The Wooden Walls of Thermopylae

by Nick Brown

  The next day the council granted money from the silver at Laurium sufficient for the building of another hundred triremes. Representatives of the Athenian Demos carried this silver to any part of Greece where good seasoned timber could be acquired and skilled shipwrights employed. The speed of shipbuilding increased. For men like me and the crew of the Athene Nike, every day became the same: we trained and bullied landsmen into sailors.

  For their part the exiled Alkmaionids made no attempt to stir up trouble or impede progress: for all their faults it appeared the grace of their stand at Marathon outweighed their hatred of the Demos. At least until after we either beat or succumbed to the Persians. Strange also that in many ways, his Ostracism was the making of Aristides. I know, reader, that you will be familiar with the legend of his probity during the actual Ostracism.

  You know, the story put about that some illiterate half-wit from the countryside with a blank sherd of pot was wandering around trying to find someone to write a name on it for him. He stumbled into Aristides and, not knowing him, asked for help. Aristides asked him who he wanted ostracised and the countryman said:

  “Aristides.”

  So Aristides scratches his own name on the sherd and throws it into the pithoi for counting. Then as an afterthought he asks,

  “Tell me, friend, why do you want to ostracise Aristides? What has Aristides ever done to hurt you?”

  The man replies,

  “Nothing, I don’t even know him.”

  So Aristides asks,

  “So why condemn him to leave his homeland?”

  To which the man responds,

  “Cos it pisses me off always hearing him calling himself ‘The Just’. If he thinks he’s that much better than the rest of us he can fuck off out.”

  Unlike the other invented stories about themselves that the Alkmaionids like to circulate, I’m half inclined to believe this one. Mainly because it was later used by Themistocles’s supporters as an example of political stupidity rather than moral rectitude like the Alkmaionids asserted.

  Strangely, once he’d gone and with him the opposition to building the fleet, the city seemed a much lonelier place. Lonelier and more frightening. Whoever it was who said as soon as you conquer one problem you hit the next was right.

  Except it wasn’t one problem it was a whole pithoi full of them. This became apparent a couple of days after Aristides left and was started by a rumour: an advance squadron of the Persian fleet had been sighted off the coast of Delos heading for Athens.

  Anyone with any sense knew this was wrong; problem is you don’t need sense or information to state an opinion, and within hours the Agora and the bars were packed with men working themselves up into a lather of panic. It was like the tense months before Marathon lived all over again.

  My first taste of it came a couple of days later. The Athene Nike was in dry dock for modification so I had some spare time on my hands. Spare time and nothing to do: Cimon was still playing the role of country squire at Brauron and Lyra hiding away somewhere in the Megarid. So having no other plans, I strolled through Athens.

  It was the first warm day after several of skirmishing rain, I remember. The same skirmishing rain that had fallen throughout the period of spring at Dionysia, soaking both the actors and crowd. I wandered the back streets, where in those days patches of dense poor dwellings would suddenly open out onto cultivated fields and goats replace people. The city wasn’t so crowded back then: the waves of immigration that followed the wealth created by our empire hadn’t really started rolling in.

  I was passing a bar near where Phrynichus used to rehearse his players when I heard shouting and laughter from within. I was bored, I was thirsty I, went in.

  Through the door I joined strange company: a type of society of the theatre. They were well gone in wine and roaring. Strange that presiding at the centre of several plank tables pushed together were the most bitter rivals of the day: Phrynichus himself and Aeschylus.

  Maybe not so strange though: the Dionysia was ended for a year and rivalry could be temporarily set aside, ideas and alliances for the next year talked through and the failings of the choregii who sponsored the plays bitched about. A smooth faced ambiguous looking man sitting across from Aeschylus was in full spate.

  “Would you believe the mess Themistocles has got himself into, dears? Doesn’t know whether he should be in Sparta, trolling round Greece trying to form an alliance or back here in Athens supervising his little ships. Poor dear, so confused: sees an amphora and doesn’t know whether to piss or drink.”

