Salamis

by Christian Cameron

  My first wedding, to Euphonia, my beloved honey-haired girl, had included both the engagement and the wedding, but the final acts of the wedding had been somewhat lacklustre, as she had come over the mountains to Plataea and her family had not followed.

  As an aside, her father, Aleitus, was in Hermione and asked, with his beautiful manners, to be included in the wedding, as family. And of course, weddings were supposed to be for young people, not old men like me. I was about to turn thirty-six. Briseis was one year younger, an old matron of thirty-five with two grown sons.

  So I asked Aleitus to take the place of my father, and I asked Simonides and his boys to stand with me, alongside my friends.

  I need to mention that in one ceremony, I was to wed Briseis, Hector was to wed Iris, and Hipponax to wed Heliodora. I told my boys that they had to find their own chariots.

  Well.

  I remember little of that week in Hermione, except that it was beautiful. There were tears – we had a ceremony of remembrance for many who fell at Salamis, including Idomeneus. But for the most part, we had happy work and the memory of a great victory; we, as a people, had survived hardship, and we were unbowed. My ships rode at anchor or were overturned on the beach, and in fact, after we’d forged bronze tyres and sweated them over new-cut wheels (made by a professional, let me add) and cut and painted a magnificent Tyrian-dyed cover for the cab of the chariot, and gilded it, and reassembled the whole – after we’d done all that, and then repeated our triumph for Hector and for Hipponax – of course I helped them with their chariots! – then we bought a cargo of pinewood from Arcadia and we built ship sheds on the promontory below the temple and set our fighting ships to dry.

  On Hermoú, the day of the week named for Hermes, patron of the city, we went to the temple of Poseidon on the headland. The engyesis was a major event. Cleitus spoke at length, praising me – how he enjoyed that – and my son Hipponax. And Xanthippus – I must give the man his due – stood up for his daughter like a gentleman, and his wife Agariste, who quite clearly disapproved of whatever union had begot Iris, nonetheless did her proud, with linens and wools, a loom, and a fine wagonload of household goods. Xanthippus spoke eloquently about the need to rebuild in the aftermath of the war and that the rebuilding was beginning even then, in exile, in the Peloponnese.

  Aleitus, representing my father, and Simonides, gave speeches welcoming their family into ours, so to speak. Simonides even went so far as to make a joke about the destruction of our cities, and the houses to which these brides would be carried.

  Men laughed. That’s how confident we had become that we would triumph. It was funny: we were exiles, and our cities destroyed, our temples all thrown down. Our ships outside on the beaches of Pron and on the waves – our wooden walls – were all the fortune any of us had.

  The girls, Iris and Heliodora, both fifteen, and Briseis, at thirty-five still the most beautiful – wore veils of fine Egyptian linen in pure white and never pulled them back, although they were flimsy enough to see through. Briseis wore a fine chiton of dark blue, with a woven edge in a startling Persian pattern in red, white, and black, and she wore a chlamys across her shoulders leaving only the fine linen of her chiton exposed on one breast – an unheard of innovation in Hermione, I can tell you, and while the younger girls wore their peploi more modestly, every woman present was watching Briseis. Her Ionian fashion was both exotic and enticing and dignified. Nor did she wear the crown of a kore, but instead wore the headpiece of a priestess of Aphrodite.

  Heliodora, probably the richest girl, wore the plainest chiton in wool, with a magnificent embroidered border that I had no doubt she had done herself. She was that sort of person.

  Iris wore a vivid red peplos that had cost Xanthippus a fortune, because he was that sort of person. And libations were poured, hymns to Poseidon sung, and the girls went back to ‘their’ homes in a torchlit procession. All the women followed them – by prior arrangement they all shared a beautiful house overlooking the agora for that one night – and all the women went to a single party, while all the men went to the home of Aristides, which was ‘my’ house for the evening, and that of Hipponax and Hector.

  Very little was done the next day. I’ll leave you to imagine what kind of party we had – we, the victors of Salamis, with a whole town to supply our wine. It was there, on a kline with my ‘father’ Aleitus, that I heard the story, from him and from Aristides, of the storming of Psyttaleia, and a dozen other tales of the fighting that day.

