That’s al he knew.
I looked at him, tried a few more questions, listened to his
tears – and cut his throat. Sophanes was shocked. I stepped
back to avoid the flow of blood, and then handed the
brothelkeeper five more drachmas.
He nodded to me, as one predator to another.
The two boys who had been sent to ‘guard’ me were
spluttering.
‘Listen, lads,’ I said. I caught their arms and held them. ‘Al
he had coming was to be worked to death as a slave. Right?’ I
looked at both of them. ‘And now the only story that wil ever be
heard is ours. Hard to cook up a lie if none of your witnesses
can speak.’
‘You . . . kiled him!’ Glaucon got out, after some muttering.
‘He tried to kil you,’ I pointed out.
‘That was in the heat of battle,’ Sophanes said. ‘By Zeus
Soter, Plataean, this was murder. It’s different.’
I shrugged. ‘Not when you’ve kiled as many men as I have,’
I shrugged. ‘Not when you’ve kiled as many men as I have,’
I said. ‘Console yourself that he was a foreign metic, probably
an escaped slave, and a man of no worth whatsoever. He wasn’t
even brave.’ I wiped my knife on the dead man’s chiton, poured
a little olive oil from my aryballos to keep it bright, sheathed it
and headed up the rock-carved steps.
We were a silent crew as we walked to my murder trial. I
was pretty sure that my two companions were no longer in the
grips of hero worship.
Athenian justice is swift. I arrived a little early, but most of the
Areopagitica was already on the hil, and the last of the old men
made their climb just behind me. Aristides was there. He had a
bruise on one shoulder that he hadn’t had that morning.
‘Tried to kil you?’ I said quietly.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And you, I take it?’
I handed him the tablet with the dagger through it. Heads
turned al over the summit.
He was angry. ‘This is not Athens,’ he spat. ‘What are we,
some court of Medes? Some soft-handed Lydians? Next, men
wil turn to poison.’ But then he calmed. ‘This wil tel in your
favour. I’l hand it around. The symbolism is so clear, it’s like an
augury – the dagger through the law!’
So I watched the tablet passed from man to man, and the
muttering must have helped me a little.
Aristides was calm and forceful when the trial started. Let me
digress a moment: you’ve noticed that I wandered the city
without much trouble. I could have run. But of course I didn’t.
without much trouble. I could have run. But of course I didn’t.
That’s how it was then – Athens assumed that I would come to
my trial, and I did.
In a murder trial, each side gets one speech – a couple of
hours by a water-clock – first the prosecution, then the defence.
And the verdict is delivered immediately after the defence
delivers its argument. We’re much the same in Plataea, although
it’s years since we had a proper murder trial. Simon, my cousin,
kiled himself rather than face the tribunal.
So we al stood in the blazing sun, and Cleitus of the
Alcmaeonids began his speech. I can’t remember al he said, but
I know it was damning and at the same time utterly inaccurate.
‘I accuse Arimnestos of Plataea, the man who stands before
you, of the murder of my cousin Nepos. Nepos was murdered
within the precincts of a shrine – fouly murdered, with impiety –
unarmed, standing making an oration to the gods.’ Cleitus had a
good voice.
I couldn’t speak. But I could rol my eyes. So I did.
‘Al of you know of this man – a notorious pirate, a man who
serves with the vicious cut-throat Miltiades. With Miltiades, he
sacked Naucratis. With Miltiades, he attacked the Great King’s
ships, and those of our alies at Ephesus and other places – over
and over again. It is men like this who bring the just wrath of the
Great King down on our city.’
Wel, I couldn’t realy disagree with that, so I smiled genialy.
‘Don’t let this man’s reputation as a fighter cloud your vision,
though, gentlemen. Look at him. This is no Achiles. This is a
fighter trained in the pits of slavery – a man who has neither
fighter trained in the pits of slavery – a man who has neither
arete nor generosity. He is merely a kiler. Is the look on his
brow more than that of a bestial destroyer? Is he different from a
boar or a lion that kils the men who tend our crops?
‘This is a man bred to slavery, and what he has now, he has
stolen from better men – first through piracy and then through
open theft of a farm in Plataea. No man in Plataea dares act
against him – they fear his wrath. But here in Athens we are
better men, with a better strength of law.’
There was more – much more. Two hours of detailed (and
falacious) vilification. Cleitus knew nothing of me save some
highly coloured details from Plataea – and it was obvious where
they came from. Because my cousin Simon, son of Simon who
hanged himself, was standing a little to the left of Cleitus, with a
look of joyous hate stamped across his features.
I locked eyes with him, and gave him some bland
indifference.
By the time Cleitus was finished, many of his audience were
asleep. He had, after al, repeated the charges and the assaults
on my character fifteen or twenty times. His arrogance showed
through too plainly. Heraclitus would have taught him better. At
Ephesus, one of the things we learned was not to annoy a jury –
nor to bore it.
