The Road to Sardis

by Stephanie Plowman

  My cousin said coolly, ‘You misunderstand my theory of patriotism, Agis. If a real patriot’s unjustly exiled by his country, he doesn’t take it lying down, spend years skulking in foreign towns. A man who loves his country will do his damnedest to get back to her—without bothering much how he manages it. The state whose destruction I’m planning now isn’t my country—it becomes my state only when I’ve regained it.’

  Such reasoning was completely above most of his hearers’ heads, though Agis’ cold, hard eyes watched him expressionlessly. Agis would know what he meant—with Sparta’s help, Alcibiades would destroy Athens, after which he himself would rule over the ruins; if only over ruins, rule he would. All that Agis would say, however, was a jeering, ‘Is that what that philosopher fellow—Socrates—taught you?’

  But a little later he said that if a force were sent to Decelea, he himself would lead it. On the spot the resolve was taken to send a general to Syracuse. They chose Gylippus.

  I had been listening to Callistratus with all the horror of an unwary mortal who had stumbled on some unholy religious rite. I had tried once or twice to speak, but my mouth was as dry as if I had a fever. Oddly enough, the name of Gylippus roused me as nothing else could have done.

  ‘I know him,’ I said haltingly. ‘He was one of the Spartans who brought Timotheus and me back when we tried to get into Plataea. I’ve never forgotten him—he took Timotheus’ ring from him.’

  Grandfather, as if glad to change the subject, said briskly, ‘Being light-fingered is a family failing. His father, Cleandridas, was exiled for taking bribes. He went to Thurii, so Gylippus knows Sicily, worse luck.’

  But I could not let myself escape. ‘How do you know what was said in Sparta?’

  Uncle answered, ‘Through Euripides’ friend, Timocrates the Argive. He has a son in the Argive contingent.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, digging my nails into my palm. ‘Callistratus and I included him in our plan—to warn Alcibiades.’

  ‘—so naturally he was anxious about what Alcibiades planned to do. It was a Corinthian returning home who told him what was decided.’

  My last hope went—here was something more than wild rumour. I stood up suddenly.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Grandfather asked sharply

  ‘There’s something—I must do, sir.’

  God knows what they thought, staring at my haggard face, my defiant eyes—their own faces, in fact, made me laugh a little.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not going to kill myself. Ten to one he’ll eventually be the death of me as he’ll be the death of plenty of other people, but I’ll wait for it. But I just must go out to the farm and burn the things I bought at—the sale.’ My teeth began chattering then, but after a moment I managed to go on. ‘A nice little funeral pyre—I shan’t make a funeral speech like Pericles, though.’

  ‘I’ll get your horse,’ said Callistratus.

  I continued to harangue my relatives. ‘Only fifteen years ago, there was Pericles praising us for our—our integrity and restraint. I hope that when you’re dead, you’re done for—I shouldn’t like him to know that it’s all gone—only arrogance left. No integrity at all.’

  ‘He can’t go like this,’ said Grandfather.

  ‘He must go,’ replied Uncle.

  ‘I don’t say he shouldn’t burn the swine’s possessions—it will do him good—but he can’t go alone. Callistratus must . . .’

  ‘No, sir,’ I said with sudden calm. ‘Not even Callistratus. I’m—his only relative. I have to do it alone.’

  Callistratus came back in then. ‘He’s saddled,’ he said briefly, and the thought of my horse reminded me of something else.

  “He has relatives on the other side, of course,’ I said. ‘That horrible brute Adeimantus, who was so sick because I bought those Olympic teams. Callistratus, will you see him in the morning and tell him I’ll let him have them at the price he was ready to pay?’

  ‘You’ll ruin yourself,’ said Grandfather harshly.

  I said, ‘Perhaps I want to be ruined. He’s going to ruin plenty of others, isn’t he?’

  Amazingly, it seemed a normal night as I went outside. There were the stars, as always; cicadas chirped cheerfully from the darkness. I mounted and rode off past the ghostly buildings. After a few moments I realised I was not alone, my uncle was with me.