  But the next day more ships entered the little harbour, and still more landed at Thermisia and on the beaches of Troezen north of us. Themistocles had taken Andros, or driven them to capitulate, or made a face-saving gesture towards victory (no one could quite tell me) and the sailing season was well and truly past. Winter was coming on.

  But the returning sailors, who included my friend Lykon of Corinth, and Ion and Moire, had news. They had scouted all the way to Skiathos opposite Thessaly, and Mardonius had taken Larissa, ejected its inhabitants despite their status as ‘allies’ and was wintering his horses in the green fields of the north.

  It sobered us. At first blush many men had been sure that the whole Persian host was fleeing and our work was done. But in fact, as Lykon attested, already Persian ambassadors were going out to every city, demanding earth and water before the next onslaught.

  We were far from despair, but we were thoughtful.

  On the day given to Aphrodite, in the last week of Pyanepsion, Gorgo came. Now, in truth, Sparta is not so very far from Hermione, as the city had cause to know all too well a hundred years before, but I had not expected her, a new widow, to come. And yet, when you consider how very hard she had worked for the League … and between Troezen and Hermione, we had most of the League’s captains.

  Pyanepsion! I’ve become an Athenian. And well I might – I’d been voted a citizen after Marathon; my sons were both made citizens, Iris was allowed to be a citizen by birth (essential if her children were to be citizens), and yet in poor old Boeotia, in Green Plataea of my youth, that late harvest month was called Pamboiotios, and it had some weeks left to run.

  Pardon me for once again wandering like a drunken shepherd, but I digress only to come to my point. It was in Hermione that week and that month, and not in Corinth, that the League began to look at the next step in the war.

  It was, I think, two days before my wedding. I was fighting my own black mood; I remember asking my daughter if Briseis was well, I was so sure that Apollo or some sly god would snatch her and my happiness from me.

  Euphonia put her arms around me. ‘She said the best thing,’ my daughter said. ‘She said she’d always wanted a daughter, and now she was getting a beautiful, talented girl without the pain of childbirth or the wakeful nights.’ Euphonia sat back. She was sitting by me in the garden of my borrowed house. ‘I thought to be offended, and then I thought that you, too, had me without the pain of bearing me or hearing me cry as a baby.’

  Penelope, who was living in my house, put a cup of wine in my hand. ‘You were the best baby,’ she said wistfully. ‘My sons were loud and demanding, and you were always sweet—’

  ‘I pulled your loom over when I was six,’ Euphonia said.

  There was a brief silence.

  ‘I thought Andronicus did that,’ Penelope said with that dangerous tone in her voice.

  I remember looking out from the little portico where we were sitting, and seeing the marvellous stars, thousands and thousands on a perfect autumn evening. I thought we were going to have a row, and I was willing myself away.

  But Pen just hugged my daughter. ‘Well, that loom is ashes now, my child,’ she said. To me, she said, ‘Your chosen wife gives more orders than any woman I’ve ever met. And spends more time on her appearance.’ She raised a hand to forestall my response. ‘Despite which, she is easy to like. Her clothes are going to cause a scandal in Athens, I promise you
– she all but wears one breast bare! We’ll all have to exercise like Spartans to support them, I do declare.’

  Pen, in fact, still had a fine figure, and ran for exercise, but I understood her comment.

  ‘Ionia is different,’ I said. ‘And she has led a different life from you.’

  Penelope sat and hugged her knees like a much younger woman. She looked at my daughter.

  ‘Oh, I see! Adult things. I know how babies happen!’ Euphonia said. She tossed her head and flounced off. ‘Perhaps I should attend the Queen of Sparta? She always speaks to me as if I am an adult!’

  I had grown wise enough as a parent to merely blow her a kiss.

  ‘She asked me,’ Penelope said. It was dark in our little porch with its beautiful columns and the fragrant garden. ‘She asked me how long I would wait to marry again.’

  I blinked.

  ‘She said did I really want to sleep alone? And I knew I did not. Oh, brother, is that treason?’ Penelope was suddenly crying and I wondered, guiltily, if it was my place to comfort those in need just that week. Brasidas – the strongest man I knew – and now my sister, who, with Jocasta, was my model of strong women.

