Death Comes by Amphora: A Mystery Novel of Ancient Athens

by Roger Hudson

  "Stay on guard, men." said Myronides bluffly. "They may re-group and try again."

  "I doubt it," said Perikles. "They know we're strong now."

  "Yes, but they can't be sure how many of us there are," countered Myronides, more impressive in uniform. "They could still try something foolish." The more mature and experienced commander seemed determined to make clear his seniority.

  Lysanias stayed in the background, out of sight of the leaders. Perikles turned to Stephanos and spoke quietly. "Stephanos, do you know if Ephialtes reached home safely?"

  "Should be indoors safe. We sent four of the brothers with him and two of them are to stand guard at his front door all night."

  "Good. Keep up the good work, men. Stay alert!"

  Myronides gave a few more encouraging words and the two leaders were off to visit the next group.

  A short while later, Lysanias asked quietly, "Do you think I'm really needed here?"

  Stephanos thought for a moment, then whispered. "Not really, but we don't want our boys getting the idea they can all go home. If you edge your way up the back there and then slip away, I'll say you're running a message for me, if anyone asks. I'd take off that cloak, though, and just wear your tunic, in case you meet another squad and they think you're a Kimo. You know the call sign, your whistle, only soft."

  Lysanias did as Stephanos suggested, but it felt even scarier now that he knew that every shadow could hold a squad of armed men. He was pleased that the fighting had been nipped in the bud, that his message had done the trick. But could this angry peace hold? Away from the market square and the important buildings, and into the wealthy quarter, he put his cloak back on. In this area, his tunic would certainly not identify him as a friend.

  In the dark, with no torch to light his way and only moonlight to guide him, it proved difficult to find the street and then the house of Hierokles, but he finally managed it. He banged gently on the lion's head doorknocker. Even so, in the silence, the noise startled him. No-one came to the door. He banged again. The door opened the tiniest crack. "Who's that at this time of night?" The voice was trying not to sound frightened. Lysanias gave his name. The door opened, a hand grabbed his cloak and pulled him inside, and the door was slammed and barred hurriedly behind him.

  It was Boiotos, angry, and holding a drawn short-sword under Lysanias’ chin. Lysanias nearly dropped the hammer he held clutched inside his cloak. He really shouldn't have brought that, it could give him away. He could now see that the lobby, and the passageway and the courtyard beyond were packed with armed men, the few oil lamps glinting off an assortment of helmets and breastplates, faces young and old, scared and bored and tired. All quiet as mice. Evidently under orders.

  Only now did Lysanias realise how tricky this could be. They would know he must have walked through the city, which they were aware was full of armed workers, yet he had arrived here unscathed. He pretended to be out of breath.

  "Oh, Boiotos, it's good to see you're safe." They must have thought it was their opponents or the Scythian guards banging on the door, come to arrest them. "I thought I'd never make it. There are armed workers everywhere. It took me ages to find my way through the back alleys. What happened?"

  It was difficult to speak clearly with the point of a sword pressed against his gullet but he managed it. Gradually Boiotos' grip relaxed.

  "They knew we were coming," Boiotos said in a surly voice, sheathing his sword. "Somehow they knew we were coming!"

  "Is your father here?" Lysanias realised his voice sounded squeaky.

  "Of course, he's here! It's his house! He's through there. Bit late, aren't you? Why didn't you get here before?" He pushed Lysanias along the passage. A depression seemed to hang over everyone that contrasted with the elation of Stephanos' group.

  He found Hierokles in the entertaining room with other important-looking men in officer's uniform and some in civilian clothes. His uncle sounded tired and defeated.

  "Ah, Lysanias, my boy. Come and sit down."

  "Had to see the women home safely, or I'd have been here earlier," he said hurriedly, "and then I couldn't get through."

  "Quite all right, my boy. Bit of a fiasco, eh? They've got a better spy system than we imagined. Half the workers in Peiraeos must have been up here in the square. Too many for us. Decided we'd better hole up in different houses and wait till morning to make our way to our homes. Otherwise we could be picked off in ones and twos. No point in that. Maybe we'll try again when the troops get back from Corinth. Outnumber the scoundrels then, eh?"

