The Gates of Athens

by Conn Iggulden

  ‘Pericles! Ariphron! Eleni!’ she called at the top of her voice.

  Epikleos heard high voices replying and he began to jog towards them. Xanthippus had given him the task of saving his family. It was a sacred trust and he would not let him down.

  * * *

  Xanthippus stood on the shore of the port of Piraeus. He could see the limestone spire of the Acropolis in the distance and he longed to stand there, instead of shepherding thousands of his people onto the galleys rowing in and out in ceaseless order. The waters were calm enough in the shelter of the port, though he had reports of a galley turning over in the strait between the mainland and the island of Salamis. The sense of panic was on them all since the bulk of the Greek fleet had appeared, weary men at the oars who nonetheless fell into their new duty and began ferrying passengers over from the port. Salamis was visible from the coast, across the sea. It was no safe refuge, not for anything more than a few days. It had one great advantage over Athens and the mainland – no soldier could reach it on foot. The women and children and slaves of Athens would be spared the slaughter and rapine of a marauding army entering Athens. It was all he could offer then. Some cold, still part of him was afraid it was nothing more than a delay. The Persian king had brought so many men and ships, it was hard to see how anyone could do more than just retreat and retreat before them.

  Two more galleys came in, backing oars at the last moment so that they bumped against the stone quays, throwing ropes to waiting men there and heaving in the oars to sit, staring in exhaustion. Xanthippus whistled up the water boys he had assembled, sending them on board as soon as the gangplank was tied on. His people had gathered in vast numbers, more and more of them streaming down from the city. They carried valuables in sacks, some of them, clutched as close as the children who peeped out from their legs and cloaks. Some wailed in fear and anger, others exhorted the aid of the gods in their hour of need. The ships took on as many as they could cram onto the decks without risking their lives. The danger was constant and Xanthippus could only pray they wouldn’t lose more. Half a dozen women and children had been picked up from the galley that went over. The rest had drowned.

  He rubbed his face, so tired he could barely think as his vision blurred. He needed to sleep, to eat, to experience quiet and peace for just a few hours before being thrown back into the tumult. He and his crew had peeled off from the main fleet the morning before, part of a hundred and sixty Athenian ships. Themistocles had trusted him to lead them home, then carry the news to the Agora and the Areopagus. Younger men had made the run from the port into the city, calling the news as they went. It had been chaos from the first moments, but they’d come. His people had gathered up their loved ones and run to the quays. They had trusted in the Athenians of the fleet, their husbands and brothers and sons.

  Xanthippus slapped himself on the face with his left hand, keeping himself alert. He looked further along the road, watching for Agariste and the children. He would not leave without them. Yet all the while he stood there, he felt the gaze of many, wondering why his ship remained while others drove back and forth, back and forth. Some old women had tried arguing with his hoplites, gesturing furiously. Those men had glanced back in mute appeal, but he had sent them to another ship, over all their curses.

  The crowd was thickening, if anything, though he’d seen more people than he’d known lived in the city taken to Salamis. He imagined every deme of Athens being emptied – the Ceramicus, the council building, the temples on the Acropolis. He wondered if the city had been quiet without the men who crewed the ships. He imagined them subdued and worried, waiting for news. They had been given a victory after Marathon. He recalled the cheering crowds then, with garlands of amaranth flowers. That day was still a shining memory, he realised. Before his banishment and all the bitterness of years away. Before the politics of the city had taken on a sour taste. Before the king of Persia had brought an army and a fleet to break them.

  Xanthippus swallowed when he saw the cart coming through the crowd. He was not certain for a moment, then he recognised Pericles on horseback, with Agariste and Eleni driving the cart and – there, Ariphron and Epikleos riding horses at the rear. He could hear his dog barking and saw the big mastiff bounding along, wild with excitement. They made a path as those on foot gave way to the strength and size of the horses or were buffeted. Some of the women trudging along must have recognised Agariste, or known it was her husband who waited with the ship. They increased their pace. Part of the crowd there seemed to swell and heave forward, coming in his direction, so that Xanthippus saw they would arrive together, infecting one another with a sort of desperate need. He could hear his dog howling as it ran.