  This was going down well; had the players in fits of laughter as they spluttered over their wine.

  “And dears, he’s not helped by his little friends of the Demos, is he? Some of them want to leave the city, some want to make peace with the Medes while some want to fortify the Acropolis. I rather fancy he’s beginning to miss Aristides and all the others away enjoying an extended holiday.”

  I bet you think, reader, that this affected manner of speech was invented by the current generation of aristocratic youths to enrage their fathers. Well, let me tell you, they always minced about like this in theatrical circles. Wouldn’t have been a good idea to mock men like Kalamis, whose name I’d just remembered: he was very handy with a dagger and enjoyed using it.

  Aeschylus had seen me and waved me across to join them. Kalamis paused, rolled his eyes and made an obscene gesture before lisping,

  “Ooo look, Aeschylus, your special friend has come to, shall we say, join you; welcome, Mandrocles the beautiful.”

  I smiled at him and squeezed into the space on the bench Aeschylus had made for me.

  “I give you thanks, Kalamis: I’m not often called the beautiful these days.”

  I was passed a cup of wine and the conversation moved on. But even here, beneath the surface of mockery and laughter, fear was the undercurrent. They were discussing the recent drama festival knowing that, depending on the speed of the Persian mobilisation, it may have been the last. Aeschylus enquired,

  “Will you write about our current dangers for next year?”

  Phrynichus shook his head: he’d won the prize this year with a trilogy based on the labours of Hercules. It had been a good, if safe, choice. He wasn’t aging well but was still the most respected poet in the city.

  “I don’t think so: the scars of my last literary flirtation with modernity are yet to heal. Anyway, I wouldn’t tell you if I were. What about you?”

  “Next year; no I don’t think so, maybe someday. I was thinking of the fall of the house of Atreus following the Trojan War, but in the current circumstances I’m not sure that would be appropriate and anyway –”

  He came to a halt, undecided whether to continue. Then said,

  “Anyway, who knows if there’ll be a Dionysia next year? Who knows if there’ll even be an Athens?”

  “This has all become too gloomy for me, my dears.”

  Kalamis got up from the table, made a mock bow to Phrynichus and left. Several of the others drifted off after him. Those of us remaining moved closer together and the atmosphere became increasingly morose. When the last jar of wine was empty, no one ordered another and we dispersed. As we were pissing against the back wall of the bar Aeschylus said,

  “Walk with me up to the Acropolis, Mandrocles.”

  We picked our way uphill, avoiding the pools of stagnant water scattered along the track. The city was unusually quiet and empty; people were either skulking indoors or out practising with the growing fleet. We didn’t speak on the way.

  We paused at the top of the ramp to leave an offering at the shrine of Athena and I remembered being taken here by Theodorus and Ariston on my first day in Athens. The day I first glimpsed Lyra. Dusk was falling over the city, a pall of fire smoke hung above the houses. We wandered through the forest of steles, plinths and statues of the Gods. Apart from the keepers of shrines it was deserted.

  Away through the gloom we could see the fleet bobbing on the water at Piraeus,
where the harbour was dwarfed by the army of newly thrown up boat sheds. The preparations looked to be years off being completed. Was this what we’d torn the city apart to achieve? It looked frighteningly fragile. I think Aeschylus was thinking the same; instead he said,

  “Yesterday we received information from the court of the Great King.”

  I knew what was coming wasn’t going to be good. I was right.

  “He’s so sure of victory that he doesn’t feel the need to conceal his plans from us.”

  I waited; I’ve learnt from experience that poets tell you things in their own time.

  “In fact, so confident that he wants us to know and understand them.”

  This seemed against all sense. I asked,

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because he sent a messenger with them directly to Themistocles.”

  An owl hooted from somewhere in a small grove surrounding a shrine. Despite it being the servant of the Goddess, it made me shiver.

