by Peter Green
They’ll change their minds: they won’t change their minds. And supposing they don’t: why should I be so concerned? A parcel of islanders. I said so myself. He remembered Nicias’ parting words, and frowned in the darkness. And what, he asked himself; do I really know of this mass of human opinion that I have been playing with for the last few years? I know my own kind. I can deal with men like Cleon. I can adapt myself to circumstances, to other ways of life, different beliefs. And for what? The question circled above his head, went unanswered. He stretched, turned over and tried to abandon the problem in sleep. But sleep would not come.
How much have they changed since the war came? how much will they change yet? Samos was the beginning of their cruelty. If their purpose holds tomorrow, they will have taken another irrevocable step. And one I should approve in principle, I suppose. To maintain one’s rights of power. But what I told Nicias was true enough. Little profit in that kind of victory. They’ve been badly strained. All of us. The rich with their money and estates perhaps more than any. Financing triremes, backing war expenditure, year after year. Eating into capital for which there’s been no replacement. Most of the big estates in ruins. But they can’t stop now. And the plague crippled us all alike. If we had gone out to the Isthmus and fought all. Sparta in a pitched battle, we couldn’t have lost more men.
What are they thinking about it all, out there in the darkness? All the swarming multitudes I don’t know, and seldom see unless I’m drunk, or in a stews, whose minds I presume to move like pieces on a draught-board? What are you thinking, you irresponsible dolts? I know you by sight only, by rumour, by political report. This district is for peace, that one for war. Here is a clan favours the government, there a hotbed of popular intrigue. Unthinking, illogical, emotional tidal waves that can pull down any edifice of intelligent forethought. I dine with an aristocrat, and leave him to drink with Cleon. I calculate probabilities, balance motives. But in the end I come up against you, and it is you who will decide all our fates. You, the smith by the forge, sweating and muscled, who know a horse or a fighting-cock, but not your own mind. You, the grumbling farmer, you the craftsman, all of you who work with your hands, who laugh and spit at the play, who chew garlic and drink bad wine with too little water, whose lives are bounded by a few coppers, a woman, a handful of fish and olives to eat, the hope of staying alive and begetting sons like yourselves. And without whom all our plans, our ambitions, our dreams of empire would be nothing at all. You are like a lyre that many performers play on, some one tune and some another, responding to whoever touches your strings last. Till the day when the unexpected miracle oversets the wise men: the day when you play of yourself. Perhaps that day is here.
He got up and stood staring out of the open window. The city was quiet, bathed in the deep indigo of the summer night. In the straggling houses, winding away in confused lanes to the river, among the hovels of the Piraeus, the fate of a people was hanging in the balance, in the incalculable mind of the many-headed creature that was the Athenian democracy. His lips twitched in grim amusement as he thought of the word. Decide well, all-wise and all-powerful democracy, he said aloud to the night. Then he lay down again, wrapping himself in his coverlet. After a few minutes he slipped into a peaceful sleep.
• • • • •
By the middle of the following morning it was plain that Alcibiades’ prophecy was justified. Cleon, who had been up and about from the earliest hours in anticipation of such a change of heart, saw that all his indefatigable street-corner lobbying was useless. He watched the knots of shame-faced men gradually gathering, as popular opinion, finding its secret doubts shared by a comforting number, began to make public confession and demand action. When this moment came, he himself was the first to press for the immediate summoning of an emergency Assembly. It was safer to focus discontent than allow it to spread unchecked.
Alcibiades slept late. When he woke the sun was already high. He slipped out of bed, hurriedly dipped hands and face in the tepid water which still stood from the previous day in the corner of the room, and cursed as he fumbled with the thongs of his sandals. A slave brought him a loaf of bread: he breakfasted hurriedly, breaking the bread into large gobbets and soaking them in wine. Then he took a handful of olives, which he knotted into a fold of his tunic, and walked quickly down to the Assembly. The moment he reached the Market he knew what had happened. The place was almost deserted. From in front of him came the hum of the crowd. No need for the officials to go round pressing in voters today.
