by Hilary Green
When day came I opened the small chest in which I kept those valuables which I had salvaged from Pylos, together with some gifts from Tisamenos and friends in Mycenae. It was hard to select from my poor store a suitable gift for Melanthos but I settled finally on the dagger left me by old Peisistratos. Bearing this, I sought an audience with the King.
I found him alone and as soon as the door had closed behind me I knelt and saluted him by his royal titles. He leapt from his chair and raised me saying, ‘My dear Alkmaion, why do you kneel to me? We are both equal now.’
I looked him in the eyes and said, ‘Do not mock me, Melanthos. Of what am I a king? All that is past, indeed it never really existed, except in forms and ceremonies. I am only a suppliant, to whom you out of kindness give food and shelter.’
He gripped my shoulders and said fiercely, ‘It is not so! You are still King of the Messenians, and shall rule again in Pylos. Have I not promised you the army of Athens?’
I shook my head. ‘Let us not delude ourselves, cousin. The army of Athens, together with those Messenians gathered here, has not half the strength of the forces of Mycenae. Without further aid we should be mad to attack the Dorians.’
I saw that he knew this. ‘It is true. So we must look for such aid. Mycenae is not the only Achaean city – and there are others, not of our race, who also fear the Dorians. We will see what can be done. I have not forgotten our old friendship, nor the fact that you once saved my life. Whatever help I can give is yours. Meanwhile, there is much you can do for me.’
‘What can I do?’ I asked.
‘I need your counsel,’ he said. ‘Sit here beside me and let us talk.’ I sat and he went on, ‘You were trained to kingship, Alkmaion, and there is not one of your followers who would not agree that if Pylos had been left in peace you would have made a good ruler. Now I am ignorant of the whole craft of government so, I beg you, be my counsellor. I need your advice about so many things.’
For a moment I could not speak but at length I mastered myself enough to say, ‘You flatter me, cousin, but whatever knowledge I have is at your disposal.’
I presented him with the dagger and I could see that the gift moved him, knowing from what a small stock it came. His answer was to present me, on the following day, with a fine mare in foal to one of the best stallions in Attica.
So, for the time being at least, I had occupation and a purpose in life. Melanthos’s first concern was to improve the defences of the city. He saw, wisely, that although the Dorians had ignored Athens up to now in favour of richer prizes, they might descend on us at any moment now that the summer was come again. Already we heard reports of raids on the territory of Sparta and Corinth. Here, I felt I was genuinely able to make a contribution, having worked so closely with Penthilos and his architect. A new wall was built at a weak point where there had hitherto been a postern gate and a cistern was constructed in a cave deep below the palace to provide a water supply in case of siege.
I did not neglect my duty to my own followers. Now that I was once again in full health and able to perform my royal functions the burdensome ceremonial of kingship descended upon me again with all its rituals. Apart from this, I called regular assemblies of all the Messenians to hear disputes and dispense justice, and I organised regular military training for all the warriors. Once again my Companions and I mounted our chariots and practised charging and wheeling as a disciplined formation. I still had my pair of chestnuts, which had been shipped over with me, and Neritos had lost none of his skill. It was exhilarating to feel the wind in my hair and hear the thunder of hooves. We practised on foot, too, with swords and spears, and each of us worked at our skills with a grim determination we had not felt in those careless days in Pylos, for we had all good cause to know that we owed our lives to them, and might well do so again.
It worried me that Alectryon had never regained the full use of his right arm. He could manage most things without too much difficulty but the strength was lacking for combat. Typically, he refused to admit defeat and taught himself to fight left-handed, working harder than any of us. I insisted that he retain his position on my right hand, not so much now so that he could guard my unshielded side but because in this way I could protect his.
Towards the middle of summer we had an unexpected visitor. A fleet of ships arrived from Mycenae bearing no less a personage than Cometes. He saluted Melanthos with due respect and greeted me as if no ripple of dissent had ever disturbed our friendship. He had come, he said, now that the appointed time had elapsed, to request his formal betrothal to Amphidora. I caught Melanthos’s eye and knew that the same thought was in his mind. Tisamenos had decided that he needed all the allies he could get and that Athens under her new ruler was too powerful to neglect.
We were in no position to refuse the alliance either, and Amphidora proved more than willing to swallow her wounded pride, so they were betrothed and the wedding was planned for later in the summer.
When Cometes returned home he carried a message from Melanthos formally requesting that Tisamenos re-open the negotiations to bring together a united army to oppose the Dorians. Once again ambassadors went out to all the Achaean cities, but this time from Athens. Once again, the answers were equivocal or even less encouraging than before. Then came Tisamenos’s answer. He could not at this time undertake such a campaign. Perhaps next spring …
I called the Messenians together and told them that they must be patient for another year. I sensed that they were already beginning to lose their sense of unity, in spite of my efforts. They had made new lives for themselves in Athens and were starting to forget Pylos.
