The Gates of Athens

by Conn Iggulden

  One of the children began to cry, though she could not tell whether it was little Pericles or his sister. She firmed her mouth and rose from the bed. The staff would answer any call at the door and decide whether the mistress of the house should be woken. As if anyone could sleep through such knocking! Her mind filled with threats: Xanthippus dead, an invasion by the Persians, the city aflame with riots and insurrection. With a curse, she wrapped a robe around her and padded out into the main house.

  The slave quarters had been dug into the foundations below the family rooms, so that she glimpsed frightened faces in the doorways. They had not dared to light their own lamps before the mistress allowed it. They waited as shadows, helpless to fate as their station demanded. Agariste clenched her jaw as she walked, wishing one of them had the sense to soothe the crying child. She had recognised the voice of Pericles by then. It was hard not to feel anger for whichever fool had chosen to wake the entire house, at Hera knew what hour of the night.

  Of the fifty-four slaves in her household, just six had been trained with weapons to defend the women and children. Those men worked as cooks and masons and carpenters, but when the mistress was threatened, they took up swords and leather armour and stood before her. Others of the staff brought lamps to throw light upon the scene. They gathered between the main house and the wall by the road, falling in around Agariste as she came striding out. She showed no fear to them when the light washed across her. She was Athena, who wore a warrior’s helmet. She drew herself up and hid the terror that made her tremble and her knees want to fold.

  The most senior slave of her household was Manias, who had served her father and known her as a little girl. He had helped Xanthippus with his weapons and armour before going out to Marathon. With a blade in his hand, he stood by the iron gate and nodded to the mistress of the house, ready for her command. The road was hidden behind it, but a slot could be opened. There was a risk of a spear-thrust, of course, which was why he looked to her for orders.

  ‘See who it is, Manias,’ Agariste said, the breath catching cold in her throat.

  He opened the slot and peered out. Standing behind him, Agariste saw the man’s shoulders dip and the tension go from his grip on the sword.

  ‘It is the master,’ Manias said.

  Agariste might have replied, but a voice bellowed outside.

  ‘Door! What, are you all deaf? Open the door.’

  Agariste did not release the others, though she signalled to Manias to pull back the bolts that ran from the iron door into the wall itself. It was unforgivable for Xanthippus to wake the family in this way.

  The door opened and then shuddered as Xanthippus half-fell through it, held upright by two strangers. They seemed crudely amused rather than embarrassed. Agariste drew her robe more tightly around her as they tried to bow and not drop her husband at the same time. She could smell wine and vomit on them all and she raised a hand to her mouth.

  ‘Where would you like him, mistress?’ one of the men slurred at her, choosing to wink for some reason.

  ‘I would like him left in the gutter,’ she said. ‘However, as you have woken my entire household to bring him in, leave him on that bench there and depart. Manias – give them a drachm apiece for their trouble, would you?’

  Manias found two silver coins and passed them to the delighted men, who thanked him profusely. Xanthippus lolled on the bench with his head tilted back, already asleep. The other two stood in the doorway, looking blearily around themselves.

  ‘Might there be something to eat as well?’ one of them asked.

  ‘No,’ Agariste said. ‘Are you slaves?’

  Her manner to them would depend on their station, of course. In the half-light, it was hard to tell, as both young men were dressed simply, without rings. She was relieved when they nodded. She had been at a disadvantage before, but that vanished.

  ‘You have my gratitude. And who is your master, to have brought my husband home in such a state?’

  ‘Archon Themistocles, madam,’ one of them said proudly. ‘He has bought a brothel.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Agariste said. ‘This was in the nature of a celebration, then, was it?’

  Both men nodded, though one of them was looking pale, as if he might be ill once more.

  ‘Return to your master, with my thanks,’ she said, as gently as she could.

  She showed no further sign of her irritation at them, or her fury at her husband. They beamed at her and allowed Manias to push them back into the road. The gate was closed and locked and they could be heard singing as they wandered back towards the city.