The meeting had already been going on for some time. A large number of citizens had purged their consciences or hardened their hearts, according to conviction, but a decision seemed as far away as ever. Alcibiades caught sight of Nicias, knotting and unknotting his bony fingers impatiently. The old man saw him, and gave an almost imperceptible nod. Good, thought Alcibiades. But for God’s sake let it be put to the vote quickly.
A buzz of excitement ran through the crowd. Cleon was climbing up to the platform. His fury of the previous evening had vanished; he looked calm, and when he spoke it was with a barely veiled irony which stung his audience more than any violence could have done. He looked round the sea of faces with superb distaste. Then he said: ‘I have been convinced for a long time that a democracy is incapable of government. Your vacillation over Mitylene only serves to confirm my belief . . .’ It was a masterly opening. Not for the first time, Alcibiades found himself unwillingly admiring this demagogue.
Cleon went on: ‘You are a simple, honest people. You have no fear of plots or revolutions among yourselves. Therefore you are inclined to be compassionate, to credit your allies with the same honesty that you yourselves possess. You will get no thanks from them for your weakness of heart.’ He paused to let this sink in, and then, suddenly changing his—tone, bellowed: ‘Your empire is a despotism and your allies are rebellious conspirators, and the sooner you realise the truth, the better. You’re all in this together. You bear the responsibility. You won’t ensure their obedience by making concessions to them. Power is the only thing they respect.
‘The most disturbing feature of the whole business is the fact that you have changed your minds overnight. This is not an isolated instance. I’d rather have bad laws that are kept than good ones which are always being altered, and which no one respects. You all try to be too clever. Loyalty is what we need today, not a lot of clever young men displaying their wit at our expense.’ Alcibiades grinned ruefully. The audience seemed to be rapidly reaching a chronic state of indecision. ‘As well they might,’ said Alcibiades to himself. ‘They know they ought to feel ashamed; but now they don’t know what it is they ought to be ashamed of.’
Cleon had clearly prepared his speech with considerable care. He played on the treachery and ingratitude of Mitylene to a beneficent power. The audience preened themselves on their beneficence. ‘And don’t,’ cried Cleon, ‘restrict your anger to the aristocrats. Don’t let yourself be blinded by political prejudice. They acted in concert; they are all equally guilty.’ He ended with a blatant appeal to self-interest that left even the hardened Alcibiades gasping. ‘If they were right to rebel,’ he said, ‘you must be wrong to rule. If you are determined to rule, right or wrong, you must stick to your principles, and punish Mitylene according to the dictates of your interests. Otherwise, if you are determined to pursue your so-called honesty in safety, you can say goodbye to your empire. Give them the punishment they deserve. Make an example of them. Bring it home to your other allies that the penalty for revolt is death.’
He stepped down from the platform without looking to see the effect he had created, seemingly deaf to the cheers that rang in his ears.
Alcibiades watched the members of the Assembly nearest to him. They were arguing fiercely. All over the crowd dissension was breaking out. Nicias sat with Hipponicus and several of his friends. They were whispering together; but none of them rose to speak. Are they going to let Cleon have the last word? Alcibiades asked himself incredulous
ly. If they do, it’s a foregone conclusion.
There was a stir near the platform, and a man whom Alcibiades had never seen in his life climbed slowly up. He had a nondescript appearance: he might have been a small farmer or a minor official. Alcibiades leant across to his neighbour, a burly countryman who wore a soiled tunic and was chewing spring onions, and asked who the newcomer might be.
‘His name’s Diodotus. He farms a holding near mine. Weren’t you here yesterday? He spoke against Cleon then.’
‘I’ve never seen him in the Assembly before.’
‘He’s a working man. He’s got something better to do with his time.’
‘Why’s he here now, then?’
The countryman looked at Alcibiades with some disgust, and spat on the ground in front of him. ‘I don’t hold with politics, and no more does he,’ he said; ‘but when a madman like Cleon wants to turn us all into murderers, it’s time for honest men to speak up. If we must fight we must, I suppose. But this is different. I’d be ashamed to hold up my head and call myself an Athenian if this sentence was carried out.’ He turned away and devoted himself to his onions again.
