The Athenian Women

by Alessandro Barbero

  Aristophanes had been staging comedies for fifteen years now, always working to give a voice to those in Athens who were sick and tired of the war.

  “Of course not! And what are you going to talk about instead, cuckolded husbands and slaves who pilfer from the pantry?” Aristophanes retorted. “But now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

  The two rivals remained to watch him leave, and then they bade each other farewell without excessive warmth, and each of them went their own way. They’d known each other all their lives, they’d grown up together, but this competition was too important: there’s no friendship that can withstand the pressure when people start elbowing to get the chorus assigned to them, and when the time comes to go onstage, the smiles and handshakes are strictly for show, and only the naïve believe otherwise.

  In the open space in front of the sanctuary of Dionysus the crowd was so dense that it was practically impossible to move. Hanging in the air was the delicious smell of the flesh of the sacrificial victims that had just finished roasting, but in the midst of the crowd the strongest smell was that of breath redolent with wine: they’d all started drinking early that morning, with the first offerings to the god made just after rising from bed. Most of the people, after the procession, had stopped next to the entrance to the theater in order to make sure they got the best seats available, and in order to warm up they’d continued drinking as they stood there, gulping from their wine gourds, and some of them even from wineskins, filled to bursting with a view to a long day out. There were few women; a few especially brazen ones, well known in the city, were there without veils, drinking and bantering with the men as if they were one of them; a few immigrants, unacquainted with local customs, had brought their wives, and now regretted it. In a crowd, it’s well known that people will pinch your buttocks as if it were the most natural thing in the world, unseen and unacknowledged, and there are respectable citizens who will whisper certain unrepeatable things in your ears, and then turn away and pretend nothing has happened.

  The war orphans, who had led the procession as they did every year, were running from the pedagogues who were trying to round them up: a crowd of children of all ages, dressed in white, with ivy garlands knocked askew by rough play. The young women who had carried the baskets for the sacrifice were all gathered under the portico to gossip; some of them had already taken off their necklaces of dried figs, in spite of the blistering glares from their fathers.

  Thrasyllus was scanning the crowd in search of his daughter Glycera. He’d turned away for a moment—just one moment!—to talk to an acquaintance who wanted him to taste his wine; and now who knows where she had got to, worse than a magpie. A slave was pushing his way through the crowd, carrying an impressive figwood phallus under one arm; he slammed into Thrasyllus without even stopping to apologize. There’s just no respect for the elderly anymore, thought Thrasyllus with some irritation. He was reminded of the days when he too still owned a slave and had him carry a phallus at the festival, and felt a sudden stab sense of melancholy; now that he no longer had anyone to help him, he chose to leave his phallus at home in the storeroom. These days there were some who, for lack of a better solution, actually had the young women carry them along with the basket of sacrificial offerings, but these were newfangled notions he disapproved of. At last he identified his daughter, in the midst of a knot of other young women.

  “So here you are! Don’t you think it’s time to go home?”

  “But Papa! It’s still early!” Glycera protested.

  “Don’t tell me it’s early! Before long, the doors of the theater will be opening. Now you go straight home, and don’t stop to talk to anyone, understood?” Glycera gave in more easily than usual; Thrasyllus noticed it, but he didn’t stop to wonder why. So much the better, it happened so rarely!

  “I’m going, Papa. You have everything?”

  Thrasyllus checked: his wine gourd hanging from his chest, his bundle with bread, onions, and a piece of the hen that he’d sacrificed a short while ago, cooked on the grill and still warm. He had enough to make it through the evening.

  “I have everything I need, you can go. Will you walk with Charis?”

  Glycera looked around.

  “I’ll go find her now.”

  “Don’t dawdle and stay out late, get straight home!”

  “Yes, Papa!” the young woman sighed.

  Thrasyllus kissed her and she went back to the little knot of girls she’d stepped away from.

  Not far away, at the corner of the portico, Eubulus touched the shoulder of a stocky barefoot man, who was looking up into the sky with a blade of straw in his mouth.

  “That’s him,” he told him. “The one with the limp arm, you see him?”

  The man spit out the blade of straw.

  “I don’t have any problems with my eyes. I see him,” he said, with a thick barbarian accent.

  Eubulus turned his gaze away. That man always gave him the shivers. Was it because of his eyes? Looking at him, he could tell immediately that something was off. Then he understood: the man had one brown eye and one blue one, like a demon. It might not be the man’s fault, but it gave him a sense of uneasiness all the same.

  The man curled his lip, like someone thinking hard.

  “Listen, is the one he just hugged his daughter?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then you know what I do? I follow her. She goes home for sure, no? And tonight he follow same path. I follow her and I find right place.”

  Eubulus shrugged.

  “All right, you’re the artist.”

  The man laughed and set off, because Glycera had finally found Charis and now both young women were walking away, casting a regretful glance back at the plaza full of people.

  Eubulus called him back.

  “Listen, Atheas!”

  The foreigner stopped.

  “A clean job, did I make myself clear? No witnesses.”

  The man sighed. Clients, they’re all the same, as if he didn’t know his business.

  “Don’t worry. I always do clean job.”

