A Captain of Thebes

by Mark G McLaughlin

  “No,” smirked Alexander. “I have 20,000 Macedonians, soldiers all. The Great King has no soldiers – only slaves. My men are hard, hill-born herdsmen, with fire in their veins. The Persians are soft city-dwellers and farmers, spoiled by the lush, fertile fields of the lowlands and floodplains of Asia. They are feeble, and live only to please their king.”

  Demades and the other Athenian delegates shuffled their feet nervously, adjusted their robes, and seemed not only unconvinced but also embarrassed by the young king's diatribe. The unease of the Athenians at being lectured was evident, but Alexander noticed that a few seemed to nod slightly in agreement. Others were whispering among themselves, as if acknowledging there was some kernel of truth in what he was saying. Alexander could see the doubt in their demeanor starting to dissipate, which only spurred him on.

  “My tutor, Aristotle, had the measure of the Persians. ’Natural slaves,' he called them. Did not Herodotos observe that while we, Greeks, labor for ourselves, the Persians work only to serve and please their masters? And those masters are not the noble warriors of old that Herodotos met when he was collecting material for his history some 100 years ago. They have become effeminate from overindulgence in luxuries, immoral from easy living, corrupt, cowardly, and lacking in both faith and honor. None such as they can stand against us. How many times did we, Greeks, and especially you, Athenians, defeat their hosts? By Zeus, their officers used whips at Marathon and Plateai to keep their men in line. Whips! Can you imagine anyone taking a whip to a phalanx of Greeks?”

  That remark drew laughter and other signs of approval and agreement from the Athenians. Sensing he was beginning to sway them, Alexander continued.

  “The Persians of today will fare no better against a Greek army. Just look at how Xenophon and his men marched into the heart of Persia and back out again, swatting aside the Persians like so many flies.”

  That remark, like the last, also caused many of the Athenians to laugh or at least smile. Feeling that perhaps now he had them, Alexander decided the time had come to drive his point home.

  “Our Greek lands can no longer support our people. Our cities are crowded, our soil rocky, and our people poor. Think of the lush farmland of Asia, of the vast expanses where we could found more colonies, settle our teeming masses, and put an end to their poverty. And then, of course, there is one more reason to march east. One that overrides them all: revenge. Did not the Persians burn your city, golden Athens, to the ground while your people huddled on the island of Salamis? True, you recovered your lands after defeating the Persians in the epic naval victory you won by its shores, but would you not like to repay the Persians in kind for what they did to your beloved city? Would you not like to help burn their cities, tear down their temples and see them humbled? Then come with me, support me, and we shall make these Persians pay for the wrongs and sacrileges their ancestors committed on the sacred soil of Greece!”

  “And what exactly does Macedonia demand of us, if we are to join in this endeavor?” challenged one of the delegates. “Why should we fight against one king if only to become subjects to another? We are free men, citizens of Athens, not base-born barbarians who grovel before some potentate.”

  Alexander angered visibly at this insult, but Demades quickly intervened in an effort to bring peace and calm to the room. “What he means, King Alexander...”

  “I know very well what he means, Demades. I am no simpleton. I know an insult when I hear one,” Alexander shot back angrily. “Within your city walls you may do what you want, and remain 'citizens' of Athens,” he added, with a sneer as he mouthed that particular word. “But outside of those walls, you will do as I command, for I need subjects who obey orders if I am to defeat the Persians, not citizens who debate my commands.”

  The Athenian delegates, even Demades and others of his pro-Macedonian clique, bristled at Alexander's remarks. Demades, however, knew that after what had happened at Thebes, there was no question as to if Athens would do the king's bidding, but only what obedience to him would cost.

  “King Alexander,” interjected Demades soothingly, “let us not quibble or engage in a debate over semantics. You have agreed to spare our city. I am sure we can convince the people that accepting your terms is the prudent course. Now just tell us exactly what you want from us in return.”

