Warrior in Bronze

by George Shipway

  For a second time I sketched the sorry tale. Atreus stood rock-still, one hand grasping sword hilt, the fingers of the other traced a moulding on his cuirass - a boar’s head, viciously tushed. When I came to the scene in Aerope’s room I stammered, the words sticking in my throat. I sent him a nervous glance. A look like death rampaging ravaged his face.

  I described the compact agreed with King Adrastus.

  In a voice like the hiss of sword from sheath Atreus said, ‘The doom I devise for Thyestes shall make men shrink from the telling. Aerope ...’ His face twisted. Visibly he controlled himself, lifted his chin and stared at a garish wall-frieze of warriors battling bulls. ‘You bartered away the cities we took. You did right. Adrastus shall stand by his bargain.’

  He left me on the bench, returned to the throne and said, ‘Sire, I honour the agreement Agamemnon made. Now, where is your Host?’

  Adrastus said smoothly, ‘Mustered, as I promised, in the citadel and town, ready to march at dawn.’

  ‘At dawn?’ Atreus looked at the sunlight shafting clerestory slats. ‘At dawn? Half the day remains, sire. Sound the trumpets, assemble your men. I lead them to Mycenae directly they’ve yoked the chariots!’

  The king turned helplessly to his Leader of the Host. A wondering admiration crossed Tydeus’ swarthy features. ‘It shall be done, my lord. We’ll be hammering Mycenae’s walls before the day is out!’

  ***

  The Host marched; and I remained in Argos. Courteously but adamantly Adrastus refused to let me go: until Atreus as King of Mycenae ratified the treaty I must remain his guest. The king relented enough to permit Menelaus’ departure. ‘You’re the valuable hostage, Agamemnon,’ he confided, ‘the son Atreus cherishes most. He doesn’t give a damn for Menelaus.’

  Guardian Hero alongside I anxiously paced the ramparts of Argos’ deserted citadel and saw nothing of Mycenae’s bloodless taking. Thyestes viewed the approaching Host, armour gleaming in westering sunlight, counted more than a thousand men and considered the hundred-odd spears he commanded. He collected his family and fled by a secret postern above Perseia’s stream. They vanished in the mountains and were lost in evening dusk.

  Submissive Heroes opened the gates; Atreus strode to the palace, told Tydeus to man the watch-towers and post strong guards on the walls. He summoned to the Throne Room every nobleman in Mycenae - a handful had run with Thyestes - and extracted from the treasury Eurystheus’ crown and sceptre. Under the wavering light of torches he seated himself on the throne, removed his helmet and donned the golden crown and proclaimed himself King of Mycenae, Tributary Lord of Tiryns, Nemea and Corinth and lesser cities under Mycenae’s sway. The nobles loudly acclaimed him - Tydeus’ Heroes, grimly alert, lined the Throne Room walls - and Daughters sanctified the ceremony by burning a lock of his hair.

  A son of Pelops ruled the realm that Perseus founded.

  Menelaus described all this at Argos the following day. Adrastus smilingly signified I was free to go where I would and loaded me with gifts - a gold two-handled cup, bronze three-legged cauldrons, jars of oil and seven fleeces. The cunning old rascal might well be generous: the tributes of Midea and Asine henceforth flowed to his store rooms. Including, I remembered sourly, those from my own demesnes.

  Driving back with Menelaus I broached a topic we had sedulously avoided - an unpleasantness tucked to the backs of our minds. ‘Is our mother ... safe?’

  The road descended a slope in a series of bumpy shelves; Menelaus pulled to a walk and made a face. ‘Thyestes refused to take her. Left her to face the music alone. The man’s an abomination!’

  The gradient eased; Menelaus whipped the stallions to a trot. I said, ‘Has Atreus seen her?’

  ‘No. She’s confined to her apartments, allowed one servant to attend her wants, and a guard has been set on her door. Nobody dares to mention her name to Atreus. I wouldn’t either, if I were you. He has changed greatly, Agamemnon, very taut and grim, all the sparkle gone. Thyestes, by the way, is declared officially banished.’

