by Gary Corby
“You mean you’ll prove you didn’t kill Ephialtes?”
“That’s right.”
Socrates announced, “I’m going to think of all the reasons why it wasn’t you. And then I’ll work out who really did it.”
I said urgently, “Socrates, do not go wandering about trying to solve the murder. Don’t worry about it, Pericles will help me.” I wondered if that was true. Pericles hadn’t come to see me yet, though he must have heard by now I’d been arrested. A great deal hinged on how Pericles reacted.
“What happens if they say you only killed the slaves?”
“That’s destruction of state property. They’d only fine me a lot of money. But that won’t happen because I wouldn’t have killed the slaves unless I also killed Ephialtes. The killing of the slaves doesn’t count for much in the trial. It’s like an extra piece of sweets at dinner.”
“But what if they find out you took that stuff from Ephialtes’ home?”
“Shh!” I hissed, horrified. I looked about to see if the guards had heard, but they seemed to be ignoring us.
“How do you know about that?” I demanded in a whisper.
He grinned. “I followed you after the funeral. I saw your girlfriend hand you the box.”
“She’s not my girlfriend!” I said quickly. “And don’t say that to anyone else or you might get her killed.”
“Aren’t they going to kill her anyway, for murdering the madwoman?”
“Maybe.” I winced. “I don’t think so though. I think they only accused her to get at me. They need her alive to marry Rizon or he can’t inherit.”
“I heard Father say Rizon could marry her when they buried her. Mother said that would be an awful thing to do.”
I gasped in shock. It was true. Sometimes if a betrothed died before a wedding, the body was buried with the wedding clothes, wedding songs were sung by the graveside, and the families treated it as if the marriage had taken place. Conon could choose to view Diotima’s death in the same light.
“I think you’d better go home, little brother,” I said gently. “Father doesn’t know you’re here, does he?”
He shook his head.
“Goodbye, little brother.”
“See you later, Nico.”
His departure left me plenty of time to feel sorry for myself. I thought upon my impending death and decided I didn’t want to die. Not now, not any time. I began to sob. Once started, I couldn’t stop. I’m sure the guards heard but they didn’t look around. No doubt they’d heard it all before.
I calmed down eventually, or rather, I managed to stop the noise. I was still as miserable as I’d ever been in my short life. I wondered if anyone was trying to save me. I wondered what Pericles thought.
“You’ve made a complete mess of it,” a voice said brusquely. I looked up to see Pericles there.
“Sorry,” I muttered, wiping my face with my hands.
“Sorry isn’t good enough. How could you have done this to me? I’m disappointed, Nicolaos, very disappointed.”
“As I see it, you’re the one standing outside and I’m the one awaiting execution.”
“You must be tried first, but I agree it’s a foregone conclusion. And we still don’t know who killed Ephialtes. It’s not the result we were hoping for, is it?”
That raised my hopes. “So you don’t think I killed him. Are you going to get me out of here?”
“I don’t know if you’re the murderer or not. I didn’t see you with a bow, but then, as I said to Conon when he asked me, I didn’t look either. And don’t get your hopes up. Has it occurred to you the men who will be your judges are the ones who probably did arrange his death? They’ll be more than happy to influence the jury against you.”
I’d had the same thought; the Council of the Areopagus would be the judges of my case. Irrational as it was, I’d kept some hope that Pericles might find a way out for me. Now he destroyed me utterly.
“I don’t even dare be seen with you. That’s why I’m here, to warn you not to say anything about our association when they take you to trial.”
I stood to the door and grabbed it. If I’d the strength I would have torn it off its hinges on my way to throttle Pericles. Instead, I put my head to the tiny slots and shouted, “Thank you very much, you bastard! What happened to loyalty?”
Pericles said coldly, “I promised you great reward for success. Failure wasn’t mentioned in the agreement.”
He had a point, but it was the clinical way he abandoned me that rankled.
“Your commission is revoked. You have no way now of completing it.”
“Unless I did kill Ephialtes.”
“Did you?”
“No, of course not.”
Pericles nodded. “I thought as much, and you have no reason to lie now. I will give you this much, Nicolaos: if you do not mention me in your defense except insofar as I was present when the body was discovered, which all men know anyway, then I will use my influence to protect your girlfriend.”
“I’m not his girlfriend,” a voice said behind Pericles, who turned, startled. I looked up. How much had she heard?
Pericles said, “As you wish.” He turned his back on her and said to me, “She must marry Rizon, but I think I can save her from stoning.”
I looked at Diotima and said, “I accept.”
“No you don’t!”
“Yes I do. Stay out of this.”
“You think your noble sacrifice is going to impress me?” she sneered. She pulled out a piece of papyrus and practically slammed it into Pericles’ face. “Read it and weep,” she snarled.
As Pericles read his face became ashen. “Where did you get this?”
“The papers from Ephialtes’ room. We found this.”
“We?” Pericles looked at me accusingly. I, of course, had never told him about the note he was holding. I knew what she must have handed him, the parchment in Ephialtes’ own handwriting that said Pericles could not be trusted with the leadership.
“This isn’t the original,” Pericles stated.