  ‘Let them on,’ he called to the hoplites guarding the gangplank.

  The crowd began to run and he saw his men knocked aside as women and children abandoned caution, seeing only the empty deck and safety. One of them went right down, vanishing in the rush. Xanthippus felt a surge of panic at the thought of too many pouring on board. He glared at his men, seeing their helplessness. They could not draw blades on women and children, but the crowd had a life of its own and a need that would not be denied.

  ‘Fetch another dozen men out,’ Xanthippus bellowed to his crew. ‘We can’t let them run wild. They’ll swamp the ship.’

  On board, orders were roared to get out and help as Agariste and the children drew up and reined in. Xanthippus reached up to his wife and took her around the waist, helping her down to the stones of the port.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ he said.

  Her eyes searched his for reassurance and found none.

  Epikleos was there, using his outstretched arms and booming voice to make a path for the children. The horses were left where they stood and Xanthippus almost went over as his dog Conis leapt up at him, tangling itself in his tunic and cloak and slobbering. Xanthippus embraced the animal, laughing as it wriggled and bounced.

  ‘Are you coming with us?’ Agariste said.

  Xanthippus shook his head.

  ‘Not yet. I wish I could. Keep Manias and the others close. Shall I leave you Epikleos?’

  ‘I’d be happier knowing he was with you,’ she said. ‘We’ll be all right.’

  Xanthippus saw his children had come closer, unwilling to interrupt their parents in their conversation. He kissed Agariste quickly and embraced them one by one, feeling the strength in them all.

  ‘Keep your mother and sister safe – your lives on it,’ Xanthippus said sternly to Pericles and Ariphron. Both of them nodded, matching his seriousness.

  Xanthippus glanced over his shoulder. His hoplites had come out and brought some order to the crowd pressing to get on board. Already they were waving some away and telling them they would have to wait for another ship or join the crowds further along the quays. None of them wanted to risk losing a place and they cried out in entreaty, then anger, as Xanthippus brought his family and his wife’s household through.

  He pressed Agariste forward with a hand in the small of her back, then his sons and his daughter, pausing only to kiss the top of her head. Manias went too, with no more than an exchange of glances. The old man would look after them, as he always had.

  Xanthippus felt the wrench of it, even in the midst of his relief. He had reached them. He felt as if he could faint there and then on the quayside, just give way to complete collapse. There was shouting and crying all around him in the press of bodies, while still more streamed down from the city.

  Epikleos was there, at his shoulder, appearing out of the mob.

  ‘I can manage the crowds here. Go with your family. They need you more than we do, at least for the moment.’

  Xanthippus nodded, overcome. He pushed through the hoplites guarding the ship and reached the deck. He felt tears in his eyes as his children caught sight of him and hung from his arms and chest, crushing the air out of him. Agariste was weeping, he saw.

  ‘Where is my dog?’ he asked them.

  They all l
ooked around, but there was no sight of the great beast. Already the ship was being pushed off, the oarsmen settling to their task one more time. In moments, the sail was raised to catch the gentlest breeze, anything at all that might lessen the burden for the rowers. Xanthippus saw the crowds pressing in their desperation. One or two fell into the sea when the crush was too great, shrieking in fear.

  He looked up and felt a rushing in his ears and blood drain from his face. The Acropolis seemed to shift in shape as he watched, as if some great hand twisted it. He understood then, feeling the hair on his neck prickle. It was smoke, a great column of blackness that engulfed and smothered the city. The Persians had reached the city of Athena – and when they found it empty, they had set it on fire.

  He heard the gasps from those on the crowded deck as they too saw the column and understood what it meant. A low moan of fear and pointing hands made him turn his head to the east. Greek ships were all around him, ferrying women and children. Beyond, a new line of ships had appeared, rowing, rowing, making the sea white. The Persian fleet had come.