  My brother had something else on his mind, some wretched news he could not nerve himself to tell. He made a business of guiding the horses round an insignificant pothole. I said, ‘Come on, Menelaus. What’s worrying you?’

  He flicked an imaginary fly from the offside stallion’s quarter and said, ‘You won’t like this. Directly we ran from Mycenae Thyestes sent spearmen to sack your house and kill everyone inside. All your slaves are dead.’

  I hung on hard to the chariot rail. ‘Clymene?’

  ‘Clymene also.’

  I could not speak. The rest of the drive has gone from my mind like frost in noonday sun. I remember at journey’s end Mycenae’s grey-gold walls, spearheads gemming the ramparts, a picture blurred in tears. I prefer not to dwell on my feelings. You might well deride such weakness: sensible men don’t grieve for slaves; they are nothing but cattle and often less valuable. I will say only this: of all Thyestes’ crimes it was sweet Clymene’s killing which drove me to a vengeance that horrified the world.

  I found Atreus in the Throne Room; he was tense, unsmiling and very busy. ‘A job for you, Agamemnon. Interrogate survivors from Megara, and give me a casualty list - killed, missing and prisoners. We must reconstitute the Host, replace dead men with sons or kindred, re-allot lands which have lost their lords, negotiate prisoners’ ransoms. Adrastus wants his troops returned, and we can’t have Mycenae defenceless.’

  ‘Have we so much time before the Heraclids attack?’

  ‘Do you think I’d be sitting here if Hyllus and his ruffians were pouring across the Isthmus? No. They haven’t appeared in force. Raiders are savaging Corinth’s fields, but the citadel’s safe. No sign of a strong invasion - yet. They’ll be back, so the sooner we recoup the better.’

  (It transpired that we gave the Heraclids so rough a handling before the Thebans sent us flying that King Aegeus of Athens, mourning losses, forbade his levy to advance beyond the battlefield. Hyllus was hot for invasion, the Scavengers indifferent. After bitter disputes the troops dispersed. Hyllus left a detachment under Iolaus at Megara to harry Corinth; the rest of the Heraclids retired to Thebes.)

  Not a word did Atreus say about my mother, though the scandal itself was common knowledge -- chamber-slaves learn everything, and you cannot stop them gossiping. He had vacated the Marshal’s quarters: a splendid suite which occupied the topmost floor of a wing above the Great Court. I was told he went to Aerope only once - a short, low-voiced interview - and nobody knows what passed, or ever will. She stayed immured, invisible but somehow palpable, like a decaying corpse in an upper room whose stench pervades the house.

  I met Gelon, come from Rhipe with Diores, cataloguing oil jars in the palace store rooms, and enlisted his help. I cross-examined returned Heroes and Companions while Gelon noted their statements on papyrus sheets. Though much of the information was sparse and confused - you don’t see much in a fight but your enemy’s threatening spear - I was able to tell King Atreus the losses were less than we feared. Roughly a third of the Host was either killed or enslaved; the remainder - Heroes, Companions and spearmen - eventually returned to their manors. In one way and another the king restored Mycenae’s first-line strength, and the average age was younger - no bad thing.

  Atreus gave Menelaus his greaves, and land on the Argive border. He granted me a rich estate a short ride from the citadel, and another demesne near Tiryns. ‘You’ll still have revenues from your Midean farms, but it’s wrong for my successor - not for a long time yet, so take that smirk off your face - to hold only tributary lands. Incidentally, I haven’t had a chance to discover what Eurystheus did wrong, and I want a detailed report.’

  During the hectic days that followed Atreus’ enthronement I annexed Gelon as my personal Scribe (Rhipe ran like a well-greased wheel, and Diores declared him superfluous) and visited my new domains, listed animals, freemen and slaves, arable fields and pastures, manors, byres and ploughs, and calculated the annual production. Gelon conn
ed the records he made and announced, ‘You’ve become a wealthy gentleman, my lord. You own nine cattle herds, four of goats, ten droves of pigs and twelve flocks of sheep. I believe that only the king has more.’