  Yet, using silence to cover my confusion, I had to admit that ­loyalty to a dead partner could be very cold comfort. ‘I think you must do what seems best,’ I said.

  ‘That’s a cowardly answer,’ Penelope spat at me. ‘You mean I should do what is right? I’m asking you what is right!’

  In fact, she was asking my permission to find someone, or to leave off mourning eventually. I knew it. I bit my lip. She was my sister and I confess I saw no reason for her – or any man or woman – to spend what could be a long life, alone or with her sons.

  A voice floated out of the darkness. ‘My husband told me to find a good man and make strong sons, if he should die.’

  That was Gorgo’s voice, and she came up the smooth, ancient steps to our little portico. With her were two Thracian women and Bulis – but her being out in the darkness would still have been a scandal in Athens.

  In Hermione, though, there were no rules. I won’t belabour the point, but we were a nation at war; we knew we were riding the fell beast in a pause between two deadly engagements. Girls and boys flirted and even kissed and their elders winked at it. It was not like the Athens or Plataea of my youth.

  We all knew we were living on borrowed time, I think.

  At any rate, the Queen of Sparta, widowed in the same hour as my sister, came up the steps, and she and Bulis sat with us. Eugenios came and placed lit oil lamps on small tables, and cakes appeared. And more wine.

  But not before Gorgo said her piece.

  ‘I will always see Leonidas as a demigod,’ Gorgo said. She neither choked with emotion nor sounded happy. Her voice was neither flat nor full, but almost light in its delivery, like an oracle. ‘But I will never compare him to any man who follows him into my bed. What is, is.’ She smiled at Penelope, who came and embraced her.

  She looked at me. ‘We have all missed the Mysteries, have we not?’ she asked, by which she meant the Eleusinian Mysteries, which should have been celebrated the week of Salamis. And her statement, ‘what is, is’ is contained in the Mysteries, although I was not, at that time, an initiate.

  Bulis looked at me. I waved, and Eugenios put wine in his hand, and then another cup by the Queen.

  My daughter returned, looking smug. Behind her came Jocasta, pink by torchlight with embarrassment and secret joy at being out of her house after dark. And Aristides. And Brasidas joined us and sat close by Gorgo.

  ‘We meet in the darkness like conspirators,’ Bulis said.

  Gorgo spoke, again like an oracle. ‘In the darkness, we can all pretend we were never here,’ she said.

  Euphonia laughed and almost got sent to bed.

  I’d like to say that we then went on to solve the League’s problems, but mostly we sat and watched the stars and drank wine.

  Jocasta laughed softly. ‘I’ve always wondered what men do at parties.’

  Aristides laughed. ‘You have? Really, this is quite a bit better than most symposia. For one thing, Eugenios mixes wine better than any host I know, and for another, each of us thinks before we speak.’

  Jocasta leaned back so that her head rested on her husband’s ­shoulder. Even then, in the near dark and in the afterglow of a ­famous victory, Aristides looked shocked that his wife would touch him in public. It’s who he was.

  ‘The wine is going to my head,’ Jocasta said. ‘Tell me, men. Will we defeat the Great King?’

  I remember the silence. Far away, a cat yowled. Closer, there was the scent of the fig tree, like cinnamon and honey on the wind that rustled the branches to tell us that winter was coming.

  ‘You know that Mardonius has the army in Thessaly?’ I asked.

  Gorgo nodded, her profile sharp against the light of one of the oil lamps. ‘I know more than that,’ she said quietly. ‘I know from … a friend … that Mardonius, who, according to my source, seeks to be Great King himself, will seek to invade Attica again.’

  Jocasta moaned. We all sat up.

  ‘He believes that, even now, Athens can be destroyed so thorough­ly that her citizens will disperse or leave the League.’ She looked at Aristides. ‘And even now there are many in Sparta who speak of holding the isthmian wall at Corinth and leaving Boeotia and Attica to their fate.’

  Bulis nodded silently.

  ‘Most of the peers who wanted to save all Greece,’ he said, ‘died with the King.’

  We all sat silently and digested that.

