by Roger Hudson
Lydos put the radicals' new, cunning tactics down to the advice of young Perikles, who many of the rich regarded as a traitor to their class, and of the young intellectuals around him. Perikles had been very close to Themistokles when he was younger and must have learned from him. But it still wasn’t clear why there was so much animosity around, an animosity that Lydos seemed to share.
"If the Areopagos only took those powers because so many citizens were away, what's wrong with that?" Sindron asked. It sounded as though he was disputing Lydos' opinion and he could sense the annoyance growing in Lydos' voice when he replied.
"It gave full power over us all to the Assembly of all citizens, that's what's wrong with it. It means the mob, all the men without property or solid incomes, have power over everyone else, and all the property of the wealthy carries very little weight."
"Yes, but surely the people still respect the opinions of the wealthy citizens, with all their experience?" It was starting to sound like an argument. Sindron enjoyed this sort of animated discussion but he could see it unsettled his friend.
"I wouldn't rely on it.”
It was now very clear where Lydos’ bias lay, or maybe it was his master’s bias. In favour of Kimon and the aristocrats.
Lydos turned his head suddenly to the right. "See that over there?" With a flick of his eyes, Lydos indicated the site of the new building going up on the lower slopes of Market Hill, which Sindron remembered as the area of the smiths and metalworkers. "Temple of Hephaistos, I ask you! Hephaistos, the heavenly smith, a nobody among the gods up to now, but suddenly he's the workers' god, the radical democrats' god, and he's going to have the biggest, most modern temple in all Athens and on public funds! It’s alright for new temples to be built but the Freedom Lovers for Zeus cult that my master belongs to can’t rebuild his sanctuary till the Persians are fully punished for their sacrilege. Doesn’t make sense."
By now they had arrived back at the banker's table, and were seated on stools away from it, while Lydos’ son looked after customers.
"No wonder Kimon is angry," Sindron ventured, knowing he had got to the nub of the conflict.
"All the aristocrats are, and now Kimon's back to lead them, who knows what they'll do to get their power back!"
The urgency and worry behind Lydos' voice was obvious, and Sindron grew worried himself. "Do you think it could be dangerous, real civil conflict?"
Lydos waved an arm, indicating the crowd. He whispered his suspicion that, some at least of those respectable-looking cloaks and tunics concealed knives or sharp tools, even though no-one except Scythian guards was supposed to carry arms in the city. Sindron found it difficult to believe. Surely Lydos was exaggerating.
“But we're slaves, so keep well out of it, that's my motto."
Sindron knew he didn't mean it. A slave's fortunes were tied to his master's, so, if Lysanias' inheritance had put him on the side of the aristocrats, then Lysanias was thrown right into the middle of this political turmoil and so was Sindron.
Then Lydos’ master, Phraston, put in a brief appearance, bringing a customer over to the table. A giant of a man, very overweight for an Athenian, jovial and seemingly popular but with sadness deep in his eyes, Sindron noted, as those eyes swept over him and dismissed him as not justifying attention. Lydos said nothing to indicate if these had been Phraston’s opinions he had been expressing, though it was clear that everyone around paid Phraston great respect.
It came back to Sindron that Phraston had been a noted wrestler when young, won prizes in the games. All that muscle had gone to… Well, you could see where it had gone.
"And whose side is your master on?" Sindron asked, when Lydos finished with the customer.
That opened a floodgate. The man’s remaining reserve disappeared. "Don't ask! It's too gruesome. Everything could collapse, if we're not careful!”
He revealed that Phraston was a close associate of Kimon’s, had handled sales of his war booty and persuaded him to build the new Temple to Theseos partly so Phraston could transfer the bank’s deposits to its treasury and away from the ruined temple on the High City. Kimon remaining in power was important to him.
This really was getting the inside story. Sindron felt pleased that his friend felt he could trust him so much, but he noticed that Lydos' son was looking agitated, trying to catch his father's attention. "Phraston has always given funds to the political activities of Kimon's 'party of the best' but, now Kallias is away, Phraston has taken over his responsibilities but he hasn’t got Kallias’ political skills..."
