Shadows of Athens

by J M Alvey

  Under the solemn gaze of the city’s generals, Pericles prominent among them, these young warriors were presented with their hoplite armour by a grateful city. There were a lot of such deserving young men this year. More than could be rewarded with the sets of warrior’s gear donated by Athens’ allies at the last Panathenaia. That extra equipment would have been paid for from the public treasury. Families who’ve lost so much will never face the humiliation of seeing a hero’s son demoted to the ranks of the rowers because they cannot meet the costs of equipping him.

  That’s another reason why I’ve no wish to father citizen sons. It’s why I set some of my earnings aside for the day when I can repay Nymenios for my share of the family business’s profits. I’ll honour my father’s memory by helping to educate and equip young Hestaios and little Kalliphon, along with any other boys born to Melina, and to Glykera and Chairephanes if that match gets made.

  Public money might maintain the gymnasiums’ wrestling grounds, running tracks and the teachers holding classes among the Lyceum’s groves or the Academy’s colonnades, but there will be further fees to pay if my nephews are to benefit from the best trainers and tutors. Lectures by visiting philosophers, sharing their latest thoughts on history, mathematics or whatever else the boys show a talent for will cost still more silver.

  Sombrely watching this parade of those bereaved by war, I remembered my father relating his struggles to see all four of us properly trained and equipped. Though every sacrifice was worth it, he swore after a few cups of Chian, sloshing his wine for emphasis. No son of his would sweat at a trireme’s oar with some lentil-muncher on the benches above him farting in his face.

  I never asked if he felt the same after Lysanias died in Egypt. Glancing at the seats of honour, I saw Aristarchos sitting with his hands knotted in his lap. I couldn’t see his expression at this distance. Was he remembering his own slain son, who was now wandering the shadowy asphodel fields in the realm of the dead?

  As I commended Lysanias to the care of the gods below, I wondered if it would have been better or worse if my lost brother had left a son to be honoured at a Dionysia. Would that have tempered my father’s heartbreak, or leavened my mother’s grief? I’ve never been able to decide.

  There was a pause as the generals left the stage and Athens’ newest soldiers marched off in well-drilled formation. Slaves were ready and waiting to receive their gleaming armour so they could come back to enjoy the comedies. I hoped a few of my jokes would ease the ache of their loss. That, and a few swallows of the wine provided at Aristarchos’s expense.

  A cohort of slaves began carrying amphorae and cups up and down the theatre’s aisles. It was good-quality wine, Lydis had assured me. As people took this opportunity to stretch their legs or have a word with friends and family, I noticed Aristarchos summon his secretary with a snap of his fingers. As I made my own way towards them, Lydis came quickly around the edge of the dancing floor, beckoning to me. We met halfway.

  ‘The master begs the favour of a quick word.’

  ‘Of course.’ I hurried down the slope with the slave. ‘The boy, Tur, how is he? Has a doctor seen him?’

  Lydis nodded. ‘Spintharos advises that he rests completely, for several days. He is concerned about the blows he took to the head.’

  ‘Understandable.’ I only hoped the young idiot would take the doctor’s advice, or his father and grandfather could convince him. Either that or tie him to his bed.

  We reached the marble seats ringing the dancing floor and Aristarchos turned to greet us.

  I wasted no time. ‘I’ve been hearing more strange rumours. There’s talk of widespread discontent with the tribute. More men have been saying there’ll be a reassessment this year, maybe even at this Dionysia.’

  Aristarchos narrowed his eyes. ‘Other Carians are spreading this nonsense?’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so. My slave heard it from men fresh from the Hellespont, and a potter I know said that visitors from Crete believed the same.’

  A resonant chord from a mighty concert lyre prompted everyone around us to hurry back to their seats.

  ‘There’s more,’ I said hastily. ‘My home, our wall was painted with insults last night, accusing me of Persian sympathies. It could be just some rival—’

  The great concert lyre’s music rang through the theatre again. Everyone was settling down, expectant.

