biblical immortality because his compassion and religious tolerance allowed the exiled Jews to return to their original homeland and rebuild their great temple in Jerusalem, thereby becoming a hero to them.

Cyrus also allowed Babylon to retain significant importance by permitting the city to remain a key commercial, academic and religious centre, as well as become another main hub of Persian imperial government. Meanwhile, the king still kept Susa as his capital and the lofty and therefore cooler Ecbatana as his summer abode but he also bequeathed to his son a splendid royal residence at Pasargadae. The latter was the scene of his momentous victory against Astyages, which forever cast away from the Persians the Median yoke and to which he had become emotionally attached.

It is perhaps ironic that such a great king as Cyrus, still vigorous in his 60s, died whilst fighting a female leader. Despite the king’s success in acquiring and largely subduing a vast empire, one area remained troublesome, namely the north-eastern steppes inhabited by the Massagetae, a nomadic branch of the fierce Scythians.

The ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, alleged that Massagetae females were notoriously promiscuous. ‘If a man wants a woman,’ he wrote, ‘all he does is to hang up his quiver in front of her wagon and then enjoy her without misgiving’. Whatever the truth of his assertion, their queen, Tomyris, was spirited enough to suggest to the previously all-conquering Cyrus that he should ‘Rule your own people, and try to bear the sight of me ruling mine!’

Such defiance was naturally too much for Cyrus, who launched a campaign against the Massagetae, during which, in an early encounter, he captured Tomyris’ son, who later committed suicide. The queen’s subsequent grief not only made her extremely vengeful but also inspired her and her forces.

The Massagetae overwhelmed the hitherto invincible Persian army and Cyrus was killed in battle. His retreating men then encountered great difficulty in retrieving the king’s body but eventually succeeded in returning the corpse to be entombed in Pasargadae.

On the eve of the fateful battle, Cyrus had dreamt that he had seen the son of Hystaspes. The latter, who was campaigning with the army, was another great grandson of the king’s great grandfather, Teipses, along a different branch of the royal family.

In his dream, Cyrus saw Hystaspes’ son, Darius, sporting a pair of wings, with the shadow of one cast over Europe and the other over Asia. The spectre implied possible usurpation and so the king immediately sent his relative back to Parsa to check on the continued loyalty of the young man concerned.

Hystaspes was therefore spared from being involved in the fateful battle with the Massagetae. He also found that his son’s loyalty to Cyrus should never have been doubted.

Cyrus had reigned for twenty-nine years, during which he had created the largest empire the world had known. The king had also supplemented his achievement by being benevolent to those whom he had conquered, with his government being noted for they way that it thereafter protected rather than degraded his new subjects.

After being returned to Pasargadae, Cyrus’ body was placed in a golden sarcophagus in a still extant rectangular mausoleum, which comprised a single chamber built on a foundation of six steps. Alexander the Great visited the site to pay his respects to the Persian king, whom he hero-worshipped. According to the Roman biographer of the Macedonian monarch, Arrian, the entrance doorway to the tomb was made so narrow after the internment that only small men could squeeze through.

Cyrus’ son and successor, Cambyses, subsequently killed his own younger brother, ‘Bardiya’ in Persian or ‘Smerdis’ in Greek, to secure his position because he had dreamt that his sibling had seized the throne. The king did so quietly so that the murder, to use Darius’ own later words, ‘was not known to the people’.

Cambyses then, after four years’ preparation and with relative ease, successfully invaded Egypt, decisively shattering the army of the new pharaoh, Psammetichus III, at the battle of Pelusium, east of the Nile delta. Meanwhile, Hystaspes served loyally as the satrap for the northern province of Parthia, whilst Darius married the daughter of the governor of Babylonia and became the king’s spear-bearer. The latter was a high position demanding both integrity and valour.

Cambyses did not follow his late father’s compassion towards those he conquered. Despite being acknowledged as the new legitimate pharaoh, acceptable to the country’s ancient gods, he instead treated the Egyptians harshly, including ridiculing their national religion and damaging many of their temples. For example, he violated the tomb of Amasis and outraged the priesthood of Apis at Memphis by slaughtering their sacred bull.

