Philocrates. His satire was briliant and so funny that I can’t
remember a word of it, except that I threw up from too much
wine and laughing so hard.
Phrynichus drank when he wasn’t using his head, and he and
Philocrates and Idomeneus formed a drinking club whose
members had to swear to be drunk every day as an offering to
Dionysus. I tried to make fun of Philocrates for this display of
piety, but he refused to be mocked – saying that Dionysus was
the one god whose effects were palpable.
Just after the local feast of Hera, our navarch bestirred himself
from his tent and ordered us to sea, to seize the island of Lade
before the Persian fleet arrived. By now we received daily
before the Persian fleet arrived. By now we received daily
reports from merchant ships and outlying galeys – and the
Lesbians had a dozen fast biremes and a pair of light sailing
hemioliai on hand, and they did what scouting got done.
So on the morning after the feast of Hera, we rose, manned
our ships – a scene of complete chaos, let me tel you – and
sailed in a surprisingly orderly manner down the coast of Samos
to Lade – the enemy squadron, led by Archilogos, slipping away
ahead of us. We had so many ships that we filed the island. The
Samians landed first, and they took al the good ground, so that
by the time the Lesbians and Chians had landed, we, the extreme
right of the line and the last in sailing order, were left with the
rocks near the fort and nowhere else to camp.
I was leading Miltiades’ ships and Nearchos’s squadron, and
I directed them to folow me to the beach opposite the island –
the beach from which I’d launched my raid a year before. We
were not sorry to be separated by half a stade of water from the
excesses of Dionysius and the growing tensions of the camp.
Later, Aristides was listening to Phrynichus recite the Iliad,
which always delighted him, and when he reached the scene
where Diomedes takes the army forward and routs the Trojans,
he turned to me and frowned.
‘We need to get to grips with the Medes before the fleet
colapses,’ he said. ‘The Samians have refused to train any more.
They’ve mutinied, and the Lesbians are just as bad.’
That night, Epaphroditos and a few of his warriors swam
over to us, drank wine and complained of how mad our navarch
over to us, drank wine and complained of how mad our navarch
had become.
‘We’re not pirates,’ Epaphroditos said. ‘The man’s notions
of training are insane.’
Secretly, I suspected that al the Ionians could have used
harder hands and stronger backs. But they were brave, and as
far as I could see, this was one fight that would be settled
through courage, not tactics.
‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘I hear the Persians are on the way.
We need a rest.’
I talked with him half the night, and Phrynichus listened to
every word he said as if he were Hector returned.
Dionysius declared that we should have games to propitiate the
gods in preparation for the contest against the Persians. It was
the most popular decision he’d made since he ordered us to
Lade. Men were bored, restless and yet listless. I felt that the
Ionians were dangerously lazy. We were on the edge of victory,
and they wanted to behave like men who had already won.
The prospect of games didn’t excite me the way it had when
I was younger. It makes me laugh now, to think that at twenty-
three or twenty-four I imagined myself a hardened old man.
I had already triumphed in a set of military games, you’l
recal, back on Chios when the revolt was young. Five years
before. So I decided not to compete in every event, or to strive
to win the whole competition. But events decided otherwise.
Next morning, Phrynichus said that he wanted to see Miletus
Next morning, Phrynichus said that he wanted to see Miletus
before we fought. I had business there, so I colected a heavy
bag and a letter for Teucer and we walked across the mudflats
into the city, slipping past the Persian archers in the last gloom of
morning to have a cup of wine with Istes. He depressed me by
showing me the siege mound, now al but level with the height of
the wal. ‘Twenty days,’ he said.
‘Care to come with us?’ I asked, and Istes shook his head.
‘My place is here, with my brother,’ he said. ‘We wil die
here.’
‘Cheer up!’ I insisted. ‘Apolo wil not let us fail.’ I could see
the future so clearly that I was surprised other men worried so
much. ‘We wil destroy their fleet, and then we wil liberate al of
Asia.’
Istes had lines around his eyes that were not there a year ago,
and pouches from sleepless nights. He looked twenty years older
than me. And he drank constantly.
I glanced at Phrynichus. ‘This is the greatest swordsman in
the Greek world,’ I said.
Istes grinned. ‘Someday, perhaps we can measure each
other,’ he said. I agreed – it would be good to face such a gifted
man. That is the admiration by competition that makes Greece
great. ‘But I would rather stand beside you as we smite the
Persians.’
‘Flattery wil get you anywhere, Plataean,’ he said. ‘You
think we’l win this naval battle?’
‘I do,’ I said. We would win, I would take Briseis as my war
bride and that would be that. My spear-won wealth would make
bride and that would be that. My spear-won wealth would make
a palace for her on my farm. That’s what I had decided – to
have her and punish her as wel.