I had been anxious that the Athenian nobles might come to resent our presence as those in Mycenae had. However, when they saw that I longed only to return to my own land and had no desire to interfere with theirs, they accepted me and extended a warm hospitality that did much to cheer me as the summer slid past. Several of them presented their daughters to me and I guessed that more than one would have been happy to turn my thoughts towards marriage, but I could not envisage any future other than one of death in battle or constant exile. In the circumstances, marriage was out of the question.
One house in which I felt particularly at ease belonged to a man named Philaos. He was held in great respect in the city and, although he was considerably older than I was, we had a mutual interest in the breeding of fine horses that brought us together. He led a quiet life, devoting himself to the cultivation of his estate, which was one of the largest in Attica. The farm reminded me of Alectryon’s estate and I spent some of my most peaceful hours there.
Philaos’s wife had died some years before, leaving him with an only daughter named Philona. She was little more than a girl, poised awkwardly between childhood and womanhood, slight and rather gawky, with a great mass of golden hair framing a pointed face and eyes that still had the mischievous gaiety of a child. Whenever I visited she was always most solicitous for my welfare, profoundly conscious of her position as lady of the house. It amused me to see her making her first attempts at the sophisticated airs of a court lady.
As the summer drew to a close Cometes returned for his wedding to Amphidora. The resources of the palace were stretched to the limit to provide a suitable celebration, but Cometes seemed well pleased with his bargain and Amphidora was radiant. However, in private conversation we learned that Tisamenos was worried. The Dorians were raiding the borders of the Argolid and causing considerable losses to the Mycenean economy. Also, it was proving difficult to replace Penthilos. I hoped Tisamenos was regretting his unwarranted suspicions.
Shortly after Cometes had left we had our first visit from the Dorians. It was only a raiding party and they took to their ships when we sallied out against them, Melanthos at the head of the Athenian army and myself in the vanguard with my battle hardened Pylians. Nevertheless, they carried off with them recently harvested crops, livestock and captives. Melanthos remarked grimly that we could expect more such incursions in the future.
Summer ended, and with the shortening days I fell prey once again to the melancholy that often afflicted me at this time of year, but this time it was of a different sort, a black pall of despair which no entertainment or good counsel could lift. I had ceased to believe that we should ever assemble a sufficient force to defeat our enemies and with the worsening weather there seemed little point in keeping my Companions in training. A future of endless exile stretched before me. I was eighteen years old, and my life seemed to be over.
It was clear that my fellow countrymen were also losing hope, and Melanthos’s well-meaning attempts to make us feel at home in Athens only served to reconcile them further to their fate. Although he had wisely divided most of the land left vacant by the heirs of Thymoetes among his supporters, some still remained in his gift. One fair estate he presented to Peisistratos and soon after we discovered that it was as well that he had a new home, since his wife Kerameia was pregnant again. This was a great joy to both of them, since they had lost their only son, Aretos, in the battle for Pylos. In due course she gave birth to another boy, who was named Andropompous in memory of Melanthos’s father.
I knew that any land in Melanthos’s gift would have been mine for the asking but he tactfully refrained from a gesture that would have implied that all hopes of my return to my own kingdom had been abandoned. He was always meticulous in treating me as a visiting monarch and still sought my advice, but as I had guessed many years ago, he had little to learn about kingship, and as his need of me lessened I began to withdraw gratefully from state affairs.
Perimedes rapidly made friends and began to court the daughter of one of Melanthos’s chief supporters. Only Antilochos remained aloof, silent and bitter. Once or twice I had reason to suspect that he was associating with discontented elements in the city, of which there were inevitably a few, but Melanthos’s power was firmly based and it needed only a word from me to draw his attention to these budding conspiracies for them to collapse before they could present any danger. There was never enough evidence to warrant my taking action against Antilochos, but I let him know that he was constantly watched. Frustration at his own impotence ate into his soul and he became like a wolf prowling the outskirts of a settled community.
Little by little I abandoned all those pursuits that had once given me pleasure. I still performed the ceremonial duties of the king but once they were over I sought solitude and turned away my Companions’ offers of company. Neritos, of course, remained always at hand, but his spirits were incapable of being permanently weighed down by misfortune. He, too, found a wife and made new friends, but the deeper I sank into depression the more his cheerful manner grated on me. I became short-tempered with him and often found him gazing at me with sad incomprehension.
As always, only Alectryon and Andria understood my mood. At first Alectryon was the only person whose company I could tolerate, but he had never recovered the vivacity of temperament that had once made him such a delightful companion and we passed much of our time in silence, each immersed in his own gloomy thoughts. In time I found his despondency as trying as Neritos’s cheerfulness and began to avoid his company as well. Andria was my one comfort, but as the winter advanced and my depression deepened I stopped taking her into my bed and ignored her pale face and her reproachful, wounded eyes.
As the days lengthened into another spring I found myself strangely eager for one thing. The Athenians celebrate the New Year festival at Eleusis, which I knew was one of the most sacred of the Goddess’s shrines, and the priestesses there were reputed to be among the wisest of Her acolytes. I remembered the comfort I had received from the wise old woman in the sanctuary on the Holy Island and began to hope that perhaps at Eleusis I might be released from the crippling sense of the Goddess’s anger.