Cambyses was, however, not assassinated by the Egyptian priesthood but by some of the senior members of the Persian version. The leader of the regicidal Magi conspirators then pretended to be the previously murdered Bardiya or Smerdis.

Cambyses’ assassination took place in Syria on his return to Persia from Egypt to quell a revolt instigated by the Magi and the murderous deed was successfully disguised as an accident. The story was spread that the king had gashed an artery in his leg with his own sword and the subsequent loss of blood could not be stemmed.

The story was actually true, apart from the identity of the person who had truly inflicted the fatal wound. Even Cambyses’ spear-bearer, Darius, publicly accepted the official version of events, despite having private reservations, particularly when someone claiming to be Bardiya quickly declared himself to be king back in Persia.

The impostor’s succession to the throne was helped by that fact that the earlier murder of Bardiya was known only by a few. His accession was therefore initially generally accepted, including by the satraps and aristocracy, especially after the new king promised to boost imperial prosperity by adopting anti-war and tax-cutting policies. The conquest of Egypt had proved very expensive and had led to substantially increased taxation. However, the new stance was not universally popular, causing, perhaps naturally, disaffection amongst the army and its generals, one of the most senior of whom was Darius.

The senior Magi had been afraid of Cambyses’ ruthlessness and unhappy with his expensive wars. The priesthood had also been outraged by the king’s religious irreverence, being particularly scandalised when he had emulated the common practice of the rulers of ancient Elam and Egypt by marrying incestuously in another attempt to consolidate his position. Not content with being wed to one sister, Atossa, he also entered into marital union with another, Roxane, and probably would have been united with a third, Artystone, if he had not considered her to be too young.

Cambyses had earlier taken the precaution of seeking the advice of his own high court before marrying his two sisters. His judges told him that, under Persian law, the deed would be forbidden incest but that there was also other legislation decreeing that the king could do anything he wanted. He therefore ignored the former dictum and followed the latter. However, the consequent consummation of the unions brought forth no sons by the time that he was assassinated.

28 year-old Darius, direct descendent through another paternal line of Cambyses’ great great grandfather and knowing that the king was a false usurper, therefore plotted to assassinate the pretender and seize the crown. He did so despite the fact that his own father and grandfather were still alive and therefore had better claim to the throne if they chose to exert it.

Six important Persian and Median aristocrats helped Darius, including his father-in-law, the satrap of Babylonia, Gobryas. They eventually managed to penetrate into the inner sanctum of the false Bardiya’s court to kill the usurper [522 BC].

‘You, who shall be king hereafter,’ Darius later declared, whilst addressing his successors, ‘preserve well the families of these men’. He was referring to the six nobles who had assisted him to kill the false Bardiya and who now also helped him to fight for the succession.

The nobles concerned were rewarded by having their families become the chief aristocratic houses of Persia. Members, tied to Darius through oaths and ties of blood, became very influential in the inner circle of the royal court and were appointed to some of the highest bureaucratic positions.

Darius had needed the help of these nobles because, for three main reasons, he was confronted with a lot of opposition. Even his bow-holder, Vindafarnah, who was second only in importance to the man charged with holding the royal spear, rebelled and had to be executed.

Firstly, many people believed the false Bardiya to be the late king’s younger brother and so Darius was initially unpopular because he was considered to have perpetrated regicide. Secondly, some of the imperial aristocracy tried to make use of the uncertainty and power vacuum created by the murder and the disputed succession by claiming the crown for themselves. Thirdly, some of the provincial elite, also hoping to benefit from the political situation, rebelled in order to secure independence for themselves and their homelands. Fourthly, the new claimant’s bid was considerably weakened in the minds of many by him being the son not of one of Hystaspes’ wives but of one of his concubines, although his father had subsequently legitimised him.

