Great warriors have influence beyond their own time. There is a late myth in which the ghost of Theseus appears on the eve of the Battle of Marathon and offers to lead the Athenian forces to victory against the numerically superior Persian forces.
Below is my contemporary retelling of this myth. The story also serves as a prologue to Fateful Pathways: A Story of Theseus, about which you can find more information below.
Miltiades was alone in his tent as he often was on the night before a battle. This particular night, though, he might have welcomed company. He might have walked around the camp and spoken to the men as they huddled around the flickering flames of the campfires. But he had already done that once tonight. Doing it again could have made him seem nervous—and a nervous commander made for nervous soldiers. He might not sleep tonight, but if none of them did, the odds of winning would be even worse than they already were.
So he stayed alone in his tent. No, not quite alone. Phobos, fear incarnate, that pale-skinned, wild-eyed son of Ares, was with him, whispering in his eyes and gnawing at him with long, knife-sharp, icy teeth. Every footstep was the sound of an approaching spy or assassin. Every cry of the screech owl was some dire warning from the gods. Every hint of movement near his tent was the beginning of a surprise attack.
Miltiades cursed his own weakness. He was no stranger to war. His heart should not be beating so fast. His hand should not be twitching toward his sword. His eyes should not be riveted to his tent flap as if a horde of enemies might rush through it at any moment. But never had he faced a single engagement that could so change his life—if he survived.
The Persian empire had far greater forces at its disposal than the Greeks. It also had a unity they lacked. Despite occasional alliances, the city states would just as soon fight each other as stand together against the Persians. And while the warlike cities squabbled among themselves, the Persian lion gobbled them up, one after another. Now it waited, salivating in anticipation, as it neared Athens, the city Miltiades now called home. The lion had whetted its appetite on the Aegean islands and on Eretria. If it could win here, at Marathon, it would be ready to pounce on Athens.
There would be no saving his city then—not even if the gods themselves took the field.
Though there was no wind, Miltiades felt a chill, and the tent flap rippled slightly. At first, he saw nothing, but Phobos stopped gnawing and tore into his flesh with cold claws as a blur that looked like mist at first became a human figure right before his eyes. It could not be a man, for no man could appear from nothingness. Besides, the stranger was translucent. Miltiades could see the tent wall right through him.
Was this intruder a god, come to punish Miltiades for the unintended blasphemy of his thought? Or was he a Zurvanic, one of the Persian priests or magi, as the Romans called them, sent to cast some fatal spell upon him?
Miltiades’s hand moved toward his sword hilt, but for the first time in his military career, he had no idea what to do next. Raising a blade against a god would seal Miltiades’s fate. But if the stranger were a magus, the only way to avoid death would be to cut him down before his fatal magic could be woven.
“Rest easy, friend,” said the apparition. His Greek was flawless, but Miltiades didn’t recognize the accent.
“Who are you?” The leader tried to sound fearless, but to his shame, a slight tremor in his voice betrayed him.
The apparition smiled—a warm smile, despite the chill that accompanied his presence.
“In life, I was called Theseus. I have come to help in tomorrow’s battle—if you will have me.”
Miltiades’s eyes narrowed as he studied the stranger’s translucent face. In the dark tent, it glowed slightly, but its features told him nothing. Olive-skinned, handsome, his brown eyes intense and deep as the sea, the stranger could have been Theseus, but Miltiades had no way to know for sure. He could just as easily be a magus’s illusion. Nor was the newcomer’s body, muscled like that of a warrior, any help. Even if it were not an illusion, Miltiades had no idea what Theseus had looked like.
“You hesitate,” said the stranger. “Perhaps I am in the wrong tent. I took you for Miltiades, one of the ten strategoi of Athens. But such a man, threatened by overwhelming odds, would certainly not reject an offer of help from one who is a friend of Athens.”
“I am Miltiades. But what proof have I that you are Theseus?”
The stranger smiled again, more sadly this time. “Is it not evident that I have come from the land of the dead? Of do you commonly receive ghosts as guests here?”
“Why did you not seek out Callimachus with your offer of help?” asked Miltiades. “He is the polemarch—war ruler. I am but a lowly strategos—general—under his command.”
“I know what the words mean,” said Theseus, frowning slightly. “Did you take me for a Persian? Callimachus voted to break a tie in your favor, but it was you who formulated the battle plan. You are the leader who best understands strategy and particularly how to defeat the Persians. You would also most appreciate how much I could help morale by encouraging the troops. They are every bit as apprehensive as you are.”
“I’m not—”
“You are. Your face betrays you. Even if it did not, only an idiot would remain unconcerned when faced by an enemy as formidable as those fierce warriors from the east.”
“How are you able to be here? You pointed out yourself that it is not common for the spirits of the dead to walk the earth.”
The stranger sighed. “Though I am dead, the ways of the gods are still a mystery to me. But this much I know—they intervene less than they used to. You will not see them take the field themselves, as they did at Troy. That does not mean they do not care about the outcome. I imagine some of them persuaded Hades to let me offer what help I could.”
“How do I know you aren’t some Persian trick? It is said the magi are skilled in the magical arts.”
The stranger looked down at himself. “Enough to create me? Enough to make me speak Greek better than they can themselves? If they had such power and such skill, the war would already be over.
“Yet I cannot fault you for having doubts. My offer is…unusual. A good commander is ever wary of offers that seem too good to be true.” Theseus nodded as if agreeing with himself. “Yes, that’s it. I should have expected such skepticism.
“I hesitate to ask you to lose sleep on the night before battle, but if I were to tell you my tale, with all the knowledge of Athens and of the rest of the Greek world that it contains, would that persuade you that I am not some Persian deception?”
“I doubt that I have will sleep much tonight, anyway,” said Miltiades. He took his hand off his sword hilt. “Sit if you will, and tell your tale. Someone as wise as Theseus will certainly be able to convince me.”
The look the stranger gave him was surprisingly sad. His deep eyes hinted at suffering beyond anything Miltiades had endured.
“I am not as wise as you think. When you have heard my story, you will know that. Maybe I am here, not because I am some virtuous sage but because of all the times when I fell short of that ideal. Maybe I am here to give me a chance to undo some small part of the damage I have done.”
Fateful Pathways: A Story of Theseus is a retelling of the Theseus story from the hero’s point of view. It is the very tale that Theseus’s ghost mentions at the end of the story above. If you enjoy modern novelizations of Greek mythology, you can check it out, as well as my book about Orpheus and Jason, on the page for the Whispers from Olympus series.
You may also enjoy my Substack serial based much more loosely on Greek mythology. You can find the first episode embedded below.