by Gary Corby
“I hope that’s not your blood,” she said.
“Mine?” I looked down. I still wore the exomis I’d been wearing when I skidded through enemy blood. The lake water had spread the color everywhere until I looked like an axe murder victim. “No, I’m fine,” I said.
My mother took a bundle from Meren. She turned around to me and said, “Nicolaos, my son, I present to you your daughter.”
I had a daughter.
My mother handed me the bundle, and made sure my arms were in the right place to hold a baby.
My mother said the ritual words, “Do you accept this child?”
I looked down. The little girl in my arms looked up at me with big eyes, and I could have sworn she recognized her father. She was the spitting image of Diotima’s mother. That made the next bit easy. Diotima and I had already discussed what to name the baby if it was a girl.
I completed the ritual. I said, “I accept this child. I name her Euterpe, daughter of Nicolaos, daughter of Diotima, granddaughter of Euterpe and of Phaenarete.”
Then I leaned over, so that Diotima could see her baby. She struggled to sit up. Meren placed an old, dirty blanket behind Diotima’s back.
My mother had turned away from this scene. Then she turned back and repeated the ritual words, “I also present to you your son. Do you accept this child?”
Twins? Suddenly I felt faint.
“No wonder you were so tired,” I said to Diotima.
I tried to take hold of my son, discovered I didn’t know how to hold two babies at once, and passed little Euterpe to her mother.
I took my son in my arms.
“I accept this child,” I said. “I name him Sophroniscus, son of Nicolaos, grandson of Sophroniscus and of Pythax.”
Taking Leave
The next morning I went to see Karnon. Diotima didn’t come with me. She was busy, back in the cottage, exhausted, feeding our children and trying to get some sleep. Instead I was accompanied by my friend Damon.
Karnon was waiting in his home, with Marika and the boys. He no doubt expected the executioners to come some time during the day. After all, he had confessed in front of hundreds of people to the theft of state funds. Marika looked frankly terrified.
“I’m sorry about your friend Philipos,” were Karnon’s first words.
“So am I.”
The body had been discovered earlier in the morning, with more than a dozen wounds and numerous dead around him. Pericles had promised a state memorial. Philipos would be leaving us as a someone.
I said to Karnon. “I’ve come to let you know about your travel arrangements.”
“To Athens, for my trial?” he asked bitterly. “Why bother?”
“No, you’ll be going a different direction.”
I pulled out a scroll that I’d had hidden beneath my tunic. “I figure that a man who knows as much as you do about finance and owning mines must know something about estate management.”
“Perhaps,” Karnon said. “I’ve never tried.”
“Here is the deed of ownership for the estate in Kyzikos that Geros bought.” I held it out.
Karnon took it, with a bewildered look on his face.
“Kyzikos is behind the Persian border, beyond the reach of Athens,” I added helpfully.
Karnon’s face lit up with hope.
I said, “Damon has the island’s largest fishing boat waiting for you. On board you will find a chest with the ten talents that Geros had hidden in the graveyard. That should be more than enough to get you going as a major estate holder.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Karnon asked me.
I shrugged. “It’s less than Pericles was willing to pay in bribes to get the treasury.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ll want to avoid Mykonos on the way. It’s the first place Pericles will think to look. Damon says his men know some sneaky routes. There’s a risk here, Karnon. You’ll be carrying a lot of money.”
“We’ll manage,” he said it confidently, like his old self. Good.
“The boat will beach outside your house,” Damon said. “There might be problems if you’re seen in the village. It will be here any moment.”
I turned to speak directly to Marika. “How quickly can you be packed? You’ll need clothes for all weathers, good sandals if you have them, and a little food to get you started. You can buy the rest on the way. Oh, and whatever toys the boys own, I suppose. No more than a single chest.”
“I can be ready before you drink that wine,” she said.
“Go.”
Marika flew.
Karnon laughed. “I owe you my life, and the happiness of my family. How can I thank you for this?”
He probably thought it was a rhetorical question, but I had an answer. “By taking the blame for Geros’s killing.”
He looked at me quizzically, then at Damon, and then back to me. “That is more than a fair deal. Would you like a signed confession?”
That was an interesting idea, but, “It might look contrived,” I said. “A simple absconding felon should be sufficient.” I clasped his hands. “Good luck.”
I found Pericles in the home of Anaxinos, where a great deal of diplomacy was patching up certain embarrassing problems on both sides.
Pericles had something to say. “Anaxinos, I have thought much about the words you had for me, when you asked what my father would think of this situation. You are right. The treasury of the Delian League should remain on Delos.”
“On the contrary,” Anaxinos said. “I must insist that you take the treasury of the Delian League with you.”
“What?” Pericles was shocked.
“I find that the presence of the money here on Delos has had a . . .” Anaxinos seemed to struggle to find the right words. He finished with, “A lamentable influence on even the most holy. If even the finest priest can be corrupted, then what must this wealth be doing to my other people?”
“Great wealth can have that effect,” Pericles commiserated.
