Salamis

by Christian Cameron

  But Aristides, that prig, some might say, was the best man I knew.

  We prepared what we could to lighten ship suddenly. Lydia had a dozen contrivances to make her a better ship – one of them was a small bricked-in hearth forward of the boat-sail mast, and we prepared to heave that over the side, as well as armour, weapons, and spares. If Aristides foundered, he’d have two hundred men desperate for life in the water – veteran men, and our friends, too.

  Aside from preparing for disaster, there was little we could do but watch and fret and speculate about what was happening to the north. I looked at my son’s wound, but Brasidas had done a thorough job and he’d even come up with honey to put in the bloody slit. My boy behaved well – his head was high and he swore he was ready to fight again. Hector hovered about and looked miserable.

  We’d run Attica under the horizon long before, lost the last Egyptian, and there was a high, blue sky almost without clouds, and we were alone on an empty ocean just a parasang from the largest fleet in history.

  West we ran, and west, losing our northing as the world’s wind blew us farther south despite our best efforts. But along toward early afternoon, we sighted Aegina, and as the day began to wane we got Athena Nike on one of that island’s beaches, bow first, as gently as could be managed. As soon as the sail came down, Aristides’ magnificent ship began to take water, so that for a heart-stopping moment we thought we might lose her before we got her bow on the beach. Both our crews went ashore and dragged the Nike up the gravel.

  Aristides shook his head in sadness – and perhaps awe.

  His ram was gone, the bronze sunk in the depths of the ocean. He’d struck a floating log, perhaps some great tree ripped up by Poseidon’s wrath and sent far out to sea, and the blow had ripped away the ram, and somehow, by luck, one of the bow’s planks had been crushed inward with such force as to wedge it into the framing of the bow, so that the ship didn’t fill and sink instantly.

  One by one, all his marines and oarsmen came and touched the bow.

  Many raised their arms to heaven, faced the sea, and sang the hymn to Poseidon.

  Aristides chose to remain on Aegina. We’d been seen coming in and he had access to some of the best shipwrights in the world to repair his beloved warship. After several embraces I took my own ship back toward Salamis. It was late afternoon. I was – desperate.

  I admit that I considered, once again, taking Lydia down the Saronic Gulf and out into the open ocean and running for Ephesus. At Aegina, the war seemed far removed from our concerns. The Persian fleet was over the horizon, and they would never catch us, never even pursue us. I had waited my whole life, or so it felt, for Briseis, and now she waited perhaps as little as five days’ sailing away, with a fair wind.

  But to do so seemed like desertion. Or perhaps I wasn’t sure what I wanted. Perhaps, after all those years of waiting, the achievement of my desire was … frightening. Does this surprise you? And yet, I was no longer the blood-mad boy I had once been. What would Achilles have been, if he had lived? Thetis offered him a long, happy life, or a brief life and immortal fame and I often think of Achilles. What would he have been, in his long, happy life? A bronze-smith in sunny Achaea? A prince of a happy realm, with his Briseis making babies and supporting him, ruling by his side, performing the dances of the goddess?

  No man is simple, and desire is as complex as anything else. So is duty.

  And at the same time that I could consider deserting the cause of Greece for my woman, I could also be distraught at the notion that I was missing the greatest sea fight in history. Oh, Poseidon, my heart beat faint to think I was missing it! I roamed the deck of my Lydia like a lion stalking prey, up and down the deck, and my sailors stayed clear of me.

  Did I want Briseis? Did I want the undying glory of the great ­battle? Did I want a peaceful, happy life?

  I wanted them all!

  We came in through the mouth of the bay at the islands and there were no wrecks. The Aeginian ships were snug on their beaches, and there wasn’t a Persian to be seen.

  We landed at the very edge of darkness. It wasn’t hard; there were so many fires lit along the beaches of Salamis that the navigation was, if anything, easier rather than harder, and many willing hands came down to the water’s edge to help warp Lydia ashore.

  I landed my ship at Salamis.

  Pericles came down to fetch me from the tedious business of getting my ship ashore. Lydia was landed, but she needed to be hauled clear of the water and dried so that her fine, light hull caught the full sun in the morning, and she had a small leak forward.

