Book 1: Xerxes, Chapter 5 - 7 Summary

Xeones, Diomache and Bruxieus live as best they can in the mountains, eating whatever they can find and begging from local farms. Diomache feels that no man will want her for his wife due to the rape. Bruxieus does what he can to keep the youngsters from going too feral. While steeling lambs from shepherds who use bows and arrows to protect their flock, the refugees collect the arrows shot at them and steal a Thessalian cavalry bow from a sleeping shepherd. Farmers catch Xeones while he steals a goose, and the farmers drive nails through his hands, crippling them forever.

Xeones leaps ahead to a memory of Sparta, also called Lakedaemon. For punishment, the Spartans whip boys with sticks. One boy takes too much of the whipping and dies, which prompts a lesson from Dienekes, a...