  “His army is ready to move and this time he’s not leaving anything to chance: the whole empire’s mobilised.”

  “But he can only ship so many troops at a time, we beat them last time, remember Marathon?”

  Aeschylus looked at me, smiled, and for a moment I thought he was going to ruffle my hair like I was still a boy.

  “This won’t be like Marathon; listen, Mandrocles. This time he doesn’t need ships to march his army over to Greece. While we’ve been fighting ourselves, he’s fought and won a war with the ocean.”

  My expression must have told him I’d no idea what he was talking about. He explained.

  “He’s bridged the Hellespont. He’s built a raft of boats across the sea: a bridge wide enough for three chariots to ride side by side. He’s turned the sea into land and he’s going to march the biggest army the world’s ever seen across it. Back at Marathon we faced an expeditionary force sent to punish us. This is an invasion, this time he intends to wipe us out. While his fleet blockades us, his army will march across Greece through the Hot Gates to wipe us, and anyone stupid enough to stand with us, from the face of the earth.”

  The owl hooted again, a message from the underworld.

  “Every spot we’ve set foot on today, Mandrocles, will be destroyed, every building pulled down, everything that can burn will burn. My plays on Prometheus, the House Of Atreus and all the others will never be written. Democracy will cease to exist.”

  I’d never seen him like this, even when drunk. Today he’d been drinking but wasn’t drunk; he was lucid. Lucid and terrifying. I tried to encourage him.

  “Go to Themistocles; talk to him, he’ll have anticipated this, he’ll have a plan.”

  “Well there’s a slight problem with that, Mandrocles.”

  I waited for it, waited for the lightning strike.

  “No one knows where he is. He’s left the city.”

  The owl broke cover and swept into the night searching for prey.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  By the next day it was all round the city, embellished by a lavish covering of rumour. The Gods were punishing us by allowing the Persians to walk on water and Themistocles was at the court of the Great King, advising his generals. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it, but then you have the advantage of hindsight, don’t you, reader? Back then, even if you were smart enough to allow for exaggeration it was still terrifying.

  The Alkmaionid view propagated by their whisperers was that Themistocles had purged the true leadership of the city so that the Persians could walk in unopposed and install Themistocles as tyrant.

  In a sense this was true. Without Themistocles there was no leader. Nothing put this in sharper relief than the efforts of Nicodemus and his other democratic supporters to reassure the city. Without Themistocles they were nothing and their efforts were pitiful and made matters worse. Fear and suspicion grew, neighbour feared neighbour and those with enough money or interests elsewhere made plans to leave Athens.

  So it was a relief when the Athene Nike was back in the water and we could resume our training of potential oarsmen. Now, when the city has such a large standing fleet spread across the empire and to row as a free man in the fleet is a mark of pride and citizenship, there’s a large pool of skilled rowers in reserve. Back then it was very different. And it wasn’t just the lack of bodies: it was the class of men.

  Throughout our history it had been the hoplite class that fought our wars. Local wars in the main, with set times of year for fighting, a pretty good understanding of the rules and conventions on both sides and limited engagements with few casualties. The hoplites were landowning citizens who would turn out when required but not for too long and never during harvest.

  Marathon changed all that; now we faced total war, the kind not seen since the fight at Troy. A war which destroyed both the Greeks and the Trojans. Like the Greek heroes of old we would go to war in ships, but unlike them we’d also fight from them. Fight against the largest and most experienced navy the world has ever seen.

  We lacked men with experience and this was exacerbated by the fact that most of the men crewing the triremes came from a class of men previously not trusted to fight. Our situation was desperate. The experienced rowers were spread throughout the fleet to train the new men so no ship performed well: a fact that particularly rankled with the perfectionist Ariston.

  “Thank the Gods Theodorus isn’t here to see these donkeys fucking up the strokes. Lucky for them, too.”