  The things you remember! I can tell you almost anything about that ship, and yet, when I close my eyes, I cannot see my Lydia’s face very clearly; really, just a soft pale smudge of memory. But every splintered oar shaft and every bubble in her hull’s pitch is marked on my brain. That ship was more my lover than her namesake, I suspect. But …

  Pericles came down wearing a himation that made him look even younger than he was.

  ‘Eurybiades has summoned all the trierarchs,’ the boy said. ‘Cimon is speaking even now.’

  I picked up a spear – a little affectation, I admit, as no one carries a spear to a council any more but me – and walked up the sand. I remember my calf muscles hurting and my ankles complaining – too little exercise, and too much time sitting at campfires or standing on the half-deck.

  It was a long walk, up over the first headland and along to the temple; long enough for me to consider that I was wearing an old chiton meant only to keep my armour off my naked skin, and a chlamys that had begun life as a fine shade of dark blue and now resembled the sky on a late autumn day; there was some blue in it, but not much, and the rest was a sort of muddy pale grey with a great deal of sea-salt and some spots of pine pitch. It was, in fact, the fine chlamys I’d purchased with my earnings on Sicily, at Syracusa, when I was first courting Lydia. Lydia was suddenly much in my thoughts.

  In fact, that walk was … dark. Too much fighting can have this effect on any man, and I had reached my limit. My fingers burned on my left hand – isn’t it odd how a new injury seems to aggravate the old ones? The stumps of my missing fingers were livid and they throbbed in the darkness because of the new wound from the Persian arrow, a wound so inconsiderable that in youth I might never have mentioned it. Facing the Persian arrows had been exhausting and I have no idea why. The entire experience had lasted less than a minute, but I was stumbling on the sandy road and near weeping with the sullen darkness that often infected me after a fight.

  Well.

  Ahead of me in the darkness, a hundred men or more were gathered on the steps of the temple. They were surrounded by torchlight, as if a festival was going on, and in the clear air I saw the ruddy light before I saw the temple. I could smell the scent of pines and the reek of ash from Attica, and the sound of men’s voices stirred me somehow.

  I stopped and looked up at the stars. I remember this very well – that surge of pure emotion, as I felt … something. It is difficult to describe, but my loss emptied a little, and my sense of the rightness of the world returned, looking at the stars. Some men see the gods in the stars, and others see the rational turning of the creation of the gods. Sometimes I see only the points of light by which a man navigates the deep at night and a sailor knows that everywhere you go, the stars change. Think on that. The stars change.

  Bah! Enough of my musings. I only mean that when I strode up to the council, I was in an odd place in my head. I will not say I had seen a god, but I would not be surprised if one had been at my shoulder.

  By chance, Themistocles had just spoken, and men were honouring his words with silence. I know now that Cimon had spoken about the might of the enemy fleet, and Themistocles had laid out the ­reasons why we had to fight. Adeimantus waited. He was a fair orator and he knew that to speak too soon would be to lose his ­audience.

  But wh
en he started, he had no mercy.

  ‘Themistocles, perhaps what you say is good for Athens.’ He smiled. ‘Good for your people, rather. Athens is gone.’ He looked around allowing the import of that statement to sink in. ‘But if the enemy has nine hundred ships, if all our fighting at Artemisium has only served to make them stronger, I say it is time to retreat. You saw them today! They filled the horizon and they offered battle! By all the might of Poseidon, do you really expect us to face that? You have threatened us with desertion; you say, if we retreat, you and the Aeginians will sail away and found new cities in Magna Graecia.’ The Corinthian spread his arms. ‘Go, then. Betray Greece. We – the Achaeans, the men of Pelops – we are the real Greeks, anyway. We will hold at the isthmus. Even if Xerxes passes the wall, he will never take the Acrocorinth, never take Sparta, never survive the long march to reach Olympia. Who knows if the Great King will even pursue us? He promised to punish Athens, and he has done so.’ Adeimantus nodded. ‘Join us and retreat to the isthmus. When the Great King retreats, then perhaps you can found new cities, or creep back to the ruins of Athens. But I can tell you that we, the men of Pelops, are leaving. It would be foolish to stay, so far from the army.’