  “A few thousand of your best hoplites, and some light infantry and cavalry as well,” replied Alexander. “And two squadrons of your fleet. That and money, as Athens must pay its fair share of the common cost of the war. And one thing more,” added the young king. “Peace at home, and by that I mean an end to the backstabbing, in word or deed, by Demosthenes and his crowd. Do that and I would be satisfied. Do that,” he added, with a wry smile, “and you will have my gratitude and not just in word, but in more, shall we say, tangible ways.”

  “Like what, my King,” asked Demades, his demeanor showing he had accepted Alexander’s bargain, and was merely haggling over the price tag.

  “Like a garrison of Macedonians on the isthmus of Corinth, between Athens and Sparta,” replied Alexander. “A garrison from where, if you needed it, my soldiers could be in Athens in a few days,” responded Alexander. “And, of course,” he added, “I would continue the stipend my father gave you and your party in gratitude for your support of our cause.”

  “I accept your generous offer, King Alexander,” said Demades with a broad smile. “I cannot but wait to tell Demosthenes of our arrangement. He will not be pleased – which in itself will be a joy to me. Although humbled, though, he will surely be relieved to keep his head.”

  12

  The Port of Piraeus

  Athens

  Alexander and his advance guard were not the only visitors to come to Athens from the north. Several hundred refugees from Thebes had also gone south. These fugitives managed to escape the slavers by tagging along at the very rear end of the train of camp followers, wagons and herds of live animals that followed the army of Alexander. Hidden in the clouds of dust kicked up by the army, the emigres hoped to find a welcome, or at least some succor, in the great city.

  Among this innumerable rabble were a trio of men for whom Athens was not a final destination but only a way-station on a longer journey: a journey of revenge, a journey of justice, and a journey of freedom. One, a former wine merchant and captain of the citizen soldiery of Thebes, walked at the front of a tumbledown, creaking oxcart. He did his best to keep the sullen, sluggish ox moving, while another man, a physician, walked alongside, keeping constant watch on a third man who, like the first, had also stood in the ranks with other hoplites of his now defunct city-state. Each bump, each rut and each stone in the road jostled the cart and jarred him as he alternately sat or lay down in the thick piles of straw in its bed. Beneath that straw the men had hidden what little money they had been able to scrape together, as well as the physician's medicines and the captain's armor, helmet, shield and sword.

  “How much longer do you think it will take us to get to Athens?” asked the man in the bed of the cart, his speech involuntarily punctuated with muffled groans and other noises that spoke of his discomfort.

  “The city proper is just over that next rise. You'll be able to see the acropolis when we crest this slight hill,” responded the former captain. “But don't start feeling all comfortable when you do, because we aren't stopping in Athens – we don't dare, as it will be lousy with Alexander's soldiers.”

  “Dimitrios,” interjected the physician, “we must find a place to hole up, and soon. All of this has been hard on Ari; his leg is only starting to mend, and each time you hit a hole in the road isn't helping matters.”

  “How much worse do you think his leg would get if some Macedonian sergeant started poking around under the straw or began asking questions about how Ari got that wound? It doesn't take a physician or a philosopher to recognize a gash from a spear. Alexander may have spared our house, but he also made it very clear that descendants of our illustrious ancestor were safe only
so long as they stayed within its confines. That protection disappeared the moment we left that jail – for jail it was, if a comfortable and a familiar one. I don't want any of us to wind up as slaves, or worse, which is what has happened to every other soldier of Thebes who didn't already die on the battlefield.”

  “If we aren't going into the city, then just where the hell are we going?” asked Aristophanes.

  “Piraeus. The port on the other side of the city,” responded Dimitrios. “Athens, you know, isn't on the water. It is inland. Its port is about six miles past Athens proper. I have friends there we can stay with for a few days– and some goods in a storehouse that should have come in by sea a few weeks ago. I can sell or trade them for passage for us on an outbound ship. We talked about this before we left Thebes, remember?”

