Marathon: Freedom or Death lw-2

by Christian Cameron

  We had a proper symposium, too, with good talk about civic duty and the difference between men’s laws and god’s laws. It was all very pleasant, and then we began to talk of Persia.

  Myron held up his hand and we all stopped talking. ‘I want to discuss a matter of business,’ he said. He had quite a presence by then. I could remember him as a young farmer, but by that time he was an orator and a man of immense dignity.

  ‘Arimnestos, I intend to put it to the vote after the first feast of Heracles that you be the polemarch of the city. Polemarch and strategos, both.’

  ‘What’s a strategos?’ Hilarion asked.

  That was a fair question. In those days, many towns had a polemarch, but only Athens and Sparta had strategoi. They were officers — real officers, the way we had ofcers when we served Miltiades. Every strategos had responsibility for a body of men when the phalanx formed, and this made the phalanx more flexible in combat. The old polemarchs were often politicians and sometimes soldiers, but they formed the phalanx — that is, they knew where each man should stand in the array. And they fought in the place of honour — the right end of the front rank. Usually, they died there. But they didn’t normally issue any orders — beyond getting every man to the battlefield, and into his place in the line.

  On that evening, Plataea had perhaps two thousand hoplites — armoured warriors. We’d grown in the last ten years, and the Milesians had brought us new fighters, and we were richer. Bion and Hermogenes, for instance — both men had been slaves, and yet now they were prosperous farmers with full armour. Wealth — individual wealth — translated directly into fighting power in those days. In my father’s time, we’d fielded fifteen hundred hoplites only by freeing slaves and putting them — virtually unarmed — into the rear ranks.

  So, our military power was greater. And Myron proposed formalizing my control of it. I nodded. ‘Of course,’ I said.

  ‘This is no empty honour,’ Myron said. ‘There is a Persian fleet on the seas. News has reached me that the Medes intend to sack Naxos, and then they will come to Attica. Athens will expect us to stand with them.’

  It was still chilly in the evenings. We had a brazier in the middle of the room, but the men were still huddled in their himations, and I remember that I could see my breath when I spoke.

  ‘This spring?’ Bion asked.

  ‘This summer, at least,’ Myron answered. ‘Are we ready, Arimnestos?’

  I rolled off my couch and cursed the cold floor. ‘We are as ready as a city at peace can be,’ I answered. ‘We dance the Pyrrhiche at least twice as often as we used to do. I take the younger men up the mountain as often as I can — and I will make it more often this spring. Short of war itself, the hunt and the dance are our best methods of training.’

  Hilarion shrugged and pulled his cloak over his feet. ‘Why do we need to fight the Persians?’ he asked. ‘I know you all think me slow-witted — but what has the Great King ever done to me?’

  ‘Not a thing,’ I answered. ‘He is a good ruler and a great man, or so I hear. But, Hilarion, when is the last time you fought in the phalanx?’

  ‘You know as well as me — the fight at the bridge, where we helped Athens against the men of Euboea.’ He grinned. ‘I didn’t really fight, either. I did some pushing from the fifth rank, I think.’

  ‘We’ve had fifteen years of peace because Athens has stood between us and Thebes.’ I paused to spit, and every man present joined me.

  Diocles nodded. ‘True enough,’ he said.

  ‘We’re about to pay for those years of peace,’ Myron said. ‘The price will be high. And if the rest of Boeotia submits to the Great King, we will be alone. Our city will be wide open when we march away.’

  Myron’s words brought the reality home to every man in the room.

  ‘By Ares!’ Peneleos said. ‘Is it so bad? Is this certain?’

  Myron looked at me — as I was his principal source of information.

  ‘Peneleos, when there are dark clouds in the north, do you expect rain?’ I asked.

  He nodded and raised an eyebrow. ‘I expect it, but it does not always come. Sometimes the rain goes to Thespiae or Hisiae.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I agreed. ‘The Great King may never take Naxos. He may forget Athens, or the men of Athens may make a peace with him. A storm might come up and wreck his fleet — it’s happened before. But the dark clouds are right there, friends, and we would be foolish not to be prepared.’