The voice tailed off as Lydos realised what he was saying and to someone he hadn't seen for fourteen years. His eyes narrowed and his mouth set in a thin firm line. Lydos' voice, harder, sharper, stabbed at him. "This master of yours! The 'business heir'! Who is he?"
"I thought you might have guessed. Lysanias, son of Leokhares. Klereides' heir."
"Who? You're sure? " His expression froze and his eyes seemed to look in on himself. Sindron nodded, puzzled at the reaction.
“Of course you're sure. Lysanias, you say. Klereides' heir. Now that’s…" Lydos seemed suddenly unsure, worried, looking for time to think. "You'll have to go! I shouldn't have been speaking to you at all."
Sindron was really confused now. "But why? We're friends. You can trust me."
Lydos gave a cynical shrug. "Friendship, eh? You know the old slave motto. Never trust anyone, especially another slave."
"But..." Sindron looked very downcast, his normal dignified expression wiped from his face. If he couldn't talk to Lydos, that meant he had no friends in Athens he could consult. The expression got through to Lydos.
"Very well. Friendship.” Lydos seemed to pull himself together, calculating. “If you really need to see me ... Not here ... Not in public ... " Lydos thought for a moment, became abrupt, businesslike. "Dawn every day, I'm at the Temple of Theseos, in the treasury behind the altar. That's the best I can do. But not tomorrow. Nor next day. Important meetings. You’ve the funeral. Four days time. How’s that? Now go, please!"
Sindron went, slightly shaken, and confused at his friend’s changing attitude to him and the new cynicism. What could Klereides have done to justify such a reaction? He regretted not having asked about Klereides first. Then he remembered that he could be late to meet Lysanias.
CHAPTER 4
Leaving the baths, Lysanias had taken a wrong turning and ended up, the only wealthy-looking person in a slum quarter with dirty, ragged children tugging at his cloak and begging for money. Then more of them and two were holding onto his legs and calling to their fathers that they had caught a 'Kimo'. As two villainous-looking men emerged and advanced on him, brandishing knives, Lysanias kicked himself free and fled for his life, fearful yet angry at his own cowardice at not staying to fight. There really were aspects to Athens that he hadn't expected. He had seen no poverty like this back home.
Slipping into the fountain house to clean the muck of the slums from his sandals and feet and, as far as he could, the hem of his cloak, Lysanias found himself enduring the stares of the female slaves and lower class wives filling their amphoras with water to carry home. Maybe the visit to the barber's would help him to calm down, he thought, but it proved something of an ordeal.
As he stared into the bronze mirror, like the gorgon glaring into Perseus' shield, the barber, horrified at his spikey short hair, insisted on tidying it up, trying to make it look like a new hairstyle that was becoming fashionable with younger men the barber said. The shave was worse. The barber scraped away at his tender young skin with that bronze razor till his face felt red and raw. Scented oil eased it, but he could still feel it burn. He wondered if all the barbers in Athens were as barbaric.
It was the conversation of the other customers, though, that disturbed him most. The name of his uncle had cropped up again, this time in talk about athletes and forthcoming games and disappointment at the loss of Klereides' patronage as a sponsor. News of his uncle’s death really had spre
ad rapidly. Lysanias strained his ears but the subject changed.
This shop seemed to be a favourite haunt of the idle rich: well-dressed and immaculately-groomed men at their ease, with watered wine and olives there for the taking.
"It's g-got so a r-rich m-man daren't stand for p-public office for fear of being taken to c-court by Ephialtes for negligence or c-corruption or profiteering or s-somesuch," he overheard, from a mellow voice with a slight stutter.
The man spoke quite clearly, sure he was among friends, but the sour grapes and hatred was thick on the air. There was talk of a massive fine on someone called Hierokles, which had nearly forced him to sell his estate, until Kimon had come to his rescue. Most vehement was a particularly angry and slightly drunken voice that sounded personally involved. They all seemed to feel threatened. This must be the sort of background information that Sindron had wanted him to listen out for.