  ‘We’ll have to continue this later.’ Aristarchos grimaced. Then he surprised me with a conspiratorial smile. ‘I hear that our play will be seen first. That’ll give everyone a few new notions to debate.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ I scurried back to my vantage point. As a slave with a tray passed by, I grabbed a cup of Aristarchos’s wine and downed it in one swallow. Fine vintage or not, I didn’t even taste it.

  A theatre slave walked up the steps to the stage. A lean man with a deep, ringing voice, he made the announcement that brought everyone who knew me to the edge of their seats.

  ‘Let your play commence, Philocles!

  Chapter Fourteen

  Menekles strode onto the stage with his head held high. A fine Homeric hero, he cradled his helmet in the crook of one arm and sloped a spear over his other shoulder. He gazed around with satisfaction before addressing the audience in ringing tones.

  ‘Have you heard the glorious news? Troy’s topless towers have fallen! Who among us ever thought this great victory would come? Yet truly the day has finally dawned. We have prevailed after so much tribulation, lamentation and bloodshed. After ten long years of struggle, sacrifice and dedication, the menace in the east is no more. Now we can look forward with hope. Now we can plan with ambition. Now we can build anew!’

  Apollonides ambled into view, bow-legged and with his wig carefully teased so that tufts of hair stuck out in all directions. He dragged his shield along the ground with one hand and was rubbing his cloth-covered arse with the other.

  ‘Where have we washed up now? Can we at least stay here until the blisters on my backside have healed? Rowing’s harder work than you think,’ he confided to the audience.

  That won the play’s first cheer from the upper benches and I breathed a little easier. Hopefully acknowledging the city’s lowest ranks this early on should save our chorus from being showered with nuts and insults by those assuming a play about heroes had nothing to say about their humble lives.

  Though I was still apprehensive about the ten men in those marble seats, five of whose votes would decide my fate. Would the well-born of Athens think I was mocking them? Add to that the fact that Homeric heroes like Meriones and Thersites are the stock-in-trade of tragedy. Would the judges look askance at me meddling with tradition?

  As the two of them came to the end of their bickering, I held my breath as I waited for Chrysion’s cue. The chorus appeared on the dancing floor accompanied by Hyanthidas playing a bold new tune.

  The Corinthian’s appearance prompted a surge of murmurs from the audience for several reasons. Firstly the talented musician was playing two interlacing melodies, with a different dance of his fingers on each of the twin reed-tipped pipes in his mouth. That’s not something you see every day. I’d never seen Euxenos’s tootler try it, however skilled he might be at swift and swooping dances.

  Secondly, Hyanthidas wasn’t wearing a pipe halter and that was taking quite a risk. As anyone who’s ever played a pipe will tell you, using two instruments together is a very different challenge to only playing one. Keeping your lips tight around two reeds as well as sustaining taut, puffed cheeks quickly makes your face ache. If your cheeks and lips cramp or quiver, you’ll shred your tune with sudden squeaks and silences.

  Sustaining a single song or dance tune on twin pipes is one thing, but accompanying an entire play is a real challenge. No wonder some long-forgotten musician devised a solution, more interested in getting paid than worrying about looking a fool. All th
e other plays’ pipers would wear leather halters with straps running across their mouths, pierced for their twin pipes’ reeds. But Hyanthidas had sworn he didn’t need such assistance.

  Thirdly, he was playing Etruscan music, and there were plenty of citizens and visitors in this audience who’d travelled westwards to Italy’s Hellenic cities. They recognised those characteristic lilts and rhythms, and eagerly nudged their neighbours. As Chrysion led the chorus in extolling the virtues of this unknown land, I watched the whole crowd sitting up straighter as whispers spread. Soon everyone was wondering where the jokes might be in stranding Homeric heroes in that wolf-ridden wilderness.

  Keen interest wasn’t only kindled on the wooden benches. Down below on the marble seats, I noticed several of the great and the good sneak sideways glances at Aristarchos. All they saw was polite interest on his face. None of them would be able to guess that he’d been the one to insist my play should look westwards.