I went to the sanctuary with the other worshippers filled with a mixture of hope and dread. I could not banish the memory of that terrible first experience at Pylos and at the same time it filled me with bitterness to see Melanthos, this time, as the central figure in the rites. I did not grudge him his position, but it brought home to me that my kingship had never been confirmed by this mystical union with the Goddess.
At what point during the ritual my fear and self-disgust departed and were replaced by a sense of awe and wonder I cannot now recall. I knew, as soon as we stood within the sacred precinct, that this was a place beloved by the Goddess and at once I was aware of Her presence. At first She seemed, as She had always seemed to me, terrible and cruel and I felt myself crushed and obliterated by Her power. But little by little I began to perceive Her as the gentle Mother of all things and myself as Her joyful and submissive child. When the festival was over I remained in Eleusis and sought an audience with the High Priestess. She received me courteously and without apparent surprise. I told her the story of that first, disastrous festival and its consequences and explained that I was convinced that, in spite of my purification in the Holy Island, I still lay under the displeasure of the Goddess.
She listened gravely and said finally, ‘I cannot tell why the Goddess is still angry with you. But remain here in the sanctuary and undertake a second purification. Perhaps in the course of that we shall come to understand what the Mistress requires.’
I passed some days within the sanctuary during which, as well as the ritual observances and the fasts prescribed by the priestess, I had several long discussions with her on matters relating to the worship of the Great Queen.
Finally she sent for me and said, ‘I believe now I have learned what it is that brings the disfavour of the Goddess upon you. Is it not true that you have never fully given yourself to Her? She will not tolerate a half-hearted worshipper. Has not your mind always held back and refused its full devotion?’
I struggled to reach down to feelings I had buried deep within me and to explain them – the terror and revulsion, the angry rebellion I had tried to conceal even from myself. Having told her all this I added a description of how my feelings had changed during the Festival.
She nodded approvingly. ‘It is as I thought. The Goddess now offers you the opportunity to reinstate yourself. But we have yet to discover exactly what act of yours first angered Her. Think back now. Before that false priestess led you to the sacred couch had you in any way, by word or deed, rebelled against Her?’
Suddenly I recalled early sunlight on my shivering body and my own voice saying, ‘The Kings of Pylos draw their descent from Poseidon Himself … and yet the King must submit to the Goddess even unto death!’ and Alectryon’s shocked reply, ‘It is a fearful thing to rebel against Her on her own Holy Mountain and on such a day as this.’
I related the incident to the priestess and she nodded again. ‘My suspicions were correct. Now, tell me, at the festival the next year, after you had made your voyage of penance, were you utterly at one with Her, without thought of rebellion?’
I had to admit that I had not been, at least at first. The brutal rites of the night of the New Wine still horrified me.
‘And last year?’
‘Last year in Mycenae I was bitter because Tisamenos was the consort of the Goddess and not me.’
‘There, then, lies the source of all your misfortune. But be comforted. It is clear to me that you are now truly repentant and have come to understand the power of the Goddess. There is now one more aspect of Her will that you must learn to accept.’
‘What is that?’ I asked. ‘Tell me and I will bend myself to it.’
‘I think your mind is already in part reconciled to it,’ she replied. ‘The Goddess has allowed you to be driven from your kingdom. That is your punishment. Accept it. Do not strive to return, for She has decreed it otherwise.’
I bowed my head. This, then, was the end of all my hopes. ‘What must I do?’
‘Remain in Athens until She wills it otherwise. Be content to live quietly among your friends and submit yourself to whatever She decrees.’
Slowly I looked up. The eyes of the priestess were wise and compas
sionate. For the first time I began to feel the burden lifting from my shoulders.
‘Very well. I will submit myself to Her will.’
She smiled. ‘It is good. Do not be downcast. The Goddess is kind to those who truly love Her. Return now to Athens and good fortune will meet you at the gate.’
I did as she told me and as I approached the city gate a group of girls came towards me. Among them was Philona. In the past months my eyes had been too much turned in upon myself to notice how she had grown out of her childish awkwardness and become a lovely girl. As I met them she came up and greeted me and hoped, with eyes of warm compassion, that I was in better health than when we last met.
The following day I summoned the Messenians to an assembly and told them of the Goddess’s decree. Pylos was forbidden to us, so I bade them find new lives for themselves wherever their destinies might lead them. For my own part, I abrogated all rights and duties of a king and proposed to live from here on as a private citizen. Some of them, I think, were disappointed but most were relieved to hear that there would be no new campaign.
When I dismissed them my Companions remained behind and requested an audience. Alectryon acted as their spokesman.
‘You have told us the Goddess’s decree and we must accept that. And you have said that you relinquish your position as King. We understand your desire to retire from public life, and respect it, but we wish you to know that to us you will always be our Royal Lord and you may command our loyalty in whatever way will do you service. There is only one thing we would beg of you,’ he hesitated and glanced at the others for confirmation, ‘do not withdraw yourself completely from us. We lacked your company too much last winter.’