‘Really?’ The king flushed red, bright red. ‘And you, a commander of some barbarian horse, feel that you can lesson me in military tactics?’
Philopoemen’s eyebrows went up. ‘Rome now has the most powerful fleet in the world. You have no fleet. Rome has endured two shattering defeats and is still raising armies.’ He shook his head. ‘None of that is what matters. The Illyrians, the Dardanians, the Aetolians and the Spartans all make war on your alliance, and remain unbeaten, and you want to go and fight Rome.’ He pointed at Aratos, and Alexanor thought what a powerful orator he was, so unlike most soldiers. ‘Those are the words he wants me to say. So that he can spurn me later, and yet the words will have been said, suiting his purpose.’
Aratos allowed himself a look of outrage.
The king was redder than his cloak.
‘You are deceived if you imagine you can speak to the king of Macedon this way,’ he said. ‘You may go. Do not return.’
Philopoemen bowed.
‘I will attack Rome if I want, and I will reap the glory and be victorious,’ Philip said.
Philopoemen didn’t reply. He only glanced meaningfully at the groaning figure of the Macedonian pankrationist out on the sand.
‘Begone!’ the king spat.
Alexanor stepped forward. ‘Your Grace, may I collect my winnings first?’
EPILOGUE
Gortyna, Lentas and Achaea
214–212 BCE
The first ship to arrive in the spring brought news that Philopoemen had been exiled by the Achaean League. The vote was close; clearly, some of the member states had a hard time swallowing the charge that Philopoemen was a ‘tool of the king of Macedon’ from Aratos, who had wintered at Pella.
Philopoemen took no notice. The buyers of his three farms on Crete had sold them back, and when Alexanor rode over to visit in the first bloom of spring, Philopoemen was, once again, naked but for a loincloth. He and Arkas and Kleostratos were raising an Achaean-style stone barn on the plain of Gortyna.
‘Most people hire builders,’ Alexanor called.
Philopoemen came and took his hand. ‘I won’t get my sweat on your nice cloak,’ he said.
‘It’s the largest barn in Crete,’ Alexanor said.
‘My realm,’ Philopoemen said. If he was bitter, it was not showing.
Later, over dinner, Alexanor asked about the exile. Philopoemen laughed ruefully.
‘I tried to tell him,’ Lykortas said.
‘He did, too,’ Philopoemen said. ‘I thought he was being … too …’
‘Underhanded. That’s what you said. That I had worked in an underhanded way for so long that I could no longer see how honourable men ruled.’ Lykortas drank some wine, and shrugged. ‘It’s not like it gives me any satisfaction.’
‘I am so lucky to have good friends to tell me all my faults.’ Philopoemen looked around. ‘I thought that in the matter of war with Rome, Aratos was my ally. In fact, he was willing to use any issue to see to it that I fell from the king’s grace. The exile was probably unnecessary.’
‘It’s not even legal,’ Lykortas said. ‘It wasn’t voted at a legal session.’
Alexanor shook his head in surprise. ‘Terrible,’ he said.
‘So you say,’ Philopoemen said. ‘It doesn’t matter. My life is now here. I will farm on Crete. Perhaps I will run for office.’ He smiled at Alexanor. ‘What I have learnt is that politics is much more complicated than war. Perhaps this is why men prefer war. But enough of my exile – it will pass. Or not. What of you, brother?’
‘I’m here to invite you to a wedding,’ Alexanor said.
‘I love weddings,’ Lykortas said.
Kleostratos laughed.
‘Mine,’ Alexanor said. ‘The Hierophant of Kos has approved my Aspasia for the priesthood, and approved my wedding.’
‘Even though I wrecked your mission to Philip?’ Philopoemen said.
Alexanor shrugged.
Lykortas sat back and laughed. ‘Alexanor had an audience with Philip before we left,’
Now it was Philopoemen’s turn to be surprised.
‘I got to him through his physician, and through the priests of Herakles,’ Alexanor admitted. ‘He sent an ambassador to Rhodes.’ He leant back. ‘I learnt something too, brother. The ambassador was arrogant, and has since left, and nothing is accomplished. Macedon and Rhodes are virtually at war. But I did my part and the hierophant approved my marriage. This is how men become hardened to the ways of the world. It is as if it is not what we do that matters, but what we appear to do.’