  Too exhausted from all of the jostling to respond, Ari just groaned and laid back upon the bed of straw in the back of the cart, while Klemes continued to trudge on ahead, one weary step after another. Ari soon fell asleep – or passed out from the pain, Klemes was not sure which – but either way, he decided that such rest was more important to his patient than seeing what sights of Athens he would see as they traveled through the crowded, dirty and stinking streets.

  Dimitrios' worries of being stopped, questioned and searched by Macedonian troopers, it seemed, were for naught. As chance would have it, the trio had arrived in Athens just as the celebrations of the Eleusinian Mysteries had begun. The streets were mobbed by revelers making merry. What soldiers there were about could not be bothered to look for unwanted strangers or fugitives. Most were themselves swept up in the drunken bacchanal. Others succumbed to the enticements of those celebrating the “goddess of the poppy” or fell under the spell of the drugs made from the flower associated with Demeter, the fertility deity to whom the worshipers and merrymakers paid homage to in their carousing.

  Initiates to the Greater Mysteries were given cups of kykeon to drink down, and encouraged to share with the priests the revelations made to them by the gods while in a drug-induced trance. Those who thought they were being offered the traditional poor-man's drink of water and barley flavored with mint soon discovered their vision blurred, their speech slurred and their mind a maelstrom of sights and colors. As the additives were but herbs provided by the bounty of the gods, the revelers explained to those whose faculties remained sharp enough to ask, what harm could there be in imbibing them?

  While these and even more serious and more elaborate rituals went on behind the closed doors of temples, other priests went into the fields with farmers to pour libations from sacred vessels into the ground to seek Demeter's blessing for the seeds they would be sowing. After that began the feasting, dancing and other pleasures associated with honoring the goddess of fertility; these would last all through the night.

  As tempted as Dimitrios was to participate in this wild and boisterous public party, he eschewed such temptations and worked his way through the crowds to the far side of the city. As little if any business would be done today, the road between the pair of long walls that connected Athens to its port were all but empty. Razed by the Spartans after their victory a century ago, the walls had been quietly rebuilt during the Corinthian war, and provided a safe and secure passage from the city to its main port of Piraeus.

  Unlike the muddled, twisting streets of the main city, Piraeus had been built on a plan. The architect, Hippodamos of Miletos, had laid out a logical grid system and had divided areas into public, private, sacred, commercial and industrial spaces. He had also carved out a place for a central market, the Agora, and even a pair of theaters. His real genius, however, was that all of this was designed to support the three separate harbors that made Piraeus the most important naval base, shipyard and merchant marine spot not only in the entirety of the Hellenic world – but of the entire known world itself.

  While Athens was a warren of curving, zig-zagging streets and back alleys, through which Dimitrios had great difficulty navigating, especially with an oxcart, Piraeus was a pleasure to traverse. All of the streets and even the alleys were straight. All main streets were 45 feet wide, all of the lesser streets 25 feet wide and all of the alleys 15 feet wide. Only a fool or a complete stranger could get lost in Piraeus, and Dimitrios was neither. By dusk, when the Athenians in the big city were just getting serious about their partying, Dimitrios reached the one house in Piraeus where he knew people would still be sober and at home: that of Solomon the Jew.

  Situated in the area reserved for foreign merchants to reside, the house of Solomon was very ordinary and plain looking, at least from the outside. Its austere outward appearance, however, was a facade – an intentional mask to conceal the very well-appointed, almost luxurious living quarters inside. Dimitrios knocked quietly on the door, as he had little energy left to do more.

  The wooden door opened a crack, and a hushed voice asked in heavily accented Greek who would seek entrance at such a late hour, on such a day where no business would be conducted. “Tell your master,” Dimitrios replied wearily but respectfully, “that a wine merchant from Thebes asks if he is still welcome at an old friend's seder.”

  The doorkeeper said he would pass on the request and bid Dimitrios wait. Within moments, a loud voice within boomed an excited command in a mysterious tongue. The door opened wide and its frame was almost filled with a large, heavy set, balding man with a full beard and a blue and white prayer shawl draped about him. As he threw open the door, he stretched out his arms and joyously shouted Dimitrios' name.