  ‘I plan to ask the assembly for money to repair the walls and raise two new bastions — all stone — to cover the gate,’ Myron said. ‘I will ask that every free man send a slave to work, so that the repairs are done immediately, as soon as the planting is in. And I will be asking for the richest men to contribute to the towers. I will pay for one of them myself.’ He looked around.

  Bion gave me a slight nod of the head.

  ‘I will pay for one third of the second tower,’ I said, ‘with the help of Bion and Alcaeus.’

  Idomeneus surprised us. ‘I will pay for one third,’ he said. ‘From my own funds,’ he added.

  Diocles and Hilarion and Draco muttered among themselves, and Epictetus and Peneleos, sharing a couch, leaned in, and in the end the five of them agreed to share the cost of a third of the tower.

  As the men gathered to walk home, I found myself with Peneleos and Epictetus.

  ‘I have a hard time seeing myself as a leading man,’ Peneleos said. ‘I’m a second son. I am not that old.’

  I laughed. ‘You’re older than me,’ I said. ‘And I’m about to be polemarch.’

  Bion shook his head. ‘Plataea lost a generation in the three battles,’ he said. ‘And in the fights with Thebes before that. Think of your fathers and brothers — all dead.’

  That was a sobering thought, but a true one. Myron had been my father’s friend. My father should have been here to be polemarch, and Diocles’ father should have been here, and Epictetus’s father, and my brother, and Hilarion’s older brother — on and on.

  ‘We’re a city of young men,’ Hilarion quipped.

  ‘If we have to fight the Medes, we’ll be a city of widows,’ Bion answered him.

  The assembly was dull enough, and I remember none of it — not even my formal elevation to polemarch and strategos after the feast of Heracles, thirty days after the summer solstice. I was allowed, as polemarch, to choose the other two strategoi myself. We’d decided to have three, one for each of the towns that made up Plataea before the alliance with Athens turned us into a real city.

  Right away, my new rank plunged me into politics. I wanted Idomeneus and Alcaeus — or at least Lysius — as officers. I wanted the strategoi to be men who had been under the hand of Ares, who knew the sound of spears and shields. But all of us — even Lysius and Ajax — lived in one district, over by Hisiae. So I wasted good workdays going to meetings to talk with the local men in the other two districts. I knew them all — there were only three thousand citizens back then, and we all knew each other pretty well. I kept hoping to find some retired mercenary, some man who had served under Miltiades or even with the Medes.

  Now that I think of it, in those districts closest to the river they had most of the good farmland, and I suspect their sons didn’t need to go to sea to win a few silver coins. Ours did, over by the mountain.

  There were good young men from those districts. Bellerophon, son of Epistocles, who lived as close to Thebes as a man could and not be a Theban, was a fine young man with full armour who had been to every deer hunt from the first, got spear-fighting lessons from Lysius and also spent all his spare hours with Idomeneus. He was from the Asopus district. But he was seventeen years old, and no bearded man would take an order from him.

  ‘Try his pater,’ Myron said, when I asked his advice. ‘He’s a wealthy man, and a decent one. If the son’s such a good warrior, the pater won’t be a sluggard,’ he added.

  Hmm. Well, you’ll see how that worked out.

  The northern district was the
hardest. The men over there were almost Thespian, and they had their own ways, and a few of them complained that in the event of a fight, they’d march with Thespiae and not Plataea. Before the great wars came, men were freer with their citizenship.

  But that very freedom saved me in the end. My brother-in-law, Antigonus, owned farms in Plataea. His free men were liable for service as psiloi or peltastai, and it occurred to me that, if Myron would accept it, he would make a first-rate strategos.

  So he was granted citizenship. In fact, Myron discovered that his family had always been allowed to be citizens — a very convenient discovery, let me tell you — and I appointed him as strategos. This proved to be a fortuitous choice. Antigonus brought us another fifty hoplites of his own — all men of Thespiae, but people didn’t care so much then, as I say — and he had riches which he used to improve the armour of his district, and of course he had most of that armour made at my forge.