“No, of course not. You might have forced that from me. This is the copy I made. The original is well hidden.”
Pericles thought for a moment. “Very well, it’s obvious you want something from me. What is it?”
“You will free Nico.”
“Impossible. I only just finished explaining that to him.”
“Then I suggest you be very persuasive when you talk to the people who can.”
Pericles was quiet for a long moment, during which I held my breath. Eventually I could stand the suspense no longer and asked, “Well, is it yes or no?”
Pericles said, “Be quiet, I’m working out how to save your life.”
He thought some more. Then he said to Diotima, “It’s a condition of any agreement between us that you will not reveal the contents to anyone. To anyone, you understand?”
Diotima nodded. “Agreed. But if Nicolaos is executed, if they touch so much as a hair on his head, then this will be sent to the people who would most enjoy reading it.”
Pericles nodded reluctantly. “I will receive the original.”
“When the danger has passed.”
“I see. I was speaking the truth when I said I cannot prevent a trial. Conon has committed himself too far to back out without loss of face.”
“But you can have him freed until the trial starts.”
Pericles paused. “Possibly.”
“And you can get him off. You have to, unless…” She dangled the papyrus.
Pericles turned to me. “Congratulations. It seems I will be speaking in your defense.”
The moment Pericles left, Diotima asked, “Nicolaos, will you run if Pericles has you freed?”
“Into exile? I don’t know. Father talked of it, but I hadn’t any hope of being let out until now so I haven’t thought about it. He said I might go to a sculptor friend of his in Corinth, but I think instead I might take that fast boat to Syracuse. Telemenes offered m
e the passage.”
“Syracuse? It’s better than being dead. I hear it’s a beautiful city. I’d miss you.”
“You could come with me,” I said without thought.
She was startled. “Go with you?”
I’d taken the plunge, I might as well try swimming. “You don’t want to marry Rizon. Blackmailing Conon certainly didn’t work. Come with me.” I paused. “I’d like you to come.” I could feel my face burning bright red.
“But that would be terrible, Nico. Mother would never send me money so you’d have to earn for both of us. I’ve told you I would never be a whore like my mother, and that’s what I would be, unless I married you.”
“That was the idea.” I was in such agony; I understood for the first time why they leave it to fathers to arrange marriages. Doing it for yourself is worse than a trip to Hades.
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “Are you sure?”
I said quickly, “It’s all right, I understand if you don’t want to. I wouldn’t have anything, not even a place for you to live. Father would disown me of course. I don’t even know if I could feed us. At least if you stay here you’ll have security and enough to eat.”
“Okay.”
“The sensible thing is for you to stay and-What was that?”
“I said okay. I’ll come with you.”
My jaw dropped. “Are you sure?”
She smiled nervously. “No, but I just said yes and my heart feels good about it, so I guess the answer is yes.”
If it’s possible for a man to be locked in a condemned cell and ecstatically happy, then I was that man.
A message boy appeared. He handed me a scrap of papyrus. On it Pericles had scrawled, Conon refuses to free you. The only way out is to win the trial. It’s set for tomorrow.
I silently handed the parchment to Diotima. She read, then crumpled the message in her fist. “Oh well, so much for that plan.”
18
I spent the rest of the day reviewing the case with Pericles. He refused to have Diotima present, so she departed for the Temple of Artemis. He dismissed the entire edifice of our discoveries as too convoluted to convince a jury.
“To prove your theory, you would have to take the jury through the inner machinations of the Council of the Areopagus; expose divisions within the democratic movement; denounce Themistocles, whom many still believe was the savior of Hellas, and explain our banking system to men who’ve probably never had enough money to save a drachma. To top it off, you need to rely on the testimony of a low innkeeper, a drunken shortsighted sailor, and three men who are dead, two of whom are slaves and whose testimony would have been invalid except under torture.”
This matched my own gloomy view so closely that I could only nod and ask, “So what do you propose?”
“That we take the opposite course, and demonstrate merely that the murderer could not have been you. Above all else, everything must be simple. Take care to remember, Nicolaos, men rarely make decisions with their thoughts. It is their emotions that guide their actions. And in a criminal trial, it is how they feel about the accused that matters far more than the facts. You must ensure you come to trial as a presentable young man and a fine upstanding citizen. Make sure you are washed and properly dressed. Be modest in your manners. You must speak on the second day, but then you are permitted to hand over your defense to a friend.” Pericles winced. “That will be me.”
The first day consisted of witness depositions, and would have been boring had my life not hinged on the outcome. The presiding archon was one of the lesser of the nine archons. He looked at me as if I were a curious object. “Ah, so you are the infamous Nicolaos. Both the Eponymous Archon and the Polemarch have spoken of you, frequently. I must say, you don’t look like an evil spirit sent to harass Athens. I’m rather disappointed, really. Well, let’s hear what the witnesses have to say. Thank the Gods I won’t have to hear the full case. I leave that to the Council of the Areopagus.”
