Xeones begins to relate the story of his childhood in Astakos. His family’s blind slave, Bruxieus, is a mentor to him, and he is often in the company of his cousin, Diomache, on whom he has a crush. He also describes the amateurish military drills the men of Astakos undertake in the spring.

One day, Xeones and Diomache are bringing their family’s goods to market when the Argives, nominal allies of Astakos, invade. The pair flee and try to return home. They come across Diomache’s father, who tells them that Xeones’s parents are dead and orders them to get behind the city walls.

Diomache and Xeones disobey her father and avoid the city. They come across Bruxieus the next day. The invaders have spared him due to his blindness and status as a slave. Xeones, Diomache, and Bruxieus come upon a man burying a baby. The man is half mad and insists that Astakos would have been saved if it had only been defended by a few Spartans.

The trio find the bodies of Diomache’s mother and Xeones’s parents, but a troop of Argives are camped around their homestead.