The Road to Sardis

by Stephanie Plowman

‘Son of Polystratus!’ he said cordially. ‘The master’ll be pleased as a dog with two tails.’

  I found the vulgar greeting rather dampening; however, at this point Alcibiades came out, hearing voices, gave a delighted shout and rushed at me.

  ‘My dear cousin!’ he said, embracing me. ‘What have you done, run away from home—or military service? Have you strangled Nicias on my behalf? But whatever you’ve done, you’ve come to the right place and person.’

  I said I had not done any of the things he’d mentioned, but since it was my first night back in civilian life, I had hoped he would be having a party.

  ‘If only you’d let me know when you’d be back in Athens, I’d have thrown a quite historic party for you,’ said Alcibiades, blue eyes aglow at the thought, ‘but I’ve just one or two people here, worse luck. But come in and meet them, and get rid of them pretty soon, and then we can have a decent talk about what you’re going to do now you’re a free man.’

  This was something like it; he was going to get rid of his friends for my sake!

  The two men who rose to greet us were strangers to me; being out to please, they said to him, ‘No need to tell us he’s your cousin—he has the look of you, the way of holding his head.’

  Determined to be charming so that they could rush all over Athens next morning shouting my praises so loudly that anyone newly landed from Salamis would hear, I smiled shyly as I took my wine-cup and prepared to look absorbed in what they were saying. After five minutes I did not have to pretend, for they were talking of Syracuse.

  It was an interesting conversation, that, one of the most interesting I have ever heard. An historian could not have arranged it better to illustrate the three schools of thought behind what obviously was a prevalent mania. School One was represented by the fleshy-faced, portly fellow who after every second sentence broke off to repeat to us, in a self-congratulatory manner, that, of course, he spoke purely as a practical businessman. We had trade interests in Sicily, Syracuse was growing too strong to be tolerated, therefore we must wipe her out. We had allies among the other Sicilian towns he went on, who wanted to crush Syracuse. If we did not help them, it would be bad for our prestige. And since Sparta could ravage Attica whenever she chose, it was up to us to find fresh power overseas. And what did the young gentleman think of that?

  The ‘young gentleman,’ wincing inwardly, said—a trifle blankly, ‘But we’re at peace with Sparta, surely?’

  ‘Only a matter of time,’ said the businessman.

  I thought for a moment, then opened my mouth to protest that if it were only a matter of time before we were at war with Sparta again, in which case presumably Spartan armies would invade Attica once more and—as he himself had remarked—ravage us at will, it seemed a little shortsighted to send any forces so far away as Sicily.

  ‘Ah, but we’d do it before the slow-witted Spartans start moving!’ broke in the second man. ‘That’s the very point I made yesterday.’

  He drained his wine-cup thirstily, then proceeded to harangue me as if I were the entire Assembly.

  ‘The Aegean’s an Athenian lake—all right, now let’s turn our attention to the Western Mediterranean. We have influence there, but not enough; colonies and allies, but they don’t send us tribute. We must dominate the West Mediterranean as really as we dominate the East. As for your point about Sparta—well, Syracuse is, of couse, only a stepping stone. When we have Sicily, it’ll be an easy step to the conquest of Italy for its timber, Carthage for its money, Egypt for its corn, and Spain for its infantry. Then, with enormous fleets and supplies and armies, we turn to Sparta.’

  I had the greatest difficulty in keeping my face straight throughout this preposterous rigmarole; then as I turned to Alcibiades to see how he was concealing his mirth, a false light broke on me. He was bored, so to amuse himself he had invited here these two most uncongenial companions, to encourage them to dilate upon the insane ideas he’d heard them shouting in the Assembly.

  But there was no amusement in his eyes as he lay back listening to them, watching me. He looked approving, almost proprietorial. Good God, were the ideas his own, expounded to the Assembly weeks ago and now taken up with crazy zeal by unbalanced fanatics such as these? But when he said, with a kind of restrained eagerness, ‘What do you say to all this, Lycius?’ I was saved from making a scene by—well, I suppose it amounted to no more than family snobbery. Alcmaeonids should not wash their dirty linen in public.

  I only said slowly, ‘But what right have we to invade Syracuse?’

