Shadows of Athens

by J M Alvey

  Nymenios was fawning over Melina. Wine always makes him amorous. Chairephanes was happily playing with our young nephews and our little niece. I managed to turn Mother’s thoughts to the prospects of him marrying Glykera and blessing the family with more grandchildren. That put an end to any awkward questions.

  I was glad of it. The less anyone hereabouts knew of my dealings with the Carians, the safer everybody would be. I didn’t want doorstep chit-chat carrying gossip to the neighbours. Rumours could float away on the breeze until word reached whoever was behind this business. I couldn’t swear the kitchen girls or the workshop slaves to secrecy. Nymenios is head of this household, not me.

  I made my excuses as soon as I decently could, walking home fast through the fading daylight, eager to see Zosime. Now that Aristarchos had taken charge of the Pargasarenes, my only concern was my play. I could put everything behind me and look forward to seeing my comedy performed in the world’s greatest city’s theatre.

  My good mood lasted as far as my own door. Even in the swiftly fading daylight, I could see that someone had painted a foul accusation along our outside wall in bold, black letters as big as my hand.

  Philocles spreads his arse cheeks for any Persian who wants to bugger him.

  Chapter Twelve

  For the benefit of anyone passing who couldn’t read Greek, whoever had come all this way to insult me had also painted a crude rear view of a man leaning forward. His hands were clasping his buttocks, all the better to show the world his gaping arsehole, with cock and balls dangling below.

  I stood there for a long moment, struggling to believe my own eyes. Then I managed to swallow the rage choking me long enough to hammer on the gate. Kadous opened up with a cudgel in his fist, scowling like an avenging Titan.

  Lowering the weapon, the slave looked stricken. ‘Philocles—’

  ‘When was this done?’ I snarled.

  ‘The paint was nearly dry when I got back here.’ Kadous gripped his olive-wood club so hard that his knuckles showed white. ‘Zosime—’

  I pushed past him. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I’m all right.’ She came out of the house. ‘It was done before Dad and I got back.’

  Speechless, I wrapped my arms around her. Despite her calm words, I felt her trembling. Acid fury burned my throat. ‘We’ll find the bastards who did this.’

  Fine words, but if this were a comic play, some character would promptly tap on my shoulder to ask, ‘And how will you do that exactly? What will you do to him then?’

  I had no idea. Real life doesn’t have helpful answers turning up just when you need them.

  A voice called out in the street. ‘Hallo within!’

  ‘Menkaure.’ As I greeted him, my heart was sinking. We’d arranged to meet at the theatre after the choir competition, but I’d been nowhere to be found. Chairephanes had assured me he’d seen Zosime into her father’s care but, if the Egyptian didn’t think I could keep his beloved daughter safe from vile insults or worse, I hated to think what he would do. I could hardly protest if he insisted she went back to his lodgings.

  As he entered the courtyard, Menkaure held up an oil jar he’d got from somewhere. I caught a powerful aroma, reminiscent of the resin that seals the insides of wine amphorae.

  ‘Terebinth. This’ll shift it.’

  ‘Thank you. Kadous! Find some scrubbing brushes!’

  ‘Let me.’ Zosime pulled free of my arms and headed for the storeroom.

  I looked at her father, apprehensive.

  He cocked his head. ‘You don’t think I believe this nonsense?’

  ‘What? No.’ That wasn’t bothering me. Not that he’d think I was a Persian sympathiser, or that he’d have any concerns if he thought I’d ever had a male lover. Egyptians are as sensible as Hellenes, not inclined to the peculiar outrage you hear of among northern barbarians. They know it’s no one else’s business if young men training together become lovers or those on a military campaign share some comfort beneath their blankets.

  If that proves to be a man’s lifelong preference, so be it. Most will still meet their obligations to their families by taking a wife to bear children. A man’s choices to satisfy his appetites only become an issue if self-indulgence sees him neglect his duties as a citizen.

  That was the point of this insult of course. Likening me to the wretched boy whores in their one-room hovels in the Kerameikos District. The wastrels renting out their bodies after they’ve squandered their inheritance, disgraced themselves through cowardice in battle, or been thrown onto the streets by their family for some other shameful deed. How dare they, whoever had done this?