  In front of Eubulus’s city house, the neighbor’s wife was letting her little boy play. He was four or five years old, and he still lisped. He was pulling a little wooden cart painted red, and every so often he’d stop to gaze at it in enchantment, incredulous at the fact that he actually possessed this marvel that had fallen from the heavens. For the first time in his life, that concept his father and mother talked to him so much about, something he’d never been able to conceive of—the gods—began to have some meaning.

  “His father acts all gruff, but he has a heart of gold,” said the mother, who was a good woman, though nothing to look at. “The other day at the market there was a man selling toys, and his father stopped and bought it for him on the spot.”

  Andromache was listening with a lump in her throat. By now her son must be full grown, but this is how she still remembered him, curly haired, only able to say a few words: Papa, Mama.

  “That’s the way he is. If you contradict him, he’ll start shouting right away, but if you approach him the right way, he’s good as gold. Just like all men,” the neighbor’s wife went on.

  The little boy stopped right in front of Andromache and solemnly showed her his cart.

  “You thee? It’th my cart!” he declared.

  “Yes, sweetheart, it’s your cart,” Andromache agreed; and she kneeled down to stroke his sticky curls.

  When Cimon arrived, that’s how he saw her, crouched down to listen to the little boy. Next to her, that idiot neighbor woman: both of them wasting time.

  “Get inside,” he ordered Andromache. “Make me something to eat, I’m going to the country.” And since the woman, caught off guard, was having difficulty getting to her feet, he gave her a light kick with the toe of his sandal.

  “Well? A
re you going to stop worrying about little kids? By now, your little boy has been eaten by ants,” he hissed, in a whisper so the neighbor woman wouldn’t hear him.

  Andromache turned pale, and vanished into the house. The little boy sat there, eyes wide, baffled.

  “Come here, come to your mama,” his mother called. “Come on, let’s go back in the house.”

  Cimon strode into the atrium and took off his sandals, tossing them into a corner.

  “Boys!” he called out. “I need one to come with me to the country.”

  A grey-haired slave came out of the kitchen, hastily gulping down whatever he’d been chewing.

  “Shall I come, master?”

  Cimon nodded, impatiently.

  “Go to Andromache, help her to pack. And get moving, I’m in a hurry.”

  When the old man reappeared, with a bundle slung over his shoulder, Cimon had already changed out of his procession garments and was waiting impatiently.

  “Come on, youngster, it’s getting late.”

  The slave made a face as if to say: here I am, what else do you want?

  Andromache came to shut the door behind them. She could still feel herself churning at Cimon’s words, and since no one was watching her, she didn’t bother to conceal the hatred she felt. But it wasn’t just the young man’s gratuitous cruelty that had stuck her, that was far too familiar. There was something strange about Cimon that day, a repressed excitement that could be detected in every aspect of his behavior, and which Andromache was unable to explain to herself. Perplexed, she watched him stride off briskly, followed by the hobbling slave.

  The first thing they did was to swing by Argyrus’s house. He was the least experienced of the three, the pimpliest and the only one who hadn’t yet developed even a bit of facial hair, but it never would have occurred to Cimon not to summon him. The three of us, he thought proudly, we are the inseparable ones. We’ll be inseparable even when we’re grown up. If it goes the way our fathers hope, we’ll inherit a city to command: we, the best ones. Cimon like to fantasize about that: the three of us in power. We will show pity to no one. Everyone will snap to attention.

  “Now to Cratippus’s house,” said Cimon, after giving his friend a hug.

  Argyrus remembered something.

  “Wait! He told me he wasn’t going back to his house. He was planning to place some bets on the cockfight, at the Kerameikos. He says to look for him there.”

  In the courtyard of a shop in the Kerameikos, the most popular cockfights in the city were held. Lots of money changed hands there, but the proprietor had a sufficiently sinister reputation to ensure that nobody tried any monkey business. Already at this distance they could hear the cries of the spectators. A knot of people crowded the entrance: a festival day, there wasn’t room for the eager crowd.

  “I’ll go,” said Cimon, “you wait for me here.”

  Pushing his way through the shop he emerged into the courtyard. There, around a broad patch of dirt, at least fifty men were sitting or squatting on their heels. Cratippus was in the front row, biting his lips in his excitement. The two competitors, in the middle, were smoothing their roosters’ feathers. The proprietor of the shop was the only one standing.

  “Silence!” he shouted repeatedly. “Now then, the black against the red. Who’s in?” The spectators started raising their voices, extending fingers and calling their bets; the proprietor, impassive, nodded to each of them, one after the other.

  A boy raised his finger: “An obol on the red!”

  The man stopped to look at him.

  “Let’s see it.”

  The boy spit into the palm of his hand the coin he’d been holding in his mouth and held it up, with an aloof expression.

  “All right,” said the proprietor. “Who else?”

  “A drachma on the black,” said Cratippus.

  A buzz ran through the onlookers, that was a large wager. “All right,” the man registered the bet, expressionless. He was so fat that his eyes were half closed. “No one else? Then let’s go.”