  My forge grew that spring. Tiraeus and I shared the same shed, of course, and Bion had, since my pater’s time, had his own anvils and his own fire just up the hill, by his house. But when the money came over the mountain that spring — money from Athens, I mean, for worked bronze we’d sent in the autumn — and when Antigonus placed a huge order for armour and helmets, then Tiraeus wanted to build his own shed.

  ‘I need a pair of slaves,’ he said. ‘So do you. We do too much of the donkey work. And we need some boys — fee boys, who want to grow to be smiths. We could triple our output.’

  I already had Styges, who had gradually made himself into my apprentice. But I found two more for me, and Hermogenes found a couple for his father, and suddenly my forge was crowded.

  We put up a shed for Tiraeus, and as soon as it was done, Empedocles came out from Thebes and blessed his fire. We had a sacrifice and Empedocles initiated all of our new boys, slaves and free together, because the god cares nothing for such stuff.

  ‘You know the Medes are coming, eh?’ he asked me. It was easy to forget that he was a Theban, but sometimes it came back.

  ‘Even in little Plataea, the news has come,’ I answered.

  ‘Don’t get your back up. The godless Athenians are in for it. Thebes is safe — we’re not fools.’ He sat back and drank wine.

  ‘We are.’ I handed him an altar plate I’d made as my sacrifice to the god. On the face, Cleon and I had engraved a scene of the smith god returning to Olympus after being cast forth, led by Dionysus.

  ‘When did you learn to do such fine work?’ he asked.

  ‘The older man you raised to the first degree?’ I said. ‘He’s an engraver.’

  Empedocles whistled. ‘You have quite an operation here,’ he said. ‘Why not put it all in one building? Like the potters in Corinth? You have water, charcoal, three master-smiths and an engraver. And a reputation, at least as far away as Thebes. They may spit when they mention you, but they’ll all hurry to buy your bronze.’

  ‘I have never sent a shipment of my bronze to Thebes,’ I said.

  ‘Men sell it from Athens,’ he said. ‘You are quite well known in Thebes, my boy. Simon son of Simon keeps your name in the ears of many men — although not to your favour. And. .’ He paused, drank from his cup, and looked up at me. ‘And there are men in Thebes who plan to kill you.’

  I shrugged. ‘Let them come, then.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool, boy. Someone — someone with a great deal of money — has hired a whole band of cut-throats.’ He shivered.

  ‘If they come from Thebes to here, it would be war,’ I said. ‘I don’t think Thebes wants war with Athens.’

  Empedocles shook his head. ‘Simon is loud in proclaiming that Athens would not care if you were killed,’ he said.

  Now it was my turn to shake my head. ‘Old news, priest. I am the polemarch of Plataea, and my death would burn Thebes the way a hot forge burns charcoal.’

  ‘They made you polemarch?’ the priest said. ‘You have come far, my boy.’

  ‘I have, too,’ I agreed. ‘If you find Simon, tell him to go away and never come back — and I, for my part, will not hunt him down and kill him. Let the bad blood be over. But tell your archon — for me, and for my archon — that if men of Thebes come here, or even hired men, coming from Thebes, then we will fight, and Athens will stand with us.’

  ‘Not if Athens has been destroyed,’ the old priest said. ‘I’m sorry, lad, but what they plan is to get you this summer, while Athens can do nothing to help you. Even now, the Athenians debate in their assembly — they debate sending Miltiades and Aristides away as exiles, and making submission. Perhaps you should join them in exile — just for a while.’

  I told Myron everything Empedocles told me, and he dismissed it all with a wave of his hand. ‘I’m sure Simon would like to kill you,’ he said. ‘But Thebes is in an awkward place right now, and they do not need a war with Athens.’

  ‘Empedocles makes a good point, though,’ I allowed. ‘Once the Persians are at sea — and by all accounts, they are — Athens can hardly send their hoplites over the passes into Boeotia to help us.’

  ‘The Thebans would be fools to trade short-term advantage for the punishment Athens will dish out later,’ Myron said.

  ‘Not if they can count on the Medes to defeat Athens,’ I said. ‘Look, they have a workable strategy, or so it appears to me. And I see other hands in this, Myron. If we’re tied up here — why, then there are no hoplites to march to the aid of Athens.’