  ‘I want to go alone,’ I said. ‘I must go alone.’

  ‘I’m only coming with you to the gate,’ he said. ‘They don’t like letting people out after dark. I’ll talk to them.’

  I began to laugh. ‘I suppose they’ll think I’m off to Sparta too,’ I said.

  But of course he was right. The whole City was in a fever of hysteria because of the betrayal—if I, as his cousin, had been attacked, I would have blamed no one.

  I think, in the mood that gripped me, I should have welcomed an attack.

  I should have preferred it to the looks of pity given me by the guards who listened to my uncle’s rapid talk, swung back the gate.

  I had burnt all his possessions before dawn, smashed the red and white vase from Crete, trampled it into powder.

  I burned his books without looking at them, but as I tossed them into the fire, a little roll of paper came fluttering away from the rest. By the light of the flames I read the speech from Euripides’ unperformed play—copied down in my cousin’s own hand because he had felt the sentiments were his own ‘. . . so to win Power, diviner than all gods . . .’

  I took that and held it to the flames, went on holding it when it had flared up and was searing my fingers.

  Part Three

  ‘To the Sicilian sea’

  413–405 b.c.

  dioscuri: Meanwhile we will go to the Sicilian sea and busy ourselves with saving ships in danger.

  Euripides: Electra.

  24

  Waiting

  For months thereafter, all that remained for us was more waiting, haunting Piraeus for news day after day until, when the summer breeze dwindled and died at evening as the noise from shops and arsenals, wharves and factories sank to nothingness, more often than not we would take the evening ferry across to Salamis.

  Grandfather pretended to have no patience with what he called my moping about Piraeus—it would not make news come any sooner, he said, and it certainly would not affect what was happening outside Syracuse. Yet although he refused to discuss the fate of the Expedition directly, he could not resist—what human being could?—a direct reference when news came that he had been right after all, Segesta was not fabulously wealthy, could not afford to finance the whole Expedition. For the sacred vessels in the temples were silver-gilt, not gold, while the gold and silver plate which had dazzled our gullible ambassadors at so many Segestan dining-tables, had been always the same, passed from home to home in order to deceive—some of it had even been borrowed from other cities. As for the Segestan treasury, that was quite empty—the ‘gift’ to Athens had done this. The Segestans, in fact, had been like bankrupts trying to give a false impression of affluence before touching someone for a loan.

  And as for the Expedition itself—the expedition that took over twenty-five thousand of our best men right out of Greece, which was too big in any case, because it scared even our former allies in Sicily? What had been accomplished before my cousin’s recall, before, sailing into the harbour of Catana, he saw the dispatch-vessel awaiting him? Rather, as Grandfather put it, on one of the rare occasions he would discuss the business, what in the devil was everyone doing at Catana, instead of going for Syracuse?

  If they had gone straight for Syracuse, there is little doubt that the mere sight of that magnificent fleet sailing past the harbour mouth would have brought the Syracusans (quite unprepared, because they had never believed the expedition was possible) stampeding to make peace. There is no doubt of this, and it is what Lamachus had proposed as the three generals sat sweating in conference at the southernmost tip of Italy.

  A conference which was to dec
ide the history of the world.

  Nicias, however, never had the slightest desire to decide the history of the world. He had merely declared peevishly that they should settle local disputes in favour of our allies, then sail home again. Lamachus, staring incredulously, urged an immediate attack on Syracuse, unprepared, and so paralysed with terror that the city would fall at the first assault. Then they had both waited for my cousin to speak.

  I think both of them expected him to side with plain-soldier-Lamachus, if for no better reason than that he loathed Nicias. But he wanted to shine as a diplomat—Nicias’ diplomacy had been more successful than his in the past. Before attacking Syracuse, he had said, they should try to bring some of the other Sicilian cities over to our side. And that is the plan the others finally agreed to—Nicias because it postponed the direct attack on Syracuse, Lamachus because at least it promised that there would be an attack at some point in the future.

  And so the history of the world was decided.