Diodotus was about to speak. Alcibiades saw him smile at someone on the far edge of the crowd, and shading his eyes made out the Mitylenean ambassadors, standing together in a small knot a little apart from the rest. So he has friends among the islanders, thought Alcibiades. He will have to be very clever indeed to help them now.
‘I don’t blame those who have re-opened this debate,’ said Diodotus; ‘and I think very little of the protests we have had to listen to against repeated discussion of the same question.’ His voice was rough but not coarse; and he had an easy manner. Now he stared directly at Cleon. The demagogue returned the stare sullenly. Diodotus went on: ‘We have heard that words should not be used as the exponent of action. The man who claims this must be either mad or have a personal interest in what he advocates. Mad, if he thinks the future can be resolved by any means but discussion. Personally interested—’ here his voice sharpened—‘if he distrusts his ability to speak well in a bad cause, and thinks he can, frighten his listeners into passing a shameful measure by bullying or slandering them.’ A growl of disapproval was mingled with a rallying cheer at these words. Alcibiades, hearing them, found his thoughts wandering. The power of the spoken word. Certainly, Cleon must be a fool to decry it. He looked round at the familiar scene. Every decision in the history of our country has been taken here, he thought. We plot and scheme behind closed doors; yet in the long run we have to come out into the open, back to this place. It’s like the theatre. The actors and the audience change; the theatre is always the same, imposes its own limits.
‘I am not here to defend or accuse Mitylene,’ he heard Diodotus say: ‘in this respect I agree with the last speaker. We are sensible men. The question we have to decide is not their guilt, but our advantage. This is a political Assembly, not a court of law. However guilty I believe them, I shall not ask for their death, unless it be expedient to do so. Equally, even though their case contained mitigating circumstances, I should not recommend them to mercy unless such a course were clearly to our benefit.’ Alcibiades saw Cleon frown at this, and whisper to a thin lugubrious man sitting next to him, who, Alcibiades guessed, must be the lamp-maker Hyperbolus. He grinned to himself at the tanner’s discomfiture. No one liked their own gambit being turned against them.
‘We are concerned with the future, not the present. Cleon claims that to make rebellion a capital crime will have useful deterrent effects. I am no less patriotic than he is; but I maintain that the exact contrary is true. You are considerably angered against Mitylene at the moment, and Cleon’s proposals may seem to carry more justice. I can’t repeat too often that we are not concerned with justice today: we want to make Mitylene useful to us. Put aside prejudice and look at the facts. If we continue with this policy, we shall get less and less tribute; we shall have to spend vast sums on sieges, and all we shall get out of them will be a smoking shell of a town and a pile of corpses. What use is that? Our business is to see that our allies have no incentive to rebel rather than crush them when they do.
‘One last point. If you do as Cleon suggests, you will be wantonly throwing away one of our greatest advantages—good will. What do you think will happen if you butcher the innocent and the guilty together? For a start, you’ll be killing your friends. Worse than that, you’ll be playing into the oligarchs’ hands. As soon as they rebel, they’ll have the people behind them. Why should anyone trust a nation that punishes in this indiscriminate fashion? I’m not going to argue whether the Mityleneans are guilty or not. It doesn’t matter. You ought to disregard it if they are, simply because the common people are the only class still friendly to us. If we want to preserve the empire, it’s far more profitable to put up with some injustice than to kill off men we’d do better to keep alive. The ringleaders of the rebellion are dead. Let that suffice . . .’
As Diodotus finished, a heated hubbub broke out in the Assembly. He went to his place with bowed head, and sat down, speaking to no one. Alcibiades realised that his onion-chewing neighbour was cheering loudly; after a moment the fellow leaned over and asked him what he thought of the speech.
Alcibiades said, slowly: ‘Most extraordinary. The man has a first-rate mind. I can’t understand why we haven’t heard of him before.’
The farmer said: ‘Perhaps because he’s not interested in the same things as you are.’