  12

  The meeting of the Assembly was called with the low notes of conch shells reverberating over the city. Though the sun approached noon, the people of Athens barely paused in their labours. If anything, the bustling markets in the open Agora became a touch more frenzied as voting men tried to finish their purchases, pressing parcels of food into the arms of slaves. Those few women of the upper classes who were out on the streets stood back from crowds or turned for home, knowing from experience how they could be manhandled in a crush. Poorer women had no such restraints on their comings and goings. Some of them in the market stalls bawled even lower prices, trying to catch bargain hunters in the last moments before they had to leave.

  Epikleos and Xanthippus were seated on the edge of the Pnyx hill, a few paces from the speaker’s stone, the favoured spot already busy with clusters of men. Neither of them had contested a place on the flat rock that raised speakers the height of a man above the rest. They’d been summoned to a regular meeting, long scheduled. As if on a normal day, they’d greeted one another with the traditional ‘What news?’. The truth was the news had already spread so far and fast that few making their way in had to be informed. The prospect of great wealth was exciting, like wine in the blood. It could be seen in the whites of the eyes, heard in nervous laughter.

  Little by little, the Pnyx began to fill with young and old, drawn by curiosity and pride, by heralds and the conch notes, even a sense of civic duty.

  ‘I wonder if they’ll need the red ropes in the Agora today,’ Epikleos said to his friend. He nodded as Xanthippus began to retort. ‘Yes, of course they will. Our people do not like to be told what to do, even when it is for their benefit. The gods bless them for it.’

  The Pnyx hill sat high above the valley that had the Agora at its heart, with stone steps wide enough for thousands to sit and listen to speakers. On normal days, it was not uncommon for just six or seven thousand to attend the meetings, barely enough to decide new laws or cases. On days like this, upwards of twenty thousand would pack themselves in.

  With the news from Laurium, members were making their way in from demes outside the city as well as every part of it. Athenians being what they were, there were still stragglers, deep in conversation or bargaining for whatever goods or favours they had been trying to purchase.

  The team of public slaves employed by the Assembly began the work they clearly enjoyed – dipping long looping ropes in red paint to herd the last voters up the hill. Depending on the public mood and the insults called to them, they could make it hard or easy to avoid. No one wanted to be touched by paint that would mark any item of cloth for ever – and skin for a week or more. Those red stripes were always cause for laughter and comment whenever they were seen, with men called ‘laggard’ or ‘slowfoot’, to the amusement of others with no voting rights at all.

  Some slaves would always be caught in the red ropes. Neither they, nor women and children, nor the foreign metics had the right to vote, and so they were released, like smaller fish back into the ocean. Only voting males over eighteen remained. There were perhaps thirty thousand of those in Athens – three times the number that had stood at Marathon. From the ten tribes of the city, the Assembly appointed a council, with officials and magistrates – and the epistates, chairman for the day, chosen by lot. It was said that any man over the age of thirty could rule Athens for a day, if he truly wanted.
In constant flux, the system was designed to make a tyrant impossible. Depending on his mood and the quality of arguments, Xanthippus both detested and loved it, for all its chaos and its earnestness.

  A ram was sacrificed by the speaker’s stone, then carried, head down, by two sweating priests around the boundary, so that its blood trail marked a solemn line. Those within would make the laws that ruled them. Those without would obey those laws. They might allow no individual tyrants, but the judgments of the Assembly were cut into stone and displayed in the Agora. There, anyone could read them, metic, woman or slave, if they had knowledge of letters or a coin to have them read aloud.

  ‘Who is epistates today?’ Xanthippus murmured to his friend.

  They both eyed the man climbing the steps to the speaker’s stone. The title was the one they both knew from the phalanx – ‘He who stands behind’. On the Pnyx, it was meant as a reminder that whoever led the city was also a servant of the people. This one was a stranger to them both and Epikleos shrugged.

  ‘Pandionis tribe have the chair this month. I don’t know them well. Leontis are due next, so I imagine we’ll see Themistocles busy as a bee then. I see he is on the stone today. No surprise after this news. Aristides too.’

