The Wooden Walls of Thermopylae

by Nick Brown

  While slaves removed our sandals to wash our feet the tension in the room tightened like an anchor rope. I think that although neither Themistocles nor Xanthippus was surprised to see each other, they realised the stakes. Remember, back then the rules of governing the Demos were being made up from day to day. We picked at the choice dishes of fish and eel on the low tables but without appetite; conversation was desultory. At last the jugs and cups were set up and Phrasicles stood to perform the duties of symposiarch. But this was no ordinary symposium.

  “Phrasicles, you are the most honourable of men and an example to all other hosts but I fear even your skills are unequal to stimulating a worthy debate on the principles of Isonomy. We are here for another purpose and one that will not wait.”

  Xanthippus had spoken well but Phrasicles looked unsure of how to proceed. He mumbled an offer to withdraw but was interrupted by Themistocles.

  “No, as host your place is here: all shall remain to listen to what, in the next minutes, could decide the future of the city of the Goddess Athena. There is no place for secrecy or subterfuge in the principle of Isonomy or the rule of the Demos.”

  I don’t know how he managed to say this with a straight face, perhaps at the moment he believed it. Xanthippus couldn’t; he tried to look stern and impassive beneath his bulging forehead but then he cracked, trying to stifle a giggle that became an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

  “By all the Gods, Son of Neocles, how do you manage it?”

  He had to stop and wipe his eyes before gasping out,

  “You should let your scribbler take notes; the length of one Chou of wine with you in this form would give him enough material for ten of his satyr plays. How can you get so far up your own arse?”

  Then Themistocles laughed; whether it was genuine or not I don’t know but it achieved its purpose. We could begin. Only the delicate matter of who would speak first, who would control the agenda needed to be settled. It was then that Cimon, who had been whispering with Aeschylus, took his first step in what we now call politics.

  “Was this not the very room in which you, Strategos Themistocles, and my late father began the process that led to Marathon? The battle in which you both fought in the front line.”

  On the surface it was the question of a callow youth. But the mixture of courtesy and admiration coupled with a memory of the dead hero whose partnership with Themistocles led to the battle settled with great subtlety who would speak first. Themistocles.

  “Now shall we speak plainly in front of honourable men who will hold us to account, son of Ariphron?”

  Xanthippus looked him in the eye then nodded his massive head. Themistocles began.

  “We both know the Persians will be back. We both know they won’t make the same mistakes again. There will be no more Marathons.”

  Xanthippus nodded again.

  “The Spartans will never defend our city. Our only chance is the sea. The sea can make us great.”

  Xanthippus nodded.

  “But we don’t have a secure harbour and we don’t have any …”

  Xanthippus finished the sentence for him.

  “Fucking ships. I know, I’ve heard this speech before. Where does it get us? We can’t even fight Aegina at sea and win.”

  “Yes, and you’d know more about Aegina than most, wouldn’t you?”

  One of Themistocles’s few faults: he couldn’t resist a jibe. Xanthippus flushed red.

  “Not as well as you know the Great King, son of Neocles.”

  A deadly insult but Themistocles reply took all of our breath away.

  “And not as well as I know his son, young Xerxes. A much better bet for the future, don’t you think? Always a good thing to plan ahead because it will be Xerxes we have to deal with.”

  Xanthippus, adroit as he was, found himself nonplussed so listened as Themistocles spelled out with brutal honesty the reality we faced.

  “So we need ships but many of our leading men, particularly your Alkmaionid cousins, don’t accept this. One of the reasons they don’t accept it is because more ships mean more sailors and more radical trierarchs, which means the Demos grows in strength. And they want to stifle the Demos even though that particular horse left the stable a long time ago and is miles down the road. But you, you, son of Ariphron, are wiser than that. You know the Demos is here to stay which is why you’ve begun to work with it. No need to look so surprised, you must know that nothing in this Polis escapes me.”

  He smiled round at all of us like a genial host: he was enjoying himself.

