The Athenian Women

by Alessandro Barbero

  “Grab her!” ordered Cratippus. Cimon turned around in search of help, but Argyrus, dazed with the wine, had curled up on the floor next to Glycera; he was gazing at the nude young woman with a smirk, and every so often he was pinching her. Cimon shrugged his shoulders. He was curious to see what his friend had in mind. He grabbed Charis by the hair and dragged her over to him.

  “In there.”

  They took her back to the room where Cratippus had raped her.

  “Down on the cushions again, just like before,” Cratippus ordered. Charis struggled to break free, but Cimon bent her over by force.

  “There! Now you’ll see,” said Cratippus, spreading her buttocks and moving the pestle closer.

  Charis started shouting.

  “What’s the matter? It’ll hurt at first, but then you’ll get over it,” said Cratippus.

  “Not there, not there!” Charis screamed.

  “What do you mean, not there? They do it to little boys, so you can take it too.”

  “What are you going to do to her?” Cimon asked, greedily.

  “I want to see if she has worms in her ass. Hold her good and tight.”

  Cimon looked at him with a smirk.

  “Well? What’s so funny?” Cratippus asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing!” Cimon assured him; but he wasn’t telling the truth. Cratippus was the only one among them who had been with a man, when they were younger. Cimon was too guarded, even though he’d never lacked for male suitors. As for Argyrus, he was ugly and his breath was foul. The man had been a friend of Cratippus’s father, and they used to frequent the same gymnasium: he was an athlete, and a famous one, who had competed at Olympia. At a certain point, the older athlete had fallen in love with the boy. He was always there at the gym to see him work out, and every day he brought him some little present. Eventually Cratippus let himself be kissed, and then he started paying visits to the man at his home. Cratippus’s father just laughed about it, and even Cratippus, as long as it lasted, had bragged about it; he spent his days at the gym, training and watching his lover train. Then the two of them would disappear somewhere, and Cratippus would stay out all night. It had ended the year before, when his whiskers had started to grow. Ever since, he’d been reluctant to speak of it. Cimon wondered what it must be like to be taken by a man. Sometimes, alone in bed, late at night, he’d think about it, and then his péos would get hard, unlike when he was with a woman.

  “It won’t go in, damn it,” Cimon said with growing irritation. He’d already spat on the pestle, but that wasn’t good enough. Charis was screaming in desperation and struggling to break free.

  “Do you have any oil anywhere?”

  “In the kitchen, I think.”

  Cratippus disappeared again.

  “Let me go, please let me go!” Charis begged. Cimon clamped down even harder on her wrists.

  “You wish!” he said, with hatred in his voice.

  Cratippus came back, he’d smeared the pestle with oil.

  “Now we’ll see!”

  But Charis was clamping down so hard that he couldn’t force it in.

  “Come on!” Cratippus said again, feverishly. Charis was kicking, with her little bare feet.

  “Hold still, you!” roared Cratippus, in a rage; and with the oil-smeared pestle he hit her hard over the head. Charis emitted only a small shriek, and then just stared, wide-eyed.

  “Am I going to have to kill you?” hissed Cratippus. Then Cimon let go of the young woman. As soon as Charis felt her hands released, she lifted them to her head. It was bleeding.

  “Well?” asked Cratippus, in surprise.

  “I’d say the time has come to kill them,” said Cimon, licking his chapped lips.

  Cratippus hesitated. But he immediately understood that this was out of character: he could hardly hesitate in front of these two. He needed to toss scruples to the wind.

  “You’re right,” he said slowly. “But we’re going to have to do it all together. We’re united in this venture.” Cimon snickered.

  “That’s right. Their blood will bond us together. I’ll go get Argyrus.”

  Cimon took a little while to help the other young man to his feet, and hauled him along behind him, staggering as he went. Glycera, tied hand and foot, half suffocated and swollen from her beating, didn’t react when they left her alone. Argyrus went into the room and saw Charis sitting on the cushions, stunned, with blood oozing down her face.