Nevertheless, after nineteen battles in three years, which cost thousands of lives in the fighting and aftermath, Darius eventually emerged as the undisputed king, taking particular bloody vengeance against the senior Magi for supporting his usurper predecessor. He was assisted to victory by lack of co-ordination between his enemies, and by the better attributes of his loyal allies, who were boosted in number by diplomatic marriages to Camyses’ widow and sister, Atossa, and youngest female sibling, Artystone. These princesses were, of course, Cyrus the Great’s daughters, and the weddings helped to legitimise their new husband’s claim to the throne in some doubtful minds.

The daughter of Gobryas, was demoted by these diplomatic marriages. However, the satrap of Babylonia remained loyal and was appointed to the honoured position of royal spear-holder.

Darius happily inherited Cambyses’ harem of gorgeous women and boys, which had long been an institution of the Achaemenian kings and similar rulers. However, he correctly perceived that, in order properly to rule his empire, which he proposed to consolidate and expand, he had to establish better administrative systems and make each province sensibly interdependent. He recognised that the prime motivation behind people’s acceptance of central imperial authority, which had previously been exercised in a rather rudimentary manner, would be the equity in law, stability and prosperous development of agriculture and trade that such submission would bring.

Darius was to prove an organisational reformer of genius, adapting the best Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian precedents to initiate good, carefully balanced government. Apart from overhauling the satrapy system to more rational effectiveness, and wisely separating civilian and military commands, the new king also instituted the post of Lord High Chamberlain, ‘Hazarapatis’ and ‘Chiliarch’ in respectively ancient Persian and Greek, to head the imperial administration, initially appointing a Mede, Farnaka.

Darius also surrounded himself with capable people from all over his empire, whom he appointed to important positions in order to help him to introduce his reforms. He formalised taxation, introduced coinage, instituted the effective imperial post system and built good roads and canals to aid movement round his vast domains. The likes of Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks and Jews provided significant numbers of bureaucrats, scribes, architects and engineers, as well as doctors, generals and admirals.

Darius also created his surveillance network, which was part overt and part covert. His inspectorate of spasakas, or ‘eyes of the king’, were well-known to and feared by the satraps, tyrants and other regional rulers. However, his secret ‘ears’ could belong to anyone.

Darius initially chose the old Elamite capital of Susa, 375 kilometres [233 miles] to the south-east of Babylon, to be his main winter base. The city was located in humid lowlands and so was only comfortable in the cooler seasons. Persian kings spent the summer 350 kilometres [217 miles] to the north in the old Median capital of Ecbatana, which was located on the great northern trade route, over 1,800 metres [6,000 feet] above sea-level in the Zagros highlands, where the climate was pleasantly temperate.

Having consolidated his position, Darius went on to try to expand his empire further in order to attempt to surpass Cyrus the Great in achievement. The king did so first in the east, where he made use of local tribal wars to invade the Indian Punjab [517 BC] and then south into Sind, which matched Sardis in terms of lucrative trove and therefore became the highest-taxed imperial satrapy.

Five years later [512 BC], the Persians invaded the mainland of Europe for the first time, largely for exploratory reasons. Darius took an army across the Bosporus and marched north to cross the River Danube. However, the area was then inhabited by fierce and elusively mobile unconquered Scythian tribes renowned for their cavalry, who cleverly withdraw before the attackers, burning crops as they did so to deny supplies and forage to the enemy.

Darius was humiliatingly forced to withdraw. Nevertheless, he obtained the alliance of the king of Macedonia and the submission of the Greeks on the Aegean coast of Thrace, thereby securing a little part of mainland Europe for his empire.

Immediately after the Thracian campaign, Darius began to concentrate on consolidating rather than expanding further his empire. This was the current political situation twelve years later when Dios, whose knowledge about the Persian kings had been greatly improved by the considerate Aspamites, finally saw, two days after seeing the monument at Mount Behistun, the tall circular walls of Ecbatana come into view.

Ecbatana was situated in a very attractive spot, in a fertile valley setting. The city was situated aside the slopes of a beautifully peaked 3570 metres [11,700 feet] high mountain, which was the tallest in the Zagros range.

