Elephants and Castles

by Alfred Duggan

  Then Cassander’s men in the citadel of Pagae sought terms, and were permitted to withdraw and join their comrades in Megara. At once the oligarchs also sought terms; they laid down their arms when promised that they might keep life and property under their new democratic masters. Demetrius might enter Pagae in triumph, and dispose of the city as he wished. He decreed that in future it should be governed as a dependent territory of Megara, which decided a dispute of fabulous antiquity.

  The news from Munychia was encouraging. The barbican had fallen. The commander of the citadel must soon ask for terms. All that remained was to clear Cassander’s men out of Megara; then Demetrius might make his ceremonial entry into an Athens at peace.

  In Megara the garrison had given up hope. But they feared to surrender where they stood, lest the democrats massacre them. In a sense they deserved nothing better. A garrison earns quarter by yielding while it can still resist; men who hold out too obstinately forfeit their lives. But Demetrius admired the courage of the commandant of Megara, Prepelaus. Besides, his own soldiers would be distressed if the siege ended in slaughter. Ever since the break-up of Alexander’s army every soldier had thought of himself as the comrade of every other soldier; rival generals might fight, but you could not refuse quarter to a man who asked for it in your own language.

  In Munychia Archelaus concluded an armistice with the commander, one Dionysius. Prepelaus sent out a herald, asking that Demetrius treat with him in person. Demetrius visited him without a bodyguard, trusting to his honour. Soon they reached agreement.

  Cassander’s men might keep their arms. To avoid attack by the democrats they must withdraw by sea. So much was easily arranged. The trouble was that Prepelaus had lost his ships; he was ashamed to ask for enemy ships to carry his men, since that would be a shameful admission of defeat.

  But a young man reared in the camps of Asia could make a professional soldier see reason, where subtle Hellene civilians only jarred his honour the further. The danger of a bloody last stand was averted.

  That left only the citizens of Megara to be provided for, and citizens were never so important as honourable soldiers. The trouble here was the unauthorised plunder that had gone on all over the town during the negotiations. Soldiers of the army of liberty had done most of it, but insurgent democrats had played their part. They at least must make restitution, though to take back his booty from a man who carried a sword was a different matter. Meanwhile rogues were claiming all kinds of property that had never belonged to them. Demetrius left the citizens to sort out the affair. He set up a Court of Claims, composed of such honest men among the Megarans as he had been able to identify during his brief and eventful stay. The property they impounded would at least remain in the city; he could not do fairer than that.

  The most ticklish problem was that of the slaves. Soldiers had helped themselves to boys and girls, as always when they ran loose in a city. These they intended to sell in Piraeus, and Demetrius dared not bring them back. But the ordinary farm hand and their women had just run off during the fighting, and now wandered homeless through the Megarid. Some would become dangerous brigands if they managed to keep alive through the winter, others would come back to warm lodgings and cooked food when the cold began to pinch them. It was a problem that must be left to solve itself; how, Demetrius did not greatly care.

  But before leaving Megara he remembered the famous philosopher. He inquired for Stilpon, and had him brought to headquarters.

  Stilpon might be very wise, but he looked scruffy; that was what a soldier saw first. His yellow-grey beard was as tangled as his bush of white hair. He wore a dirty brown cloak over a stained grey tunic, but his hairy legs and gnarled feet were bare. He was in a very bad temper; a hermit who shuns crowds will not like soldiers. But the philosopher scorning the powerful tyrant was a popular role, though hackneyed; he played it with gusto.

  Demetrius began by asking politely whether he had suffered from the plundering of the soldiers. That gave an easy opening, and the old man jumped at it. ‘I lost nothing,’ he replied, ‘I saw no one carrying away knowledge.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Demetrius, playing up to him. ‘You may even be the richer for my visit. Freedom is good, so I have been told; and I leave you a free city.’

  ‘Indeed you do,’ snapped the philosopher, ‘for there isn’t a slave in the place.’