  ‘Where is the army?’ I asked. It was the first many men knew that I was there.

  Adeimantus looked puzzled. ‘How would I know?’

  I looked around and caught Lykon’s eye. ‘Was there an army at the isthmus when you left?’ I called loudly.

  Lykon shook his head vehemently. ‘No, Arimnestos,’ he called. ‘No army. Corinth has not even raised its phalanx yet. Men are still travelling home from the Olympics.’

  There was bitter laughter.

  ‘Listen, Adeimantus,’ I said. ‘I am the polemarch of Green Plataea, and my city is already destroyed, and yet I am here. Eurybiades swore that an army of the League would protect Boeotia, but no army came. Plataea, Hisiae, Thespiae – all burned. Attica is burning, and Corinth has not yet raised their phalanx.’ I put a hand to my beard, as if in puzzlement.

  ‘The only way the League can even resist right now is at sea. If we lose at sea, as has been said over and over, the Great King’s fleet will land wherever they please – from the vale of Olympia to the fields of Argos. And Adeimantus, we all know you speak only to inflame the men of the Peloponnese. I will not ask why you seek to persuade men to desert us. You claim that Athens threatens desertion while you yourself declare that you will desert! Black is white, and ­sophistry is the order of the day, I guess.’ I laughed. Men laughed with me. ‘But don’t take us for fools, Adeimantus. You say that only you Achaeans are Greeks? Not Alcaeus? Not Sappho? Not Hipponax? You mean that the men of Boeotia are not Greek? Hesiod is not Greek? Or do you mean that mighty Homer was not Greek?’ I spat. ‘You are a fool. I speak only for my few Plataeans, but I say – run away. This is men’s work, and when we have defeated the Great King, we will mock you until you die of shame.’

  He drew his sword – there, in the temple precinct.

  I stood with my arms by my sides.

  Eurybiades stepped between us, and the look he gave me was hard – a look of disappointment and even hatred.

  ‘I expected better of you, Plataean,’ he said. ‘High words and personal insult are not the way to sway a council.’

  I made myself exhale. ‘Are they not? I am only a Boeotian bumpkin. I only emulate my teachers.’ I pointed to Adeimantus.

  Men laughed, but the Spartan navarch was not amused. ‘We cannot fight at odds of worse than three to one,’ he said.

  Themistocles held his head high. ‘We can!’ he said.

  Cimon pushed forward. ‘We can,’ he insisted. ‘I can tell you how we can do it. By Poseidon, gentlemen, numbers mean nothing in narrow waters, you saw that at Artemisium. They fear us. Today we outfaced them with six ships against their nine hundred. Ask Arimnestos. We interfered with their launching – with six ships. They do not speak the same languages and half of them hate Persia more than we do. By the GODS! You beat them at Artemisium! Why do you fear them now!’

  ‘And you lost the man of justice, Aristides,’ Adeimantus spat. ‘Very convenient for your democrat here, who sent his worthy opponent to die.’

  ‘Aristides and his ship survived the encounter by the will of the gods,’ I shouted. ‘Even now his ship is beached on the north coast of Aegina, a few hours’ rowing away.’

  Adeimantus shook his head. ‘You are the democrat’s slave and will say anything for him,’ he spat. ‘But I say this: even if we fight this battle, even if we win, it is a foolish victory. A victory of rowers and slaves! What will we be then, when the hoplites are not men of valour, but the little men are? They will rise and take our cities and drive them to extinction for their own petty pleasures. That is what this man wants. Themistocles the democrat wants this war won by his little petty men so that he can be like a god among them. And if Aristides was here he would agree with me.’

  Themistocles all but exploded. ‘You – you!’ he roared. ‘You would rather be a slave of the Great King than see the little men do their share to earn victory? Where are your precious hoplites, Corinthian? Your noble Spartiates and the aristocrats of Thebes and Thespiae failed. King Leonidas died. Now the fate of Greece is in the hands of the oarsmen, the little men, and they will save us!’

