Gates of Fire: Chapter 28 Summary & Analysis

Back in the Spartan camp, Suicide wakes Xeo before dawn. Rooster has been captured and interrogated as a deserter; he wants to speak to Xeo before he’s executed. He gives Xeo an ancient Messenian coin to be given to his wife. Then he tells Xeo and Alexandros that the Persians are going to find a way through the Spartan rear and will envelop the Greeks in no more than a day; there are no reinforcements coming, and Leonidas will never pull them out. He also tells them exactly where Xerxes’ tent is located, and it’s lightly guarded, at a spot thought impassible. Rooster begs Xeo and Alexandros to relay this news to someone in authority.

Meanwhile, forty Theban allies have deserted overnight. Most were killed or escaped, but three terrified captives are brought before the Spartans. While allies yell for the deserters’ blood, Dienekes decides to intervene. He walks forward and cuts the prisoners loose. To the outraged onlookers, he says that he despises the men’s cowardice, but hates even more “that passion, comrades, which deranges you now.” He points out that these men fought valiantly the day before, and that everyone on the battlefield felt tempted to desert as well.

Dienekes says that these captives must live out their days cursed by the knowledge of their cowardice, a kind of “living death” from shame. The men beg, but Dienekes relentlessly drives them out of the camp. The men slouch pitifully through the ranks of their former comrades. The other men give up their self-righteous rage and turn their energies to resolution for the coming battle. Dienekes returns to Xeo and Rooster and says that he’ll slit his “bastard nephew’s” throat himself.