  ‘Do you disapprove? Are not all men brothers, and entitled to freedom? By what right do some men own others, as though they were cattle? By the way, I’m not striking an attitude. I genuinely want to hear the answer of a great philosopher.’

  ‘I don’t know the answer - nobody knows,’ Stilpon said crossly. ‘Aristotle held that some men are slaves by nature. That seems reasonable, when you consider how some men behave. But is anyone a slave-owner by nature? There’s the crux. Take yourself, for example. Are you as patient with the faults of a slave as with the faults of a free man? In strict justice you ought to be as severe, or as forgiving, with the one as with the other. If you are not, you are not intended by nature to be a slave-owner.’

  ‘Few would pass that test.’ Demetrius was interested. Perhaps this Stilpon was as wise as his reputation made out. ‘When I am angry with a slave I have him beaten, because it is a waste of time to reason with him. With a free man I try reason, because it may be possible to convince him.’

  ‘You reason with a free man because he is as strong as you - you beat your slaves because they can’t hit back. There’s no logic or justice in it, just more of the general beastliness of a beastly and ugly world. But that’s no worse than seeing some handsome young man felled in his prime by a revolting disease. We have to live with these things, and make the best we can of them. If you really seek my advice about slavery, here it is; Ask yourself, every time you give orders to your slave, whether you are worthy to be his master. I don’t have to remind a military man like you that a slave has only himself to blame for his condition. He has always the alternative of death.’

  “Well, that’s interesting,’ said Demetrius. ‘So I suppose I have improved Megara by removing all its slaves?’

  ‘Not at all. The town is ruined. No philosopher can live in a place where he must sweep the floor when he ought to be thinking about the nature of things. I shall go and sponge on a cousin of mine who has a little farm near Argos. Yes, I said sponge on him. That’s my trade - it’s the trade of all philosophers.’

  Stilpon stumped off without a backward look. A queer man, whose moods changed so quickly that it was hard to know when he was talking in earnest. But he seemed on the whole more honest than not. He might as well be allowed to leave unmolested.

  It was amusing, all the same, that the liberation of Hellas had left a city inhabited solely by free citizens. How would they manage? Demetrius wondered. He might come back after a few years to see whether anyone was living in Megara besides lizards.

  4. A SAVIOUR IN ATHENS

  When the army returned to Piraeus Demetrius found another sacred embassy awaiting him. They had come to proclaim that a priesthood had been founded to serve the Saviour Gods, and that two tribes had been added to the ten in which the citizens of Athens were divided. These new tribes were named Demetrias and Antigonis, in perpetual honour of the Saviours.

  Graceful compliments, but after deification any additional compliment must fall a little flat.

  Dionysius still held the citadel of Munychia; but his fortifications had been dreadfully battered, and he was waiting only to conclude a treaty with Demetrius in person. He had put up a stout resistance, and deserved good treatment. In fact such faithful soldiers would be a valuable addition to any army, and at his first parley Demetrius proposed that they should enter his service as a unit. Dionysius replied that he and his men were Macedonians, bound by oath to Cassander. Demetrius did not press his offer.

  They went on to discuss how the garrison might retire in safety. Here Demetrius was firm. Since these men would not join him he must publish to the world t
hat he had beaten them, without any suggestion that the siege had ended in a stalemate. They must embark, without their arms, on the ships he would lend them. But Dionysius himself must surrender to his conqueror, and remain a prisoner until ransomed.

  These were hard terms for such a war, a mere struggle between Antigonus and Cassander for the tribute of Hellas; though democrats and oligarchs took it more seriously. Dionysius accepted them with reluctance, only because he could resist no longer. There was a danger that the next time these warriors encountered on the battlefield, as was likely to happen very soon, they would fall on one another with a ferocity that might outrage neutral opinion. So at the last minute Demetrius did something to soften the blow.