  Eurybiades pulled the hem of his cloak over his head. As a Spartan he was insulted, desperately insulted, by Themistocles’ last words. He walked, alone, to the altar.

  I had time to think of the irony of it all, that in fact, Aristides did agree with Adeimantus about the role of the hoplites. And that Leonidas, had he been alive, would have agreed with Themistocles. They formed their conspiracy to save Greece on the notion that it would have many ugly turns and twists. Leonidas had a clear view of the end, I think.

  I had time to think these thoughts, and then Eurybiades turned, a grave figure, tall and strong, full of dignity.

  ‘We will retreat to the isthmus,’ he said. ‘It was always my intention. And without unity, we will only die here for nothing.’

  Adeimantus grinned.

  ‘Adeimantus has ordered all the Corinthian ships to gather on the western beaches,’ Lykon said. We were at Themistocles’ fire, in front of his pavilion, the beautiful tent that had got him in so much trouble after the last Olympics, where the Spartans won the chariot race with a little help from the Athenians. Themistocles’ tent was remarkable; dyed blue and red, with woven edges, internal hangings, toggles to hold the walls, it really was a thing of beauty. It was also probably very comfortable to live in. The problem was that it was much more lavish than the tents used by, say, the King of Sparta or the priests of Apollo, and so it was much remarked on.

  But he had good slaves and wine, and many stools – very elegant stools. Siccinius, Themistocles’ steward, poured us wine. Xanthippus was there, and Cimon, and some of the other Athenians; Idomeneus was there, and Lykon, but none of the Spartans.

  Themistocles sat back and blew out through his cheeks. ‘Aristides truly is alive?’ he asked.

  He was a man who lived in such an artificial world that he assumed the rest of us lied as easily as he did himself. Well.

  I nodded. ‘He is alive. I’m sure he’ll come tomorrow.’

  Themistocles shook his head. ‘I was a fool to speak ill of the King of Sparta, whom I too loved,’ he said.

  Cimon nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You lost Eurybiades there.’

  Themistocles all but glowed in the firelight and his eyes were wide – almost mad. ‘I’ll go to him and reason with him,’ he said. He leapt to his feet and all but ran into the darkness.

  Well, as I said, their tents were close together on the headland.

  I sipped my wine and thought, or rethought, many of the thoughts I’ve just related to you. Undying fame. Briseis. My house in Plataea. My son and my daughter, my future and the battle.

  Siccinius p
aused by me and poured. ‘May I ask my lord a question?’ he asked.

  Sycophantic slaves are annoying, but think of how hard it is to be them, eh? I have been. To always get the right tone – does this one want slavish manners or straight talk? How about this one?

  I tried not to snap at him. ‘Speak up,’ I said, or something equally surly. No man enjoys having his deep thoughts interrupted by a slave.

  ‘Do you truly speak Persian?’ he asked.

  ‘I do,’ I answered, in that language.

  ‘As do I,’ Siccinius said. ‘You led the embassy of the Greeks to Susa, did you not?’

  I was suddenly suspicious of this man, and suspicious that Themistocles had a Persian-speaking slave.

  Listen – Themistocles never wanted anything but his own glory. There were men among us who whispered that he would be perfectly content to lead the Athenian fleet into exile, because he would be the chief of it, and the lord of the new city. If you have been listening all these nights, you know that I think that most of the Athenians – certainly the whole current crop, Pericles included – would sell their own mothers to lord it as tyrant of Athens.

  At any rate, before I could question the man further, Themistocles returned from Eurybiades.

  ‘He refused to listen to me,’ he said.

  Cimon moaned.

  Themistocles pounded one fist into his other hand. ‘By the gods,’ he swore, ‘there must be another way.’

  Cimon looked up. ‘It is the curse of the gods on the Greeks,’ he said. ‘We can never be as one. We compete against each other in all things and we hate each other. We cannot unite.’

  ‘Think of Lade,’ I said. ‘We would have won there and saved all this fighting, had only the men of Samos not betrayed us.’

  ‘Think how often we were betrayed during the fighting in Ionia,’ Cimon said. ‘By my ancestor Ajax, my father was a pirate, but he kept his word better than many lords.’