Achilles His Armour

by Peter Green

  Aspasia, perhaps more clearly than anyone, saw that whether Athens won or lost the world it stood for was gone for ever. It depended on the will and belief of one man: and that man lay slowly dying before her eyes. And, as events ground relentlessly forward, they destroyed not only the present but the past. The jackals were fighting for the scraps which the dying lion had husbanded; and it seemed to her now only natural that there should be nothing left but jackals, that the world Pericles had built out of his beliefs could have had no other ending. She had passed far beyond blame or anger; but as she watched the lonely struggling figure, day by day, she knew herself at one with the common people who, lacking his vision, yet kept a firm grasp on the truth which he had missed. She had a violent nostalgia for the home she had nearly forgotten, the voices of her own countrymen. But when she looked in her mirror she saw an embittered middle-aged woman, set in her ways, committed to the life she had chosen despite herself. It is too late, she said calmly: I shall live and die in Athens now. I have made my choice.

  As the September twilight faded she sat and watched Pericles’ face. He was sleeping uneasily, muttering and twisting, the light throwing grotesque shadows on his sunken cheeks and the bony, wasted contours of his face. Flecks of foam started from the corners of his mouth. Mechanically she wiped them away. For the first time she began to consider, what would become of her: yet objectively, almost as if she were an alien person, not involved in her own dilemma. They will probably kill me, she thought without fear or rancour. Perhaps that would be for the best. There is no reason now for my living.

  As if in a dream, she began to think of Alcibiades, torturing herself with her own memories. The woman who renounced her love out of loyalty is not I who sit here today. And he is not the impetuous youth who left the. This war is like a potter’s kiln. It hardens all it touches. Alcibiades will take the legacy Pericles bequeathed him and turn it to his own ends. Athens has become an obsession with him, a symbol of power. His power, his to make or destroy. He will let nothing stand in the way of his ambition. Least of all the woman who loved him.

  There was a-groan from the bed. Pericles was awake, the sweat pouring off his face. He cried out in agony. Aspasia had seen many men die of the plague. The expression on Pericles’ face was one with which she was familiar from night after night of vigil. Calmly she summoned a slave, and told him to send messages to the War Council and Pericles’ surviving relatives to come at once. She hesitated only for a second, and added Alcibiades’ name to the list. The slave, frightened, hurried out. Aspasia sat down again, her eyes fixed on that tortured, writhing face. After a while he became delirious.

  • • • • •

  They all came silently into the darkened room: Hagnon; Nicias; Pericles’ wastrel brother Ariphron, awed by the company he found himself in. Aspasia stood by the bedside and greeted them by name. Pericles himself lay quite still. At first glance Hagnon thought he was already dead; but an imperceptible motion of the coverlets showed that he was still breathing. A junior member of the Board of Generals came in late, on tiptoe. No one spoke. Hagnon looked round at the haggard faces. There were not many of them. At the beginning of the year there had been eight generals. Now four were dead; and Phormio was fighting a lonely battle in the Gulf; and the greatest of them all lay on his narrow bed, unconscious and uncaring.

  The silence became intolerable. They sat round the bed, scarcely daring to breathe, their eyes fixed on that immobile face. Then Pericles sighed in his sleep, and his head turned slightly on its pillow. This single movement seemed to relax the atmosphere. Nicias began to make an almost formal eulogy of the dying man, recalling his great achievements, subtly changing the atmosphere from naked tragedy to the predictable and comforting formulas of official mourning. And how he’s enjoying himself; thought Hagnon savagely in his solitary detachment. Each death is a triumph for him. Because he’s still alive. Sick, frightened, petty-minded, he’s still alive. I know nothing so horrible as old men at a funeral. It is as if they sucked the very life-blood from the corpse. And the greater the death, the greater the triumph.

  Nicias stopped speaking. His words were taken up by all the rest. They spoke of his devotion to the city, his prowess as a general, remembering all his achievements, his early struggle for power, his unfailing good counsel.