  When the garrison laid down their arms he inquired of Dionysius whether they had been paid up to date. He received the answer he had expected, that their pay was much in arrear; and took his adversary’s word for the total. He paid all the disarmed men from his own war-chest. They sailed away with grateful memories of the generosity of the Saviour Gods, which they would recall when their engagements ran out and they looked round for another employer.

  Dionysius was not long a captive, for he was known as a man who paid his debts. Within three days the bankers of Piraeus had lent him the full sum of his ransome, on no security except his sealed bond. He sailed after his troops, and Demetrius was sorry to see him go.

  Before he planned his ceremonial entry into Athens he ought to learn something of the feeling in the city. All he knew so far was what Aristodemus chose to tell him, except for the official announcements of the new democratic government. It would be interesting to find out, if he could, what support the new divinities had among the educated citizens. Luckily an excuse was to hand. The Assembly had decreed numerous statues to the Saviour Gods, and these ought to be in place before the younger Saviour God showed himself in person to his worshippers. A group of sculptors had asked if they might see him.

  There were five of them, all young men and evidently very pleased with themselves. They were not competing against one another, as at first he had feared when he smiled vaguely at all of them; they worked in partnership under the name of the Sons of Praxiteles. As soon as they had greeted him (it was the morning after the surrender of Munychia) three of them fell to measuring him all over with calipers while the other two stood off and stared.

  He felt he ought to make conversation, so that they might study his face in motion. ‘Have you gentlemen been commissioned to make these statues, or will you enter them in a competition for the Assembly to pick the winner?’

  ‘The Assembly must go through the form of a competition when the city’s money is to be spent. But our study from life, will win it.’ The young sculptor grinned. ‘I don’t say that because we are the finest artists in Athens. We are the finest, of course, but some citizens are too old-fashioned to see it. We shall win the competition because we are all good democrats and followers of Stratocles. Since the flight of the Phalerian he controls the Assembly, and he keeps control by seeing that public money goes only to his friends. This is the statute which will preside over your principal altar, my lord god.’

  ‘What statue? I don’t see one. I can’t even see any marble. And must you tickle my nose with those callipers? Am I a different shape from the rest of the human race?’

  ‘Of course your shape is unique. That is true of everyone. We shall make the statue as like you as we can. You can’t see any marble because the block is still in Athens. It’s a fine block, I chose it myself. Thanks to Stratocles we got it free from the state quarries on Pentelicon. But for the preliminary portrait-study of your face we shall use only this lump of clay.’ The young sculptor was not at all in awe of his victorious and deified deliverer.

  Demetrius was interested. ‘You are taking a lot of trouble. I thought the statue of a god showed him only in a general sort of way. Apollo for instance is any young athlete; Zeus any elderly benign counsellor; Aphrodite is any pretty girl and Athene any noble virgin. You can’t measure the angle of their jaws, as you are doing to me now. Surely you could stay in Athens and start carving directly in the marble, instead of coming out to my camp? All you want is a young warrior in armour. The inscription on the base tells everyone that it’s me, and not Ares for instance.’

  ‘That may be good enough for a Saviour God, even good enough for the Athenians. It’s not good enough for the Sons of Praxiteles. We follow the new theory, that a statue should be as like its original as marble can be made to resemble flesh. Of course there has to be compromise. We shall make you a little taller than you are in life, and we shall leave out that scar above your left knee. Your cuirass is shaped to give you a perfect chest and stomach anyway, so we have only to reproduce its bronze in marble. But for the head and neck we shall try to portray every wrinkle.’

  ‘Won’t that be very laborious? Every soldier who is out in all weathers has a network of fine wrinkles on his face.’

  ‘Laborious perhaps, but not for us. In our studio we have skilled slaves, trained to copy in marble every line in the clay. They use instruments, of course, to keep the copy faithful. They are assistants only, the inspiration comes from us’

  ‘Is that true art, a copy made without thought by slaves? What about the chryselaphantine statue? Can you trust slaves to work in gold and ivory without stealing bits of it?’