  “So, son of Ariphron, here’s where we are. I understand the need for a fleet and a harbour and so do you. I understand the Demos is the only way forwards and so do you. Does it make sense for us: the only two men who really grasp this, to fight each other? If we do what happens? You accuse me of secretly dealing with the Great King and I accuse you of leading an expedition to Aegina in order to betray us to our enemies.”

  Xanthippus blurted out,

  “But you wanted me to go, we agreed …”

  This time it was Themistocles’s turn to interrupt.

  “But sadly for you, son of Ariphron, it was you who was stupid enough to go. Everyone in the city’s heard me denounce Aegina as a nest of pirates. Just as everyone knows you went there to talk to them and that I tried to have you arraigned for it. No one would believe you. However they would, and with justifiable cause, believe your accusations about me and the Great King.”

  Xanthippus had regarded him with a look of something like respect as he’d said this. Cimon used the pause to reach for his wine cup. I pushed his hand away: Themistocles hadn’t finished.

  “And how would that all end? Athens would lose the only two men who can save her.”

  “And how precisely are we going to save Athens from the Persians without enough ships to even defend ourselves against Aegina?”

  “But we do have enough ships. Well almost: enough at least to hold on long enough for a stalemate.”

  He gestured towards Aeschylus.

  “My scribbler, as you call him, has just returned from a trip to Corinth and brought twenty triremes with him.”

  Xanthippus looked incredulous but it was Aeschylus who spoke.

  “I was surprised at the extent of their gratitude towards us over Marathon. They know that after us, but before Sparta, they were on the Great King’s list. I saw their defended harbour amongst the lagoons at Lechaion too. Effective but not as strong as the Piraeus could be.”

  Xanthippus snarled to Themistocles,

  “So the scribbler is your agent, your intelligencer?”

  “Of course, but you can share the credit for him if you like.”

  “And why would you offer me that?”

  “Because I need you, Xanthippus, Athens needs you if you prefer. It won’t last but for now the great families can prevent anything they don’t like in this city. It will change but maybe not before we are overwhelmed by the Persians. How will your clever little son, Pericles isn’t it, manage to establish a reputation then? When the Persians impose a tyranny over the defeated, smoking ruin of Athens.”

  Xanthippus didn’t reply but it was obvious he was thinking hard over a decision that would change his life. Themistocles sensed this, and he began to push harder.

  “And it won’t be you, Xanthippus. You’re too far from the centre of the clan: scarcely an Athenian in the eyes of some of them. For you and your family to rise you need the Demos and the opportunity to command in war. Let them marginalise me and there’s no chance of you having either. Imagine that: a life spent licking the arses of men like Megacles and Kallixenos.”

  “So what are you proposing?”

  But Themistocles was playing a subtle game. He asked Phrasicles for a second crater of wine. Phrasicles clapped his hands and as we waited for it Xanthippus fretted then asked.

  “You expect to hatch a plot in company just like that?”

  “Of course in the presence of honourable men: I fully
trust those who follow me, Cimon trusts his cousin, Ajax. I’m sure you wouldn’t have asked Timocrates, son of Timoxenus, or Chrysis, son of Eumachus, to attend today if you didn’t fully trust them.”

  Xanthippus glanced at his friends, who sensibly kept their heads down staring into their wine cups.

  “You’re taking a great risk, Themistocles.”

  There was no answer. As the wine arrived Themistocles asked Phrasicles,

  “Mix it two to one; suits this old Chian best.”

  The wine was served and drunk in silence. Themistocles, judging the opportune moment, put his cup down arranged the folds of his mantle and said,

  “Yes, but any risk for the safety of our city is worth taking. But I’m not taking much of a risk with you, son of Ariphron: you’re a patriot and despite our differences you know I’m right. I’m proposing we work together to prepare our city for war. I’m proposing you command the fleet, including my twenty Corinthian triremes, against Aegina. I’m proposing that together we push the city fathers to finish the fortified harbour at rocky Piraeus. But most of all I’m proposing we build a fleet of three hundred warships.”

  He gave a soft chuckle and paused before saying almost under his breath,

  “But the Gods only know where the money will come from.”