“I advise you to watch the people of Athens most closely, Pericles, lest they too allow themselves to love gold more than the gods.”
“I will keep it always in mind,” Pericles promised.
“Then I bid you leave, with the treasure, and a safe journey to you.”
“A very safe journey,” Pericles said. “Considering what we’ll be carrying.”
Pericles left, to take command of the greatest treasure in Hellas, wealth which would protect our land and our people.
“I congratulate you on your fatherhood, young man,” Anaxinos said to me.
“Thank you, sir,” I said, and I grinned like an idiot.
The High Priest of the Delian Apollo bade me sit and eat with him. I was more than happy to do so.
“I notice that Diotima managed to avoid giving birth on Delos,” Anaxinos said. “That was well done, though perhaps not quite so urgent considering the carnage in the sanctuary grounds.”
“Yes, I imagine you will have some purifications to perform,” I said.
Anaxinos sighed. “That is putting it mildly. We’ll be doing catharsis rituals for the rest of the year. Have you seen how much blood there is out there?”
“Yes sir.”
“Still, I admire a priestess who can stick to her duty in even the most dire circumstances. If you two are ever interested in moving to an island, let me know.”
“We’ll give it every consideration, sir.”
Anaxinos sipped his wine. “There is one theological issue that you and I need to address,” he said.
That surprised me. “Me, sir? I’m not very good with theology.”
“But you’re the man to speak to about this problem. You see, in her haste to avoid giving birth on holy Delos, your wife has managed to give birth on the precise spot whe
re the divine twins Apollo and Artemis entered the world.”
“Oh.” I think my face must have fallen at that.
“I believe Diotima is the first woman to give birth in that lake since Leto herself. Then there’s the minor detail that she birthed twins. How shall I put this? The theological implications are tricky.”
I started to sweat. I had no idea how I was going to fix this.
Anaxinos ate a fig while he thought about it. “Why don’t we try to forget it happened?” he suggested. “If anyone asks, your wife made it to one of the triremes and produced your children there.”
“An excellent idea, High Priest.”
I tried to go back to the cottage, only to be told firmly by my mother that my wife was sleeping. I tiptoed away to the only place I could think of: Apollo’s Rest. There I found Captain Semnos eating, drinking, and talking with Moira.
“Captain, your face!” I exclaimed.
“It’s nothing,” Semnos said proudly.
Running down the left side of Semnos’s face was a jagged scar, from the top of his jaw to his mouth.
“Got into a scuffle with a Persian officer with a decent blade,” Semnos explained. “But the man died for his pains.”
“Tough fight,” I said.
“My men gave as good as they got. One thing is for sure,” Captain Semnos said. “They won’t be calling the men of Paralos pretty boys any more.”
Semnos grinned, and suddenly his face was transformed. That scar should have disfigured any man. But on Semnos it made him look like the most daring and raffish of handsome pirate captains.
Every woman in Athens was going to feel faint when they saw that roguish face.
•••
A few days later it was time for my new family to leave sacred Delos. I went to thank Damon. He could have killed Diotima and me. Instead, he had done the honorable thing.
“Come back and see us some time,” Damon had said.
I laughed. “Not for a while. We’ll be busy. I can’t imagine traveling with babies.”
Damon grinned.
“I admire the work you Hyperboreans do,” I said, and shook his hand. “I hope the next Priest of the Gifts doesn’t steal them!”
“Haven’t you heard?” Damon said. “Anaxinos has assigned a new Priest of the Gift. Or Priestess, rather.”
“Oh?”
“It’s Meren,” Damon said.
I tried hard not to laugh. “That’s convenient,” I said.
“Very,” Damon agreed with a straight face.
THE END
Author’s Note
Welcome, Dear Reader, to the end of the book, and the start of the author’s note.
Here I’m going to talk about what’s real and what’s not in the story that you’ve just read. If you haven’t finished the book, turn to the front now, because everything from this point on is spoilers.
The holy isle of Delos, its sacred laws, the sanctuary, the temples, the priestly community, and the village are all real. Delos really was the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis in the belief of ancient peoples.
The Delian League was real, and so was its vast war fund. The infamous incident when Athens took the Delian Treasury is very real. It was a major turning point in history.
The mysterious people of Hyperborea, and the Hyperborean Gift are probably real (more on that later).
The fictional parts of this story are that there was a murder when Athens took the treasury, that there was a Phoenician raid, and that the Hyperboreans are hiding out on Delos.
You have just witnessed the birth of the short-lived but very important Athenian Empire. When Athens lifted the Delian Treasury, it became crystal clear that the Delian League—a collection of independent city-states joined together for mutual defense—had turned into a set of client states that had no choice but to go along with whatever Athens wanted.
The alliance of the Delian League was remarkably similar to the modern NATO. Both were designed to deal with a threat to Europe from the East. Both had the very latest in military technology. Both were (and are) unwieldy in their organization. Even their funding squabbles are the same.