Feel free to laugh.
‘I have to say that I’ve now fought the Persians every fucking
day for a year,’ Istes said. ‘If you destroy every ship in their fleet
– kil Datis, drown their navarchs – this war stil won’t be over.
They’re much, much tougher than that.’ He yawned. ‘But if you
lose, Miletus fals – and the revolt is fucked.’
‘You are tired,’ I said.
‘You know how it feels after a fight?’ he asked me, one kiler
to another.
‘Of course,’ I alowed.
‘Imagine fighting every day,’ he said. ‘Every fucking day. I’ve
been at it a year, and I’m starting to go mad. My brother is
worse – he was never the fighter I am, and fear is getting into his
gut.’
Of course, you are familiar with the character of Istes in the
play. Phrynichus knew his business. He was a great man, and he
knew greatness when he saw it.
I left him to study his new hero, and I went out on the wals
and found Teucer. He was at the top of a tower – a rickety thing
of hides and wood and stone fil, just completed behind a section
of wal that had been mined from beneath. The stonework of
Miletus was so old and so good that the wal simply subsided
without breaking. That’s why we didn’t use mortar in those days
– mortar adds strength, but when a mortared wal is undermined,
it colapses. Not so heavy stones fitted by master masons. Often,
it colapses. Not so heavy stones fitted by master masons. Often,
the old way is the better way – something for you children to
remember.
They’d built a tower behind the subsided wal, and I had to
climb a dreadful ladder to reach him, far above the battle. He
had a big Persian bow, and he shot carefuly at the slaves who
were working to clear the rubble in the not-quite breach. He
seldom missed, and very little work was happening. He had
another man spotting for him, too, and they passed comments on
individuals as they shot them.
‘See red-scarf? He’s got a death wish – oops! Wish come
true.’
‘White-belt? He’s getting ready to step out to get that fascine
– here he comes. You missed left. Now he’s going to come
around the other side of the wicker shield – ooh, nice. Dropped
like a sack of barley.’
‘Teucer?’ I asked.
‘Oh!’ He put his bow down and embraced me. ‘A pleasure
to see you, my lord.’
I sat on my haunches after an enemy arrow ruffled my
chlamys. ‘Hot work here.’
Teucer laughed. ‘This is my life, these days.’
‘Care to ship out for the battle?’ I asked as casualy as I
could manage.
He glanced at me, shot another arrow and exchanged a long
look with his spotter. ‘We can’t,’ he said, after a delay so long I
thought I’d offended him.
The spotter was Kreusis, a younger archer who’d also
served aboard my ship. His face was marked with soot and I
hadn’t recognized him at first. ‘Sorry, lord. Histiaeus would cut
our ears off. We’re to hold the Windy Tower while you sailors
fight their fleet. Our lord is afraid of an escalade during the sea-
fight.’
I couldn’t argue with that. It was the sort of thing I’d have
tried myself.
I handed Teucer a bag of things from his friends on the Storm
Cutter – a skin of wine, a sack of dried Athenian sausage and
other delicacies – for a city under siege. He and Kreusis ate
bread and sausage as I watched.
I also had a letter from his wife, who had wintered in
Kalipolis and who I’d sent to Plataea when the weather broke
with a pouch of money and a long letter.
He wept a little as he read it, then folded it away.
Finaly, I gave him the fine Persian bow I’d bought for him at
Sardis. He took it without acknowledgement. It was just a tool
to him – a sign of how far gone he was in his head.
‘We’re going to die here,’ he said. ‘But I know now – thanks
to you – that my wife and son wil live. Means a lot to me. Wish
I could sail with you – sail away.’
I told him to stop talking nonsense – that the Persians were as
good as beaten. But I could tel he was beyond such things. I’ve
been there: when the horizon is no longer the next week, or the
next day even – it is merely the next instant. When you are there,
you cannot see out.
you cannot see out.
We embraced again and I climbed down the tower, thinking
dark thoughts.
Phrynichus was stil talking to Istes. I hugged the swordsman.
‘We’l win,’ I said.
‘You’d better,’ he answered.
As Phrynichus and I walked back from the harbour, a couple
of Persian archers had a go at us, racing along the rocks above
us. That’s terror – being shot at from long range with no chance
of reply. We had to wade to get around the end of their lines and
we couldn’t move fast, and I cursed my arrogance in going by
day. And not bringing a shield.
One of the Persians gave a great scream and plummeted from
his rock into the sea. I walked over and retrieved his bow and
arrows – soaked, but not ruined.
I saw Teucer waving from the wal. He’d shot the man at
some incredible distance – Phrynichus has that shot in the play,
of course.
Phrynichus shrugged – he was a cool man in the rage of Ares.
