Shadows of Athens

by JM Alvey

  An arch admitted favoured visitors into more private family accommodation set around a smaller courtyard. Aristarchos sat in the shade in the south-east corner, relaxing in a cushioned chair of glossy black wood. He’s much the same age as my father had been when he died, though he looks ten years younger. Aristarchos’s hair is barely touched with grey and the only lines on his face are crow’s feet from narrowing his eyes as he studies letters, ledgers and scrolls of history or philosophy.

  My father got his exercise fetching and carrying in his workshop and walking the city’s streets to visit customers and suppliers. His shoulders were irrevocably rounded from years hunched over a workbench. Aristarchos still regularly visits the gymnasium to run and wrestle and hone his skills with discus and javelin.

  The greenery around him wasn’t pot herbs. Wonderfully lifelike fig saplings were painted on the plastered walls, commemorating Demeter’s gift of the first fig to his revered ancestor Phytalos. He is one of those men with no need to identify himself with his father’s name and his voting district. Athens’ most ancient families command instant awe with their clan name alone. That lineage means every son of this family rides a finely harnessed horse into war as befits the nobly born. My ancestors have all marched stolidly into battle carrying shields and spears. Though the gods aren’t impressed by such distinctions. Aristarchos’s eldest son’s blood soaked into Egypt’s black earth just like my brother’s. If we ever recovered their bones, there’d be no telling them apart.

  He looked up from the letter in his hand and gestured to a stool. ‘Please.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I shrugged off my cloak and sat down.

  ‘Can I offer you something?’ He gestured to a dish of olives and pine nuts on the little table to his right. Another table to his left held a further stack of documents.

  I took the dish. ‘Thank you.’

  Aristarchos looked quizzically at me. ‘Shouldn’t you be overseeing your rehearsal? I expected you rather sooner.’

  ‘I had some unexpected delays.’ I tried to cover my hesitation by selecting a particularly plump olive.

  ‘He’s probably right,’ Aristarchos observed. ‘Nikandros.’

  I looked up, shocked, to see him smiling.

  ‘I take it he was still favouring anyone within earshot with his theories on his way out? He seems to think if he keeps repeating himself, everyone will eventually be forced to agree.’

  Then I saw the glint in my patron’s dark eyes.

  ‘Nikandros and his cronies are probably right to say that my rivals are smirking into their wine cups at the prospect of the play that I’m sponsoring coming last in this year’s comedy competition. But they’re wrong to think you only won a chorus to make sure that the Phytalid name is humiliated. Patrons and playwrights are matched by lottery, and Praxiteles is an honest man. There wasn’t a voice raised against him when his fitness for office was reviewed and there won’t be any corruption uncovered when his year as Chief Archon is audited.’ Aristarchos was certain of that.

  I chewed on a pine nut. ‘No one knows what to make of a play called The Builders. I should have called it something else.’

  ‘They don’t know what to make of the title, so they’ll be nicely curious by the time your chorus takes the stage.’ Aristarchos sipped from his cup. ‘I saw both your plays at the Lenaia. You made people laugh. More than that, you learned from the jokes that failed in your first attempt. You listened to your lead actor’s suggestions before staging a second play.’

  I wanted to protest that my first play would have gone much better if that chorus leader had listened to me, to my suggestions for gesture and emphasis to enhance the words I’d written. But he had been old and set in his ways and I had been young and tactless. But that was all washed away downstream now, so there was no point in saying so.

  Aristarchos continued. ‘You deserved to be called to read for Praxiteles, to compete for a chance at the Dionysia. You beat those other playwrights fair and, square. Whoever’s spreading this slander is simply trying to undermine me, hoping to gain some advantage if we ever oppose each other in the courts or before the People’s Assembly.’

  I supposed that could be true. While even the humblest citizen can spend a year as Ruling Archon, if the gods decree his name comes up in the annual lottery for magistrates, it’s still men like Aristarchos who take the lead in bringing cases before the law courts or proposing new legislation in the public interest. They have the leisure to pursue such concerns, thanks to income from their estates outside the city, or their interests in craftsmen’s workshops within the walls. Then there’s the return on their investments in the merchant ships that leave the docks at Piraeus full of olive oil amphorae, before filling their empty holds with luxuries from Egypt or the Hellespont for the journey back. They never know when they might need some advantage over each other, and are always on the lookout for an opportunity to secure one.