  ‘Tomorrow I will meet Themistocles and escort him to Sparta,’ Gorgo said. ‘I hope that he, at least, as one of the architects of the Temple of Nike at Salamis, will help me to convince the ephors to march an army in the spring.’

  Brasidas laughed. ‘The architect of the Temple of Nike,’ he said. ‘Why do the Athenians think women cannot be orators? That’s a beautiful phrase.’

  Jocasta laughed. ‘You, Gorgo, were the architect of that victory. Themistocles was merely a stonemason.’

  The Spartan queen shook her head. ‘Too much praise is like too much wine. I must go to bed. But I will keep Themistocles waiting one more day – if it means I can attend a certain wedding.’

  She looked at my daughter – remember, we were guest friends, and my daughter had known her now for some years. ‘Sing us something, my child,’ she said. ‘We are old and silent.’

  Jocasta laughed again, she was becoming immodest, by her own lights. ‘Yes, what shall we sing?’ she asked. ‘I thought men sang at these parties.’

  Euphonia stood up and sang. But like most very young people, she sang to shock. And her voice was as beautiful as her mother’s had been.

  θέλουσα δ᾽ αὖ θέλουσαν ἁγνά μ᾽

  145ἐπιδέτω Διὸς κόρα,

  ἔχουσα σέμν᾽ ἐνώπι᾽ ἀσφαλῶς,

  παντὶ δὲ σθένει

  διωγμοῖς ἀσχαλῶσ᾽

  ἀδμήτας ἀδμήτα

  0ῥύσιος γενέσθω,

  σπέρμα σεμνᾶς μέγα ματρὸς

  εὐνὰς ἀνδρῶν, ἒ ἔ,

  ἄγαμον ἀδάματον ἐκφυγεῖν.

  And may Zeus’s pure daughter, she who holds securely the sacred wall, willingly, meeting my will, look upon me; and, grieved at our pursuit, come with all her might, a virgin to a virgin’s aid, to deliver me— That the mighty race of our honourable mother may escape the embrace of man (ah me), unwedded, unvanquished.

  Brasidas, who loved my daughter, laughed aloud.

  I sat up. ‘That is a song against marriage,’ I said.

  My daughter tossed her head. ‘It is a song we sing at Brauron, when we are little bears,’ she said. ‘Some of the prie
stesses say men have no purpose but to break us and marriage is to women what taming is to horses.’

  Gorgo forsook her mourning long enough to laugh her hearty, man’s laugh. ‘A fine song,’ she said. ‘I can see she is truly your daughter. But Euphonia, never let any child born of woman tell you that marriage breaks man or woman. Is all Greece stronger, or weaker, for the League we have made against the Persians?’

  ‘Stronger, of course,’ shot back my daughter.

  ‘So it is with marriage. Despite a thousand kinds of compromise, the result is stronger than either one was alone.’ She rose. Bulis rose with her like a shadow. She leaned over and kissed Jocasta. ‘I swear by Aphrodite I will not come as the Queen of Sparta,’ she whispered.

  ‘Thanks all the gods,’ Jocasta murmured. ‘I have enough troubles as it is.’

  Anyway, that’s all I remember of that evening. I think Gorgo had another meeting with Jocasta, but that’s for another story and another night.

  And then it was my wedding day.

  It was bright and sunny, not quite warm – almost perfect for wearing a heavy himation in public. I had a magnificent one, a length of fabric I’d taken – to be honest, Hector had done the taking – two days after the battle. It had probably been Artemisia’s and she had the best taste I knew of, except Briseis. It was Tyrian red, with tasselled ends and gold-tablet woven borders. I didn’t have a zone rich enough to wear with it, but Cimon did. It is amazing how, no matter how much you prepare, something is forgotten, and Cimon sent back to ‘his’ house, first for a zone of gold, and then for sandals – how on earth had I expected to be wed in my military ‘Spartan shoes’?

  His spare sandals were a rich white, so white I didn’t really know that leather could be so white. They had gold tassels and gold laces and, frankly, they looked ridiculous on my feet. Almost every toe I have has been broken, some four or five times. There are parts of me that are handsome still, and back then, at the height of my powers, I was accounted handsome, I think, but never for my feet.