The Delian League was founded twenty-five years before the time of this story. The member states contributed a kickstarter of 460 talents. We know that because it comes from a book called The Athenian Constitution, written by none other than the famous philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle says the member states appointed a well-respected man to decide the size of each city’s levy, based on how wealthy each was. They would have continued that funding level year after year. After twenty-five years, and taking into account some expenditure to run the combined navy, it makes a pool of four thousand talents look about right.
It’s known that some years after it was relocated to Athens the fund held between 4,000 to 6,000 talents. I have taken the low estimate to be the position when the money was held at Delos, and the high to be the peak position in Athens.
It’s a bit tricky to convert currency across two and a half thousand years, but if we assume the average wage in ancient Athens, and the modern working wage are equivalent, then four thousand talents comes to about three billion modern dollars. So at the end of the book, Nico and his friends are fighting to save a three-billion-dollar fund for the defense of their country.
Out of curiosity I looked up the annual budget of NATO, and was amazed to discover it’s a bit more than two billion euros. The similarity between the Delian and NATO budgets is remarkable. It goes to show what a significant organization the Delian League was.
The reason Athens offered for the removal of the treasury was precisely the one Pericles gives in the book: fear of a raid that could steal that enormous amount of money.
This excuse was greeted by the people then and by people today with complete cynicism; and yet, Pericles and Athens had a reasonable argument.
Raiders were a very real threat. The Athenians themselves had been raiding Persian-controlled cities along the coast of Asia Minor for decades. A typical Athenian raid comprised ten or twenty ships that could hit a city without warning, do damage, steal stuff, and get out before anyone could react. The Greeks deeply respected the ability of the sea-going Phoenicians, who they knew could return the favor at any moment. I put the Phoenician raid in the story to demonstrate how straightforward it would be. At a much later date, in 69 bc, Delos was almost wiped out by a pirate raid.
It’s worth noting that for the five years following this story, Athens used the “liberated” funds pretty much only for defense spending. To that extent their motives were honest.
Then, after forty-one years of conflict, Athens and Persia signed a non-aggression pact. The Athenians found a new use for the Delian Treasury. They misappropriated large amounts of it for public building in their own city, including the Parthenon.
Thus, the money that Nico and Diotima saved in this story is the same money that will be used ten years later to build the Parthenon. They have done the world a greater service than they could possibly know.
Pericles in this book has a very poor opinion of the decision-making abilities of the League. The real Pericles almost certainly thought the same. His actions alone tell us that, but he also once made a very revealing speech over a different matter.
At one point Sparta, Corinth, and a large number of other city-states formed an alliance against Athens. The Athenians went into a mild panic, but Pericles told them they had nothing to fear. His explanation tells us everything we need to know about how Pericles viewed management-by-committee. This is what he said about that alliance (from Thucydides, book 1, section 141, paraphrased for clarity):
They have no central authority to produce quick, decisive action. They have equal votes, they come from different nationalities, and every one of these is mostly concerned with its own interests—the usual result of which is that nothing gets done at
all, some being particularly anxious to avenge themselves on an enemy, and others no less anxious to avoid coming to any harm themselves. Only after long intervals do they meet together, and then they only devote a fraction of their time to their general interests, spending most of it on their own separate affairs. It never occurs to any of them that the apathy of one will damage the interests of all. Instead, each state thinks that the responsibility for its future belongs to someone else, and so, while everyone has the same idea privately, no one notices that from a general point of view things are going downhill.
Pericles was speaking of an enemy alliance, but I for one can hear with what heartfelt emotion he is really thinking about his own problems with the Delian League.
Thus Pericles is horrified when Anaxinos says he will call a meeting of the League to decide the fate of the treasury. Pericles can all too well imagine a meeting of 148 member states trying to decide anything.
Delos remained a sacred isle for many centuries, well into Roman times. This is very lovely for modern visitors, because the ruins are extensive and show all sorts of interesting architectural developments as the centuries passed. It’s a nightmare for me, because I have to subtract from site maps everything that wasn’t there in the time of Nico and Diotima.
Delos has no natural fresh water supply. Later settlers built a cistern system (which modern visitors can see). In Nico’s day, the availability of water put a limit on the size of the population. Nothing much grows on Delos. The island’s miserable soil is even mentioned in a poem by Homer.
The Porinos Naos is the oldest of the temples to Apollo. It was decommissioned and turned into the treasury for the Delian League.
I want to mention a few ruins, visible and famous today, that were not there for Nico and Diotima.
The theater that you can see today was built 150 years after Nico’s time.
I desperately wanted to include the two most famous statues on Delos, but alas they are dated to 300 bc, 150 years after this story. They are statues of two enormous phalluses, each on a pedestal. The phalluses were erected, so to speak, by a winner at the Great Dionysia, which was an arts festival held in Athens. My previous novel Death Ex Machina was set at a Great Dionysia. The erect parts have been snapped off both statues, which must have been painful, but the testicles are in good order. A surprising number of women like to be photographed standing beside them.