Then the barber cut his cheek.
"Sorry about that, sir," the barber said, dabbing the wound with half a lemon kept handy for the purpose. It stung and took his mind off the conversation, which switched to ways of removing the object of their hatred, Ephialtes, though other radical leaders came in for their share of abuse.
"Why don’t you do something about him? " asked the master barber good-humouredly. The innocent remark produced a short loud laugh from the drunken man and a hushed silence from everyone else during which his own barber’s request to puff out his cheek sounded strangely loud. Reflected in the mirror, the man, tall and thin with a neatly-trimmed black beard, narrow pointed nose and frown lines, seemed tense, not fully concentrating on his job.
The master barber indicated that he meant that maybe one of them should challenge Ephialtes to a fistfight or wrestling match but the radical politician’s age appeared to rule that out. They had evidently looked into ways of suing him for some misdemeanour but his record was clean. Only ostracism was left, which would exile him for ten years, but his majority in the Assembly meant that was impractical. They were left with the hope that Kimon would find some way of reversing the reforms or that Ephialtes would have an accident "like that shipbuilder this morning."
That had to be a reference to his uncle and the knowing laughs that followed were disconcerting. But the barber was speaking in his ear, taking his attention. “Will that be all?” The barber slipped the cloth from round his neck and brushed him down.
"Well, let’s hope something happens to him soon. This mobocracy can’t be allowed to go on, " said a deep rich voice. Heads were turned away from him, but the deep brown hair of one man was plaited round his head in a distinctive way that Lysanias felt he would recognise anywhere.
"My slave will pay, " said Lysanias, indicating Sindron, who was waiting near the door. He felt every inch the Athenian gentleman he had just seen looking back at him from the mirror. Was he one of these idle gossipers now, whose accent and superior tone he found so offensive? Or did he have more in common with the stonemasons on the ship? His new life wasn’t getting any simpler.
***
Sindron explained to Lysanias what Lydos had told him about how to register as a citizen, and that dispensations from mourning obligations were possible. Sindron didn't mention the cargo loan – time for that later.
They tried to obtain a dispensation first but it proved more difficult than Lydos had made it sound. The official for the magistrate responsible for state religions accepted Lysanias' reason for wanting a dispensation and his claim to be Klereides’ heir. "Though that is not what was reported to us earlier,” he said. However, he would not countenance a dispensation until Lysanias' citizenship was established. It proved a long process.
They located the city office of Lysanias' deme, the region he was born, in the back of a shoemaker's shop, and the shoemaker, an elected official of the deme, accepted the polished wood medallion that proved Lysanias' birth to two citizens and the date. However, he insisted on proof from his clan or phratry of Lysanias’ identity. He referred them to an office in a tavern at the end of the road.
After buying the publican a flask of wine, the man agreed to check the records but then made it clear that a generous donation to phratry funds would be needed. With this made, they obtained confirmation of phratry membership scratched on a small square of bronze. This was enough for the shoemaker who gave them a comparable token of deme membership. Though they felt obliged to buy a pair of sandals each that further depleted Sindron’s small store of money.
With the three proofs, they hurried to the Council offices, the steering committee of the Assembly. The official here was a real obstacle. As soon as Lysanias identified himself, the officious slave knew that the young man should be in mourning and refused to consider an application for registration as a citizen from someone contaminated by the death of a near relative unless there was a dispensation.
Fortunately, when they went back to the religious official, Lysanias mentioned the name of General Ariston as someone who might vouch for him, the arrogant man saw reason and accepted Sindron's suggestion that he might issue a temporary dispensation. He imposed conditions, though, including a donation to the temple rebuilding fund. The dispensation excused Lysanias from mourning duties only every fourth day and required the wearing of a saffron ribbon on the upper arm. He had glanced round quickly and lowered his voice. "If you conceal it a little with your cloak, that will stop the idea getting around too much,” he muttered.