  Xanthippus stared at him, saying nothing. Themistocles waved his arm indicating the cups should be refilled. I was sweating under my robes; the tension was ratcheting up and the anchor rope taut to the point of snapping. I noticed however that Cimon was quite calm, staring at Themistocles with a look of admiration; learning from the master.

  Themistocles looked steadily at Xanthippus across the rim of his cup as he drank then said,

  “The city needs you. I can’t do this alone.”

  “And you approach me, the man you called the traitor of Aegina.”

  “Who better to partner the friend of the Great King?”

  It was the timing rather than the chilling implications of this that broke the tension. Made us laugh: Xanthippus the hardest.

  “My cousins are right about you. You’re more than a showground huckster, you are truly dangerous.”

  “Yes, I am; and remember no one has greater cause to know that than the dead Persians lying in their mass grave at Marathon.”

  “Yes, no one can doubt the part you played in that.”

  “Nor you.”

  “No, nor me.”

  “So?”

  Xanthippus was like a man wobbling on the edge of a precipice; which way would he fall?

  “All you propose, Themistocles, is that we work together until we achieve those ends that we both know are necessary?”

  “Precisely.”

  He opened his arms and the two men embraced. Not as warmly as I’d seen them embrace on the bloody ground of Marathon at the battle’s end, but then the emotion was different. But a pact had been formed. As Phrasicles called for more wine Themistocles smiled and said,

  “There might be one little difficulty for you to face though.”

  Xanthippus, anticipating a joke, asked, ready to laugh at the punch line,

  “And what may that be?”

  “It will be necessary for some of your Alkmaionid cousins to leave town for a while.”

  Themistocles wasn’t joking.

  Chapter Ten

  The sea war with Aegina was a scratchy affair: bits and pieces of raids all along our coastline. I played no part, there’s no room for injured men on a trireme. Cimon had more of an impact: not through any action but from something he said to Themistocles following the meeting of the board of Strategos convened to confer command of the fleet. I don’t know what was said in the meeting but we were there in the Agora when the decision was announced: Xanthippus would command the fleet. So the accord struck up in the andron of Phrasicles’s house was working.

  After the public meeting Themistocles, in great high spirits, mingled with his supporters, me and Cimon included. We repaired to one of the better wine shops in the Ceramicus, something Themistocles did occasionally to demonstrate his connections with the Demos and the ordinary citizen. The talk was of triremes and strategy, a topic best left to experienced seamen, but Cimon – usually content to listen and assimilate – pitched in.

  “My father told me on our escape from the Great King that the only thing preventing fighting ships, like the Athene Nike, from becoming invincible is the lack of room for fighting men on deck.”

  No one particularly wanted the opinion of a boy but he commanded respect even back then. So the company heard him out politely then moved on. But it was later apparent that he’d struck a chord in Themistocles, who asked afterwards as we were making our way home,

  “So, son of the mighty Miltiades, what exactly did your father have in mind to strengthen the Athene Nike?”

  “He said he’d find an experienced shipwright and ask him to examine the possibility of extending the deck between the outriggers so we could double the number of ephibatai. He was sick of being outnumbered by the hoplites on the Persian ships and wanted to be able to carry more himself.”

  Themistocles didn’t bother to reply but I could see he was storing the suggestion up for future consideration. At the public meeting he’d hinted that he had a few surprises in store for Aegina in the war. When we arrived at his house I, at least, understood what they were.

  I recognised him as soon as he was shown in. The Aeginian democrat: the bastard who’d knocked me about and broken my ribs. He recognised me too, gave me a mocking smile as Themistocles led him off for a private consultation. I promised myself that if I ever saw him again my dagger would give him an extra rib.

  Whatever plan he was hatching didn’t work though. When the democrats on Aegina rose up they were beaten, hunted down and killed, their bodies left to rot in the public places of the city. We’d failed to do our part: the Corinthian ships were too late to allow our navy to support the insurrection so my dagger never got its opportunity.