  He broke off to curse Praxiteles, a clumsy landsman who had the added misfortune to be rowing from the Thranitai benches in the outrigger and so was particularly visible.

  “Why don’t you grab a lump of bronze and jump over the fucking side; do us all a favour. You’re meant to be stroking the water, not trying to spoon it up so we can all fucking drink it.”

  He shouted to the most experienced of the Thranitai on board.

  “Sophilos: show him one more time how it’s done and if he still can’t, pitch him overboard. The Gods help us, what are we meant to do with the likes of these?”

  It didn’t help that we were soaked most of the time by the spray occasioned by the clumsy splashing of the oars. But that wasn’t the worst part: triremes are delicately balanced fighting ships and unless handled steadily, highly unstable. We’d already heard of two that had overturned during training exercises. Not quite the way the preparation for war is told in the heroic stories, is it?

  But for me it wasn’t so bad: I was one of the few men regarded as an experienced sea fighter and men respected me. Privately I’d begun to entertain the idea that one day, if I wasn’t killed first, I might become a trierarch. We all need to dream, and me especially, because reality was grindingly harsh. Almost everyone I loved I’d lost. The light began to fail, Ariston leaned on the joint tillers and we turned for port.

  Aeschylus was waiting for me on the dockside. He didn’t look like a man bringing good news.

  “Mandrocles, I think it’s time you paid a visit on your young master.”

  He turned and walked away; it was clear he wasn’t going to speak further in a place where it was so easy to be overheard. I followed him towards his dead brother’s bar above the port. The bar was empty but there was the sound of someone moving about in the upper chambers. He poured some wine straight from the pot into two clay cups and handed me one. I was glad of the drink; my skin prickled with the salt from sea spray and my mouth was dry and stale. I only had time for a quick gulp.

  “Stay here tonight: tomorrow you go to see Cimon at Brauron.”

  I suppose it’s some weakness that the Gods placed into my soul but there are people in my life who, when they command, I obey. It seemed that Aeschylus had joined that select group: I didn’t question him. I was about to ask him if he had news of Lyra but it seemed his mind was running along a similar track.

  “I’m trying a play about war, the testing ground of men, yet every time I write the scroll fills with women. Strange, don’t you think, when eve
rything in our lives is filled with the preparation for killing?”

  “Not too strange, I’ve been thinking about Lyra.”

  “I’m not thinking about anyone we know, about individual women, Mandrocles. I’m thinking about how their feelings penetrate the city and affect us.”

  He’d lost me; I said nothing, just drank my wine and listened.

  “They play no part in the affairs of the polis, in the affairs of men, in the decisions of life and death or war and peace. Respectable, they cover their faces, keep to the women’s quarters or if not respectable they service us.”

  I didn’t know where this was going but I clearly wasn’t going to find out anything about Lyra.

  “Yet they haunt my plays. They stare into them from the margins. Then when I least expect it they are centre of the stage. They assume a place denied them in real life: In front of the chorus they make things happen, change the action. Change it in a way I’d not imagined, never mind intended.”

  I poured myself another cup, this wouldn’t be over quickly: he’d caught me like this before, used me like a potential audience. Looking back I think I was lucky to have listened to the inner daemon of the greatest poet ever born.

  “I write of how the Gods play with us, I write of fate and men. How we believe we think and act for ourselves, control our own destinies but it’s all a cruel joke. Yet now, when I grapple with the return of Agamemnon from Troy, it’s not he or Orestes the words drag me towards.”

  He took a drink, stared into the rafters: for the moment I didn’t exist, he’d gone towards the words the God gave him.

  “It’s not the men or their actions the words drag me to: it’s the murderess Clytemnestra, possessed Electra, cursed and helpless Cassandra. Even Our Goddess the great Lady Athena decides the outcome. The words teem with women. The men are lacking all conviction and are directionless, driven by madness. The women are unnatural, filled with a passionate intensity and their strange voices shred the soul.”