  “Dimitrios!” he exclaimed as he hugged him so tight the Greek could barely breathe, “you are alive! After the stories they tell in the agora about what happened at Thebes...I...how...who....”

  “Those stories and worse are all true, old friend,” sighed Dimitrios. “You see before you three of the lucky few to have escaped death or slavery. As for the rest of my...”

  The Greek captain could not continue. For the first time in the weeks since the sacking of his city, the Theban soldier broke down and cried. Sobbing with sadness for what had been lost, and in relief for finally reaching a place where he could let his guard down and breathe without fear, Dimitrios could not find the words to express his emotions. His brother, however, had no such difficulty, as he offered their host a simple bow, and introduced himself and the man in the bed of the cart behind him.

  “You are welcome here, and you will be safe here. You have my word upon that,” Solomon responded. “Under this roof there are no Greeks, no Athenians, no Thebans, no Macedonians and no Jews. Under this roof, there are only friends.”

  13

  The Port of Piraeus

  Athens: (The Next Day)

  “Forgive me, Dimitrios, for the humble fare we put before you last night,” Solomon told his friend the day after the Thebans had shown up at his doorstep. “I shall more than make up for that tonight. I am going to the fish market myself to choose the best, the freshest and the most succulent delights of the sea that Athens has to offer,” he added jovially, his own appetite already piqued with anticipation of the evening meal.

  “My brother, my friend and I appreciate your hospitality, Solomon,” said the captain with a nod, “but after the events of the last few weeks, just being able to sit quietly and safely, with some bread, some cheese and some olives and a bit of salted sprats, well, that felt like a feast.”

  “Salted sprats! Bah!” said Solomon with evident disgust. “They are only fit for the poor – or the traveler. I am ashamed that there was nothing better to offer you than food from the servants' larder. Tonight, however,” he smiled broadly, “you will wish you had the neck of a crane!”

  “What? The neck of a crane?” said a puzzled Dimitrios. “I don't follow...”

  Solomon let out a deep, hearty laugh from the bottom of his ample belly. “Because cranes have very long necks, and you will want to savor the delicacies my cooks will present tonight, all the way down.”

  Still laughing at his own witticism, Solomo
n trundled off to the fish market, a trio of servants in tow, each carrying a large, empty basket. “Now, remember what I told you,” he said over his shoulder to his entourage. “Just because the fish is wet doesn't mean it is fresh. Despite the laws against it, there are some who still manage to douse their wares with water when no one is looking.”

  Dimitrios, weary though he still was from his long march from Thebes, tagged along. Solomon had promised they would visit the warehouse where Dimitrios had wines in storage, including amphorae from Lesbos, Chios, and other islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas famed for their vintages. Solomon offered to broker the contents of the warehouse, and to take over its lease. It was all decided but for the haggling, for Dimitrios knew that, while his friend would offer a fair price, he would not be denied the joy of bargaining. That bargaining would be done in daylight, while both men were stone cold sober, for once the wine was mixed in the krater, it would simply not do to mix business with drink.

  Dimitrios followed Solomon from street to street and from stall to stall, taking in all the sights and sounds and smells of the busy market. He heard vendors crying out about their fish, some from as far away as Sicily or the sea beyond the Dardanelles, as well as dogfish from Rhodes and even eels from his own Lake Copais, near where he had stood with the phalanx against Alexander's horsemen. Although there would be few diners at the meal that evening, Solomon was selecting delights for each of the many, many courses he planned to offer his guests, and to savor himself.

  “How about we truly treat ourselves, Dimitrios,” asked Solomon cheerily. “Perhaps some barracuda or sea bass or...or some gilt-heads!”

  “At those prices, wouldn't they be a little hard to swallow”” chided Dimitrios, smiling at making a pun. “No need to spend that kind of money on me, Solomon. Even some grey mullets or octopus would be more than a treat.”