  Clearly the man was trying to cheer himself up in the face of abject defeat, so Lysanias made consoling, supportive noises. But he knew it wouldn’t be the end of it. He was grateful for the heat of the room, with so many men packed in together, that made his face red and disguised the guilty blush he couldn't prevent from spreading across it.

  They had relied on surprise and that had been taken from them. Lysanias had taken it from them, he realised, and his heart thumped in fear surrounded as he was by men boiling with frustration and failure, knowing they had let the great man down. The suspicious glances he was receiving told Lysanias he needed to say something more.

  “Why didn’t you use the cavalry?” Those most elite troops hadn’t gone to Sparta, were still here. Hierokles and Boiotos themselves were cavalrymen.

  “Ah, not in the city, my boy. Horses no use in the city.”

  The men could have come without their horses, Lysanias thought, but didn’t say. And there must be some hoplites still in Athens who hadn’t taken part. It looked as though not all leading aristocrats had agreed to this attempt. Maybe some hadn’t been informed.

  "Just as well Kimon is still in Corinth. He'd have been humiliated, if he'd known. Let’s hope he's on his way back with those troops!" Then Hierokles turned back to his colleagues.

  Lysanias found a space on the floor, squeezed into it and settled down to spend the rest of the night there, sleep or not. It clearly wouldn’t be tactful to try to leave. He wondered which mischievous god could have lured him into this position of being accepted by both sides in a civil conflict that seemed to become more violent every day and seemed to have every chance of getting worse.

  Was this the dangerous game that Klereides had been playing? Could it be the thing that had earned him his violent death? Lysanias had never felt more fellow-feeling towards his dead uncle. To make matters worse, he was lying on the hammer. It was most uncomfortable, but he daren't move it further from his body for fear someone saw it, or stepped on it and questioned what it was.

  Sleep proved impossible. Through half-closed eyes he looked up to see Boiotos, whispering with two colleagues, cast a suspicious glance in his direction as he toyed with a dagger. Lysanias knew the question on everyone’s lips must be who had betrayed them. He really shouldn’t have come here. Hierokles had entered, a quiet altercation he could barely hear but he thought he heard the words “It must be him. Who else did we tell who’s so new to us?”

  “Nonsense,” the whispered response. “Would he have come here if he had just betrayed us? We’ll question the youngsters who didn’t turn up.” Perhaps he was right to have come. “Humiliating that we have to put our trust in teenagers.”

  “I still think we should question him now we have him here.”

  “No, he’s family. We may need his friendship ourselves.”

  “We could finish him…”

  “No! Not here! Not now! In the courts.” Hierokles was suddenly forceful.

  The danger seemed to have receded and Lysanias’ eyelids slid shut, too tired even to think about it.

  CHAPTER 13

  As soon as light started streaking the sky and there were signs of activity on the streets, the rebels, Lysanias among them, started to leave Hierokles' house in small groups of two and three, for mutual protection, leaving their arms and armour. Lysanias left with a curly-headed fourteen-year-old for whom it had been a great adventure. He clearly wanted to talk about it all but
Lysanias hushed him into silence, making sporadic small talk, till they reached the vicinity of the boy’s parents’ house and he ran off. Apart from the first mule-carts and ox-carts trundling in with produce to the market from the direction of the Thriasian Gate and a dung-cart working its way in the opposite direction, the streets seemed strangely hushed, as though waiting for further momentous events.

  Back at his own house, Lysanias lay down to rest. Just for a minute, he thought, but no sooner had he done so, it seemed, than Sindron was shaking him to get up. The slave wouldn't listen to arguments about Lysanias' lack of sleep. Otanes had arranged to introduce Lysanias to the bank and the bankers. It was an important matter for the whole family's finances, so it had to be done. Then they had to find that sophist to obtain legal advice, and they should confront Hermon soon, and there was the ostracism meeting of the Assembly that afternoon, Sindron was sure Lysanias would want to attend that...