  ‘There’ll be a clash, then. Those two cannot agree on the days of the week.’

  The man on the speaker’s stone beamed out at the packed thousands of his people, gathered to hear the business of the day. Xanthippus raised his eyes for a moment.

  ‘I wonder sometimes if there isn’t a better way than this,’ he said out of the side of his mouth.

  Epikleos turned to him, smiling sardonically. It was a conversation they’d had before – one that all men of Athens had when they were in their cups.

  ‘We’ve tried tyrants,’ Epikleos said. ‘Whenever a man of our class complains about the new rules, he always seems to imagine himself as the font of new laws. “Oh, the things I would do!” he says. It doesn’t work, Xan. Bad tyrants always follow good ones. That much power over other men… it does not bring out the best in us. A lad can hardly sit on a throne without demanding a dozen young wives in his personal harem! Why should we endure another tyrant, no matter how well-meaning? The people would revolt against it now. I tell you, Xan. We sent the last one into exile and we could just as easily have killed him. Hippias was a man out of time, without even the sense to know it.’

  ‘Who will speak?’ the epistates bellowed over the heads of the assembled men.

  There was a ripple of conversation, more serious than on some days. Any one of them could reply, if he found supporters in the crowd. Of course, if a brawl began, or a speaker offended the gods, the Scythian archers stood by to bear him off.

  Xanthippus shook his head.

  ‘There has to be a middle ground between tyrants and this – a new leader every day of the year.’

  ‘“Every man can rule in Athens, at least for a day,”’ Epikleos said softly. ‘And of course the council of the Areopagus has power. The archons understand the people better than they do themselves.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Xanthippus replied. ‘There are some who would deny them a voice, as if no man’s opinion is worth more than any other! If we ever go so far, Epikleos… Even now, listen to them!’ He paused as arguments erupted and swelled across the Pnyx. Xanthippus shook his head. ‘This is… messy.’

  His friend sighed.

  ‘There is nothing like this in the world, Xan. It may be messy, but it is wonderful.’

  Xanthippus looked at him in surprise.

  ‘You really have changed your mind? When, after Marathon?’

  ‘Not then! Where were these when we marched out? Not half the voting males know one end of a spear from another. No, if I were harder than I am, I would say either fight for your city or be ruled by those who did! No, I was discussing the tyrannies with Aristides…’

  Xanthippus tapped him on the arm. Themistocles had answered the call, climbing to the speaker’s stone so that he would be heard. Raised above the crowd, with the Acropolis on his right hand to inspire him, his words would carry to everyone there. The epistates looked formally for supporters, concerned with his duties. Voices called out, hands held high to second Themistocles in his right to speak. His opponents raised no objection, seemingly content to let him begin. The sacrifices had all been made, the prayers to Athena and Apollo given. The leader for the day took his seat as Themistocles cleared his throat and opened the meeting.

  ‘My friends, my brothers, Athenians. Every one of you will have heard the miners at Laurium have found a new seam – a thread of silver and lead ore as rich as anything we’ve seen before.’ A ripple of astonishment went around the Assembly and Themistocles laughed out loud. ‘Will you pretend to be surprised? Athenians, I know what you know. There are, what, ten thousand men working that mine? More? This was never news that could be kept secret, not from the first moments. The whispers have gone round and the wealth belongs to us all. We of Athens are richer today than we have been before.’

  They cheered him, or perhaps the idea. More, they went along with his assessment that they had all known the news. Xanthippus thought there would surely have been some who had not heard. Yet they would laugh along with the rest, delighted to be included. In that way, with just a few words, Themistocles made them all one. Epikleos grinned back at Xanthippus for his saturnine expression.

  ‘If we were Spartans,’ Themistocles went on, ‘we would spend the silver on new barracks and… stones or pillars of iron. If men of Thessaly, we would surely buy horses. Men of Corinth, perhaps sheep or goats. Who knows? There are around thirty thousand men of voting age in Athens. I could have the demarchos of each of the hundred demes provide the exact tally. Perhaps we’ll need to, when we’ve decided what to do with this gift of the gods. Twenty thousand foreign metics will not take a share, of course. All the women and children number some two hundred thousand, slaves around the same. Now, the wages for a working man are two drachms a day, just over seven hundred a year.’