  I’d originally set this story in the Chersonese, far away on the Black Sea’s northern shore. I’d written a particularly fine speech for Apollonides’s character, Thersites, speculating with calculated obscenity on the unlikelihood of Meriones ever fathering sons, if he couldn’t even guide his trireme’s jutting prow into the Hellespont’s moist and inviting opening.

  But Aristarchos was adamant and, since he was paying the piper, the actors, the chorus and the writer, he got his way. Apart from losing that particular joke for Thersites, I hadn’t been overly bothered. My characters could say what I wanted when they were standing on an Etruscan shore as easily as they could on some Euxine beach.

  Though after seeing Strato’s Thracians yesterday, I’d been wondering if Aristarchos had picked up some hint from their play’s patron. Had Lamachos said something indiscreet over a fourth or fifth serving of some choice vintage at an aristocratic banquet? If so, I was grateful Aristarchos had been there to hear it.

  Even before a few cups of wine, a festival audience wouldn’t have seen much difference between a chorus of red-headed barbarians from Thrace and my Achaeans meeting copper-topped characters in Taurica. When a play offers the upper benches something they’ve already seen, a shower of nuts or worse is pretty much guaranteed. The competition’s judges aren’t overly impressed either, to many a hapless playwright’s discredit.

  As the chorus’s first song drew to a close, with everyone note-perfect and precisely in step, I knotted my hands together. Now for Lysicrates’s entrance.

  Here she came. Egeria, sensuous, seductive and, as far as Thersites was concerned, completely terrifying. He stood there quaking as she greeted the astonished Achaeans in the name of all Etruscans. Then she explained, in precise and provocative detail, exactly what bedroom talents the local women expected from these prospective husbands who had just washed up on their shore.

  Not that I believe for a moment the overblown tales you hear about the western barbarians. Their women train in gymnasiums alongside their men, all of them unashamedly naked? Husbands and wives alike see nothing wrong in taking lovers to their beds in full view of anyone passing by?

  But such nonsense makes for a good bawdy story and that’s what a Dionysia audience likes. Even the ones who pretend to prefer Pindar and mourn the loss of his high-flown odes. Everyone was laughing now, from highest seats to lowest and even though I knew every punchline, I found myself grinning.

  As Egeria chased Thersites off stage, Meriones turned to his loyal crew, aghast. ‘We had better decide for ourselves how our new city is to be ruled, and quickly, if we don’t want to find ourselves under the thumb of a woman like that!’

  ‘They sound as scary as the Spartans,’ Chrysion said with a shudder.

  ‘Perhaps we should fall into step with the Spartans!’ Inspired, Meriones brandished his spear. ‘Let’s conquer these tribes and make serfs of them all! What do you say to that, lads?’

  But the chorus was all standing still with their arms folded, emphatically shaking their heads.

  ‘Lads?’ he pleaded.

  ‘You want to start more fighting? When we’ve finally arrived in a place where we can enjoy some peace and quiet?’

  Chrysion led the chorus in loud disapproval of all Meriones’s arguments in favour of returning to war, not to mention scorning the Spartans’ unrelenting regime of discipline and drill with precious little sex.

  ‘Then I must rule you myself.’ Admitting defeat for his initial proposal, Meriones struck a heroic pose that could have come off any pot in Menkaure’s workshop. He stood with his spear drawn back for throwing and his other arm outstretched. ‘Thereafter my sons will rule over your sons, and their sons will govern after them, down through the endless generations!’

  Thersites scurried back on stage. ‘What about my sons?’

  ‘What about them?’ Meriones demanded, affronted.

  ‘Who’s to say they won’t be brighter than yours?’ Thersites challenged him.

  ‘I don’t think there’s much danger of that.’ Meriones looked in the direction Egeria had gone. ‘Not if I find them a mother like that one.’

  ‘Oh, you think you could handle a wife like that?’ Thersites mocked.