  Zosime reappeared with some old brushes and her father soaked them with the pungent liquid. Heading out into the lane, I scrubbed that obscene picture so hard that my bruised arms ached. To help me ignore the terebinth’s vicious sting on my grazed knuckles, I imagined I was scouring the flesh off the face of whoever had painted it.

  My anger faded along with the daylight and I was forced to consider who might be responsible. Someone had been stirring up Persian prejudice in the agora, after all. If they thought I was an ally of those Carians, they might well attempt to discredit me. How much further would they go?

  ‘Scrub any harder and you’ll be shifting bricks.’ Menkaure worked steadily beside me, obliterating the raggedly daubed letters. Kadous attacked the obscenities further along.

  ‘You had better take Zosime home with you tonight,’ I said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Why?’ The Egyptian stepped back to assess his progress.

  ‘No.’ She was standing in the gateway.

  ‘I have to know you’re safe.’ I looked at her father, expecting his agreement.

  ‘It’s better for me to stay here tonight,’ Menkaure countered. ‘If whoever did this comes back, there’ll be three of us to tackle them. You, me and Kadous. Not that I think they will,’ he assured Zosime.

  ‘Then I’ll be perfectly safe.’ She folded her arms. ‘And tomorrow, we’ll all be going to see your play. There’s nothing to fret about.’

  True enough. What I’d said was as true for Zosime, Menkaure and Kadous as it was for the Pargasarenes. No one would attack them in the theatre.

  She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘What’s going on?’

  Menkaure saved me from having to answer. ‘I wonder when this happened.’ He turned to Kadous. ‘You said the paint was nearly dry? Was it tacky to the touch or still wet enough to coat a fingertip?’

  The Phrygian gave it some thought. ‘Wet enough for me to draw a line in it.’

  ‘Painted not long before we got here then.’ Menkaure shrugged. ‘For whatever that might be worth.’

  So this had happened after the fracas in the agora.

  Kadous stepped back from his labours. ‘I reckon we could try washing this down now.’

  ‘I’ll get some buckets.’ Zosime disappeared into the courtyard.

  As she headed for the fountain, flanked by Kadous and Menkaure, I looked up and down the lane, wondering which of our neighbours had already seen the insult. At least we lived on an out-of-the-way street, well away from the city’s thoroughfares. But Sosistratos’s sons would think it was a fine joke if they’d wandered past before I got home. They’d share it with their loose-lipped drinking friends before the night was over. It could be all over the city before the end of the festival. It might even reach the ears of the judges who’d be giving their verdict on my play tomorrow. Once Rumour takes wing there’s no calling her back.

  What about after the Dionysia? People wanting a speech or a eulogy have plenty of other scriveners and poets to choose from, all sitting hopefully in the Painted Colonnade. My livelihood would be hit hard if murmurs about my supposed Persian sympathies spread. There’s not a family in the city, or beyond the walls out in Attica, who doesn’t have good cause to fear and hate them. The
same is true for all the islands overrun by the Medes in the past fifty or sixty years.

  Even if we haven’t clashed in battle since my father carried his spear as a hoplite, Persian intrigue has stirred more recent strife between ourselves and Sparta. Even those born since Callias secured the peace are being raised like Nymenios’s children. His sons and little daughter hear their grandmother’s tales of being driven from her home by invaders. She warns them not to stray outside the gate in case some treacherous Mede steals them away.

  Movement caught my eye even though the dusk was thickening fast. Turning, I saw a shadow quickly vanish from a barred window high in Mikos’s wall. Not quickly enough. I’d caught a glimpse of Onesime’s face as she cupped her hand around a lamp flame.

  I didn’t know if she was waiting for Mikos or Pyrrias and I didn’t care. Either way the faithless bitch was risking more than a painful fall perching so precariously on a stool or a table to see what was happening outside their walls. If he saw her, Mikos would surely accuse her of waiting for some lover, however loudly she claimed to be standing vigil for him.

  I wanted to know if she’d seen anything that might tell me who had defaced my wall. Finding out would be a challenge though. With Mikos so sure she was unfaithful, he’d be guarding her closer than the Hesperides’s golden apples.