Back at the Council offices, this was enough to win provisional citizenship registration, providing a close male relative verified it within four days and that Lysanias registered with his tribe as soon as possible.
With a new understanding of the power of money and influence to grease wheels in Athens, they breathed a sigh of relief and headed back to the market square. Adding to the relief was the officials’ dismissal of the idea that Eion could have been over-run. Lysanias’ mother, brother and sisters were safe. His relations must have been confusing it with that other colony upriver from Eion whose survivors they had had to take in.
***
As they came out of the Council offices, the tension in the air seemed much greater. The people in smart clothes had drawn into tighter groups, and so had the workers and traders. The market stalls had closed down but the square still seemed crowded. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen.
And something did happen. Sindron had said, "I think we're too late to check on your military service, but we'll have a look. That's the Office of the Board of Generals, the War Department, over there. I think they’d deal with that." They started to cross through the crowds. Lysanias was getting used to the presence of Scythian archers, the city's police force, on guard in front of each civic building, though they still reminded him of what had happened to his father.
Seeing General Ariston ahead and not wanting to be recognized, Lysanias was about to suggest to Sindron that they should go another way, when Ariston and, it seemed, everyone else turned to look as Kimon marched out of a strange circular but impressive building that Lysanias had been meaning to ask about and stood stiff with military bearing, his helmet under his arm.
He seemed even taller than Lysanias expected, his dark curly hair and full bushy beard with neatly trimmed moustache in the Spartan style framing his powerful face in a striking similarity to some of the entryway Herms. But that great scar across his cheek, that hadn't been shown by the sculptor of the statue at Eion, or that one running the length of his upper arm. The man must be forty-five by now and he looked in the prime of life, though those purple veins in his nose betrayed a strong liking for the grape. Maybe the news-teller was right about that, anyway.
The pan-Hellenic bodyguard, bearing the insignia of major cities in the alliance, fell into place around him, seeming to appear from nowhere. The banner of the confederacy was raised above his head, its symbol, the silver bow of Delian Apollo, echoed in Kimon’s highly polished breastplate. In all the panoply of commander-in-chief of the force that had battled the
mighty Persian Empire to its knees, this was the man, too, who had forged an empire for Athens. Yet he seemed fixed in place, staring at something behind Lysanias and Sindron.
The buzz of conversation hushed. For a moment the cries of the wandering street-vendors could be heard, singing their wares, then even they halted. The tension in the air was tangible. Sindron wondered what the great general must be feeling. For all his achievements on behalf of Athens, here he was confronted with rejection by a major part of the citizenry and the possibility of being ostracised like his father before him, the shame of which he had fought so long to erase. He clearly intended to fight back.
A smattering of applause from the wealthy petered out as everyone saw where Kimon was looking, his eyes burning with hatred behind the stiff composure. Lysanias turned, like everyone else, in that direction. By the notices in front of the Council building that Lysanias and Sindron had just come from, two figures stood, their attention given totally to the writings, and apparently explaining them to citizens who approached them.
One was a rather bent, balding, careworn figure, with unkempt brown hair, snub nose, and pock-marked cheeks, dressed in a cloak of rough fabric, perhaps deliberately avoiding the ostentation of the wealthy. The impression he gave was one of complete honesty. The other, tall, much younger, early thirties maybe, standing upright with a strangely shaped head, his cranium higher than most people, despite the evident efforts of his barber to disguise it with his hair arrangement. But his face was extremely handsome, with that fine straight nose and full lips, his hair glistening in the late afternoon sun.
This man's robe, too, was of coarser fabric but immaculately worn. Their simplicity contrasted with the magnificence of Kimon’s entourage.
Lysanias realised. These must be the leaders of the radicals: Ephialtes and Perikles. Those notice-boards must be the new laws, and the workers and out-of-towners were crowding round to find out what the reforms meant, how they would change things. The tension grew.