A King is Chosen

I decided to finally finish (or at least continue) my story in Sparta. I haven't been on in two days though, sorry about that. Yesterday my entire family was sick (and are still recovering). All my research and blogging time went down the drain. We almost had to bring one of them to the Emergancy Room. Yet I was fine, since I had been living different since I came back my first night.

So the night of my last blog I think I went into a Lord of the Rings type world. I helped a group of villages fend off orcs for several months. Those orcs were so easy, but there were so many. Their arrows are a pain though. They may not be accurate or go very far, but they are heavy and barbed. A large, crude arrow head attached to a thick shaft stuck in your flesh is no fun. Especially when you have seven of them in you at once (wanna take a guess as to when I left?). I helped the villagers make better weapons, but I really wish I had known how to make an English Longbow. Or at least had been able to find some elves with their bows, if I actually was in Middle Earth that is.

These villagers did not have the philosophy nor the strength and training to live up to the Spartan standards of training I had originally taught them. So I had to put more emphasis on long range combat (bows, spears, catapults, ect.) ambushes, daily drills and formations, and other stuff. I couldn't teach them to make an unbreakable shield wall, but I could teach them to get in ranks and hold for awhile. They weren't soldiers, after all; but just normal people. Had my Spartans been there, it would have seemed almost like a typical training day every time we fought the orcs. Pretty darn easy. Many would likely prefer to go out and get a few dozen orc skulls than stay at the villages training, because gatherings skulls would be so much easier. But... I didn't have my Spartans, so I had to do the best I could with the villagers.

Now, speaking of Spartans, and since I called this post "A King is Chosen", I should get to the rest of my first story now. I left off, I believe, where I became the leader of a "squad". As I said, we did training "games" with and against other squads. Also against the helots. As the years went by, I became parts of bigger groups. Became a better soldier. And fought in real battles. By the time I became a full fledged soldier (a few years after I turned 30), I was the main war leader in Sparta. Even the kings looked to me much of the time, and they were the traditional war leaders.

Since the Greek City States were almost always in a state of war, it gave us Spartans plenty of time to relax from training. One of the Kings decided to do so as well. He lead an attack on Athens, bringing me with him believing I would greatly increase their chances. Otherwise he might never had attacked Athens head on like this. And increase their chances I did... I just didn't increase the King's chances. He died in battle, on the front line, by my side. His name was Leonidas. Some of you may recongize this name.

With Athens under our control, we thought no one could beat us. However, we forgot the Persians. While we made war with our neighbors, they Persians had been making threats towards all of Greece. We overlooked and ignored them. And the last time they had attacked, at the battle of Marathon, the ATHENIANS had managed to drive them back. If the Athens could stop a Persian attack, why couldn't we Spartans? We sat back happily and conquerored city after city. Then word came of the Persians finally coming. And since we took Athens and the other King died, I was chosen to take his place. I had even killed the messenger from the Persians asking for our allegience.

We decided to hold them off at a narrow pass between the mountains and the sea; a place called Thermopylae. Yes, the same place Leonidas historically held of the Persians. But I had changed things here. There were not the estimated 200,000-800,000 Persians vs 7,000 Greeks, including Leonidas and his 300 Spartans. No. This time, There were 2,000,000 Persians. We heard of them gathering troops for years, but never cared. The more Sparta conquerored and the stronger we became, the bigger Persia made her armies. And the worst part, I had the same difficulty gathering troops that Leonidas historically had. The Persians came during the Olymic games, as well as the Spartan festival of Carneia. A war festival, pretty much. And each one of these events prevented any military action during their course. And two of them at the same time was even worse. When I said we should gather forces to stop the Persians, every Greek said it would bring upon us the curses of the gods.

I told them the gods will have no one to curse or bless if the Persians were allowed to invade. Who would offer them sacrifices if all of the the Greeks lay dead? I told them that if the gods did not want me to go with my armies, than they may stop me. I challenged the gods to stop me. And nothing happened.

I gathered over 100,000 soldiers. Including over 10,000 Spartans. The Persians stood no chance. After a week of fighting, they began to retreat. We chased them. We hunted them. We slaughtered them. It was whispered among the Persians that I was our Greek god of war, Ares. They thought the very gods of the Greeks were fighting against them. Persia was the first empire to fall to Sparta. And it was not the last.

Now after all this, you can see what I thought of some orcs. I fought them for months, and it was to easy. Then one day I simply woke up. Last night was different though. I was gone only a week. I stayed just long enough to prevent the Cold War going Hot. All I had to do was keep the Americans from assassinating whoever was in charge of the U.S.S.R. That was pretty simple.

Well, that's all for today.