  Next moment I could have bitten out my tongue, for I sounded incredibly young and naive. The naiveté rather tickled the guests; they smiled at each other, and called me a young political innocent.

  But then I forgot my irritation, for Alcibiades was speaking; he was leaning forward and expressing very coolly the views of the third school of thought.

  ‘It’s a natural law,’ he said, ‘that the strong should tyrannise over the weak.’ He deliberately used the word ‘tyrannise.’

  ‘That’s blasphemy,’ I said, and shivered.

  I stood up and said I must go, my family would be expecting me.

  17

  The Natural Law

  The headache started as I plodded home. It was not caused by the wine, though. Grandfather was doing accounts in his office when I went in, my uncle frowning over some philosophical treatise or other. His face was much harder than I remembered it, and—yes, Callistratus was right. Suddenly Grandfather looked an old man.

  I stood in the doorway of the office and said, ‘No, you’d better wait before you embrace me, Grandfather—you may feel like throttling me instead. I’ve been at Alcibiades’ house.’

  Grandfather stared at me speechlessly; my uncle, however, came forward instantly to embrace me, remarking in his tranquil way, ‘Well, you’ve left it speedily. And soberly. A record!’

  Grandfather eyed me hopefully and said, ‘You don’t sound exactly fond of your cousin.’

  I said, ‘Sir, there were two men there, they were all talking about Syracuse. I’m afraid I almost made a scene, but I couldn’t help it. They were talking like—like criminal lunatics.’

  ‘But you’ve escaped the prevalent mania,’ said Grandfather. He came forward and embraced me then.

  I wanted to talk about the Syracuse business at once, but my uncle said I must have a meal; so 1 went to look for Tecmessa and hugged her, then to my room to wash and change from my dusty uniform. Grandfather came in and sat on the bed while I changed and said abruptly, ‘This has all come as a shock to you, hasn’t it? It’s bad enough for us—and we’ve seen it coming for a long time. We’ve had so-called peace for six years, and that doesn’t suit a cocky hothead like your cousin, who feels his brilliant talents don’t shine in quiet times as they ought. And thousands of feckless idiots listen to him because Athens, as a whole, is swollen-headed as a pumpkin because we took on the whole of Greece single-handed, and didn’t do too badly . . .’

  ‘Because of Uncle!’ I flashed.

  ‘Agreed, but that’s irrelevant at present. As I said, this was bound to come—let the land recover a little from what the Spartans did to it, let us get a little money back into the Treasury, let’s have a new generation grown to military age to fill the gaps made by the plague, and then let’s hand over the whole damned concern to Alcibiades to play ducks and drakes with.’

  Over supper I learned more.

  It had all begun with the town of Segesta, in north-west Sicily. Segesta was our ally, and the previous summer she had sent an embassy to get our help against an aggressive Syracuse, which had already swallowed up the town of Leontini, and was well on the way to getting control of the whole island, after which, said the ambassadors, there was no doubt the Syracusans would send a contingent to Greece to help the Spartans destroy the Athenians. Let the Athenians, therefore, make use of their Sicilian allies while they still had a few and finish off the Syracusans. If they did not appear outside Syracuse, the Syracusans
would inevitably appear outside the City walls.

  ‘I opposed in the only way that might appeal to the majority of the Assembly,’ said Grandfather. ‘I got up and said that this was likely to be a very expensive business. Faces fell then.’

  ‘Alcibiades started muttering away at his Segestan friends. They leaped up and said they were ready to supply the money for the war. There were rounds of cheers, Segestans embracing Alcibiades and his cronies. And then I blighted this happy scene. “Mr President,” I said, “may I ask our Segestan friends a question? Have they recently discovered a silver mine in their territory, or has one of the town councillors been afflicted with Midas’ disease so that everything he touches turns to gold? Because I was in Segesta once, and unless there’s been a change, Segesta can’t finance any kind of large-scale war. I wish to propose an amendment; before we start discussing treaties and expeditions, let’s have a few facts to work upon. I suggest, therefore, that we act as follows: we send ambassadors to Segesta to see for ourselves if the money’s there to pay for a war!” And my amendment was passed. Alcibiades rallied his forces, of course, and saw that the representatives on this fact-finding mission were the kind he wanted.’