  Why did there seem to be so many different activities to cram into a day in Athens? Lysanias blinked twice and forced his tired eyes open. Why was Sindron such an old fusser? In fact, Sindron was overjoyed the boy was safe but knew it wouldn't do to say that to him. How would he have ever explained to the boy's mother, if anything serious had happened to him?

  Outside, there were no signs that anything unusual had happened during the night but there seemed to be far fewer people around this morning and an eerie quiet in the air. Stallholder’s cries rang out singly and tailed off. The bustle had been replaced by a wary stride in everyone’s step and a sense of uncertainty about what might happen next. If the bankers felt this, they covered it up.

  By the time they reached the banker's table in front of the Painted Colonnade, Lysanias was awake enough to play up his youth and inexperience, his willingness to take Phraston’s advice on investments. No, he didn't want to examine the accounts himself at this stage, he was quite happy for Sindron to do that. Better to let them think he relied heavily on Sindron, that the slave was worth bribing, though Phraston and Lydos were so charming, he found the whole idea very difficult to believe.

  Yes, he would use Klereides' seal, which Otanes had passed to him, until he had time to have a new one designed.

  Sindron stood back and allowed Otanes to make the introductions and add his explanations to those of the bankers. The steward looked appropriately satisfied when Lysanias re-instated Otanes' drawing facility, less so when he asked for another for Sindron to draw on for Lysanias’ personal expenses.

  While Phraston drew Otanes aside to chat about what he, as a Persian, felt the chances of Kallias achieving a formal peace settlement, Lydos formally changed the headings on all the accounts in Lysanias’ presence, striking through Klereides' name with what seemed to Sindron a horrifyingly final gesture, as though crossing out the man's achievements whatever they were. He opened a new scroll in one case, and, in another, a new column on an old scroll with Lysanias' name at the top and the day and month.

  All very formal and boring, Lysanias thought, trying hard to suppress an almighty yawn. How could these people find money and accounts at all interesting? That was his main impression of Phraston and Lydos – nice enough people but essentially boring. He couldn’t really see them mixed up in politics and plotting as Sindron had suggested. And he found it very difficult to belief that Phraston had once been a top sportsman.

  It was only then it occurred to him to look around at the square. Everything looked completely normal, as though nothing at all had happened last night. He could almost believe it had been a dream. Certainly no-one had mentioned it.

  From where he was standing, Sindron could see the accounts scrolls spread out on the table alongside one another. That's strange, he thought. On most of the accounts, one could see clearly that entries down the scroll had been written in slightly different shades of ink, or they had faded to differing extents because of the different times they'd been written. Entries even seemed to be in different hands at some points. But, on the main account showing monthly payments from Hermon and the mine-owner and irregular payments from a variety of merchants set against investments in cargoes, transfers to the household and other minor accounts and major drawings by Klereides, the entries were all clear and black and the ink looked the same all the way down. They were all written by the same person and they looked as though they had all been written at the same time, which was very unlikely! And no signs of fading.

  Could it be? Someone had rewritten the scroll, created a false scroll? To conceal whatever was in the original scroll? Sindron edged closer to make sure it wasn't his old eyes deceiving him, but, no, the sunlight was bright here, unlike the lamplight of the treasury. He couldn't be wrong.

  Could that be why they had been stalled from seeing the accounts? By Otanes not telling them who the bankers were earlier? By Lydos not telling him the bank handled Klereides' account?

  In the circumstances, no way to point it out to Lysanias. The boy seemed not to have noticed it himself, but then Sindron hadn't noticed when he was first shown the accounts. Must have been too busy examining the detail, he supposed.

  ***

  Sindron had established that the best person to advise Lysanias on the strength of his case was Pythodoros of Abdera, the sophist, though his real talents would be revealed in writing the speech for Lysanias to present to the jury. The best time to approach him was in the Academeia Gardens in the morning before his tuition sessions in rhetoric began.

