Pueros

Tribute
Φóρος

Summary

Disclaimer added by Céladon Puerulus

Author's note

First Publication

Part α΄ - Χίος
(Part 1 – Chios)

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)

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)

(To be continued in part γ΄ - ‘Έυνούχος’ [part 3 – ‘Eunuch’])

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