There’s No “I” in Polis
One of the most significant and meaningful metaphors found in the entire narrative occurs when Bruxieus is castigates Xeones for his expressions of self-pity and inner-directed hatred for what he views as his cowardice in failing to fight to the death. The dressing down delivered by Bruxieus may sound like an ancient Greek version of there’s no “I” in team speech—and to a point it is—but it goes much deeper, speaking to the fundamental Greek philosophy of finding identity outside the self and inside the community:
“A man without a city is not a man. He is a shadow, a shell, a joke and a mockery.”
Always with the God, It Is
Here’s the thing about setting a story in ancient Greece. It’s all about the gods. The gods—and you know their names—are in play at all times and no matter the participants. Whether it’s Xena and Gabrielle rescuing a city or legendary military engagements still studied by generals, the gods will be you, the reader:
“At last came the fight, which was like a tide, and within which one felt as a wave beneath the storming whims of the gods, waiting for their fancy to prescribe the hour of his extinction.”
Dog Pack Inefficiency
Many lessons in courage and bravery and cowardice and fear are to be gleaned by reading this text. The book has actually become part of the curriculum at military schools across America. One of the lessons it teaches is the difference between fear and courage, a delineation often so subtle as to be confused as the same thing. Dienekes recognizes the subtlety and frames it with a metaphor using the pack mentality of dogs:
“Dogs in a pack find courage to take on a lion. Each hound knows his place. He fears the dog ranked above and feeds off the fear of the dog below.”
Wolf Pack Efficiency
In contrast to the inefficient system of dogs who seem to show courage, but are really reacting out of fear, the grim efficiency that is the stalking and killing machine of a wolf pack is held up to view through a metaphorical prism that is all respect and adulation:
“As wolves in a pack take down the fleeing deer, so did the Spartan right fall upon the defenders of Antirhion, not in frenzied shrieking rage, lip–curled and fang–bared, but predator–like, cold–blooded, applying the steel with the wordless cohesion of the killing pack and the homicidal efficiency of the hunt.”
The Lion
Within the metaphor of the dog pack, the lion becomes the potential victim of hierarchical ambition, but what is the lion? Turn out that the lion is Polynikies, whose pre-eminence as the greatest Spartan warrior is always at odds with his belief that he is the “I” in team.
“Polynikes' courage was that of a lion or an eagle, something in the blood and the marrow, which summoned itself out of its own preeminence, without thought, and gloried in its instinctual supremacy.”
