that someone – or some group of men – invaded one of the
largest Alcmaeonid farms. In fact, it was Cleitus’s home farm.
His workers were badly beaten, and every horse in his barns
was kiled, throats cut with knives. Every horse.
Not everything I planned came off. I had wanted my own
horse back, but the men who were sent to the farm
misunderstood, and my nice mare died with al their stock. I
hadn’t meant so many men to die – ten is a big body count for a
peaceable city – but when you make soup, the vegetables are
best cut smal.
I did what had to be done. I wanted the Alcmaeonids to be
struck with terror. I didn’t want them to consider fighting back.
I couldn’t be certain what the consequences of my little
gambit would be. And perhaps the consequences would have
been less, if not for Phrynichus’s play.
Cleitus had meant for the play to be canceled, or if not
canceled, he’d planned a disturbance in the Agora that would
have forced the magistrates to take action. That’s what should
have happened, but his bruisers were cooling corpses by then,
their shades already far on the road to Hades. I’d paid another
crowd of oarsmen and their friends to attend the play. I packed
the crowd to get it cheering, but that was unnecessary, and I
regret that I thought so little of Phrynichus. I didn’t pay them to
regret that I thought so little of Phrynichus. I didn’t pay them to
attack the Alcmaeonids. That happened al by itself.
The end of the play set off a convulsion of sorrow and regret.
Phrynichus’s words brought home to the mass of men what the
fal of Miletus had meant – and what role they had played, or not
played. Never once had he named the Alcmaeonids, or spoken
harshly of the power of Persian gold – but when men dried their
eyes after the last speech, a demand by a Persian general that al
Greeks submit or share the fate of Miletus, the crowd turned on
the Alcmaeonids like wild dogs.
They were pelted with filth, and their retainers were beaten.
At first, men were restrained, both by the prestige of the
aristocrats and by fear of their bruisers – but there were no
bruisers in evidence.
Then some of the oarsmen grew bolder and pressed forward.
But the aristocrats weren’t cowards – far from it. These were
the leaders of Athens, and swords appeared, despite the law.
Commoners were cut down.
The area behind the stands was now enveloped in the chaos
of a formless fight. I pushed my way there, past men trying to
join the fight and others attempting to flee it. I wanted Cleitus – I
wanted to see his face.
Instead, I saw Themistocles. He was grinning from ear to ear,
and yet he was struggling to restrain some thetes who had
cudgels and were trying to finish off a falen man.
Themistocles shook his head at me. ‘You see what you’ve
done?’ he roared – not that he was displeased.
I pushed past him, looking for Cleitus. I took a blow on the
shoulder and I wondered if the Alcmaeonids would be finished
off right here in a massacre by the Royal Stoa, but the crowd
wanted more and less than blood, and already the older
aristocrats were clear of the crowd. And running. A sight that the
demos never forgot.
Cleitus was holding the crowd back with a dozen armed men.
The thetes feared his sword and his ability to use it.
I didn’t. I pushed forward through the last edge of lower-
class men, and I laughed at him.
As if by prompt on the stage, Paramanos appeared with my
slave girl in tow. Her eyes widened when she saw me – until
then, as I later heard, she’d assumed the worst. If there can be
worse than working in a brothel in Athens.
I grabbed her hand and she came with me.
‘I have back what is mine,’ I caled to Cleitus.
‘You’re a dead man,’ he roared at me.
And then he ran, pursued by the sound of my laughter.
I gave her her freedom, as I had promised. It was a year or
more late, and I paid her the best damages I could, hard silver
for her lost year. She was never again the open-faced, friendly
companion of our first weeks together. The gods had used her
and cast her away, and I had forgotten her, who had sworn to
save her. It’s not a pretty story. How many men did she service
in the Agora because I was heartsick?
But we made the Athenian aristocrats pay. No Alcmaeonid
But we made the Athenian aristocrats pay. No Alcmaeonid
dared come into the streets for weeks thereafter, and my court
case was won by the absence of my opponent, and the unanimity
of the jury was a sign of the colapse of aristocratic power.
Miltiades argued my case with a deep voice and an unworried
countenance, because he knew he was going to win – both as
my proxenos and in his own case. No jury in Athens would
convict Miltiades of anything after Phrynichus’s play. And the
Alcmaeonid political machine died with their handlers. I’m afraid
I taught the Athenians a terrible lesson, and they stil fear the
demos.
But I smile to think that Phrynichus and I saved Athenian
democracy from the Alcmaeonids so that the man who wanted
to be tyrant could save it from the Medes. The gods – who is so
foolish as to not believe in the gods? – work in the strangest
ways.
Aristides was distant for the next week, until my case was
resolved. He was no fool, and he knew where the muscle had
come from, and so did Themistocles. I went back to staying with
Phrynichus, who was now deluged with money and offers of
more from admirers as distant as Hieron of Syracuse.
