“Here in this house?” Leonidas asked in horror, sitting bolt upright.
“No, before he came here; but they swear it is true.”
Leonidas looked skeptical, and Mantiklos let it go. Although he was now finished with Leonidas’ haircut and shave, they were content to continue gossiping, sitting side by side in the only patch of sun available in the courtyard. “Because they all come from different places, they are always bickering among themselves. The Greeks think they are much better than the rest, of course, but some of the barbarians are just as proud. That is why, although they all hate the Athenians, they will never be a threat to Athens as we Messenians are to Sparta.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if you go out into the streets you’ll see. There are many times as many slaves and metoikoi as Athenians, but they are so different from one another that they would never unite against the Athenians. We Messenians, on the other hand—”
Leonidas knew about Messenia. He wanted to understand more about Athens. “What are metoikoi?”
Mantiklos scratched his head and thought about it. “They’re free men from somewhere else in the world. Athens seems to attract human rubbish. I was told they have to find a patron and get themselves registered with a community if they want to live here permanently, and they have to pay a special tax. Anyone who lives here without being registered or who fails to pay the taxes is arrested and sold into slavery. The paidagogos here is an old Thespian who moved here to set up a school for boys but somehow fell on hard times and couldn’t pay his taxes, so he was sold into slavery.”
“The Paidonomos?” Leonidas asked, horrified—thinking of the headmaster of the agoge, one of the most revered and powerful of all Spartiates.
“No, the paidagogos. I was told all the wealthy men here in Athens have them: slaves that look after their school-aged boys. You know, escort them places, carry their things for them, recite the Iliad to them, and the like.”
“Did you meet the man?”
“Yes. He’s almost blind and just sits about.”
“May I meet him?”
“I don’t see why not. Shall I fetch him for you?”
“I’ll come with you.”
Mantiklos shrugged, although he knew perfectly well it would cause a minor sensation. In the short time he had been here, it had become obvious that Athenian gentlemen never entered the slaves’ quarters. Leonidas had to duck to get through the kitchen doorway; and the sight of him, freshly bathed and in a fresh chiton, made one of the kitchen maids shriek. A ripple of agitation swept the room, and then a better-dressed middle-aged man rushed over, asking what the “honored guest” was looking for. When Leonidas said he was seeking the paidagogos, everyone turned and stared at a man sitting in the back of the kitchen, holding a walking stick between his knees. They called to him. He lifted his head and looked about, bewildered. “What? What?”
“What do you want with him, sir?” the officious housemaster asked.
“I would like to talk with him.”
“Please, sir, make yourself comfortable in the courtyard. I will send him to you.”
Leonidas was content to comply. The kitchen was smoky and humid. He was glad to retreat into the courtyard, cramped and cluttered as it was. Here he settled onto the rim of the well with Mantiklos beside him.
Euryleon, coming out of the baths, spotted him there and came over. “What do we do now?”
“I want to meet an Athenian schoolmaster.”
Euryleon looked at him as if he were mad. “Didn’t you get enough schooling in the agoge?”
Leonidas just laughed; but then he stood out of respect for the older man, who was tapping his way forward across the cobbles, clearly blind.
“Here, father.” Leonidas went forward and took his elbow.
The slave started and looked up with cloudy eyes that tried to focus on Leonidas. “Where are you from, young man? Why do you call me father?” For a moment he seemed to hope that Leonidas had come from his home, from Thespiae. Perhaps he hoped he was the son of some distant and forgotten liaison, or a nephew or other relative, someone who had come to set him free.
“Lacedaemon,” Leonidas answered him.
At once the blind man deflated and looked down. “Then why—why did you call me ‘father’?”
“We are taught to honor all older men,” Leonidas explained, embarrassed that his habitual speech had unnecessarily aroused false hopes. To distract the old man, he added, “I was told you once had a school of your own and are a learned man.”
The blind man sighed deeply. “Once had. Once had.” He shook his head as he let Leonidas lead him to the bench on which the woman had been spinning earlier. The sun had already shifted, and the bench was now in the shade. Then the man nodded, “Yes, young man, I once had a school. I came to Athens, you see, because I had been told that in Athens they honor learning over all things, and I thought I would have many rich pupils eager to learn.”
“And isn’t that what you found?”
He sighed again. “I wanted to teach algebra and geometry, but the young men of Athens have no time for such things. They want only to learn how to make clever speeches so they can deceive their fellow citizens, or how to wrestle and run to win the admiration of lovers, who will spoil them with gifts. No one here is interested in abstract learning.”
“You should have come to Sparta,” Leonidas told him, only half in jest.
“Do you learn anything there at all—besides how to kill, I mean?”
Leonidas was taken aback by the slur, and he looked over at Euryleon a little helplessly. Then he said simply to the old man, “Test me any way you like.”
The old teacher squinted up at him. “What are the angles of an equilateral triangle?”
“Sixty degrees.”
The teacher started. “How do you know that?”
“I told you I went to the Spartan agoge. Geometry is considered one of the most important sciences.”
“And do you know your Homer as well?”