  If Nicias’ plan had been followed, our troops and fleet would have returned to the City intact, even if without much glory; if Lamachus’ plan had been followed, Syracuse would have fallen. My cousin’s plan meant endless sailing hither and thither, alliances gained with two towns, no success with two others. The Syracusans became accustomed to the sight of our fleet sailing past harmlessly—no longer dreaded us as invincible, believed, indeed, that we were cowards afraid to attack.

  So our strength was frittered away, and the entire summer was completely wasted. By some kind of insanity, even when Alcibiades had lost his command, the two other generals, both of whom detested him, clung to his plan. There was no direct attack on Syracuse—indeed, the Syracusan side of the island was almost completely neglected.

  This was worse than direct failure. If there had been a direct failure in those first months, there would have been no second expedition two years later.

  Such had been my cousin’s achievement in the service of the City; not only Grandfather argued that as her general he had been more effective in destroying Athens even than he was to prove as an avowed traitor. Certainly it was old Lamachus’ opinion; he had with him there in Sicily his surly-faced son Tydeus and to him a dozen times a day Lamachus would trumpet, ‘They talk enough about the way the swine helped Sparta—the fools don’t realise how he helped Syracuse by opposing my plan!’ True enough, but for all Lamachus’ bravery, there was always about him that touch of the ludicrous that Aristophanes had seized upon. But his son did not see it; Tydeus, an unintelligently ambitious individual, began to hate Alcibiades for strictly personal reasons—because, as he saw it, Alcibiades had robbed him of the distinction of being the son of the greatest man in Greece.

  But in the spring, Nicias at long last attacked Syracuse, and gained the heights of Epipolae. Then he fell ill. This might have been a godsend if it were not for the fact that during his illness, the command devolved on Lamachus. Lamachus had always been old-fashioned in his ideas, and perhaps the long waiting outside Syracuse had given him the idea that this was a second siege of Troy. Whatever the reason, in this day and age he challenged the captain of the Syracusan cavalry to single combat—and was killed.

  He was a brave man, but wrongheaded. No general should ever throw his life away, and this particular general should never have risked his, for it was too precious. Without him the attacks were not kept up, all energy fled from our forces, Nicias was in sole command.

  The Syracusans, however, could not guess at the implications of Lamachus’ death, All that they could see was our fleet in their harbour, our army on the heights commanding the town. They panicked, turned on each other, rent each other. They deposed their generals. They began to open secret negotiations with Nicias. They decided to hold an assembly to discuss surrender.

  And the sudden dazzling prospect—not of conquering Syracuse, but of getting safely back to Athens—went to Nicias’ head. He had started to build a wall to cut off Syracuse from all possible help, but now he acted as if victory were already won; he left the wall unfinished with a gap through which relief might come—and even though he knew that Sparta and Corinth had promised help.

  He, who had until this moment guarded against every real or imaginary danger, now forgot the simplest precautions. Two or three more days’ work—and he had far more time than that at his disposal—would have finished the wall, and all Sparta could not have brought help to Syracuse. But he left the wall unfinished, did not even guard it, and Syracuse was saved.

  Thirty years before, Pericles had founded a great new colony at Thurii, in Southern Italy. It was planned by Hippodamus, planner of the Piraeus, with broad, clean streets, all laid out on the grid system, and the place never lacked would-be settlers. The founders had some doubts however when a big, shifty-eyed Spartan called Cleandridas turned up. He had been banished from his fatherland because he had been caught taking bribes, and he added to his un-Spartan behaviour by bursting into tears when, after some delay, he was accepted as a settler. Every day, he vowed, he would call down blessings on Athens. I do not know if he did, but certainly his son, Gylippus, showed no gratitude to the City for sheltering his outcast father.

  Gylippus commanded the force sent to Sicily by Sparta and Corinth. The Corinthians collected a fleet, having decided they could relieve Syracuse by sea; Gylippus, commanding about three thousand men (seven hundred of them Spartans) planned to get auxiliaries from Italy if possible, then cross over to northern Sicily, and relieve Syracuse by land, marching his army through the gap in our wall.