  “What are you going to do to her?” he stammered, gesturing at the young woman.

  “We’re going to kill her. Hold her still,” said Cratippus; and before Charis could understand and break free, he hit her in the head again. Charis screamed and shook, tried to get to her feet, but Cratippus grabbed her, dropping the pestle.

  “Now your turn.”

  Cimon picked up the pestle and hit her. He thought he’d hit her good and hard, but that must just have been his impression, and after all, the pestle was small: Charis screamed again and wriggled free. Now her face was a mask of blood.

  “Now it’s your turn!”

  Argyrus, too, hit her in the head, but without any real conviction. Charis went on screaming.

  “This’ll never kill her,” Cratippus panted as he struggled to hold her still. “We’d better drown her.”

  “There’s a jar of water in the kitchen,” Cimon said.

  “Come on, let’s drag her in there.”

  Just then they heard the rain start drumming on the roof tiles.

  “It’s started raining. I didn’t think it would,” said Cratippus, with indifference.

  “When we’re done, we can go outside and wash off,” laughed Cimon.

  21

  Covering their heads with their cloaks, Kritias, Euthydemus, and Eubulus left the theater. The slaves who had stood waiting for them outside took the cushions and tried to light their torches, but it was raining too hard, and they failed.

  “Listen, men, why don’t you come to my house? It’s not far from here, and we can drink and wait for it to stop raining,” Euthydemus suggested.

  The streets were thronged with people returning home, cursing the rain as they went, many of them carrying their sandals in their hands so the water wouldn’t ruin them.

  “The rabble is certainly out in full force tonight! Let us through!” cursed Euthydemus. Most of them, though, paid them no mind, and a few of them even retorted roughly.

  “Make way, make way!” the slaves kept crying.

  “Move over!” one man shot back, with a glare.

  “No, you move over!” Euthydemus retorted.

  “What if I don’t?”

  “Come on, drop it,” Polemon said to Thrasyllus, since it was Thrasyllus who had talked back.

  “No, are you kidding! Who do they think they are?”

  “Listen, fellow, get out of the street and let us through,” said Euthydemus again.

  “Why, what is this, do we have tyranny, now, in the city? People, are you going to let a freeman be treated this way?” Thrasyllus protested. Someone else who was hurrying past stopped, and a few other people started to come over. Euthydemus, his rage building, looked around in the darkness, the rain dripped down his neck, while his slaves, catching a whiff of an impending brawl, had taken a step backward. Kritias sighed: but why did he always have to find himself in this sort of situation? To everything there is a time and a season! The problem is that you really shouldn’t associate with imbeciles . . .

  “Calm down, nothing’s happening here,” he said.

  “Certainly, nothing,” Eubulus agreed, in a flat voice. The last thing we need is to get ourselves killed in the middle of the street!

  They each went their own way, muttering under their breath. The rain, which had lightened up for a moment, started beating down even heavier than before.

&nb
sp; “Wasn’t there a wine shop on this street?” asked Polemon after they’d wandered around for a while.

  “If you ask me, it’s around the corner,” said Thrasyllus, with a hopeful note in his voice. “There it is!”

  They walked under a wooden awning extending over the street and then down a few steps, and then they entered an establishment crowded with people.

  “Oh, how I love this!” sighed Thrasyllus in delight as soon as they had goblets in their hands, sniffing at the vapor that rose from the hot wine. On the fire chickpeas were roasting and acorns were being toasted, one only had to make one’s way through the crowd and help oneself.

  “Well, did you like it?”

  “And how!” said Polemon.

  “But didn’t you hear all the nonsense? How women could run things, and the wool and the oil!”

  Polemon started laughing.

  “Why, did that bother you?”

  “Of course it did! He says: the women! But all women are good for is to paint their faces, squander the good money you earn by the sweat of your brow! But there, instead: We, my dear husband, we know much more than you do! Come on now!”

  “You know,” said Polemon slowly, “one of the reasons I liked it is that it made me think about something I’d never considered before.”