  That fiasco more or less summed up the war. They burned Phaleron, burned the boat station at Sounion and raided wherever they wanted. Even with the Corinthians we were outnumbered and couldn’t be everywhere at once. When the revolt of the democrats was exterminated we lost our only chance to hit back at them. Without friends on the inside, they were too well defended for our fleet to attack.

  It was chance though that levelled things up: a squadron of our ships caught an equal number of theirs returning from raiding our coast and wiped them out. After that they hadn’t the strength to raid in force and defend their home waters so the war guttered out and died like an oil lamp before cock crow.

  But it gave Themistocles the ammunition he needed to begin his own democratic revolution at home. Before that, though, my own domestic circumstances changed. Cimon and I were asked to visit the house of Agesilaus: Themistocles’s brother. You never noticed him when his more famous brother was around, he preferred the shadows, and there was something of the night about him. Ask any man in a wine shop to describe him and no two will give you the same description. I think that’s the quality that made him so essential to his brother. Who could suspect a man who wasn’t there?

  Agesilaus greeted us in his usual unobtrusive manner and escorted us to a small receiving chamber where seated on a couch was a small, stocky, saturnine but richly dressed individual. A sickness clutched at my heart as I knew who he was before Cimon greeted him by name. Callias. This was the man who would enjoy the perfumed nights with Elpinice. I wanted to be sick, but as heartache was a constant companion those days I managed to control myself.

  I can’t remember much else. Only that the marriage was fixed and the first instalment of the reverse bride dowry paid in the shape of a house. In fact, a house not far from the old family home below the Acropolis; nothing changes, the fates just rearrange the furniture. I’ve tried to set down the truth in this journal, reader, so I suppose I’d better be fair to Callias. There has been a great deal of slander aimed at him in order to
discredit Cimon and Elpinice. So you may as well hear the real character of the man from someone who has no reason to flatter him, a man who still hates him. Me.

  Callias was rich but he was not the same Callias who robbed the bodies of murdered captives after Marathon, because he wasn’t there. That man, Callias the Golden, was a snake. Cimon’s brother in law stuck to his bargain: he supported Cimon with funds and was kind to his sister. He afforded her more freedom than any other Athenian wife, save for Aspasia, the beloved of the onion head Pericles, enjoys. I suppose that at least is something I grew to be grateful for.

  So we moved into our new house where my role was a mixture of steward, mentor and friend. Although they’d not known him for long, many of the old retainers of Stesagoras household drifted back to serve Cimon. Theodorus joined us to fulfil a variety of roles including bodyguard. He towed in his wake some of the Thranitai from the Athene Nike. In this way the household became a comfortable extension of the ship. Cimon was prepared to take advice on most matters but was adamant in his refusal to re-employ his tutor Aristagorus.

  Some days after we moved in I was about to set out on an expedition that had long been building in my mind. I would visit Lyra and see if she’d forgive me. I put on my best tunic and dressed my hair in the fashion that I’d seen the young ephebes who surrounded Cimon affect, and was about to set out when Ariston arrived short of breath at our door. It was obvious he had some serious purpose, but despite that couldn’t resist a crude joke.

  “Got a new job as male pornoi in a brothel have you, Mandrocles? Because if you have you’ll have to postpone it, we’re needed: the fun’s about to start.”

  He barged past me shouting for Theodorus and the others but was brought up short by Cimon.

  “Why all the noise, Ariston?”

  “Beg pardon, Master Cimon, but Strategos Themistocles needs all decent democrats in the Agora, particularly them as can fight.”

  So I never got to see Lyra. I wager you think you know what happened in the Agora that day, reader: well, stick with this and then see if you’re so sure. We got there early but the crowd was already sizeable and nasty. There was a large group of men with some wailing women which was unusual. I bet you’ve not read that anywhere. They were from the coast where the raids had been. The survivors whose homes had been burnt whose kin had been killed, raped or carried off into slavery. Themistocles must have been working through the last two sundials to get them all here. They made for a great but noisy spectacle and because of their suffering and the sympathy of the crowd the Archon’s officers made no attempt to move them.