‘And what do you think are my interests?’ asked Alcibiades, with some asperity.
‘Oh, come. We all know Alcibiades. And professional politicians, for that matter. Always the same things. War. Ambition. Intrigue. Now you don’t know who I am; do you?’
‘Indeed not.’
‘I’m very glad. I prefer to stay unknown. Do my own work and mind my own business. Running a farm is a whole-time occupation. Especially in these days, thanks to a certain gentleman I won’t mention, God rest his soul. If more people stuck to their own affairs instead of meddling in politics, we’d all be better off.’
‘You seem to be lacking in public spirit,’ retorted Alcibiades. ‘If you think your rulers make such a mess of their duties, why not throw them out and choose new ones? The power’s in your hands. Though God forbid Athens should ever be a clod-hopping country village. You talk like a Boeotian.’
‘You’re young,’ said the farmer. ‘Your uncle’s got more sense than you. He wants peace, at any rate, even if he does want it for the wrong reasons.’ He looked at Alcibiades and said: ‘Let me give you a piece of advice, young fellow. Don’t imagine that you understand all your fellow-citizens. You know precious few of them. We’re not all firebrands or philosophers. You don’t hear about us because we don’t talk much. I knew a friend who came to Athens and opened a shop. Everyone told him it was the fashion to have a boy lover. So he—’
‘That’s enough.’ Alcibiades was flushed and angry. ‘The voting’s going to begin.’ And indeed the President of the Assembly was on his feet calling the meeting to order. Alcibiades and the farmer raised their hands together against Cleon.
The decree was revoked by the narrowest of majorities. As soon as the result was announced Alcibiades hurried to find Nicias. The old man was talking to the Mitylenean ambassadors. As Alcibiades came up, pushing his way through the crowd, he heard the ambassador say: ‘We have prepared everything for the rowers. Wine and bread has been put aboard at our expense. I beg you, sir, to hurry . . .’
Alcibiades said to Nicias: ‘Is the Paralus ready to sail?’
Nicias nodded. ‘I gave the orders for the stand-to last night. She can sail at once. Alcibiades, you have a horse, I believe. If you care to ride down to the docks at once and send them on their way . . . ?’
Alcibiades smiled. He was almost beginning to like Nicias. He hurried away without another word.
It was noon as he rode into the Piraeus. The Paralus was cast off, her sail hoisted, her crew sitting waiting at their rowing-benches
. One word was sufficient. A moment later she was drawing away, the oars creaming up the brackish harbour water. Alcibiades watched her till she was hull-down on the horizon.
A week later the news reached Athens that. Mitylene had been saved. The crew of the Paralus had rowed night and day, eating and sleeping at the oar; yet when they docked at Mitylene, Paches had already read out the decree of execution. As the captain stepped ashore he was greeted by the wailing of women, the curt salutes of a shame-faced garrison. But the sentence had not yet been carried out. For the time being, at any rate, Athens had been saved from herself.
Chapter 15
The Mitylenean affair had so occupied everyone’s mind at Athens that not a thought was given to the desperate garrison still holding out a few miles away at Plataea, even when about a hundred of them broke out from the city one stormy night and made their way to Athens. They were treated kindly, soothed with vague promises, and forgotten. Then, one evening in July, came the news that Plataea had surrendered. The starved defenders were asked one question only by their conquerors. Had they done anything to forward the Peloponnesian cause in the war? There could be only one answer. The survivors were butchered to a man, and their women sold into slavery.
Alcibiades, listening to the account of their last days, found himself disquietingly upset by it. He had not forgotten the conversation he had had on the subject with Pericles; and the whole affair bore too close a resemblance to the recent fiasco on Lesbos for his peace of mind. He tried to convince himself that he was only concerned with the military aspect of the situation, but failed dismally. For a day or two he brooded alone. In the end he admitted to himself that he had to discuss the matter with somebody. Adeimantus was too young; Cleon and his uncle too involved in political manoeuvres to listen with an impartial ear. Late one evening, in some trepidation, and not quite understanding his own motives, he went to see Nicias.