  Hagnon listened in silence. They seemed to him like puppets, actors in some drama whose words were memorised and rehearsed, mouthpieces for an incomprehensible oracle. How men forget in the face of death: the last gesture of generosity before the unknown, the self-protection against the end that will overtake all of them in turn. Never look for a man’s life on his gravestone. What will they find on his? Not the dream of empire, not the plague, not the generals who cannot be here today or any day, not the thousands upon thousands of dumb anonymous men who lie in their shallow graves because of him. No, not these. Nine trophies as general. Sixteen terms of office. And the Parthenon as his memorial.

  The leaden eyelids fluttered, raised themselves with tremulous effort. Pericles smiled gently at the circle of faces round him. One hand moved slowly to his neck, where an amulet hung. The hushed voices died away into silence. His eyes focussed slowly on Hagnon. When he spoke he could scarcely be heard.

  ‘Such . . . woman’s folly,’ he said dreamily. ‘Amulets . . I must be very ill to put up with such nonsense . . .’ He struggled for breath. Tiny beads of sweat gleamed on his forehead in the light of the lamp that hung from the ceiling. He went on, his lips hardly moving: ‘I . . . have been . . . listening . . . to what you said. Forgive me. I had not . . . strength . . . to interrupt you. You have been . . . more than generous. But . . . but, you must not . . . speak what is . . . untrue.’ He tried to pull himself up into a sitting position; but the effort was too much, and he sank back, panting. ‘You . . . should speak only . the truth of me . . .’ Hagnon looked at him imploringly. Not now. Not at this final moment. Don’t say it, I beseech you, don’t say it. But the thin voice went on: ‘I am . . . amazed . . . that what I have done . . . stirs you to such praise . . . It was not . . . my doing. Fortune and the Gods . . . govern us all. And there are many . . . many . . . who have done as much as . . . more than . . . I have. Do not . . . deceive future . . . generations.’ Hagnon relaxed. This was not a confession. Yet even he was not prepared for Pericles’ final words.

  ‘But . . . when you speak of me . . . there is one thing . . . I would have you . . . remember. One thing . . . you have not said. . .’ He gathered his last remaining strength, and for an instant the old fire flashed in his eyes, and his voice became strong. ‘No living Athenian,’ he cried, ‘ever put on mourning . . . because of me.’ As he uttered the last words, a dreadful rattling cough seized him. For a moment he struggled, choking. Then with an odd, abrupt movement, his head fell back on the pillow. Hagnon slowly rose to his feet; and the others followed him.

  There was nothing to be said. One after another they knelt before the dead man; and then passed quietly out into the night. Only Nicias hesitated for a second, looking back at the lonely figure standing motionless at the head of the bed, the folds of her robe heavy, as if carved from stone, her face expressionless. Then he too went, and she was alone.

  She stood thus for perhaps ten minutes, insensible to the passage of time, numbed and remote. She did not hear Alcibiades’ horse stamping on the cobbles outside, nor his knock at the door. When he came in, his face flushed, his step still unsteady, a spatter of wine like blood on the whiteness of his tunic, it was as if he had been created out of air by the dark processes of her labyrinthine dream.

  Alcibiades looked from one face to the other in the flickering half-light. They bore a horrible resemblance; to his wandering vision they appeared as a double mask of death. Then he began to laugh.

  ‘I see I have kept my promise to the letter,’ he observed at length. Aspasia flinched, but said nothing. Her eyes searched this strange scarred face, hard even in its drunkenness; the bloodshot grey eyes, the drooping, cruel mouth. A
lcibiades moved slowly towards the bed—he might have been wearing armour, so ponderous and precise were his steps—and stared for a long time into Pericles’ face. He stepped back and straightened his shoulders, and it seemed he was no longer drunk. Then he began to speak, his eyes steady and bloodshot, his hands hanging straight at his sides.