Dios quietly wondered again what his destiny would become after he entered the ancient summer capital of the Persian King of Kings.

(Royal summer palace, Ecbatana, Media, next day)

Dios, standing on a cool marble floor, again found himself shamefully naked. The boy was being paraded along with his fellow Chian eunuchs in a massive colonnaded hall of the vast royal summer palace in Ecbatana, which sparkled from the gold and silver covering on the columns and ceiling.

All of boys had previously been carefully washed, groomed and perfumed by older servants of the King of King’s Ecbatana harem, who were also geldings. Dios and the other forty-nine Chian eunuchs were lined up for inspection by the very elderly Lord High Chamberlain, or ‘Hazarapatis’ in ancient Persian, who would decide their immediate destinies. This most senior official was being advised by Aspamites.

Dios and his fellow eunuchs were not permitted the slight comfort of covering their gelded genitalia with their hands, which had instead to remain at their sides. Part of the Lord High Chamberlain’s inspection was to check the neatness of the boys’ castrated sexual organs.

The Lord High Chamberlain, accompanied by Aspamites, eventually appeared in front of Dios. The boy immediately thought that the rather wizened octogenarian Hazarapatis appeared to possess Jewish features.

Dios had seen many Jewish traders on Chios, both resident and transitory. The Hebrew people had quickly returned to their successful mercantile ways after being released from their Babylonian exile thirty-eight years previously by Cyrus the Great.

The chin of the Lord High Chamberlain was also hairless, indicating that he too had once been castrated. Although many eunuchs could grow at least some form of beard, contemporary cultural fashion dictated that they were not allowed the hirsute facial feature proudly sported by most male adults of the time in this part of the ancient world who had retained their testes.

Aspamites now advised the esteemed Lord High Chamberlain that "This is the boy of whom I spoke." The Hazarapatis’ aged eyes widened, as they then carefully examined Dios’ appearance, during which process he asked the boy to turn round so that he could inspect the child’s now unmarked rear.

One look at Dios’, in both senses of the word, outstanding buttocks then helped the Lord High Chamberlain to reach a quick conclusion as to the boy’s immediate destiny. As the Hazarapatis had already done with the other young Chians he had checked, he then announced the 11 year-old’s fate.

"Have him sent to Susa for confirmation of his new status," the Lord High Chamberlain commanded of Aspamites, "and relevant training in the role we discussed last night." The Hazarapatis then moved on to the next boy.

Dios was puzzled by the meaning of the Lord High Chamberlain’s order but his confusion was later removed by the considerate Aspamites, although the boy first asked about the name and ethnicity of very elderly Hazarapatis. The spasaka, who had visited the 11 year-old in the large, airy and comfortable barrack-style accommodation allocated to the Chian eunuchs in the royal palace, was happy to provide the required information.

Aspamites then went on to explain that the King of Kings would be heading, after his visit to Egypt, to spend the winter in Susa. Whilst there, Darius would undoubtedly regularly persue his beloved hunting and also occasionally check on the progress of the building of his new palace in the more southerly Persepolis.

The spasaka did not add that he believed that, although Darius had many nice and pretty gelded boys with whom to enjoy sex, the King of Kings had had no-one whom he truly loved in his bed ever since a certain Aspamites left such service. The Babylonian eunuch also did not advise Dios that he considered that the man, who did not find any of his queens or female concubines to be satisfactory soulmates, needed such affection in his daily life. He additionally did not tell the young Chian that he had somehow instinctively identified the 11 year-old as someone who might solve the problem.

Aspamites, however, did inform the boy that "The Lord High Chamberlain, whose Jewish name you now know is Daniel, has decided that you will be presented in Susa to the King of Kings, who will then decide if he wants you as a new catamite for his bed!"

Άυαπυοή
(Pause)

(To be continued in the penultimate part δ΄ - ‘Γύναικωνίτις’ [part 4 - ‘Harem’])

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