“Now the Trojans came on with clamor and shouting, like wildfowl, at daybreak, bringing the baleful battle to them. But the Achaean men went silently, breathing valor, stubbornly minded each in his heart to stand by the others.” Leonidas quoted the first passage that came to mind, for he had memorized many.
The old teacher looked astonished, but then frowned and admonished, “You have edited that to suit your Spartan love of brevity. But you have the essence right. And can you sing as well?”
“Don’t ask!” Euryleon protested. “Once he starts, he doesn’t stop!”
“And you learned it all at the Spartan agoge?” the Thespian asked, obviously still skeptical.
“Yes, and much more, as Lychos here can attest.” Leonidas smiled at Lychos, who was limping toward them with his tortured gait. “This is a former schoolmaster and tutor, I presume, to Kallixenos.”
Lychos sat on the other side of the Thespian slave. “What am I to attest?” he asked, amused.
“This young man knows his geometry and his Homer and he can sing, and he claims he knows much more as well.”
“Indeed, he knows how to kill wild boar and how to bind up wounds, and how to make a fire with only a flint.”
“And how to steal,” Kallixenos added, joining the crowd. “It’s time to go to Assembly. We want to be near the front where we can see what’s happening. They need six thousand citizens for a quorum. You can’t see anything at the back of such a crowd. Have you ordered your litter?” he asked Lychos.
The latter shook his head. “I’m not coming. I don’t like crowds.”
Kallixenos shrugged and swept toward the gate in an apparent hurry. Leonidas stood and thanked the Thespian scholar for speaking with him. “Is there anything you would like from the city? I am going to the agora.”
“You don’t mean to steal it?” the blind slave asked, bewildered by Kallixenos’ remark.
“No, that was a poor joke. I am Prince Leonidas of Sparta, and
can afford to buy you anything you wish.”
It was a foolish thing to say, and punishment came instantly. The old teacher went down awkwardly onto his knees right there in the cobbled courtyard and begged, “Buy me my freedom and take me back with you to Sparta. I wish to see the school that produced you and offer my services to the schoolmaster.”
Euryleon made a face behind the old teacher’s back; and Leonidas, embarrassed, hastened to help the man back to his feet, saying vaguely that he would see what he could do.
As soon as they were out of hearing, Euryleon protested, “You and your bragging! We can’t take that old man back with us. He can’t walk that far, and the Paidonomos will laugh himself sick at the sight of him.”
“If you hadn’t told Kallixenos that we learn how to steal in the agoge, he wouldn’t have provoked me!” Leonidas defended himself; then they hurried to catch up with Kallixenos.
They soon found themselves in a flood of people, all moving in the direction of the agora. The atmosphere was more festive than tense, but the press of people was uncomfortable. Leonidas and Euryleon had never been in such a crowd before, even at Olympia. Furthermore, hawkers of food, drink, and various other items of greater or lesser utility took advantage of the crowd to try to push their wares. They held things right under the nose of any prospective customer, and Kallixenos warned his guests to watch their purses: “The crowd is full of pickpockets!”
It was a rowdy crowd, too, reminiscent of the Athenians at Olympia, and everyone seemed to be talking at once. Spartan Assemblies were usually orderly affairs. Only when a subject was hotly debated could the crowd start to get loud and sometimes aggressive, but rarely disorderly. Here, even before anything started, everyone was arguing with everyone else, or so it seemed.
The other thing that struck Leonidas was the diversity of the citizens. In Sparta the young men always attended Assembly in armor, and most of the reservists came in Spartan scarlet. They were all soldiers, and they looked like it. Only very old men sometimes came in long chitons. In Athens the crowd came in everything: from the expensive, brightly-decorated robes of Kallixenos and his father to the half-chitons of the smiths and tanners, who arrived with naked torsos still smelling of their shops.
“Are those men citizens?” Leonidas asked with a nod to a cluster of burly men with dirty hands, naked feet, and long, tangled beards hanging to their chests. They looked more barbarian than Greek to Leonidas, used as he was to the cropped hair of young men and the braids and trimmed beards of reservists.
“Disgusting, isn’t it?” Kallixenos retorted. “You see, men of substance with country estates often can’t make it into the city for an Assembly. The shopkeepers and craftsmen and off-duty sailors, in contrast, have no trouble attending, so they dominate the crowd. It is their votes that one has to secure if one wants to control public policy.”
Leonidas considered the crowd again. The craftsmen were in a clear majority of the assembled citizens. Large as the crowd seemed when crammed into the narrow streets, it wasn’t really larger than a full Spartan Assembly. On the other hand, that meant only about one-fifth of Athens’ citizens were actually attending. A Spartan Assembly usually drew eighty to ninety per cent of her citizens, with only the ill, infirm, or those away on their distant estates or on garrison duty absent.
The ostracism debate itself was also an unruly affair, with men shouting insults and demanding the expulsion of one man or another. Theoretically, one person from each of Athens’ ten tribes could be nominated, Kallixenos explained, but at this time there were only two names “in contention” for the dishonor of expulsion. Rather as in a sporting event, the tension between the two factions grew steadily, infecting even those, like Leonidas, who did not have a stake in the outcome.
