Another flight of arrows sprang up, lower in its arc. Xanthippus roared the order, but it was hardly needed. The men locked shields again and did not slow. One swore, with an arrow through his wrist. As Xanthippus watched, the man wrapped a strip of cloth around the wound, then bound his hand to the grip of the shield, pulling it tight with one end held in his teeth. One of his companions leaned in, muttering words of support. Many of them were fathers. They knew what to say. In those moments, it was not kindness but rough humour and mockery that worked best. They would allow no weakness, not when the enemy swarmed before them.

Xanthippus lowered his own shield. It had been hard not to protect his son when the arrows flew. Yet a thousand days of drill had made iron instincts in him. He marched forward with his people, readying the dory spear in his hand. Half again as tall as a man, it was a fearsome thing. In tight formation, with the weight of hoplite ranks behind, the spears were terrifying.

The Persians shifted glassily as he marched on them. There would be no feints, no manoeuvres. No flanks or reinforcements, just the pressure forward, the push of the phalanx. Those behind shoved and heaved, step by step; those in front stabbed and pulled back and stabbed again. They could not stop, nor rest with that terrible tide behind. They would go through the enemy, or they would die.

‘Stay close to me, Ariphron,’ Xanthippus said.

He saw his oldest son dip his head, trusting his judgement as he always had. More so than Pericles. Ariphron had understood from a young age that his father was respected, that Xanthippus knew what he was doing. Almost as an effort of will, Ariphron had chosen to listen and learn, to become a man through his father’s example. That path had led them to this place, marching alongside one another. Ariphron had to be tested in the fields of his day, to cut his own path. Xanthippus felt his chest swell.

More waves of arrows came as they closed to sixty paces. Persian archers were happier at that range, so that they shot and shot, emptying quivers they had hoarded like gold before. Arrows clattered and broke as they struck bronze. Xanthippus felt his head rocked back as one struck his helmet and whirred away, too fast to see. His shield took blows as if some boxer thumped fists into it, but no iron heads sprang through to pierce his hands. The hail of shafts fell to be crunched underfoot in a shifting mass.

Xanthippus could see the archers falling back as they found no more in their quivers. He remembered them from Marathon. He remembered too how they had died in the shallows, making the sea red.

‘Front ranks! Spears ready!’ he roared to his men.