  ‘I ought to feel sorry for him, or hate him. But I don’t. A month ago they cursed him. Now they’ll follow his funeral, and beat their breasts, and tear their garments. I’ve no doubt there have been some most impressive things said here tonight. I can guess them all. We are all . . . unoriginal in the face of death. To me this death isn’t . . . personal. It’s a problem. A road that may lead several ways. For you it’s different. I suppose you think I’ve changed. That I’ve become hard. It may be true.’ He stared at her challengingly. ‘I shall waste no tears over this death. To me it means work to be done.’ Conscious that he was repeating himself, he broke off from his train of thought, and said: ‘I often thought of how it would be when we met again. Anger, perhaps, or love, or sadness. Now the moment has come, I can feel no passion, no regret even. Only an emptiness.’ His mood changed abruptly. ‘You’ve no need to worry. There are at least two men who want you. Nicias’—his lip curled in disgust—‘and a man you don’t know yet. His name is Lysicles. He’s honest, respectable, well off—and a popular party leader.’ Alcibiades did not smile; he might have been reciting for any difference in emphasis with which he treated these last words. Aspasia still said nothing. ‘A year ago I would have . . . added myself to them. After what has happened . . . it’s as if we had never known each other . . .’ For the first time he stumbled in his speech. ‘Things are so different now. We’ve both changed—we’re both older, if you like.’ He looked, without either pity or vindictiveness, at the lined white face and greying hair. ‘I have a task to do. A task which—I freely confess it—you made possible. I shall not face it in the way which . . . either you or he would have wished. It is a different world I have to deal with. Different people. What Pericles fought for can still be won. But not in the same way. There’s no room in this world for honour or trust. We’re all at each others’ throats. It’s the price we have to pay for . . . his greatness, if you like. Nicias, Cleon, Axiochus—they’re all ordinary men. With ordinary desires and ambitions. Personal ambitions. This war has offered us all a prize. I intend to win it for Athens. And for myself.’

  Alcibiades suddenly faltered. ‘This may be . . . the last chance we shall have to talk together. Aspasia, why don’t you leave Athens? Now, tonight. There is nothing here for you any more. I can put you aboard a ship that’s sailing at dawn tomorrow. For Miletus . . .’ His words died on his lips as he looked at the stony mask confronting him. He pulled himself together and resumed his old brusque manner. ‘Very well. I’ve done all I can.’ The idiotic words fell into the stillness. Impatiently Alcibiades strode to the shutters and threw them open. The moonlight streamed in; the night air brought a whiff of flowers and cooking food, the murmur of the City, to dilute the stillness of death. He went out without another word.

  Phormio’s courier, who had ridden a hundred miles in less than two days, found Pericles’ household conversing in hushed whispers, and the house itself in confusion. He threw the reins to a slave and asked old Evangelus, the steward, to announce him at once to the General. He tapped the wallet he carried slung over his shoulder. ‘I must see the General at once,’ he said. He brushed through the crowd, not listening to what they had to say; knocked on Pericles’ door, and entered at once. He stopped short at what he saw.

  ‘My lady . . . I did not know . . . What can I say?’

  The courier swore afterwards that Aspasia had smiled. She said: ‘You are from Phormio, aren’t you? I heard you outside. Give me the dispatches. I will see that they reach the right hands.’ The courier fumbled in his wallet and handed over the package.

  Alone again, Aspasia broke the seals and began to read.

  ‘I am happy to report,’ wrote Phormio, that with the Gods’ aid and a stroke of luck of which I will write in its place, we have inflicted a signal defeat upon the enemy off Naupactus . . .’

  The dispatch still in her hands, Aspasia looked for a moment at the still face from which death had erased all the lines and harshness. Then she began to read again. The shutters swung idly to and fro in the night breeze.

  Part Two

  Shadows of Greatness

  (428–413 b.c.)

  The most unscrupulous of men, and the most careless of the claims of honour.

  plutarch, Life of Alcibiades

  Chapter 14

  Pericles’ death did not bring about the revolution that Cleon and his associates hoped for; but it marked the end of an era. Though Nicias succeeded to the Olympian’s place, as he had always dreamed of doing, he could not win or buy the Olympian’s prestige. Cleon steadily built up his influence with the people; Alcibiades watched and waited, fretting with impatience at his lack of years that barred him from taking responsible office. The war dragged on in a series of border raids and minor actions It seemed to the weary participants as if it would go on for ever.