  ‘True art? Who built the Parthenon? Pheidias, it says in the guide-books. Do you think he fluted the columns with his own chisel? He sketched the design, and then slaves copied what he had drawn. Sculptors never use a chisel nowadays. We have to be careful of our social standing, with all this modern prejudice against those who work with their hands. As for the two statues of gold and ivory, the Assembly has voted them but they won’t come our way. The pickings are too rich. Our noble Stratocles will give the contract to the studio which contributed most generously to the democratic party, and that isn’t us. I don’t care. Ivory is a difficult medium for large-scale work, and such statues never last long anyway. When the next financial crisis hits the city the gold is melted down. But marble can be a memorial for ever - now, my lord god, just keep still while I get the folds in that left ear, and we’ll make a statue of you that will bring an atheist to his knees. In addition you will recognise in it something of yourself. Difficult, that. In fact only our studio can do it. If you want a memorial of some handsome boy, so that you can recall his beauty when time has destroyed it, come to the Sons of Praxiteles.’

  ‘I’m not so interested as some people in handsome boys. Pretty girls, yes. But I prefer them in pink flesh, not in white marble. No need for a memorial, either. As soon as one is full blown another comes along.’

  The sculptors were quite unself-conscious, treating the divine liberator as an equal. This conversation was rather fun, Demetrius decided. He was particularly pleased at the contempt shown for Stratocles. Here were Athenians worthy to talk with a victorious soldier. He would try to meet others of the same kind.

  At once he despatched Aristodemus with instructions to gather a supper party of the gentry, and the sort of female companions the gentry took with them to parties. Twenty-four hours was short notice, but the wish of the Saviour God would be treated as a command. The men he wanted to meet would certainly be oligarchs, or at least not committed supporters of democracy; so they would not be occupied in official business.

  On the eve of his triumphal entry into Athens his guests came to Piraeus, eight young gentlemen each with a female companion. Demetrius looked forward to meeting the cream of the Athenian hetairae; every whore in Asia claimed to have been educated and trained in Athens, if she had enough Hellenic culture to add water to her wine.

  He was agreeably surprised to meet gracious ladies, who would have passed as respectable in the mixed society of Asiatic courts. It was odd that these Athenians, notorious for their casual manners, should be so curmudgeonly in the treatment of their wives. A citizen must marry the legitimate daughter of a citizen, or his sons could not inh
erit his citizenship. Rumour said they chose the most stupid and submissive of the eligible maidens, so that they would be undisputed masters in their homes. The result was that their wives could not be trusted to behave in public, or to converse intelligently with a strange man. They were shut away at the back of the house; while every man of standing supported a hetaira in a snug little box round the corner.

  Perhaps it had something to do with this Athenian fad for democracy. In Sparta, where every citizen lived under military discipline, respectable wives enjoyed much greater freedom. Demetrius could look at these questions from the outside. In Celaenae, where he had passed his childhood, there were no accepted canons of behaviour; thirty years ago no Hellenes had lived there, and the new aristocracy of settlers made up their conventions as they went along.

  Meanwhile these hetairae were a new experience. Each girl had been brought by her protector, so it would be bad manners to poach; though it was comforting to reflect that the new Saviour God could steal any of them if he chose. They languished at him, fluttering their eyelashes and sighing with awed delight whenever he spoke; though each reclined decently on her separate couch, and even her protector did not toy with her in public.

  From the start the young noblemen struck just the right note; gay and flippant but with a latent respect for their new Saviour, like well-bred young aides at the table of their commander. They professed a healthy contempt for the government, a contempt which chimed with his own. They told him in chorus, each adding another detail, the latest funny story about Stratocles the demagogue. Aping his betters, this low-born bachelor had publicly set up housekeeping with a hetaira; but she despised his manners so much that she insisted on doing the catering. A few days ago she had come back from the market with a parcel of butcher’s offal, sheep’s necks and brains. The politician boasted, so the story went, that she had brought back for dinner the raw material of his trade.