On the other hand, none of the men in that jury were my
friends, and most were bored only because they had made up
their minds before they put a sandal on the slippery rock of
justice.
Slaves came and refiled the water-clock. I leaned over and
pointed out Simon to Aristides, who looked at him and nodded
to me.
Aristides stood up slowly. He walked gracefuly to the
speaker’s podium and turned to me. Our eyes met for a long
time.
Then he turned back to the jurors.
‘My friend Arimnestos cannot speak here today as he is a
foreigner,’ he said. ‘But although his tongue cannot speak, his
spear has spoken loud and long for Athens – louder and longer
than any of you Alcmaeonids. If deeds rather than words were
the weight of a man, if the price of citizenship were measured in
feats of arms, not barley or oil, he would sit in judgment, and
none of you would even qualify as thetes.
Ouch. Powerful rhetoric – but a damned annoying way to
win over a jury.
Aristides walked across to Cleitus. ‘You maintain that my
friend is a slave? Or some sort of penniless foreigner?’
Cleitus stood. ‘I do.’
Aristides smiled. ‘And you have received my suit against you
for the theft of a horse and a woman?’
‘I have taken them against the man’s indemnity,’ Cleitus said.
&nb
sp; ‘In other words, you admit yourself that my friend was the
owner of the horse and the slave.’ Aristides stepped back, just
like a swordsman who administers the kiling blow and now
avoids the fountain of blood.
Cleitus flushed red. ‘He probably stole them!’ he shouted,
Cleitus flushed red. ‘He probably stole them!’ he shouted,
but the archon basileus pointed his staff.
‘Silence!’ he roared. ‘Your time is done and you speak out
of turn.’
Aristides turned to the jurors. ‘My friend is the son of
Technes, head of the Corvaxae of Plataea. My friend could, if he
might speak, tel you how his father was murdered – by the
father of that man standing by Cleitus – and his farm stolen by
the same man, and how Arimnestos later returned from ten years
of war – war at the behest of Athens, I might add – to find his
enemies in possession of his farm. He might speak of how the
assembly of Plataea voted to punish the usurper – that man’s
father – and he might speak of what a twisted claim has just been
made – accusations void of truth. Any man of Plataea would tel
us, if caled to witness, that my friend is master of a farm that
provides three hundred measures of grain and oil and wine.’
Aristides had them listening now.
‘But none of this matters. What matters is simple. My friend
did not kil Cleitus’s useless cousin. In point of fact, Cleitus’s
case is already void, because he has spoken – and he may not
speak again – yet he has not troubled to prove that his cousin is
dead.’
Cleitus had missed the matter entirely. His head snapped up,
his mouth worked.
‘Realy, cousin – for we are cousins, Cleitus, are we not? –
you are too young to plead before this august body. You
needed, first, to prove that your cousin Nepos is dead. Second,
you needed to demonstrate that my friend was in some way
you needed to demonstrate that my friend was in some way
linked to his death, beyond the circumstance that he is from
Plataea. If you had remembered, you would have maintained that
your cousin died at the shrine of Leitos on the flanks of
Cithaeron. But like a young man, you let spite carry you away,
and you forgot to mention the place of this supposed murder, or
any other facts relating to it. What you have not told these
worthy men is that your whole knowledge of this matter comes
from two panicked slaves who returned to you, claiming that
their master had been kiled. You have never been to Plataea,
you have no idea if the claim is accurate, you have acted on the
word of two treacherous slaves, and in truth, as far as you know,
at any moment your cousin Nepos may strol into the crowd and
ask what this is about.’
Cleitus rose again. ‘He is dead. He was kiled at the shrine
—’
The archon rose. ‘Silence this instant, puppy.’
‘Listen to me!’ Cleitus spat.
The archon waved and two gaudily dressed Scythian archers
took Cleitus by the arms and carried him off the hil.
Aristides looked around in silence. ‘I claim that my opponent
has made no case. He has not shown a body. He has not offered
a witness. There is nothing for me to answer but the slander of a
traitor’s son. I cal a vote on the evidence presented.’
Stunned silence greeted him. The water-clock was running
noisily – it was stil almost ful.
The archon looked them over. ‘I cannot direct you,’ he said.
‘But if you pretend that Cleitus has a case, I’l make you pay.’
‘But if you pretend that Cleitus has a case, I’l make you pay.’
I was acquitted, twenty-seven to fourteen. A carefuly
arranged vote, as it meant that I could not claim damages from
Cleitus.
Several men tried to force through a different vote that would
have made me stand trial again if more evidence could be
gathered. They were stil arguing when the sun set and Aristides
led me off the hil.
‘You are the very Achiles of orators,’ I said.