  Xanthippus clutched his family to him. Looking back at the port, he saw the tiny figure of his dog suddenly fall or leap into the water, vanishing beneath the surface, then appear once again, paddling after him. He swore under his breath at the stupid animal. He could not halt the galley, even if they’d had a boat in tow to set down. The dog would never survive the swim to Salamis.

  In the face of the destruction of Athens, it was a small thing, but he felt tears streaming down his face even so. He watched the struggling dog for a long time until he was just a speck on the waters and then gone, lost in the vastness of the sea.

  Historical Note

  When does a story really begin? When Greek cities in Ionia (western Turkey) came under the control of Persia? When they rebelled, called for help and Greek columns rampaged through the region? Or when Greek diplomats were asked for ‘earth and water’ – complete submission – by a satrap of the Great King. Far from home and unable to consult, they gave the obeisance required and so became vassals of Persia, at least as far as Darius was concerned.

  * * *

  Or is it before those events, when Athenians were fighting against tyrants like Hippias? When the head of the Alcmaeonidae family bribed a priestess in Delphi to give the same message to any Spartan who came to ask a question, regardless of the subject: ‘Free Athens from Tyranny.’

  When Sparta eventually sent an army to force the tyrant Hippias to stand down, they were tempted to stay and rule a competitor city – until every street filled with armed men. The citizens of Athens had been promised self-rule and that is a powerful thing. The Spartan army left, though the incident rankled. Men like the Athenian Cleisthenes thought up rules and tribes and laws – a system of checks and balances and responsibilities, designed so that no one could ever rise to be a tyrant again. It is the birth of democracy, an idea of equality before the law that has endured for two and a half thousand years.

  * * *

  The battle of Marathon that opens this book has a number of gaps in the record. We do not know if King Darius was present. No one knows what happened to the Persian cavalry. Cavalry was a big part of Persian armies at this time – and would be present for the invasion with Xerxes later on. Here, though, the horses are reported and then vanish. It seemed to me that after sacking the seaport of Eretria, the beach at Marathon must have been a handy staging post for an invasion of Athens along the coast. It is only twenty miles away and a reasonable spot for the Persian force that day to regroup, repair and give their horses a chance to run off some seasickness. I’ve assumed the reason the cavalry was not there is because it had gone aboard.

  It is true that Xanthippus was present, father of Pericles and husband to Agariste, niece of Cleisthenes. The wonderful Themistocles was there in the centre, to lead the Leontis tribe. Aristides stood with him, leading Antiochis tribe. The ‘polemarch’, or war leader, was Callimachus on the right wing, though Miltiades seems to have been in effective command throughout. Callimachus was killed in the fighting. A statue in his honour was raised on the Acropolis, though it did not survive the Persian invasion.

  As a matter of record, the playwright Aeschylus was also there – and saw his brother killed. Miltiades thinned his own centre and then saw it beaten back. His heavy wings then came down on Persian forces and crushed them with long spears and a disciplined phalanx formation. It was as savage as might be expected from men defending their home. The ‘Miltiades helmet’ – presumably the one he wore at Marathon and marked with his name – is at the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, Greece. Though damaged, it is an incredible thing.

  * * *

  I wrote the scene with Miltiades delaying the wing to explain a later event. When Miltiades returned from his failed expedition, having lost men and ships, the great hero of Marathon was badly wounded. In that moment of utter shame and weakness, Xanthippus made his accusation. The trial that followed is hard to explain unless Xanthippus had a personal motive. I wondered if he considered the man a traitor and an enemy, based on something he had seen at Marathon.

  That sequence of events seemed likely to me as a way of explaining Xanthippus’ behaviour. Many Greek states supported Persia. The Thebans were infamous for being present on the wrong side, mocked and scorned for centuries in Athenian drama. Queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus also worked with the Persians. She was presented by Herodotus as a sympathetic character, perhaps in part because he came from the same place. It might look like treason today, but the idea of the nation state had not yet taken root.