  Come to that, I didn’t imagine she’d have recognised who it was. An Alopeke housewife would hardly cross paths with lowlifes for hire around the theatre, or mysterious conspirators spreading lies in towns on the far side of the Aegean.

  Menkaure, Kadous and Zosime returned, carrying dripping buckets. We sloshed water all over the wall. I took a few paces back to judge the success of our efforts. The brickwork now looked thoroughly unsightly, dappled with paint stains and streaked with damp, but that foul insult had been obliterated.

  Maybe it would look better when it dried, though that made little enough difference to me. I’d be seeing those words every time I walked down the lane, even if no one else could see a trace remaining.

  I washed my hands clean as best I could in the last of the water. ‘Let’s have some wine.’

  Menkaure raised his eyebrows. ‘Don’t you want an early night before your big day?’

  ‘I won’t sleep till I’ve got the stink of that stuff you brought out of my nostrils.’ That was the simple truth, if not the whole truth. I managed to grin at him. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful. Trust a potter to know how to shift paint.’

  ‘Does anyone want something to eat?’ Zosime looked at us all. ‘There’s spiced barley porridge left from yesterday.’

  Kadous went to fetch yet more water while I found a mixing jug and chose an amphora from my small stock in the dining room. Menkaure lit a lamp and set it on the bench in the porch while I diluted the blood-dark wine once the Phrygian returned.

  ‘All praise to Dionysos.’ Once everyone was sitting down, we offered the first taste to the god.

  ‘Kadous,’ I said casually. ‘When you get a chance, ask Alke if she saw any strangers hanging around this afternoon.’

  I could always hope the gaunt little slave had been standing guard for her mistress. She might have seen something useful.

  ‘Anyone carrying a paintpot, you mean?’ The Phrygian scowled. I was about to reassure him, saying I didn’t blame him for not catching whoever defaced our wall, when Zosime asked him something else entirely.

  ‘How badly do you think Mikos will punish her if he catches Onesime with another man?’

  ‘Bad enough, but he knows if he thrashes her too hard he’ll have no one to cook his meals and sweep his floors.’ The Phrygian looked even grimmer.

  I decided to change the subject. ‘So what did you do after the choir competitions?’

  Kadous refilled his cup. ‘I went to Elaios the cobbler’s workshop, over by the Diochares Gate.’

  ‘Ah, of course.’ Elaios is well known for opening his doors to folk from the Troad and the Hellespont. Ever since the age of heroes, Hellenic cities have founded colonies to the west of the Halys River, which marks the boundary of Persia’s Phrygian satrapy. Kadous could always be sure of finding some of his countrymen there. ‘Did you enjoy some good company?’

  ‘Yes, and no. It’s usually the same crowd,’ my slave continued thoughtfully, ‘even if we only see some of the traders once or twice a year, when they come for the Dionysia or the Panathenaia. But there were a handful of strangers there today, all with fire in their bellies. They were claiming that paying the Delian League’s levy to the Athenians is as bad as paying taxes to the Persians, maybe even worse.’

  I didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Surely they were just full of wine?’

  Kadous shook his head. ‘I reckon they were set on strife.’

  ‘Did they get any fish to bite?’ Menkaure asked.

  Kadous nodded darkly. ‘That’s why I left. Fists and cups were about to start flying.’

  So there hadn’t only been trouble in the agora today. ‘Does Elaios’s crowd honestly think that the League tribute is so unfair?’

  ‘Not normally. Not beyond grumbling into their third or fourth cup.’ Kadous shrugged. ‘Everyone does, when they’ve racked up some trading loss, or heard of a bad harvest at home. But these strangers were up in arms, condemning the levy as vile injustice.’

  ‘Drink fuels a lot of folly,’ Zosime remarked. ‘I doubt they’ll remember much when they wake up wine-sick tomorrow.’

  Menkaure shook his head. ‘Words like that are like arrows. You can’t call them back and they stick in the mind of whoever might hear them.’

  I shared his concern. ‘Is the whole of Ionia nursing this grievance?’