  The two-horse chariot they had hired for a very uncomfortable ride dropped them by the military training grounds, which seemed strangely deserted. They paced past the wrestling practice courts, where young men were already exercising and warming up, to the lawns and groves of the gardens, shaded by leafy plane trees, with the dark spikes of cypresses, the grey-green of olive trees, the stately elms and the florid red blooms of oleanders lending variety and colour. Another of Kimon’s contributions since Sindron was last in Athens, the aqueduct that bringing water from the city had turned the Gardens from a brown and dusty training ground into a green and restful refuge, which looked to be proving a valuable asset to at least the wealthier citizens, even though the trees and shrubs hadn’t yet reached full maturity. From the buzz of insects and the birdsong, men were not the only ones to benefit from Kimon’s benevolence.

  Pythodoros was not the only learned man in the Gardens but he was instantly recognisable from the startling scarlet edging to his cloak, his long dark hair in an ornate coiffure and his great beak of a nose.

  While Sindron agreed financial terms for the consultation with Pythodoros’ clerk, he asked Lysanias for details of his complaints, as they walked in a shady area. "So that I can decide whether it is a case I would wish to have my name connected with," he said, haughtily.

  "I thought you sophists argued you could write a speech for any case and to win any argument?" Lysanias retorted, irritated by the man’s businesslike concern for money and the fact that Sindron would not be able to hear this.

  "Ah, yes, I have said that. However, you will appreciate that Athenians are a volatile people and, with the new powers of the Assembly and the courts, a dubious case could involve me in, aah, shall we say, accusations later that are best avoided if we can."

  Lysanias decided he had better be businesslike too. He explained the nature of the suspected murder and how far they had gone in investigating it.

  "Hmm. An interesting problem." The sophist seemed to give it genuine consideration. Lysanias found this encouraging, but then came, "I'm not sure I can help. You are new to this city’s legal system, so perhaps I should explain what you need to have a chance with such a case." Pythodoros paused for effect. "I can see that you might have a case for murder against the amphora or against the rope that gave way..."

  Lysanias spluttered and strangled a laugh. Pythodoros' eyes sparkled for a moment, as he too saw it with a newcomer's eyes, but his voice kept the same detached, analytical tone.

  "I understand your surprise. I assure you there are
many precedents and that the highly religious citizens of Athens regard unnatural death as a cause of pollution that can have dire results for the community if not purged by execution of the offending person or animal or the ejection of those or the offending object beyond the boundaries of the state.

  "In this case, the offending objects might be likened to slaves, slaves being regarded here as merely "tools that think", so the real target for compensation would be the owner. Since your uncle was the owner and yourself by inheritance, that doesn't seem very fruitful. Hermon, as the surviving owner at this point in time, could have to recompense you, but I'm sure he would prefer a settlement out of court. Have you approached him on this possibility?"

  Lysanias was already becoming angry, at the nitpicking and at the pomposity, but he struggled to keep his feelings under control. "It isn't compensation I'm seeking. I have the duty to avenge my uncle's murder by bringing his murderer to justice."

  "My dear young man, I think these desires for vengeance are a little primitive for our civilised age, don't you?" Pythodoros betrayed a tetchiness, as though Lysanias had disturbed the man's measured thinking.

  "No, I don't! It is an offence before the gods and they demand vengeance. The pollution must be purged."

  Lysanias thought he heard a muttered, "Very dramatic," and realised that to a sophisticated city-dweller the clarity of Lysanias' view of his duty might be disturbing, but so be it. Sindron had caught up with them as they walked talking. At least, his slave would be able to hear this nonsense now.

  Pythodoros went on in a strong, clear voice. "Very well. To bring a successful case in the courts, what do you need? You need documentary factual evidence. You have the cut rope. The other side will argue that it is not the same rope, but it is something. That and the footprints might be enough if you were going for a finding of ‘murder by person unknown’. The court would direct that the person unknown must exile themselves outside Athens and Attika, thus removing the risk of pollution. That could clear things up fairly quickly and leave you free to get on with your life…” He tailed off as he saw the increasing frustration in Lysanias’ eyes.