Aristides shook his head. ‘That was bad. I used arts to win.
Had I argued the case on its merits, they would have found a
way to kil you.’ He rubbed his nose. ‘I feel dirty. Perhaps I
should exile myself. This is not law. This is foolishness.’
‘The archon was just.’
‘The archon hates the Alcmaeonids as upstarts and posturers.
He’s no friend of mine, but he’d raise me to Olympus if it would
hurt the new men. Al I had to do was put Cleitus in a place
where his arrogance would count against him.’
‘What now?’ I asked. ‘I want my horse and my slave girl.’
Aristides shook his head. ‘Perhaps in the spring. And if you
stay here, you’l be dead. I don’t have enough wax tablets to
keep you alive.’
We walked to his farm and Jocasta served wine. I told her
the whole of the trial while Glaucon and Sophanes sulked. They
didn’t love me any more.
Aristides noted them. He inclined his long chin in their
direction and raised an eyebrow at me.
direction and raised an eyebrow at me.
‘Hmm,’ I said.
Jocasta was looking at her husband with her eyes shining.
‘Should I invite this pretty foreigner to live in our house, so that I
can finaly hear what happens at your trials, love?’ she asked. To
me, she said, ‘He never tels me a word of his speeches.’
The great man looked down his nose. ‘If I told you my
speeches, you would only seek to improve them,’ he said. ‘I
could not bear that.’
Their eyes met, and I felt a twinge of jealousy – not bodily
jealousy, like a boy feels when a girl leaves him for another, but
something in the soul. Those two had something I had never had
– something calm and deep.
‘Why are the boys on edge?’ Aristides asked quietly.
‘I kiled some thugs,’ I said. I saw the effect my words had
on the lady. Kiling was part of life for me. Not for her. ‘Sorry,
despoina.’ When Aristides shrugged, I clarified why the two
young men were upset. ‘One I kiled in cold blood.’
Aristides shuddered in revulsion. ‘How can you do such
things?’ he asked.
‘It’s much like kiling a man in a fight, only quicker,’ I
retorted. His squeamishness – did I mention that he was a prig?
– offended me.
‘I cannot have you under my roof while you are tainted with
such a crime,’ Aristides said.
I al but fel over in shock.
‘They attacked us.’ But I could see it on his face. This was
Athens. I had spent too long in the camp of Miltiades. Men
Athens. I had spent too long in the camp of Miltiades. Men
didn’t simply cut other men’s throats here. I had, unwittingly,
committed a crime – and offended my host and patron.
I’m no fool. I got to my feet. ‘I understand, my lord. But the
man – what was before him but death in the mines? And he
might have been used against us in law.’
Aristid
es kept his head turned away, as if breathing the same
air as me would hurt him. ‘A thug – a metic? He could never
have been used in a trial. And you should know better. Are you
a god, that you may choose who lives and who dies? You kiled
him because it was easy.’
Alas, he was right.
‘A god, or one of the fates, might wel say that this man had
no future but a straight trip to the mines and a few months of
wretchedness.’ Aristides puled his chlamys over his head in
disgust. ‘You have no such knowledge. You kiled him for
convenience. Your own convenience. Now I am beginning to
doubt my wisdom in defending you.’
Jocasta was standing as far from me as possible. They were a
very religious household, and my bloody pragmatism now
looked to me, as it did to them, like selfish crime.
I had two choices – the amoral outrage of the pragmatist, or
admission that I had acted wrongly. Rage rose within me, but
Heraclitus was there, too.
‘You are right,’ I said. I clamped down on my anger. It was
wrong – ugly, unworthy.
Aristides raised his head. ‘You mean that?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You have convicted me in the court of my own
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You have convicted me in the court of my own
mind. I should not have kiled him, though he was of no use, even
to himself.’ I shuddered. It was so easy to fal back into the
habits of the pirate.
‘Cleanse yourself,’ he said.
‘I need my horse and my woman,’ I said. ‘I swore an oath.’
Aristides shook his head. ‘Cleanse yourself, and perhaps the
gods wil provide.’
There were, in those days, a number of temples that offered
cleansing from the stain of death and impiety. Even the shrine to
Leitos, in Plataea, although that was open only to soldiers.
But the principal places of cleansing for crime were Olympia,
Delphi and Delos. And of the three, Delos was easiest to reach,
though most distant in stades, I suppose. And the Apolo there
was the most ready to listen to a common man.
‘I wil go to Delos,’ I said.
‘You can be in Sounion by morning,’ Aristides said. ‘Have
you money?’
I didn’t tel him I stil had twenty drachmas from the dead
men. ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Gods speed you there,’ Aristides said. He stood by me
while I roled my blankets and an old bearskin, then folowed me
out of his gate. ‘Listen, Arimnestos. You may take me for a
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