  ‘Wholesale liars, you mean.’

  ‘Oh no! Alcibiades is far cleverer than that. He chose men whose honesty sticks out a mile, but so, unfortunately does their gullibility.’

  ‘So they came back and reported that Segesta could afford to finance the war?’ I demanded incredulously.

  ‘Yes, they had the wool pulled over their eyes all right,’ said Grandfather grimly, ‘No doubt we’ll learn one day exactly how it was done, but long before that we’ll be presenting the bill to Segesta, and coming away empty-handed.’

  The delegates had returned five days before. They brought sixty talents of silver as a month’s pay for the sixty warships the Segestans wanted sent to Sicily. The following morning there was an Assembly; the sixty talents were exhibited, the so-called factfinding mission gave an account of the money they had seen in temples and treasury that made one think they had been kept in a permanent state of intoxication throughout their Sicilian trip. ‘And I made myself unpopular by remarking that I saw merely one month’s pay, and would like to know how we proposed to over-run Sicily in about a dozen days. From what I knew of Segesta those sixty talents represented everything they could scrape up. Right, if they had undertaken to finance the war, and it takes a good eight days to get to Sicily and another eight days to get back, it didn’t leave us all that time to complete the conquest of the island on our sixty talents, did it? I regret to say,’ said Grandfather, ‘that my small voice was quite drowned by abuse so that the conclusion of my logical argument was unheard amid the shouts of, “Stand down, you old idiot!” And that confounded cousin of yours observed loudly to his Segestan friends, “I’ve no doubt you find it in Segesta as we do in Athens, that there’s no fool like an old fool.” Then he put his proposition to the Assembly, and his proposition was carried. Segesta was to get the sixty warships, which were, “to do anything else in Sicily that might serve Athenian interests.” Up I got again. “Who is to judge what are Athenian interests in Sicily?” I called. “The generals, of course, my dear Alcisthenes!” calls Alcibiades with a grin, “and I move that the Assembly chooses the generals for the expedition here and now! Generals with full powers!” Rapturous cheering. Rapid voting. And they elected three generals—Lamachus, d’you know him?’

  ‘Isn’t he the one Aristophanes guyed so unmercifully in The Acharnians?’

  ‘That’s the man. Well, he’s not the conceited imbecile Aristophanes made him out to be, he’s honest and brave, but there’s not much in the way of brains there, and no one’s ever been able to take him quite seriously since Aristophanes used him for comic relief.’

  I gave a sudden whoop of laughter. ‘Remember the part where he said good-bye to his helmet-plume?’ I said.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Grandfather. ‘No one ever will forget it, so poor old Lamachus was hoisted up into command as a kind of camouflage for his other colleagues. Alcibiades himself . . .’

  ‘Surprise choice!’ I said.

  ‘. . . and Nicias.’

  No need to ape amazement here.

  ‘Nicias!’ I said blankly. ‘Nicias!’

  ‘Hold on a minute, Father,’ said my uncle. ‘It’s interesting to see the boy’s unprompted reactions. Go on, Lycius. What were you going to say?’

  ‘But—but he’s the last man in the world to support anything like this!’ I said. ‘And—now let me get it clear—Alcibiades controlled the voting at that Assembly?’

  ‘Like driving his damned chariots all over again,’ said Grandfather sourly.

  ‘But he can’t stand Nicias, and I don’t mean he couldn’t stand him in the past, but now they’ve sunk their differences! When he greeted me just a short while ago, he asked me if I’d strangled Nicias—’

  ‘Your first point is that Nicias, with his precious Peace to worry about, must loathe the entire idea. But he has another mania, Lycius—he hates the idea, he loathes the thought of taking part in it—but, by God, he’d hate even more that someone else should have command. So—he’ll take it. As for Alcibiades, yes, he detests Nicias because Nicias hates the scheme. But he knows Nicias likes power, so, gets him made general to tie his hands and block all further opposition from the businessmen. Nicias spells security to them, and makes the plan quite respectable.