Phrynichus knew I’d done something, but I never let on
exactly what – and yet, by having Agios and Paramanos and
Black and Cleon for dinner every night, Phrynichus became
untouchable. We kept fifty oarsmen in the streets around his
house at al hours, on Miltiades’ money.
But on the day that Miltiades was released – the jury refused
to hear the charges read, which had precedent in Athenian law,
to hear the charges read, which had precedent in Athenian law,
and seemed to satisfy everyone – I met him and Aristides
together with Themistocles. We met as if by chance in a wine
shop at the edge of the Agora, where wel-to-do men used to
cement business deals.
Themistocles didn’t meet my eye. Miltiades, on the other
hand, rose to his feet and embraced me.
‘Money wel spent,’ he said. ‘Pardon my doubts of you,
friend. I wil always be in your debt.’ He gave me a broad wink.
‘I don’t think these other gentlemen liked their taste of your
politics.’
Themistocles spat. ‘I do not want to live in a state powered
by blood,’ he said.
‘And yet you seek increased power for the lowest class,’
Miltiades answered. ‘What do you expect?’
Themistocles glared at me. ‘I expect them to learn to be men
of honour, and to st
and in their places and vote – not cudgel
each other like thieves.’
But Aristides shocked me. He took my hand and embraced
me. ‘I thought to hate you,’ he said. ‘I considered asking for a
writ of banishment against you.’
Themistocles looked at him as if the gods had taken his wits.
‘But you did not?’
Aristides shook his head and sat. ‘Drink wine with us,
Arimnestos,’ he said. ‘I invited Cleitus to join us, but he
declined. I wanted al the factions.’ He almost smirked. ‘Perhaps
their faction isn’t worth having today.’
‘They’l be back,’ I said.
‘They’l be back,’ I said.
‘So they wil,’ Aristides agreed. ‘But no amount of Persian
gold wil buy them the mob now.’
‘And for that, you forgive this foreigner who used violence to
achieve his ends?’ Themistocles asked.
Aristides shrugged. ‘In former times, when a city had reached
a point of stasis – civil war – the leading men would invite a
foreigner, a lawmaker, to come and save them.’ Aristides smiled.
‘My wife told me that I was being a fool, and that I should see
the Plataean as a man who came to Athens and restored order.’
I looked around at al of them. ‘You see me as a kiler of
men,’ I said. ‘But I was trained by Heraclitus of Ephesus, and I
know a little of how cities work. Athens has too many poor, and
too few rich, for the rich to control the poor with fear and silver.
Too many of Athens’s poor are seamen and oarsmen. They’re
not cowards, as al of us around this table have cause to know.
And they have no reason to love Persia.’ I shrugged.
‘I know al that,’ Themistocles said. ‘I don’t need some
eastern-trained foreigner to tel me.’
‘You know it al,’ Aristides said, ‘but despite that, you did
not act.’ He turned to me and smiled. ‘I prefer the rule of law,
Plataean.’
‘I am a man of property, too,’ I said. ‘Not as rich as you lot,
but I have a good farm, a forge, horses. I, too, treasure the rule
of law. But when one side controls the laws, the other side must
appeal to another court.’
Aristides nodded. ‘We al wish to ask you to leave the city
now.’
I smiled. ‘You are going to run me out of town after al?’
Aristides nodded. ‘We have to. You kiled ten men – and
most citizens know how. You wil be welcomed back soon
enough.’
I rose to my feet. ‘Gentlemen, I have fought for Athens, bled
for Athens and now I have schemed for Athens. The depth of
your thanks never ceases to amaze me.’
Aristides shook his head. ‘Don’t be like that, Arimnestos. If
you were one of us, we would al now fear your power. Since
you are an aly, we can ask you to leave, and trust you again in
the future.’ He said this as if it made sense, and in a way it did.
But I was hurt, too. I had planned a briliant campaign, and the
only person who thanked me was Irene, wife of Phrynichus.
‘What can we do for you, Arimnestos?’ Miltiades asked.
I had the good grace to laugh. ‘Nothing, unless it is to make
sure that Phrynichus doesn’t starve while you al plot the future of
Athens.’ And then I had a thought. ‘Perhaps I wil have
something after al. I have in my hand a set of manumission
papers for a slave girl. They’ve al been signed by a magistrate –
how about if you al sign them?’
Her name, it appeared on the tablets, was Apolonasia –
quite a mouthful for a twist-foot slave girl from Boeotia, but
Apolo’s daughter she certainly was. And al three of them – the
three most famous men of their generation – put their stamps and
their names across the magistrate’s mark on her tablets.