  From time to time these wealthy men are chosen to put their silver to other uses for the general good, like paying for one of the triremes that helped secure the present peace. Or financing a play for the Dionysia. Aristarchos had been awarded that honour back at the start of this year, so he was paying for everything, from the piper who’d accompanied my comedy’s first rehearsals to the wine and nuts the audience would enjoy at the performance.

  ‘Do you have some important case coming up?’ I asked. ‘Or a particularly contentious law to propose to the Assembly?’

  ‘Perhaps our rivals are simply worried that you’ll win,’ Aristarchos mused. ‘You’ve hired three very fine actors and your chorus master is one of the best. You saw how interested the crowd was to see Apollonides and Menekles walk out to join your chorus yesterday. Perhaps the naysayers hope to cast a shadow over your chances, if their spiteful whispers reach potential judges’ ears.’

  I nodded but still couldn’t help myself. ‘Euxenos got the best piper. You saw how Diagoras was cheered.’

  ‘Euxenos got the best pipe player he knew of,’ Aristarchos corrected me. ‘He got the piper everyone was expecting, whom they’ve heard tootling year in and year out. You’re bringing them someone new.’

  ‘True enough.’ I smiled at that thought. I don’t suppose it would even occur to Euxenos to discuss such matters with his own paymaster. Would Xanthippus have been so ready to help him, as Aristarchos had done for me? I have no idea if other rich men take any notice of the entertainers who arrive when their banquet tables are cleared so the evening’s wine and songs can begin.

  Who knows? Who cares? What matters is, barely a day after I’d been awarded my chorus, Aristarchos had sent me the name of a Corinthian piper who’d impressed him at a recent symposium. Back then, Hyanthidas had only just arrived in the city. In the months since, so Aristarchos said, the Corinthian garnered quite a following among the wealthy men who host such lavish dinners.

  ‘Was there something particular you wanted?’ Aristarchos prompted. ‘Or are you just wishing me good day?’

  ‘There is something.’ I took a deep breath and explained about the dead Carian and this morning’s encounter in the agora. I hadn’t intended saying anything, but Nikandros’s casual insults had given me second thoughts. Anyone out to make trouble for Aristarchos could spread slanderous hints about some sort of scandal if word of a dead man on my doorstep got around.

  He was shocked. ‘How thoroughly unpleasant. But there can be no question of you being suspected, or your slave?’

  ‘I don’t believe so, but if we can find out more about the dead man, perhaps that will explain who killed him. That’ll put the question beyond doubt. His name was Xandyberis and he was part of the delegation bringing the annual tribute from Pargasa, one of our allied cities in Caria.’

  ‘A robbery?’ Aristarchos looked dubious. ‘Some thief followed him out from the city all the way to your door?’

  I grimaced, still unconvinced. ‘I don’t think he was a rich man, even if he was dressed in the finest he could afford. Perhaps
his companions can shed some light on his fate. Is there any way that you could find out where this particular delegation is lodging?’

  Presenting those tributes from the Delian League was as much an integral part of the Dionysia’s formalities as the procession Aristarchos would take part in when he was honoured as my play’s patron. The same officials would be organising both events.

  ‘I can certainly ask those who will know.’ Aristarchos’s eyes grew distant, thoughtful.

  I hoped the rest of the Pargasarene delegation proved more reasonable than the lad I’d met in the agora. I thought Aristarchos was about to say something more but he shook his head. ‘Leave it with me.’

  A flourish of pipe music in the outer courtyard told us both that the final rehearsals were about to begin.

  Chapter Five

  By noon I was ready to head for Piraeus and jump on the first ship going anywhere. The further the better. The rehearsal was a disaster.

  ‘All right, all right, simmer down!’ Lysicrates got everyone’s attention. ‘Let’s try that again.’

  Menekles, who was playing Meriones, and Apollonides as Thersites, took centre stage. Two Homeric heroes, playing for laughs.