  “What’s that? No, wait, you can tell me afterward!”

  A gap had opened in the crowd of customers, and Thrasyllus darted in adroitly, reached the hearth, and grabbed a handful of chickpeas.

  “Ouch, they’re hot! Well?”

  “And so it occurred to me that when we’re all together, we men, drinking and chatting, we often talk about women and what we say is exactly what you just said: that they don’t know how to keep their mouths shut, and never to tell a woman about your private business unless you want the whole city to know about it the next day, and that they’ll cry over a trifle, and that the only things they’re good for are to take to bed and to card and spin wool.”

  “Of course we do. So?”

  “So,” Polemon said, livening up, “it occurred to me that when they’re alone, without men, in their rooms, women must talk about us, too, and just try to imagine the things they say!”

  “Why, what do you expect them to say? They chatter like magpies, and even they don’t know what they’re saying,” Thrasyllus cut him off brusquely.

  “Fine, have it your way!” laughed Polemon. “But then there’s another thing that occurred to me, which is that he might be right about peace. Why can’t we make peace?”

  Thrasyllus choked on his wine.

  “In fact! It’s a good thing you reminded me! That’s the last thing we need, for people to let themselves be led by the nose like that, because they laughed and cried while they watched this comedy, and tomorrow who knows, someone actually might propose making peace at the assembly! But we’ve actually met the Spartans, you and me, not the ones with papier-mâché masks, the real ones!”

  “And wouldn’t it have been better if we’d never met them?” Polemon said softly.

  Thrasyllus hesitated, but it was stronger than him, he couldn’t give in.

  “The people who want peace are just traitors, enemies of the people. That’s the way I see it.”

  A man who was drinking nearby with his friends broke in.

  “Take it easy with your words!”

  “Why should I?” retorted Thrasyllus.

  “Calm down, buddy, don’t get worked up! I’m just saying that traitors aren’t the only ones who want peace. Take a look at me. I’m from Decelea, and I haven’t seen my own home for the past two years, because that’s where the Spartans live now.”

  “Exactly!” Thrasyllus insisted. “And you’re talking about making peace with them?”

  The other man shrugged.

  “I don’t know about that. Every day I hear the heads of the party say the same things at the assembly, that we can’t make peace, that it would only please the rich and powerful, as a way to crush the common folk underfoot. Maybe that’s true. Still, every once in a while I think about how nice it would be to go home, take up my plow, and see the fig tree again that I planted as a young man.”

  “You can kiss the fig tree goodbye, those guys will have already chopped it down,” Thrasyllus grunted.

  “I haven’t made wine for two years now, I haven’t picked blueberries,” the other man went on, ignoring him; it was clear that he’d already had too much to drink. “To sleep in the afternoon by the well, with the wasps buzzing in the grape arbor!”

  “And for the pergola you’re willing to betray the city?” Thrasyllus asked, turning vicious.

  “What betrayal are you talking about? Go easy with the words you use! We’ve already heard more than enough words, ever since we’ve come to the city as refugees! At first we believed the words we heard: we’re only thinking about you, they said in the assembly. Sure, go ahead and believe it if you like! We didn’t notice a thing, we just followed along with the ones who knew how to speak beautifully: we’d lost everything! They bought us and sold us, and we were always there voting in favor. We swallowed it all, and now we’re starving, and those guys got rich!”

  Thrasyllus was about to lose his patience, but Polemon intervened.

  “This evening, it occurred to me too that it might be possible to talk about peace, without necessarily crying treason.”

  Thrasyllus shook his head, unhappily, and went to take a drink, but found his cup was empty. He looked down into his lap: he’d finished the chickpeas.

  “I’m going to get some more,” he said, and left.

  “Anyway, this Aristophanes is amazing,” the guy from Decelea went on. “And he pulls no punches, does he!”

  “Still, it’s complicated, none of it’s clear!” another man objected.

  Polemon thought it over.