It was the best gift I could give her. I went and fetched her,
It was the best gift I could give her. I went and fetched her,
and introduced her – her eyes cast modestly down – and each
swore that they would remember her.
She walked with us, out of the city. I stopped on the
Acropolis hil to say farewel to Phrynichus, and I stopped in
Piraeus to say farewel to Agios and Paramanos, and I stopped
at Eleusis to say farewel to Eumenios, who I’d barely seen,
because in Attica, eighty stades is reckoned a great distance.
Cleon came with me, of course. And on our last night in Attica,
at Oinoe, where my brother died, she came into my blankets,
and kissed me.
‘I’m going in the morning,’ she said. ‘I’l be a farmer’s wife in
Attica, and my sight tels me I wil see you again. I was a vessel
to lead you, and now I am free.’
I murmured something, because I was hard as rock and
wanted to have her, and I didn’t need any of her moon-gazing
female nonsense just then, but she bit my shoulder hard to get my
attention.
‘You owe me,’ she said. ‘Give me a child of yours, or I’l
curse you. Again.’
So I did.
In the morning, she was gone. I did hear of her again, and I
know who she married and who our child grew to be, as you’l
hear eventualy, if you al keep sitting here.
But I’l say this of her in eulogy. She was a hero, as much as
Eumeles of Euboea or Aristides. She was a vessel for the gods,
and she stood her ground, and when they treated her like shit,
she did not become shit. Eh?
she did not become shit. Eh?
I can never lose the notion that if I had gone back for her, the
Greeks might have won at Lade. Foolishness. But I stil carry the
guilt for leaving her to bloody Cleitus for a year.
And he didn’t send her to a brothel because he was evil,
either. That’s what you do with a club-footed chattel with good
breasts, if she has no skils. Right?
I’m an old man and I have few regrets, but she is one. And
when she lay with me that night and took my seed – I felt better.
I won’t say otherwise. Much better.
When I awoke in the first light, she was gone, but sitting on
my leather bag, where her dark head had lain just hours before,
was a great black raven. It cawed once, and the beat of its wings
frightened me, and then it rose into the sky with a cry.
I lay stil with my heart beating hard, and my body felt lighter.
Indeed, when I rose from my blankets, my hip and lower leg hurt
less – much less. I’ve never run the stade since Lade, but from
that moment I got something back. Something more than mere
muscle and tissue.
11
My third return to Plataea was the easiest. Perhaps my felow
townsmen were becoming accustomed to my travels, or perhaps
Simon, son of Simon, had just lost his supporters in Thebes and
had no money with which to blacken my name. In any event, I
went back over Cithaeron in winter, froze my arse in the high
pass and made a sacrifice on the family altar nonetheless, and
came down to green Plataea in time for spring harvest.
The truth is that Plataeans can be ignorant hicks, and it’s
possib
le that the winter was so cold that they never noticed I
was gone.
Either way, I was there for the first harvest, the barley
harvest, and my spirits were high — whatever the raven gave
me, it was strong. I settled Cleon on a smal farm in Cithaeron’s
shadow, and he seemed happy enough. I ploughed my falow
land with Hermogenes, and won his grudging praise for my
land with Hermogenes, and won his grudging praise for my
unstinting work. I made new props for grape vines and I pruned
everything I could get a sickle to. I gathered al my male slaves
and on the spot freed the two Thracians who had been with me
since my first return, and then told the rest exactly how they
could work their way to freedom.
When the spring farm work was done, I threw myself into the
forge, making pots and pitchers and cups and temple vases with
Tiraeus and Bion. For twenty days, my forge was never silent.
Even Hermogenes worked the forge, and that was rare, because
despite his skils, he’d become a farmer first and foremost.
At the feast of Demeter, we danced the Pyrrhiche and I eyed
the new crop of boys-become-men with the wary amusement
that men have for boys. They preened and slunk away by turns,
and lost their heads whenever a pretty girl walked by. Despite
which, by the end of the festival, I had a notion of who was
worthy and who was worthless, and where they might stand in
the phalanx.
I had not taken naturaly to being the strategos of the town –
or perhaps I had. My father was briefly the polemarch before his
death – the war archon. And no man had been formaly
appointed to either role since his death. The Plataeans had not
stood in battle a single day since the Week of Battles. Indeed, in
al the town, there were only six of us who had faced iron in the
storm of Ares since then.
There was me. There was Idomeneus, who was accepted as
a citizen despite his alienness, because he was the priest of the
a citizen despite his alienness, because he was the priest of the
hero. There was Ajax, a Plataean who had served with the
Medes against us in the Chersonese, and of whom we
nonetheless thought highly. There was Styges, who had folowed
us to Lade. Hermogenes had served me for two years in the
Chersonese, and had fine armour and a steady hand. Lysius of
Plataea was another local man – he’d served for four years
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