Kallixenos, despite his pretense the previous evening of finding everything so amusing, was obviously displeased with the outcome. His father’s friend had been ostracized and would now have to leave Athens for ten years. “The mood is getting worse every day,” he complained. “You can look after yourselves for a bit, can’t you? I want to talk to a friend.”
Leonidas and Euryleon were not unhappy to lose Kallixenos’ company, and they contentedly wandered around the commercial center of the city. They admired the diversity and quality of the wares offered for sale. They also visited the potters’ quarter to see the famed Athenian ceramic painters at work. When they wearied of that, they made their way back to their host’s home and found Kallixenos awaiting them impatiently. He was going to his gymnasium and had been told by his father to take them along.
Although glad of the opportunity to exercise, Leonidas was aware of Kallixenos’ resentment. He also felt badly for Lychos, who was again left behind. They rode to the gymnasium, which was located outside the city, the visitors each provided with a mount from their host’s stables. Kallixenos set a fast pace at first and then slowed and fell in beside Leonidas. “How can you stand being around Lychos all the time? He depresses me.”
“I am to blame for his condition.”
“I thought you saved his life?”
“Such as it is. If I had come later, he would not have survived to suffer.”
“I hate being surrounded by cripples and ugly things. I love beauty; which, incidentally, you will be privileged to experience in unusual measure tonight. The host of tonight’s symposium has secured the attendance of Therapne. You can’t know what an honor that is! She is probably the most expensive and coveted hetaera in all Athens at the moment. She belongs to Melanthius—you know, the man who is so anxious to go to war with Persia? He only lends her out to people he wants to influence, so you must be grateful to our host’s father for being on the list of people Melanthius wants to befriend.”
Leonidas nodded.
Kallixenos laughed. “You don’t look like you’re impressed, but you will change your mind once you’ve seen her!” He put his heels to his horse and sprinted away.
“Maybe we shouldn’t go to this symposium tonight, if there are going to be whores at it,” Euryleon suggested.
Leonidas thought about it. “I think we should go, but stay sober.”
Euryleon made a face at him; then they picked up the pace to catch up with Kallixenos.
Gymnasia were much the same all over Greece, and the two Spartans easily oriented themselves. They stripped, oiled, and went out on the track for some running. Afterward they splashed themselves down under the fountains, and then sat in the shade of the stoa for a bit, listening to a man lecture on medicine. The speaker approached the subject from a much more theoretical standpoint than the Spartans were used to. He talked about the need to ensure the proper balance among the elements of fire, water, earth, and air, and argued that imbalance led to poor health. Leonidas found this far more difficult to comprehend than what he had learned as boy about what individual plants did for the human body. Meanwhile, Kallixenos was talking and laughing with friends.
They noticed a surprising number of older men standing about, fully dressed, in the shade of a second stoa opening onto a second complex of sports fields. These men evidently had no intention of engaging in any kind of sport; and, curious, Leonidas and Euryleon went over to see what they were looking at. They found that the second complex was reserved for boys. These came with their slave escorts and trainers. It was soon obvious from the comments around them that the interest of the spectators was largely erotic.
“They act like the older agoge cohorts watching the girls,” Euryleon remarked.
“They don’t have any girls’ races or wrestling, so they have little choice,” Leonidas observed.
“But they have so many whores,” Euryleon protested.
“You can’t talk to women,” Kallixenos explained, coming up behind them unexpectedly and hanging a hand on the shoulder of each. “Except for the rare ones like Therapne, they don’t have a brain in their heads, so boys are more fun. You play with them, get a little sexual relief, and then you can chat with them, teach them silly ditties
or show them tricks, and …” He shrugged, his eyes hungrily fixed on a laughing boy with fair hair.
“What about your wife?” Leonidas asked.
Kallixenos looked at him startled. “What about her?”
“Can’t you talk to her?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried. Why should I? She’s about to provide me with an heir—at least I hope it won’t be a girl. What more is a wife for? Surely you don’t talk to your wife?”
“I would, if I had one.”
Kallixenos just laughed at him. “You may know about war, Leonidas of Sparta, but you know nothing about women.”
“It would seem I know more than you, since I have spoken to many.”
Kallixenos raised his eyebrows in obvious disbelief. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. My stepmother was a student of Pythagoras and is literate in the language of the Egyptians as well as in Greek.”
Kallixenos stared at him skeptically, then shrugged. “The women in Sparta must be different. Here they are all illiterate and dumb as sheep. Believe me, my wife hardly knows how to add two and two together, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say a whole sentence at a time. Therapne is an exception. Come, we should go to the baths to be ready for tonight.”
It was well after dark before the party of young men set out for the symposium. Lychos was perfumed, carefully coifed and dressed, while Kallixenos had never looked better. His hair had apparently been curled and he gleamed with scented oil. He wore wide, elaborately embossed bracelets on both his wrists, and the gold embroidery on his chiton glittered in the light of the torches. Four slaves of their host accompanied them to clear the way for Lychos’ litter and provide lighting, but the Spartan attendants had been dismissed to seek their own pleasure.
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