  The circle of spectators fell silent. The two breeders picked up their roosters and approached each other. The fowl grew agitated and uneasy. The breeders got close enough to let the roosters peck at each other, then they moved apart again. The roosters held in midair grew increasingly upset, squawking and ruffling their neck plumage. The breeders set them down on the ground face-to-face, holding them back by their tail feathers. The birds flapped their wings and squawked, trying to lash out at each other. Then they were released. The people waited with bated breath. For an instant, the roosters disappointed them: they stood there motionless as if they didn’t know what to do, and one of them even turned and pecked at something in the dirt. The crowd laughed, a few ironic words of encouragement flew, along with an insult or two. Then, without warning, the two birds fluttered at each other, necks puffed out, feathers ruffled, combs erect. Now people were shouting without restraint. The roosters slammed into each other in midair once, twice, then one fell to the ground awkwardly, streaking the sand with blood. The other rooster managed to attack his fallen foe once more before the breeders could intervene to separate them. The whole crowd was on its feet now, some laughing and others cursing.

  “The black wins,” said the proprietor, with complete indifference. He moved through the crowd, collecting and paying. When he reached Cratippus he had to stop to reckon, before placing in his hand a drachma in small change.

  “Shall we go?” asked Cimon.

  “Let’s go, I’m done here,” Cratippus agreed. The people were starting to drift away, there was plenty of time to go get a drink before the next fight.

  As they were leaving, a group of young women lured by curiosity emerged from the shop into the courtyard. They crowded around the caged roosters, their exclamations a mixture of excitement and repugnance.

  “Poor things!”

  They were dressed to the nines, their hair tucked up in colorful nets, and it was only their accents that gave away their status as slave girls or immigrants.

  The young woman who had been the first to go over to the cage suddenly made eye contact with Cratippus and turned pale. Cratippus continued to stare at her insolently. The young woman lowered her gaze and bit her lip.

  “Who is that?” asked Cimon as they walked off. With satisfaction, Cratippus puffed up like a rooster himself.

  “She’s Strymodorus’s slave girl. You know him, don’t you? He lives near me. One time I ran into her on Mount Phelleus stealing firewood; the forest there belongs to us. I threw her on the ground and had my way with her. She never dared to say a word: she’d been stealing!”

  Cimon, not for the first time, envied Cratippus his good fortune. I’ve never had such an opportunity, he thought, excited and annoyed. Then it occurred to him that perhaps it was all bragging. Cratippus had a habit of telling stories about adventures that no one had any way of checking out. Cimon felt better. Maybe it really was all idle boasting, he thought. Today, though, we’re all together. Today we’ll see who’s the real tough guy.

  “These two young women who are coming over later,” Cratippus inquired, as if he’d followed his thoughts, “whose daughters are they?”

  “The daughters of two fleabags. I don’t even know them,” Cimon replied, with a great show of indifference.

  “I know the kind you’re talking about. The kind that would have long since starved to death if they didn’t have their stipends.”

  “My father says that they’ll strip them of their stipends.”

  “And so they should! It’s a disgrace, to feed all those freeloaders with our money!”

  “It won’t be easy to get the law passed,” Argyrus objected, just so he’d have something to say.

  “My father says it won’t be difficult at all. The party is all ready, fully organized. They’ll manipulate the assembly as they please
,” retorted Cimon.

  “What do you think about it, Davos?” Cratippus broke in mockingly, addressing the slave who was carrying their bags. “Will our side succeed in getting rid of this filthy blight of democracy?”

  The old man cleared his throat and spat.

  “How would I know? That’s your business, not mine. Do as you please, just don’t try to drag old Davos into these matters; the business of free men is none of my concern.”

  “Good job, Davos!” laughed Cratippus.

  In the meantime, they had exited by the Dipylon Gate and were venturing into the countryside. There was a smell of smoke: someone was burning stubble in a field. The cobbled road was slippery with mud, after all the rain in the previous days. Wrapped tight in their cloaks, they studied the sky. Far off, beyond the city, Mount Lykabettos was clearly visible, shrouded in thin banks of fog, a sign that today there would be no more rain.

  “It’s strange how it never rains for the festival of the Wine Press,” Cimon commented.

  “It’s the god who’s lending a hand,” said Cratippus, ironically. “He doesn’t like water.”

  Andromache finished sweeping the hearth, carrying the ashes outdoors, and scrubbing the floor where the masters had thrown the scraps from their meal to the dogs. She got back to her feet with considerable effort: that day she felt strangely low on energy. She looked around wondering what else she ought to do now. There was no one left in the big house, nothing but silence in the many rooms, only the monkey in its cage was leaping and calling out: a recent acquisition, not yet tamed. Andromache thought about how the monkey would dirty the house, once it was let loose. Her head was spinning a little: she decided to get a moment’s rest and sat down on the hearth. Early that morning the place had been full of people, Eubulus’s friends had come by to take him to the procession, they’d eaten and drank, laughed and bantered, looking at the monkey and pushing bits of bread through the bars while the dogs snarled and gnashed their teeth, suspicious of that unfamiliar beast. Eubulus had boasted of the price he’d paid for it . . .