  Two months after Pericles’ death Sparta roused herself from her lethargy and planned a naval raid on the Piraeus. It came within an ace of success. Only last-minute hesitation and leakage of vital information gave the scared Athenians time to fortify the port and block the harbour entrance with a boom. Hitherto the Pireaus had been considered completely safe; this abortive attack gave a shrewd blow to Athenian complacency. The people began to feel scared and insecure once again. With Pericles’ passing they had lost more than a General; they had lost faith in themselves. And gradually, like all frightened men, they developed a vein of uneasy and irresponsible cruelty, which became more and more marked as the years went by. They felt they could trust no one now, least of all their own commanders; the allies were wavering; only an iron discipline could bring them to final victory.

  • • • • •

  The first blow fell on Phormio. Returning home early in the following year, laden with prizes and prisoners, he found awaiting him, not a hero’s reception, but a trial for embezzlement of the money entrusted to him for his campaign. Pericles’ carefully hoarded resources were running out, and the financial shortage was becoming acute. Phormio escaped with his life, but he was stripped of his command, punished by a crippling fine, and banished. His veteran troops came very near to mutinying. To satisfy them the wavering Assembly sent out his son Asopius as their new commander. The choice was sentimentally effective but practically disastrous. The young man’s courage considerably outstripped both his strategy and his discretion; and he was killed in his first engagement. The war in the north-west, which had promised so well, was brought to an abrupt halt.

  Cleon’s supporter Lysicles astonished the whole City by carrying off Aspasia six months after Pericles was dead. All the old rumours about her gained a new lease of life. But not even the most inveterate scandalmongers knew how he had done it. Occasionally people caught a glimpse of her: quiet, downcast, still dressed in black, she was to be seen walking in the fields by the river like a living ghost, belying Lysicles’ proud boast that he had ‘won her affections’. The day the news became public Alcibiades was dining with Cleon. The tanner watched his guest with coarse fascination while he told, the story, which he had had an hour or two before from Lysicles himself. If he expected an emotional outburst he was disappointed. Alcibiades sat there calmly, toying with a wine-glass, looking into space. At the end he remarked, in a placid voice only faintly tinged with sadness: ‘I’m sorry, Cleon. I think I’m a little drunk. Please forgive me. But I’m enough of a conservative to be able to mourn the passing of an old order. I must congratulate Lysicles. The popular party has gained a notable triumph.’ A long and awkward silence followed his words.

  Perhaps Aspasia had reverted to her old political interests after all; because in the annual elections that closely followed this event, Lysicles was elected to t
he Board of Generals, together with Nicias. They made an, oddly assorted pair. But for Cleon it was indeed a triumph. It was the first time that the popular party had gained official representation in Athens. Cleon himself had made no attempts to emulate his lieutenant; he was a cautious man, and the time was not yet ripe. Instead, he was putting his financial and business knowledge to good use. It was rumoured that he would soon gain a place in the Treasury.

  Lysicles did not enjoy his newly won elevation for long, Alcibiades could conceal his feelings about Aspasia; but Nicias could not. He was, moreover, senior General; and he used his position skilfully to dispose of his successful rival. Towards the end of the year he contrived to have Lysicles sent on an expedition to Ionia, where he was killed in a skirmish. Nicias rubbed his thin hands in satisfaction. But if he hoped to gain from this manoeuvre, he was disappointed. Gossip spoke of a stormy and terrible interview with the still-dominant Aspasia; at all events, Nicias remained a bachelor, while the twice-widowed mistress of Pericles went into lonely retirement in a suburb, visited only infrequently by such friends of the Olympian as still survived.

  • • • • •

  The unrest that had been fermented among the eastern allies had come to a head already by the summer of that year. The annual invasion of Attica by Sparta, which had commenced a month before, paled into insignificance beside it. Mitylene, the capital of the island of Lesbos, was rumoured to be planning a secession to Sparta.