‘It’s a little like living in the Iliad,’ he said.
‘Imagine what a jumpy bunch they were, after ten years at
Troy,’ I said, and the poet nodded.
‘I was thinking of Istes,’ he said.
‘Exactly,’ I said.
Idomeneus claimed my new bow as soon as I reached the ship –
dried it, restrung it and shot at everything that he could. He was
an excelent bowman, as I’ve said before, and he’d decided that
an excelent bowman, as I’ve said before, and he’d decided that
he needed a bow in the coming sea-fight, which was fine with
me. After al, Archilogos’s archers had unsettled me in the fight
by the harbour.
He told us that the Persians were coming. ‘They’re camped
just down the coast,’ he said. ‘Epaphroditos has seen them.’
Later that afternoon, Leagus, Dionysius’s helmsman, came
across in a skiff and went to Miltiades for permission to hold the
games on our beach. We were delighted, and Miltiades and
Aristides competed to build fires, lay out courses and prepare an
altar and sacrifices.
The next day dawned grey, with weather threatening from the
west. But the athletes came across in boats, and more than a few
swam the half-stade in their exuberance, arrogance or poverty.
Miltiades acted as host, and he and Dionysius sat together in
apparent camaraderie, made sacrifices with the priests and
watched the competitions as if they were brothers. Al of us were
delighted by this display of propriety. We were further delighted
when the men of Miletus sent a contingent to compete, led by
Histiaeus and his brother Istes. They, too, sat under the great red
awning that Miltiades had set up, and watched.
The competitions were, in order, the one-stade run, the two-
stade run, the javelin throw for distance, the throw for accuracy,
the discus, archery for accuracy, the run in armour – the
hoplitodromos, the pankration, the fight in armour. I had
intended to enter only the fight in armour, but as I lay on my
bearskin by the awning where the judges watched, young
Sophanes of Athens came up, naked and glistening with oil, and
Sophanes of Athens came up, naked and glistening with oil, and
squatted next to me.
‘You are the most famous man – as a fighter – in this host,’
he said. He gave me a shy smile. We had not been friends since I
kiled the thug in Athens. ‘I want to compete against you. These
Ionians – most of them are hardly fit.’
‘Wait until you run against my friend Epaphroditos,’ I said.
But his desire was genuine.
‘I . . .’ He paused and looked around. ‘I think that I blamed
you – that I had kiled a man. It made me feel . . .’ He stopped,
blushed and looked at the ground between his feet.
I nodded. ‘It made you feel greater and less than a man
yourself, eh?’
‘You slaughtered that thief like a lamb. And made me look
like a boy.’ He shrugged. ‘I am
a boy. But I want to win today,
and I want to win against the best. The noblest. And I came to
say that I wronged you over the kiling. I didn’t like what I had
done – I made that part of you.’
‘Nicely put,’ I said. Goodness, he was earnest and polite and
handsome and probably brave and moraly good, to boot. He
made me feel old at twenty-three. ‘But I have spent a year
coming to terms with kiling. What I did that day was il done. I
don’t regret the man I kiled in the fight. But the man in the celar
– what Aristides says is true. That was murder. I have spent a
year atoning to Lord Apolo, and al the gods, for my hubris.’
Sophanes grinned. ‘Then you should run, lord. Competition is
a sacrifice to the gods.’
What could I do? He was right. Besides, he made me feel
like a slacker. So I puled my chlamys over my head, and
Idomeneus came up with my arybalos, oiled me and smacked
me on the back.
‘About time you got off your arse,’ he growled. He was very
tender of my reputation, which in a way was his, as wel.
A word about exercise – though I normaly try not to drone
on about how much time I spent on my body every day – stil
do. When we were at sea, I rowed at least an hour a day with
the oarsmen. The Pyrrhiche of Plataea included a set of exercises
with an aspis, and I did that portion of the dance every day,
lifting the shield over my head, and moving it back and forth
across my body. On a ful exercise day I would run eighteen to
twenty stades and lift heavy stones in the way that Calchas taught
me at the tomb of Leitos. In addition, I would practise against
one of my marines with a wooden sword – some days, against
al of them. My favourite sparring partner had become
Philocrates. He was by no means the best of them, but he fought
hard, and had long arms and was a dangerous opponent – with
surprising inventiveness.
At any rate, I tel you this so that you won’t think that I went
soft between bouts of combat. None of us could afford to be
soft in those days, when freedom from slavery depended on your
ability to cut a rival down.
I made the final heat in the one-stade run, and again in the
two-stade run, where I finished second, to my own delight.
Sophanes won the one-stade, and finished behind me in the two-
Sophanes won the one-stade, and finished behind me in the two-
stade, which Epaphroditos won. I was surprised, and pleased, to
Marathon Page 20