  He had the attention of the crowd, rapt as he plucked figures from the air. Xanthippus and Epikleos shared a wry glance. To qualify as Eupatridae, both men had to own or control lands that earned a fortune in grain – or silver, when it was sold. The new mine would not affect their lives in any great way. Yet they could see the gleam of avarice in the crowd, the sparkle of excitement. For many there it would mean a real change of fortune.

  ‘What is his intention?’ Epikleos murmured. ‘He trusts you, Xan, or he would like to. Has he discussed this?’

  Xanthippus shook his head as Themistocles went on, his voice strong and clear.

  ‘The new mine could bring as much as a year’s wage to every one of you, so I have been told. I have been to the site and seen the new trenches. Thousands more will find work cutting into the earth there. If you or your relatives have ever feared starvation, be assured of that – there will be work at Laurium. I tell you this because I know Aristides will be honest with you. He will tell you to take the silver from the earth, to refine it and stamp it in drachms and tetradrachms, to feed your families and build new homes. He will tell you to employ carpenters and tilers and buy meat and cheese and wooden toys for your children. He will say that such an amount of silver brought into the city will change hands many times, creating value and labour where there was none before. Aristides believes there is benefit to us all in such a find. In that, he and I are in perfect accord. Athenians will benefit, but in freedom, not in tiles and bricks and better roads.’

  There was a rumble of discontent and Themistocles raised his hands, laughing along with them.

  ‘Oh, I know, the roads are terrible. We should pave them. Perhaps Aristides will tell you to do just that when he speaks. After all, when the Persians march into Athens, they will be delighted to find good roads, with fine, flat stones to make the surface!’

  He waited for a ripple of nervous laughter to end, then spoke more seriously.

  ‘In Athens, we make our wealth
in trade. We sell oil and figs and clay jars from our kilns. We import fish, barley and wheat for our bread. Our life’s blood is in sea salt, dried on the sails of our ships, in the shine of old wood on the docks. The port of Piraeus is what separates us from men of Corinth, or soldiers of Sparta, or the horse-traders of Thessaly. We are seafarers, and we are a sovereign people, as Homer himself described us.’

  He paused. His large head sank, as if in prayer, though his eyes stared into the distance.

  Xanthippus blinked slowly, watching the man perform. The only sound was the susurration of the breeze and the flutter of robes. Xanthippus thought it was probably his imagination that he could smell the sea. When Themistocles raised his head again, it felt like a sacred moment had passed.

  ‘What ships do we command now?’ he asked. ‘Miltiades took seventy triremes and the crews and hoplites to man them. Barely two dozen remain to patrol all our waters, to answer any threat that may arise. Yet those of us who marched to Marathon saw the fleets of Persia and their Phoenician allies. We saw sails and oars then, two, three hundred ships, more – all carrying horses and men. Creeping along our coasts unchallenged. Landing where they chose, threatening all we have, all we could ever have. If Aristides will stand and argue for roads and temples, ask him this: What good will they be when the Persians return? Unless you believe the Persians will not, of course – that a Great King who had never known defeat will take the blow we dealt him at Marathon and retire from our affairs! If you believe that, I have a pot to sell you, one Heracles himself used to own.’

  He smiled with the crowd, but then became utterly serious, his brows lowering into a thunderous expression.

  ‘The silver at Laurium is a gift from the earth – and from the gods. None of us expected it – nor have we done much to deserve such wealth. If we vote to split the silver between us, we will each have enough to buy a few baubles – a new roof, a new gate, stones for the road, or a slave. Such things are worth having. Such things will be valued by our enemies when they come! I ask instead that the new silver be added to a common fund, administered by officials of this Assembly to lay down new keels – a fleet the like of which this city has never known. One hundred, two hundred ships, whatever we can build and crew.’