Conon called the son of Brasidas as his first witness. I discovered the boy’s name was Phomion. He looked at me in anger and spat at me. He recounted the end of the conversation he had overheard, my words, “…or you could find yourself dead.” The father was found the next day with his throat slit, the only evidence a shard of pottery clutched in his hand with my name scratched upon it. He asserted only I could have murdered his father. He was now required to support his mother and sister. To that end he had taken over his father’s business, but the takings were poor because the customers of his father had fled to more experienced bowyers and the family was starving. He ended with a demand for compensation of ten talents.
The next witness for the prosecution was Rizon. He testified to my proclivity to senseless violence. I had struck him down without the slightest provocation within his own home and later had manhandled him at Piraeus. Rizon offered up his slaves for torture to confirm the account.
The stallholders of the Agora came forward to testify to the damage I had done while chasing a poor defenseless boy, whom I had suddenly turned upon. He had sprinted off in fear of his own life. The boy hadn’t been seen again, no doubt his corpse was rotting in a secret grave.
The innkeeper who’d been pushed into his laundry tub testified I had tried to drown him, holding his head underwater. Only his valiant struggles had saved him from the demented lunatic. He demanded compensation of five talents.
Piece by piece, Conon built the picture of a man given to sudden murderous attacks against anyone unlucky enough to be nearby when the madness took him.
“The evidence of the son of Brasidas is damaging,” Pericles whispered to me. “The rest can be dismissed one way or another. Fortunately the key is Ephialtes. If you did not kill him, then you had no reason to harm Brasidas or the slaves. We will concentrate on showing you could not have murdered him.”
I nodded my understanding. I hadn’t truly believed this was happening to me. Now that the trial had begun I was struck down by the seriousness of it all. Pericles knew more about the workings of Athens than I ever would, and I was more than happy to leave the strategy to him.
“You will claim you went to see Brasidas about a bow. You have no idea why he was killed but it was certainly nothing to do with your investigation. The son misheard your words.”
I objected. “But that would be lying!”
“Yes, that’s the usual way to win a court case. Don’t talk so loudly, they’ll hear you.”
For the defense we had but two witnesses. The first was Pericles himself. He gave a simple account of the discovery of Ephialtes.
The second witness was Pythax. He gave an accurate account of my appearance at the barracks and the discovery of the bow, and certified it had been made by Brasidas. He ended by describing my struggle with Aristodicus and the ending of it.
The next day the trial began in earnest at dawn. It was held fittingly upon the Rock of the Areopagus, within the chamber of the Council. For a crime of this type, and given the importance of the victim, there were more than the usual number of dicasts assigned to hear it. Pericles scanned them as they filed in and said to me, “A thousand and one in the jury.”
“Is that good?” I asked anxiously.
He shrugged. “It’s both good and bad. The more dicasts, the bigger an audience we have to play to, and the more the trial hinges on who can entertain them the best. That’s good for us because Conon is a boring pedagogue whereas I am a great speaker,” said the modest Pericles. “On the other hand, large juries often provide closer results. Whether your notoriety will work for or against us I don’t know.”
“I’m notorious?”
“You should hear what they’re saying in the Agora.”
The dicasts sat along both sides of the chamber. Tiered wooden benches held them all, though barely.
Spectators stood at the back of the room. I nodded to Lysimachus, who looked grave. Archestratus stood in the front row, standing next to his son.
The judges sat at the front. This
being a case of homicide, the judges were all chosen from the ranks of the Council of the Areopagus. I didn’t need Pericles to tell me that was bad for me. The entire Council filed in and took their seats. The full Council were essentially spectators at the proceedings. There were three seats placed at the fore for the chief judge and his two assistants. Now Xanthippus marched in and took the position of Chief Judge. That shook Pericles, who muttered, “He never told me. They must be doing this because they think I’ll be more restrained with my own father in the chair. Well, they have something to learn.”
The second seat next to Xanthippus was taken by Lysanias. I felt good about that, I thought Lysanias liked me. The third and final seat was taken by a man I didn’t recognize. Pericles snorted. “Demotion. He’s a toady to my father, we can expect him to agree with anything Xanthippus says.”
The dicasts were sworn in, repeating in unison the words, “I swear to vote according to the laws of Athens. I will never vote for a repudiation of debts, nor to restore before their time those who have been ostracized. I will not accept any bribe or offer for my vote, and if any man offers me such I will report him. I will not accept or take any bribe on behalf of another. I will hear both sides impartially and vote strictly according to the merits of the case. Thus do I invoke Zeus, Poseidon, and Demeter to destroy me and my house if I violate any of these obligations, and to send me many blessings if I obey them well.”
Xanthippus made the sacrifice. When he was done a slave brought him a basin of water and a towel to wash his bloodied hands. I noticed there was a spot that did not come out, but thought it impolitic to mention.
Xanthippus declared, “Let the prosecution begin.”
Conon led the dicasts through the same logic he had developed the day before: the story of a man given to senseless violence when you least expect it. His evidence was convincing and I saw the nearest dicasts draw back as Conon’s speech went on. He stopped at various times to read the evidence of Phomion, the evidence of the stallholders, and of all his other witnesses one after the other. After each reading the witness stood to confirm it had happened as Conon had said.