  ‘I think you have delusions of grandeur, young man,’ Myron said. ‘I agree — it’s more of a threat than I saw when first I heard of it, but this is not the way cities behave. We are not children in the agora. I will send a messenger to Athens, and another to Thebes. But that will be the end of it.’

  I thought he might be right. I only knew pirates and easterners. Here, in sober, steady Boeotia, even the Thebans were probably better men.

  ‘Perhaps I should muster all our men, just so that the Thebans can see how ready we are.’ I was hesitant to ask this, as a general muster cost our city a little money — and the foundations of the new towers were just going down. But the seed was in the ground, and most farmers had a holiday — or as much holiday as a man can get between ploughing his fallow ground, shoring his grapes and watching the pests eat his olives.

  ‘That is a fine idea,’ Myron said. ‘One week from today. The Theban heralds will be here by then.’

  I don’t remember a thing about that week apart from the glow of the forge and the rush to finish as many bits of harness and armour as I could manage. I had thirty repairs sitting around my house — helmets, breastplates, spearheads. I worked night and day, and so did Tiraeus and Bion. And across the stream, in the city, my compatriot, Heron the Smith, worked iron and steel as fast as I worked bronze.

  But the muster was glorious. I could remember what our men looked like when we went off to Oinoe to help Athens — dun cloaks, no swords, men without shields hiding in the rear ranks, and only a dozen men in full bronze.

  Now we had a front rank of almost one hundred and twenty-five men, and every one of them had a bronze panoply — breast- and backplate or scale armour, or at least a leather spolas, and an aspis — a few old men with Boeotian shields — greaves on every man, and good helmets, most crested Corinthians. I was pleased to look down my front rank and see how many of those helmets were my own manufacture — almost twenty. And behind them were ranks of men with good shields and good helmets, even if most of them were dog-caps of bronze. Every man in the front rank had a good spear and a sword, and most of the second-rankers, and some of the third- and fourth-rankers, as well.

  The Milesians were the best equipped, with armour all the way back to the fifth rank. My brother-in-law’s men were the next best, and they would get better all autumn as I hammered out their bronze. My neighbours looked almost as good — Bion was armoured like Ares, as was Hermogenes, and Tiraeus, Idomeneus and Styges — all of us in full panoply, with thigh guards and arm guards, too.

  Fi
fteen years of peace may rob a town of the fine cutting edge of war practice, but it does give a town the riches to spend on armour.

  I had asked every man to have his wife make him a red cloak. I didn’t expect them to be dyed Tyrian red, like the Spartans, although a few rich men did. Most were brick red, from madder, and striped in white or black, as is our way in Plataea. But most men had done it — even those who had no armour — and with those cloaks and our new dog-caps of bronze in every rank, we made a fine show in the agora, and many women stopped to watch and older men clapped to see us.

  Myron wore his armour, but he watched. I intended to put him in the fourth rank, dead centre in the phalanx — because he was too important to risk, even though he was a decent fighter and a brave man and owned good armour. He stood at the edge, swapped jokes with men, and finally came up and slapped me on my scaled back.

  ‘Very good, Arimnestos.’ He pointed at the three Theban heralds, who stood silently off to the side, watching as our men laughed, joked and shone.

  Then I called out the epilektoi — most of them eighteen or nineteen years old, although not all, by any means. And while the phalanx sang the Paean of Apollo, we danced our Pyrrhiche.

  It is one thing to dance for the war god when musicians play and men sing. It is another to dance in the full light of day, when a thousand men beat the time with their spear-butts and sing from inside their helmets, and the song rebounds from the bronze and rises like a pure offering to the war god and the Lord of the Silver Bow.

  Idomeneus and I had changed our dance many times by then. It had been a simple dance that allowed men to learn their place in the ranks and not much more. Our new dance exchanged ranks, taught spear-thrusts and parries, and had men duck to the ground, leap in the air over a thrust, even fight to the rear. My young men danced with unbated weapons, and more than once a sharp spear ripped a furrow across a new-painted shield — but the rhythm went on, and as we sang of the deep-breasted nymphs who served Apollo, we stomped with our left feet and pivoted together, ducked, clashed our spears and exchanged ranks again.