  Meriones turned to Thersites with an expansive sweep of his spear. ‘This is to be our new home!’

  Thersites cocked his masked head. ‘So you say, but where are we? I swear, Meriones, Odysseus will get home before we do. I knew you were lousy at driving a chariot but you’re just as hopeless at navigating a ship!’

  Meriones spurned such criticism with an extravagant toss of his helmet’s horsehair crest. ‘This is a land of opportunity, Thersites! A realm of fertile slopes where olive trees look down on fine soil for planting vines! Where fertile pastures will nourish sheep and horses! Where tall timber grows fit for building us a whole new fleet of ships! Where—’

  ‘Where are we?’ Laying his shield down, Thersites squared up to Meriones, hands on hips.

  Meriones looked from side to side. Now his gestures were nervous. ‘We’re—’

  ‘You don’t know, do you?’ Thersites challenged him before turning to the audience. Or at least, where the audience would be sitting when we were performing this comedy in the theatre. ‘Well, isn’t that just lovely? We’re lost!’

  ‘An Achaean is never lost,’ Meriones objected hotly. ‘He’s just… on his way from one place to another.’

  ‘So this isn’t our new home? We’re only stopping off here? Oh my aching arse!’ Thersites squatted and groaned, heart-rending, as he kneaded his well-padded buttocks.

  A slight smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.

  ‘No,’ protested Meriones. ‘We’re staying here, truly. We’ve anchored the ship—’

  ‘Aha!’ Thersites sprang acrobatically into the air. ‘Gotcha. So where are we?’

  That was Chrysion’s cue to lead the chorus into the first of their song and dance routines. Twenty-four well-drilled men should have celebrated the virtues of this unknown land.

  At least six started singing several words behind the rest. Four went right when they should have gone left and one tripped up the man beside him. He fell over and took down the next in line. The song dissolved into protests and recrimination. In the colonnade opposite me, Hyanthidas lowered his reed-tipped pipes. At his side Lysicrates, who’d been poised to make his own entrance, shook his head, exasperated.

  ‘Oh, come on!’ Menekles dragged off his helmet to glare at Chrysion.

  Apollonides was using an old mask until Thersites’s costume arrived. He shoved the painted and plastered linen up onto his forehead and rounded on the chorus. ‘What do you think you’re playing at? We get one chance to get this right on the day!’

  I clapped my hands so hard that they stung. I didn’t care. I was furious.

  ‘Listen to me! This is no laughing matter! You’ve been hand-picked to present this play at the greatest drama festival in the civilised world. The great and the good of Athens will be sitting on those marble seats of honour. Leading citizens among our allies will be honoured for their loyalty, to reaffirm the ties that bind Hellenes together; our common blood and language, our shared gods and customs—’

  ‘Tell us something we don’t know!’

  I don’t know who shouted from the back of the chorus as they all stood shuffling their feet. I couldn’t see anyone’s expression behind the motley collection of battered masks they were wearing to rehearse. I don’t know what I’d have done next if someone hadn’t hammered on the house’s outer gate.

  I turned and stalked towards the entrance. Mus had just opened the grille in the door to see who had knocked.

  ‘It’s Sosimenes.’ He opened the door to reveal the mask maker along with his skinny slave pushing a handcart.

  ‘We were expecting you earlier.’ As soon as the curt words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Sosimenes is one of the best mask makers in the city and I was lucky to have his personal attention. I wouldn’t have got through the door of his workshop without Aristarchos’s fortune backing me.

  ‘You don’t think I’m busy today?’ he snapped. ‘You don’t think everyone wants their masks delivered?’

  I raised apologetic hands. ‘Of course.’

  There’d never been a realistic chance that Sosimenes would only make the masks for my play. The Dionysia’s five comedies alone demand one hundred and twenty masks and that’s just for the choruses, never mind the individual character roles. Add three tragedians each writing a trilogy and a satyr play besides, and it’s no wonder that the finest mask makers have the heaviest strongboxes in whichever temple banks their silver.