  Gylippus himself sailed with a squadron of only four ships. He called in at Thurii, but had a cool reception there. Leaving Thurii he was overtaken by a violent storm which so damaged his ships that they had to be hauled ashore and refitted at Tarentum.

  It seemed the Gods were on our side—for Thurii had sent warning to Nicias of his coming. Here was Nicias commanding the largest fleet in existence. Even if his numbers had been few, he should have detached a squadron to seek out and sink Gylippus before he crossed the straits; he did nothing, referring contemptuously to Gylippus’ paltry force. If Gylippus had crossed in nothing more than a fishing-boat, Nicias should have sunk that fishing-boat, for it carried a Spartan general. Why could not Nicias, who had always licked the Spartans’ boots, realise how the Syracusans would feel when they knew a Spartan general was on his way?

  If he thought it beneath him to destroy the Spartan general at sea, he might yet have thought it useful to prevent news of his coming from reaching the Syracusans, now so despairing of help that they were holding an assembly to discuss the terms on which they might offer to surrender.

  Imagine it—our representatives (Philocles was one of them) were already there in the market place of Syracuse, thinking dazedly that, against all hope, this was victory. The first formalities had begun, with everyone being exceedingly obsequious to our representatives, who would accept the surrender, when there was a sudden flurry at the outskirts of the assembly, men were shouting that a Corinthian ship, easily evading the careless watch kept by Nicias’ fleet, had safely gained the Little Harbour and that the captain bore wonderful news. In an instant the market place was drained of all life save our crestfallen delegates and the Syracusans looking after them. They didn’t have to wait long for the news; in half an hour they were told curtly to get out of the town, no Athenian was to set foot in Syracuse in future—Spartan help was on the way.

  If Nicias had kept his fleet in a normal state of alertness, the Corinthian ship would never have got through to Syracuse, which would have surrendered.

  As it was, knowing help was on the way, the Syracusans decided to go on fighting—although it was still the unlikeliest thing in the world that the promised help would ever reach them. If they knew help was coming, so did Nicias—he knew not only from Syracuse itself, but because the native tribes in the interior (who, as I myself was to learn, were our most faithful allies) sent warning after warning. Gylippus, they said, was gathering forces, which they
estimated would take him two to three weeks. Then he must make an overland march to Syracuse—taking the very route that Nicias himself had taken. Gylippus’ march, however, could be a very different affair. Let Nicias give the word, the tribes urged, and they would harass the newcomer every inch of the way; they might, indeed, destroy him altogether.

  They could have done it too, but the word was never given.

  They said later that they thought perhaps Nicias wanted to keep all the glory for himself. Gylippus could come by only one road; the passes were easy to defend. As we were to learn. Nicias left every pass unoccupied, undefended.

  Yet there still remained one most formidable possible obstacle between Gylippus and Syracuse—the wall, so nearly completed. Completed, all eight stadia* of it, with the exception of a few yards only at the end close to the harbour. In three weeks even Nicias might have got that finished.

  He did nothing to block the gap.

  He did nothing whatsoever to guard in any way that gap which was Gylippus’ only means of entry into Syracuse. He added not a single stone, posted not a single man.

  More.

  The Syracusans, thinking Gylippus would have to fight his way in, sent out their entire force to meet him when he drew near. Nicias struck not a blow to prevent them.

  So Gylippus came unhindered up the narrow path, went on unchecked through the gap in the wall, just as the Syracusans, unchecked had been allowed to go out to meet him.

  The day after he had been allowed to march unhindered into Syracuse through the gap in our wall, Gylippus began to build a wall of his own to defend Syracuse. He also took a fortress of ours, and captured one of our triremes in the Great Harbour. It seemed as if Gylippus were the Athenian, adventurous, active, while the Athenian was the Spartan, slow, unwilling to act. Or was it that Gylippus’ arrival had shattered, not so much Nicias’ self-confidence, as his confidence in the assurances of his astrologers that he enjoyed the favour of the gods? Whatever his reason, he suddenly began to doubt whether he could win successes by land against a Spartan, so he turned his attention seawards. The fleet he ordered to a new station which, he said, was safer.