  * * *

  Miltiades died a prisoner, in 489 BC, the year after Marathon. Xanthippus was ostracised, or exiled, five years later, in 484 BC, after a public vote. Pieces of pottery, ‘ostraca’, from that event with his name inscribed survive – one with two lines of verse scratched into the surface. It mentions an injustice in politics as the reason. We cannot know for certain whether it was the trial of Miltiades, though that seems likely. Nor can we know the exact part Themistocles played, though it is true that both Xanthippus and Aristides were ostracised by public vote. With the death of Miltiades, that left Themistocles effectively as first man in Athens. Despite the slow reveal, it does look like a campaign by a man famous for his persuasiveness. Only an extraordinary event would force Themistocles to use his influence once again – to reverse the ostracisms and bring good military men home. That event was the invasion of Greece by Persia.

  * * *

  It is true that Themistocles persuaded the Assembly of Athens to use the windfall of silver from a new seam at Laurium to build a fleet of one hundred and eighty ships – a fleet that would be instrumental in evacuating Athens. Themistocles literally saved his city – with three brilliant ideas. This is the story of the first of the three. The Greeks did not take the favour of the gods for granted, but there are times when it looked as if they were rather blessed…

  I have compressed the timeline between Marathon and the Xerxes invasion – there was only one ostracism vote allowed per year, for example, which is sensible, but it robs a narrative of a little dramatic energy. I’ve kept the main events as they happened, however. I think it is a fascinating tale and Themistocles was a brilliant man, often overlooked as a key historical figure. The scene where Aristides wrote his own name on a shard of pottery for an illiterate man to vote is well attested – and a fascinating clue to the nature of Aristides.

  * * *

  In Persia, the death of Darius interrupted the terrible vengeance he desired. It is true that he shot an arrow as his vow and had a slave whisper three times each evening for him to ‘Remember the Greeks’. Yet it would be his son Xerxes who brought the army and the fleet to Greece, crossing the Hellespont on two bridges of ships to do it. The detail of his wife giving thanks to the god Ahura Mazda by burying children alive is from Herodotus.

  * * *

  Note: the Persian capital was Paarsa. I have used the Greek name for it, Paarsa-polis (city of Paa
rsa) or ‘Persepolis’, throughout as it’s better known.

  * * *

  Over four or five years, news spread of the huge invasion force being gathered in what is now modern-day Turkey. When Aristides and Xanthippus were summoned home early from exile, it can only have been with the connivance of Themistocles. Their personal feuds were simply put aside for the greater good, which is extraordinary. Xanthippus took on a senior role in the fleet. Aristides was given command of the main force of Athenian hoplites and took them out to join the allied city-states.

  * * *

  First contact with the Persian fleet was off the island of Sciathos. The Persian sailors seem to have made heavy weather of the unknown coasts, taking it very slowly. However, ten of their scout ships came across three Greek triremes left there to carry warning.

  The Persians rammed and sank one Greek ship. They sacrificed a particularly handsome sailor on the deck of his own ship for good luck. The second Greek crew was overcome after a fierce resistance. The final trireme made it to the mainland and the crew took off over land. Meanwhile, three of the Persian ships ran aground on a bank out to sea, which they then marked with a stone pillar brought for that exact purpose – to show the danger to those following. This was the first incident of the Persian war of 480 BC, and it was a complete disaster for the Greeks: surprised, overwhelmed by superior numbers and massacred.

  * * *

  The fleet of Xerxes lost many more ships to storms as they came south, though exact numbers are unknown. In strange lands, they hugged the shore and tried to keep the army under Mardonius in sight at all times. The plan was to reach Athens by land, after crossing a final range of mountains – through the pass known as Thermopylae. At the same time, the Persian invasion engaged the combined Greek fleet at sea for three days of fighting along the strait near the town of Artemisium. (It seems to be just a coincidence that the queen of Halicarnassus was called Artemisia.) The number of Persian ships was reported at around 1,200, though it may have been as low as six or eight hundred.