Part I: SPARTA
The old man's sons lay dead at the feet of the youths. He would be next, followed swiftly by his wife and young daughter. But he would sell his family dearly. It was the time of the Krypteia. There was no escape.
The Krypteia was an old tradition in Sparta. Every autumn, the young men who had successfully completed their course of education and training– the Agoge, as it was called– were sent out to test their skills and worthiness to take their place as full citizens and members of the Spartan military. The Ruling Council would, as a matter of form, declare war upon the Helots of the lower parts of the city and the villages of the surrounding countryside, where they dwelt. The young men would be sent out into the night with nothing but a knife, their own wits, wiles, and orders to kill any Helot they might happen upon. Only Spartans who took part in the Krypteia could expect to attain rank in society, for it was thought that only those who were willing and able to kill for the polis as striplings would be worthy of leadership when reaching manhood. It was a brutal rite of passage for all Spartan males, and a time of fear and death for the Helots. This was the time of year when Spartan nobles and free citizens would come down the hill to make sure the Helots remembered their place in the scheme of things.
Medousa Description:
Classic Greek mythology paints Medousa as a serpent-haired monster who turns people to stone if they merely look at her face. But what made Medousa such a monster?
Author Michael F. Butchin retells the classic story from Medousa’s point of view, taking readers back to Sparta, where her family is violently murdered by the Spartan Krypteia, and she is sold as a slave to the royal house of the Eurypontids.
When Medousa is granted her freedom she devotes herself to Athena, the Goddess of wisdom, courage, and the strategy of war and trains to be a priestess, hoping for kindness and acceptance only to suffer rape and the curse that turns her into a Gorgon.
Fleeing to a life of solitude, Medousa is driven mad by her loneliness and pain, taking out her anger on travelers who cross her path.
In the end it is the Titans, not the Gods, who give her the care and love she longs for, but will she ever find the healing she so deeply desires?