Philopoemen drank some wine. ‘Well, I will play a better game next time, if allowed. And I congratulate you on yours.’ He grinned. ‘I look forward to meeting a woman who you feel can replace Phila.’
‘You can see them together,’ Alexanor said. ‘I invited Phila to the wedding, too.’
Philopoemen roared a laugh. ‘And men say I am brave.’
Alexanor’s wedding day finally came, and the chariot of the sun leapt into the sky over the Lion of Lentas. All of his fears fell away; his wife and Phila were equally amused at him, and the priests and novices of the temple cleaned until everything shone. The only cloud on his horizon was that Philopoemen hadn’t come, nor had Lykortas.
The day passed in a blur of censers and ceremonies, and the smoke of their sacrifices rose to the gods. The sight of Aspasia in her rose-coloured veil and saffron-yellow peplos with a year of embroidery at the hem and across the breast inflamed him and struck him with the same awe that he sometimes felt in the temple when he served at the altar. He raised the veil and kissed her before gods and men, and two hundred voices shouted for them, and then they were walking down the steps of the temple, hand in hand, and there, at last, was Philopoemen.
Alexanor embraced him, but then there was dancing, and food, and another round of sacrifices, and Aspasia’s formal introduction to the temple, performed as part of the wedding by the two priestesses of Hygeia.
It was during the latter that Alexanor clasped his friend’s hand.
‘I feared you were not coming,’ he said.
Philopoemen looked tired, but he smiled. ‘How would I miss this?’
When he went to fetch wine, Lykortas took Alexanor’s hand.
‘Listen, he almost did not come,’ he said. ‘All he does is go to Cyrena’s grave.’ He shrugged. ‘The giant barn is finished and he has no more worlds to conquer.’
Alexanor was watching his radiant, beautiful priestess-wife coming down from the temple with two sheaves of wheat in her arms. Their eyes met; he was almost unable to speak.
Phila’s voice came from behind him. ‘Let’s see what I can manage,’ she said.
And when they were all reclining on a hundred kline to eat the wedding feast, Alexanor saw, not without a pang, that Phila lay beside Philopoemen. He was talking, and her head was lifted towards him, and she was laughing without restraint.
That night, Aspasia rolled over and surprised Alexanor by being awake.
‘You are not the sort of man to be jealous of a friend?’ she asked.
Alexanor laughed softly. ‘No,’ he said.
She ran a hand over his chest. ‘Good. Because finding that man as a farmer on Crete is like finding a god in a cage.’
‘You fancy him?’ Alexanor asked.
‘Gods, no! I merely say what I think. He is …’
She shrugged, and wriggled, and soon enough, they were otherwise occupied than with politics.
It had, indeed, been worth waiting a year. Alexanor had never known a night like his wedding night.
A year later, Crete had the best harvest of olives she had had in a hundred years; the wheat harvest was as good, and the barley. Aspasia bore them a daughter, her first child, and her labour was easy and the birth quick, as befitted a priest and priestess of health. And the next year, the festivals were brilliant. Everyone had a little money, and the barns were bursting with barley and wheat, and Alexanor learnt about going without sleep and helping a
nursing mother. Philopoemen was elected Hipparchos of Gortyna, and his only duty, besides being on the Great Council, was to lead the equestrian parade on feast days. On the Great Feast of Apollo, he led a procession – two hundred cavalry, a thousand infantry, two hundred priests and as many maidens and priestesses and much of the population of Gortyna – all the way from the city to the sanctuary at Lentas.
Alexanor had risen with the dawn after his longest sleep in a year, kissed his sleeping wife and tranquil daughter, and had gone out, in a plain brown chiton, with Leon and Omphalion, and they had polished all the gold and silver, and washed ritually. Later Aspasia and the other priestesses washed the altars, and then all the celebrants together cleansed them again with branches of sacred olive and laurel, sweeping the floors that were already clean enough to eat from, and then sweeping the three great altars themselves.
Alexanor went to the sacristy and prepared his censer. This one was solid silver, a donation from Philopoemen and Dinaeos, made by a woman silversmith in Gortyna – a work of art. The incense was from the east; the charcoal he had made himself, with the help of two wrinkled old charcoal men from the hills, from a tree struck by the lightning of the god.