  ‘After ten years sitting in a tent outside Troy with Achilles sulking because he didn’t get all the pretty girls for himself? I’d like to handle her often as possible.’ Meriones cupped his hands lewdly in front of his chest. ‘I like a strong-willed woman.’

  ‘So did Agamemnon,’ Thersites pointed out. ‘That didn’t turn out so well for him. I hear Clytemnestra cut him down to size with an axe.’

  The audience laughed as the actors bickered for a while about the merits and drawbacks of hereditary leadership. I hadn’t intended to make this a particular theme, but Aristarchos had encouraged me to draw out this scene for longer and longer until, once again, Meriones found all his arguments had been undermined.

  ‘Never mind that,’ he said testily. ‘If we’re debating who’s best suited to rule here, then who’s led this expedition from the very first? Who slew Phereclos, son of Tecton, with this very spear on the plains of Troy?’

  ‘Not with that very spear,’ Thersites countered. ‘You left your first one sticking in Deiphobus’s shield and had to go back to your tent for another one.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ Meriones said testily. ‘I still killed Phereclos.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘And Adamas, son of Asios.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘And Harpalion, son of Pylaemenes.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘And Laogonos, son of Onetor.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Who won the archery competition at Patroclos’s funeral games?’ Meriones preened.

  ‘Yes, but how good are you at keeping men alive?’ Thersites squared up to him, truculent.

  ‘A very good question while we’re stranded here on this barren shore,’ Chrysion confided to the audience before turning to his fellow Achaeans. ‘Here’s another one for you. How soon will we see these noble heroes come to blows if one or both of them assume some divine right to lead us? No city can stand, divided against itself. We need unity, not tyranny!’

  Now Hyanthidas’s glorious music drew on the marching songs that every hoplite knows, while the chorus remembered how fighting in a phalanx had saved them in the battles for Troy.

  They decided to stick with that winning strategy now that they had found peace. They all wanted votes in a People’s Assembly and equality for all men under the law. As their song concluded with a triumphant shout, the chorus all wheeled round to look up at Meriones and Thersites, every stance expectant.

  Those heroes looked at each other and made a show of counting up the heads of the chorus men, before adding the audience beyond. Turn by turn, they picked well-known faces out of the throng, or at least they pretended to, since I’d had no way of knowing who would actually
be in the audience when I wrote this particular satire.

  Claiming to recognise their shipmates in the audience, they praised these men for their supposed gallantry outside Troy, all the while slyly alluding to recent scandals and humiliations that had been the talk of Athens’ taverns through this winter just past. The crowd loved it.

  Then our heroes counted themselves, to discover with comic dismay that their side amounted to the two of them up on there on the stage. The audience chuckled as the actors ran to and fro, looking in vain for someone, anyone else to add to their number.

  Eventually, grudgingly accepting democracy soon provoked a lively squabble over which of them would do better in a popular vote. Finally the two men shrugged and nobly wished each other good luck, before walking to opposite ends of the stage and each confiding in the audience exactly how they intended to court popular goodwill with bribes and gifts.

  Chrysion promptly led the chorus in mocking them both. The gods themselves would appoint this new city’s leaders in a properly conducted ballot for magistrates and council members. The only time these heroes would see a popular vote was if the people chose to expel one or other of them, for the sake of peace and quiet hereabouts.

  Thersites grovelled, swearing he hadn’t intended to cause any strife.

  Meriones agreed with fulsome apologies. Then he clapped his hands.

  ‘If we’re to build a new city, we’d better start building. If you want an assembly and the rule of law, we’ll need a council chamber and courts.’

  Apollonides interrupted. ‘First and foremost, we should build a temple, high and bright on that sacred hill. After all, the gods help those who help themselves.’

  When I’d written those words, I’d been confident that everyone agreed on the merits of Pericles’s building plans. I thought I was happily reflecting Athenian pleasure in the rewards of the peace we now enjoyed for the first time since our grandfathers’ day. This morning I couldn’t help wondering what the Pargasarenes and the other Ionians made of this notion. I looked down but all I could see was the backs of the allied delegates’ heads.