  ‘Then something interesting happened. All seemed to be plain sailing until one of your uncle’s Pylos veterans got up and bawled, “What I’d like to know is this—if we’re so set on conquering Sicily, why don’t we make sure of it by sending our best general? Has Demosthenes died overnight since no one mentioned him?” Alcibiades looked like thunder, especially when someone saw your uncle lurking in a corner, and proclaimed the news. So they all started yelling for him to say something and he got up, giving Nicias a hard stare, and said, “Gentlemen, I thank you for your flattering offer, but I must decline what I think some of you wish to propose. I think you’ll agree my reason is a good one. I may have done the City some service in the past, but, as I am not in favour of this expedition, I don’t think I’d effect much if called upon to serve; a man can only give of his best if his heart’s in it.” Nicias looked murderous; he went a horrible colour too. What did he come up and say to you afterwards, my boy?’

  ‘He said, “Demosthenes, you misjudge me; I know you think I’m a coward,” “Not a coward, Nicias,” I said, “but stupidly unwilling to renounce any power, however much you may loathe it.” He said, “I repeat, you misjudge me. Don’t make up your mind until after the next Assembly,” and off he went, still yellow in the face.’

  ‘And the next Assembly?’ I demanded.

  ‘The next Assembly?’ said Grandfather. ‘It’s being held tomorrow morning, to discuss ways and means. You can come along and cast your first vote.’

  ‘No wonder Alcibiades wasn’t throwing one of his usual parties!’ said my uncle laughing suddenly. ‘He knows his Nicias pretty well, and must guess he’ll have another attempt at wrecking the whole scheme. So a cool head will be needed.’

  ‘What do you think Nicias will do?’ I asked with immense interest.

  ‘God knows, he tunnels away underground like one of his wretched miners,’ said Grandfather. ‘The only thing you can be sure of is that, whatever he does, it won’t be straightforward.’

  18

  Manifest Destiny

  Grandfather advised us grimly next morning to make a good breakfast—there was no knowing when we’d eat our next meal. I was too excited to be really hungry, but I thought I might as well treat this as a morning-of-battle occasion, and force the food down. Certainly I was thirsty, and I was starting my second cup of wine, when a footfall I would know on a battlefield, sounded outside; I sat there gripping my cup and mentally kicking myself. Of course he would be back today, to attend the Assembly. He greeted Grandfather, my uncle, and then turned to me and said grav
ely, ‘Going to cast your first vote, Lycius?’

  ‘I hope Euripides is well?’ I returned.

  ‘Better than I dared hope, though tired. That’s his fault, of course; he drives himself too hard.’

  ‘Once the new play’s finished . . .’ began my uncle encouragingly.

  ‘It’s finished,’ said Callistratus. ‘He wrote the last chorus last night. I don’t think it’s going to make him very popular in Athens.’

  ‘When have his plays been popular?’

  ‘No, this will be another kind of unpopularity,’ said Callistratus, sitting down, ‘but—I’m sorry—I can’t tell you anything more about it. He asked me to keep the details secret.’

  ‘Well!’ said Grandfather, snorting, ‘I must say I take a poor view of that, my boy! Granted, I haven’t much time for the kind of work he turns out, but my son’s a friend of long standing, and why he can’t know . . .’

  Callistratus dipped his barley bread in his wine and said, ‘If I may say so, sir, it’s because of the old friendship that he insists on secrecy. As I said, there’ll be a stir over the play, and he doesn’t want his friends involved. It’s largely a matter of politics, if you like.’

  ‘Politics?’ said Grandfather, looking thunderstruck. ‘But you have politics in comedies, not tragedies!’

  My uncle skilfully diverted him into a general diatribe against the low state of the contemporary theatre; fine descriptive speeches, he maintained stoutly, had been killed once Sophocles had had the misplaced ingenuity to invent painted backcloths.

  Callistratus made a swift breakfast; I nibbled a piece of bread and pondered; eventually I raised my eyes and looked cautiously at Callistratus, found he was watching me.

  ‘Don’t think too hard,’ he said.

  ‘There was that poet, Phrynichus,’ I began in a low voice, ‘who got into trouble because he wrote a tragedy, The Fall of Miletus, and . . .’

  ‘Don’t think too hard,’ said Callistratus again. ‘I told you too much last night.’