When Leon told him that the horsemen were cresting the distant ridge, Alexanor lit his charcoal from the sacred fire. He and Aspasia walked through the gleaming temple together, censing the altars and the rooms and then the thousands of people attending the festival, in crowds along the avenue to the sanctuary, and the pilgrims, too. And then, as the riders came down the avenue between the young trees he’d planted, Alexanor blessed them: Philopoemen, of course, larger than life and magnificent in armour as he never was in his everyday clothes; Dinaeos, fresh from Achaea on a new, fine cavalry horse; Lykortas, in a cloak with more purple than the king of Macedon; Kleostratos, smiling, wearing a heavy arm ring of solid gold; and Arkas, who wore a sword with an ivory hilt.
Philopoemen, as a priest of Zeus, led one set of sacrifices; Alexanor led another, and Aspasia led the women in the sacrifice of the cakes, and then all of the celebrants danced in a stately ring. At sunset, almost the whole of the festival went to the sea to throw the sacred laurels into the water.
And then the wine was served, and food, and it was over. Or rather, the formal celebration was over, and the god’s holiday began. Most of them leapt into the water, and the stately procession developed a very different tone, and Alexanor carried his priestess down the beach as she giggled like a girl.
‘I wish he’d take a wife,’ Aspasia said later. Philopoemen was swimming in the sea, with half the population of Gortyna. ‘I could find him a girl on Rhodes. Your sisters would do the trick in a week. Some nice—’
‘Fifteen year old virgin?’ Alexanor watched his friend and shook his head. ‘Not yet. He will when he’s ready. He’s still besotted with Phila,’ he added.
‘Who ran back to Athens as soon as she was bored with him,’ his wife said bitterly.
Lykortas ran past, pursuing a young person in a cloak, both of them giggling.
‘I think Phila had other …’ He paused, and decided that defending Phila to his wife was not going to be a winning ploy.
Aspasia shook her head. ‘I find him a puzzle,’ she admitted. ‘And I can’t love her.’
‘Most people are puzzles, if you really get to know them,’ Alexanor said. And then they were swimming in the warm water, and laughing.
When they woke, with hard heads for the first time in a year and too little sleep, there was a new ship in the bay: a two-masted round vessel, the kind that usually brought pilgrims from the mainland. Alexanor saw it when he got up to drink water, and again, later, when he got up again because he had duties, even the day after a major festival. His wife was trying to rise, but she, too, had been festive, and she lacked his experience.
He splashed water on his face, and then walked out. When he’d married, he’d left the priests’ barracks and engaged a small house in the town – not a palace like his predecessor, but a fine house, with a central court and a good shed for storage and a big kitchen. Aspasia had brought roses from their home island, and their courtyard, instead of being a dusty mess, was a rose garden with some marble seats and a fine statue of Apollo – a restful place when their daughter wasn’t testing her lungs.
As soon as he washed his face, he could hear voices in the rose garden. He threw on a chlamys and walked out, surer and surer as he walked of who he was hearing.
Phila sat at his marble table, wearing a light cloak and a conical straw hat.
Philopoemen sat opposite her. He wasn’t sitting with her, but their hands were together, and their smiles betrayed intimacy, and, just for a moment, Alexanor knew a pang of jealousy. But it was ugly and unworthy, and he shrugged it off and walked forward to be kissed by Phila.
‘Too late for the party,’ she said. ‘The captain was a mere atheist, I assure you. But I brought good wine, so you can repeat it all for me tonight.’
Alexanor glanced at Philopoemen. ‘You knew she was coming back,’ he said, with some accusation.
Philopoemen smiled his lopsided smile. ‘I did, too,’ he admitted.
‘Well, you are welcome,’ Alexanor said. ‘I’m sure we can find some festival to entertain you …’
‘I’ve really come to take Philopoemen away,’ Phila said.
‘Wait until you hear her news,’ Philopoemen said.
Alexanor sat down just as Aspasia appeared. She paused, and then she came forward as if it was nothing to her to have the greatest beauty in Athens on her doorstep at the dawning of the day. But as soon as Philopoemen touched Phila’s hand, Aspasia gave Alexanor a significant glance. He shook his head, as if to say tell you later.
Eventually, they made it back around to Phila’s news.
‘Well,’ she said, and paused dramatically.
The gate opened, and Lykortas came in. He had a wreath of somewhat tattered flowers in his hair, but otherwise looked as fresh as a new dawn.