  Sosimenes glared at me as he pulled back the cloth covering the handcart to reveal a stack of gurning faces.

  I looked at him, aghast. All thoughts of apology vanished. ‘Where are my masks?’

  These weren’t the hilarious, exaggerated caricatures that we’d so painstakingly devised. These masks had scarlet wigs. Mine had black hair.

  The slave clapped horrified hands to his face. ‘I brought the wrong cart!’

  ‘Where are mine? Are they under cover? If it rains…’ The briefest shower could reduce those carefully shaped and painted layers of linen and gypsum to a useless, soggy mess.

  ‘You see clouds?’ Sosimenes flung a hand to the unsullied spring sky. Any actor would be proud to convey such incredulity.

  ‘I don’t see the masks Aristarchos has paid for,’ I retorted.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Lysicrates appeared at my elbow and looked into the handcart. ‘Oh.’ He reached for one of the red-haired wigs. ‘Who’s got a chorus of Thracians?’

  Sosimenes slapped the actor’s hand away. ‘Leave off!’

  Were these for Euxenos? But his comedy was called The Butterflies. None of the competing titles announced yesterday had anything to do with Thrace. How could Euxenos get laughs out of barbarians and butterflies? I couldn’t think of a way, but he’d been an actor for a decade before he became a playwright. He never failed to tell me that he knew more than I could ever hope to about what made people laugh.

  ‘Where are my masks?’ My voice rose to a shout.

  ‘They’ll be back in the yard.’ Sosimenes scowled at his slave. ‘Won’t they?’

  Before I could decide which one to grab first and shake until his teeth rattled, Lysicrates laid a firm hand on my forearm. ‘How soon can you get our masks to us?’

  ‘We’ll get these to—’ Sosimenes caught himself just in time ‘—to their destination and go straight back to fetch yours.’

  ‘That’s all we ask.’ Lysicrates’s grip tightened to make sure I stayed silent. ‘Now, let’s all get on. None of us have time to waste today.’

  Sosimenes cuffed his slave around the head, so hard that he sent the skinny old man sprawling. ‘Get a move on!’

  As they hurried off, I stood there trembling with anger, unable to string five coherent words together.

  Lysicrates patted my arm. ‘We all need a lunch break. You and Zos
ime go and eat somewhere nice in peace and quiet. The masks and costumes will be here by the time you get back.’

  I drew a deep, shuddering breath. ‘All right.’

  I’ll never say so to Apollonides or Menekles, but Lysicrates was the first actor I spoke to after winning the right to stage a play at this Dionysia. Not just because he’s the best at playing women’s roles that Athens has seen for over a decade. When my first play at the Lenaia festival had been such a dismal failure, Lysicrates had come to find me afterwards, sitting with me while I tried to drown my humiliation in cheap wine. He’d encouraged me not to give up, but to learn from my mistakes. I will always be grateful for that.

  Zosime appeared. ‘Why don’t we go home for lunch? Then Kadous will know he needn’t come to fetch me later.’

  I wanted to argue. I wanted to strangle half the chorus. So it was probably best for everyone if I walked those urges off.

  * * *

  We bought olives and cheese in the agora and walked through the cheerfully noisy crowds to the Itonian Gate. Outside the city, the road was less busy and the tensions that had racked me like some traveller on Procrustes’ infamous bed began to ease.

  Unfortunately, when we got home the last thing we found was peace and quiet. Mikos, who owns the house opposite, was squaring up to Kadous in the middle of the lane. He brandished a vicious-looking vine stave. ‘I’ll thrash you like a dog, you Black Sea bastard!’

  ‘You lay a hand on my property and you’ll answer to me!’ I advanced on the pair.

  ‘I caught him sniffing around my doorstep.’ Mikos gestured menacingly at Kadous. ‘You weren’t expecting me back till tomorrow. Thought you’d set my wife squealing!’

  ‘Put that stick down,’ I said sharply, ‘before I take it off you.’

  Doing that would be easy enough. At least twenty years older than me, Mikos had grown fat and lazy now that Athens was at peace. In theory he was still young enough to be called up for military service but any district official in charge of a muster would be a fool to think any general would take him on.