  Whoever these unhappy men might be, they lived a long way from Pargasa. The Troad and Caria are at the very top and the very bottom of the Ionian coast respectively. If you’re heading for the Hellespont from Athens, you sail a northerly course across the Aegean by way of Lemos and Samothrace. Or you travel by land through Thessaly, Macedonia and the coastal cities overlooked by Thrace. The only sensible routes to Caria lie southwards, taking ship from island to island, by way of Delos and Mykonos, or Paros and Naxos, to Cos before making landfall at Halicarnassos.

  ‘If they are, Athens needs to take heed.’ Kadous looked me in the eye.

  I knew what he meant. Rumours of Boeotian discontent had rumbled like distant thunder for several years before their revolt broke out. But the Archons had still seemed as amazed by the uprising as a man struck by lightning from a clear blue sky.

  When we’d been camped out and waiting for battle at Charonea, every hoplite in my phalanx had agreed that if the great and good of Athens’ fine families had only kept their ears open in the agora, maybe all that bloody trouble could have been nipped in the bud. If so, perhaps the Megarans and the Euboeans would have thought better of taking up arms as well and we’d be safely back at home. I hated to think the peace we enjoyed now was so fragile. Before I could pursue that cheerless notion, Menkaure spoke up, unconcerned.

  ‘They’ll all calm down once they know there’s to be a fresh assessment of the levy at this year’s Panathenaia.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ exclaimed Zosime.

  ‘That’s the word from Crete.’ Menkaure’s brow furrowed. ‘I’m not sure who mentioned it first. Maybe Zokyros? But a good few others had heard the news too.’ He looked quizzically at his daughter. ‘What’s it to us?’

  ‘Remember the dead man dumped at our gate?’ she retorted. ‘He said there would be a reassessment at this Dionysia.’

  ‘There’s been no notice of any such thing posted in the agora,’ I pointed out.

  Menkaure shrugged. ‘Your dead man got the wrong festival. Everyone knows League business is debated at the Panathenaia.’

  ‘Only at the Great Panathenaia and that’s not until next year,’ I insisted.

  ‘No, Zokyros said
there’ll be a special assessment this year.’ Menkaure had no doubt about it. ‘There’ll be some declaration posted beforehand, you’ll see.’

  ‘Perhaps, perhaps not.’ Meantime, I’d better learn as much as possible about these rumours, and warn Aristarchos. ‘Will you do me a favour? Can you ask around and find out exactly who’s heard this? Can you ask who first told them? I’d like to know who’s particularly upset about having to pay the tribute.’

  Menkaure looked more closely at me. ‘Why are you so interested?’

  I gestured towards Kadous. ‘He says there’s discontent in the Troad. That dead man at our gate was from Caria, and he was saying the same. Now you bring this supposed news from your Cretan friends. Doesn’t that seem strange to you, all coming at once?’

  ‘Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, thrice is a hint from the Fates.’ Menkaure had spent enough time among Hellenes to know that. ‘Fair enough. I’ll see what I can find out.’

  ‘Not tonight,’ Zosime said firmly. ‘It’s already late and we need to be up early to get good seats in the theatre. Let’s go to bed.’

  Kadous obediently rose and began tidying away the wine cups and jug.

  Menkaure stayed sitting where he was, looking at me. ‘What will you do with whatever I might find out? Who will you tell? I don’t want my friends accused of sedition if this is some honest mistake.’

  ‘The only person I’ll take this to is Aristarchos. I’ll make sure he understands no one’s out to make trouble. If there really will be a reassessment at this year’s Panathenaia, then no one need worry.’ I managed a grin. ‘I’ll be asking your friends from Crete if they want to hire me to write their speeches.’

  Menkaure pursed his lips. Clearly, he still had reservations. ‘Let’s see what I turn up. Then we can discuss what to do.’

  ‘Agreed.’ I got to my feet.

  As I made sure the gate was solidly bolted, Menkaure stood stools and empty cooking pots along the base of the wall inside the courtyard. They would make plenty of noise if anyone climbed over under cover of darkness. At my nod of dismissal, Kadous went to bed, closing his own door. As Menkaure headed for the end room, Zosime took the lamp from the bench into our bedroom.