‘Phila!’ he said.
‘My favourite schemer,’ she said, kissing both cheeks. ‘After myself, of course.’
Lykortas turned to Philopoemen. ‘Aratos is dead,’ he said.
‘That’s my news!’ Phila said.
Aspasia looked at her husband, and Philopoemen stood up.
‘Aratos is dead,’ Philopoemen said. ‘My exile is lifted, and the king of Macedon has asked me to return to Achaea.’
AUTHOR’S NOTE
It is several years since I’ve written a novel about Ancient Greece.
Actually that’s not quite true. All my novels are about Ancient Greece, really; if you read my stuff, you know that William Gold stops at Thermopylae and has a deed of arms with his friends … real knights really did that. And you know that my fantasy Cold Iron is set in a sort of seventeenth century Hellenistic world … In a way, it is always Ancient Greece somewhere in my mind.
Nonetheless. This is my first Greek novel in several years, since Rage of Ares, and going back to the Ancient world was, in fact, like going home. These two books, The New Achilles and The Last Greek are the product of years of research, some of it original. That’s a bold assertion from a mere novelist, but I’ll make it anyway; I read the inscription to Philopoemen at Delphi myself, while ‘leading’ my ‘Pen and Sword’ tour in 2015. I think these books were born that afternoon, in the perfect sunshine of a Greek autumn. I’d heard of Philopoemen, of course, and at one point I’d painted part of his Achaean army in 28mm. But there was this stone – and there was his name. I saw the name from fifteen feet away, and it was, really, as if a thunderbolt from Zeus had struck me.
Because history really happened. This book is a novel, and a great deal of it, especially the details, is made up. But Philopoemen really lived. And he really was so great a man that everyone, friends and enemies, honoured him when he was dead. He is, as a Classics professor once said, ‘The greatest man you’ve never heard of.’
And another year, my Pen and Sword bus was travelling th
rough Arkadia and we stopped at the battlefield of Sellasia. Now, here’s the exciting part. Our guide and the local mayor of a very, very small town in the Peloponnese agreed it was the battlefield, but it’s not the battlefield that is marked on tourist maps. That’s where the ‘original research’ part comes. Our local guide took us to a place whose topography matched the battle account in Polybius. Polybius wasn’t there, but his father probably was; Polybius’ father carried Philopoemen’s ashes at his funeral and the famous author probably knew a great deal about him and his battles. The topography is so exact …
Right, anyway, we spent three hours on the battlefield. I could have wished for days … and I will go back. But I saw it: the stream, the hills, the central saddle with the cavalry fight.
The same can be said for Crete. A great deal of this book takes place on Crete, and I went there two years ago and walked the battlefields, climbed the ancient acropolis of Gortyna, and visited the sanctuary of Asklepios in Lentas. All that is real.
All the political situations are real, too. I have tried, in these books, to avoid the simplicity of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. I recognise that sometimes black and white world views make books easier to read, but anyone paying attention to our own world in the last forty years can see how unlikely such lineups really are. The Romans were not ‘good’. The Spartans were not particularly bad. (Or good.) Greece was modern Syria – all the big players fought over her – and Hellenistic Greece in the second century BCE was not very much like the Greece of my earlier books. Archaeology suggests that the decline of small free farmers and the creation of large landed estates, combined with the constant drain of manpower as country boys went to get rich fighting in Persia, had the net effect of depopulating the countryside. Sparta could no longer raise an army of thirty thousand men to fight, as she did for Plataea. Sparta was lucky if she could raise fifteen thousand, and a third of those were mercenaries.
That is part of the charm of this story. This is not Hannibal and Scipio Africanus fighting over the fate of the Western world. This is a handful of free people trying to stay free as the iron vice of imperial oppression closes on them from all sides. Later Greeks would remember the Achaean League as the exemplars of what it meant to be ‘free’. The founding fathers of the United States admired the Achaean League; it was one of the models for American federalism. And that brings up a thematic point in writing historical fiction; I like my novels to be ‘about’ something. One thing that these two novels are ‘about’ is best encapsulated by Shakespeare. ‘The good men do is oft interred with their bones,’ he said, but in this case, Philopoemen and his generation not only bought Greeks another three generations of liberty but created a model for the future – maybe a better model then Athens or Rome.
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