  “I found it challenging here and there. Still, though, isn’t it better than those comedies where everybody farts and they all beat each other up, just to make us laugh? How many times have we seen the runaway slave, the master chasing him with his cane, and then in the next scene another slave mocking him because of the beating the master’s given him?”

  “Ah, but are you still talking about Aristophanes?” Thrasyllus butted in, returning with the wine. “I’m sorry, but you’re not going to change my mind about him. That guy just kisses the asses of the rich and the powerful.”

  “Oh, come on!” Polemon rebelled. “It’s not true, and I’ll prove it to you. How many times do they mock the poor in comedies, how many wisecracks have you already heard about rags, and lice, and starving to death? They even depict Herakles as a miserable pauper, a scrounger, just to get laughs. But Aristophanes never did. He mocks the heads of the party, but aren’t they the rich and powerful themselves?”

  “I say he’ll win,” said the guy from Decelea, who had had even more to drink. “I’d like to see them give the prize to anyone else. The judges better be careful.”

  Polemon shrugged his shoulders.

  “Well, we’ll need to see what they stage tomorrow and the day after. His rivals are really good, too.”

  The man from Decelea grew irritated.

  “What rivals! A bunch of midgets, little goat turds! I say that Aristophanes is the one who should win, and that we should make peace!”

  “Sure, that way the knights really will invite the Spartans to banquet in the Acropolis! Then, so long, democracy!” Thrasyllus shot back fiercely.

  Polemon thought it over.

  “You know, I was thinking about that, too. That if we keep this war up for too long, we’re the ones who’ll wind up paying. People are just growing poorer and more tired with every day that passes. And at that point, it won’t be the women, it’ll be the knights, like you say, and they might wind up occupying the Acropolis, and the people won’t have the strength to resist.”r />
  “Like the old men?” Thrasyllus understood.

  “Like the old men,” Polemon nodded. “If we’re not able to bring the young men back home, then yes, it’s democracy that’s at risk. Who’s going to defend our daughters now? The old women? Those are things that sound good in a comedy.”

  22

  As the first drops of rain began to fall, Atheas grew annoyed. He had seen some flashes of lighting on the horizon, and had assumed there must be a rainstorm out over the sea, but then the wind had grown colder, and, now, behold, it was raining. Atheas had been a policeman practically all his life, and he was accustomed to obeying orders, sitting in one place all night long without knowing why, even in the pouring rain if necessary; he’d advanced his career, and now he gave orders to others, but he was still a municipal slave after all, it was his to obey and not ask why. But when he was working on his own, it was quite another matter. Grumbling, he got to his feet. He went out out into the open and the rain hit him full force, sifting through the branches of the olive trees. There was no need to stay here. I might just as well go wait for the customer at home, he thought to himself. Maybe the young woman will even open the door to me! Cheered by that idea, he walked out onto the road and in just a few short steps, he had reached Thrasyllus’s house.

  The dog on the chain awoke growling, leapt to its feet, and started barking furiously. Atheas waited, but there came no sign of life from inside the house. It was all shut up tight, barred and silent: no doubt about it, the young woman had gone to sleep. There was no smoke billowing from the roof, as there is when the embers have been covered. Atheas considered the advisability of knocking at the door, as if he were some chance traveler caught out in the open by the storm; but then what if the young woman started screaming? The rain was coming down harder and harder now, a genuine cloudburst, like the kind of thunderstorms you got in midsummer. The dog barked furiously, with hackles raised, jerking at the chain. What a shitty situation, the man thought, disgruntled. He was drenched and he was getting cold, and hungry too. He cursed elaborately in his own language: the Scythian dialects were rich in curses addressed to all the gods, their own and those of other peoples. Then he decided there was only one way to get under cover and stay dry: he’d go to the house of the man who had hired him. There he wouldn’t have to offer any explanations, after all, the servants knew him. And anyway, as long as it was raining this hard, the guy he was supposed to take care of wasn’t going to set out on the road. As soon as it stops raining, I’ll head back out, he decided; and he hurried through the olive trees toward Eubulus’s house.