  ‘We’re all landowners, more prosperous or less,’ I answered, ‘and the king is simply the richest. Atreus has taken all Eurystheus’ demesnes, and his possessions must be ten times mine at least. So they should be - otherwise why be king?’

  I gave Atreus, as commanded, my views on Megara’s battle, emphasized the orderless approach march and the extraordinary - to me - conduct of the fighting. ‘Is it really customary,’ I inquired plaintively, ‘for gentlemen to leave the field when they think they’ve won enough booty?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Atreus. ‘It is - but they’re supposed to return to the conflict when they’ve disposed of it somewhere safe. Why else do Heroes fight? For honour, allegiance, glory, renown? Nonsense! Forget the ballads our bards recite - those songs depicting Heroes as they like to think they are: valiant, proud, magnificent. Fish-feet! Your average Hero at bottom is a rapacious, self-seeking, treacherous sod. The only sanction that controls him is the threat of losing his lands. So he’ll follow his king on campaign, and make it a source of profit.’

  This scathing portrayal scarred my illusions badly. I groped for palliation. ‘I think you’re unjust, sire. War - and farming - is the Hero’s way of life. Gentlemen spend moons in practising skill at arms and exercising their bodies.’

  ‘Of course. You can’t grab an enemy’s armour unless you kill him first. You’ve got to be good or you don’t win loot.’

  I reflected dismally on the bitter cynicism clouding Atreus’ outlook, so unlike his satirical good-humour before he went to Pylos. He had indeed changed. ‘At Megara,’ I admitted, ‘booty seemed everyone’s main object. The Scavengers had different aims.’

  ‘Theban bugger-boys!’ the king snorted. ‘Uncontrollable fanatics! Tactics based on theirs will lose nine battles out of ten!’

  The Scavengers’ aggression, control and discipline had won the Battle of Megara. I kept the thought to myself: the king’s demeanour discouraged dissent.

  ‘The affair was a shambles,’ Atreus continued, ‘because spearmen crowded on chariots as they did in Perseus’ day. Fatal. Always, when I led the Host, I ordered spears and chariots to manoeuvre as separate bodies. When I saw the enemy I advanced my mobile armour, spearmen in rank a bowshot behind, a reserve of both in the rear. If our chariots broke the enemy line spears followed and exploited. Were the armour repulsed it rallied behind a spearmen screen.’

  ‘Which,’ I murmured, ‘is the sort of sensible tactic I had in mind. You have never lost a war, so it must have worked.’

  ‘Not once. Directly the chariots began to move the spearmen broke into separate squads which followed their personal lords. Exactly like Megara. They share in the plunder, you see - and nobody in Achaea fights for anything else. It’s hard to break a tradition dating from Zeus’ time.’

  Except the Scavengers. From this depressing discussion was born a resolve to form, whenever the means arrived, a body of disciplined charioteers bent on winning battles before they scrambled for booty.

  ***

  I had buried the bits of Clymene’s body Thyestes’ murderers left. He had sent Stymphalian axemen, men notorious for their pitiless ferocity. (Fifteen years later I burned Stymphalos, slaughtered the men and enslaved the women and children.) I shifted from my ruined house to quarters in the palace, but seldom set eyes on Atreus. He immersed himself in work and travelled extensively, visited Corinth where Heraclid raids had ceased and husbandmen rebuilt burned-out manors; and inspected demesnes he had granted to newly made Heroes. Because he had not appointed a Marshal he personally supervised training on the Field of War, and led a warband to Arcadia to chastise cattle thieves. Curator at heel he scrutinized store rooms, tallied enormous jars of olive oil and corn, checked fleeces, hides and bales, counted sacks of gold and brazen ingots stored in musty basement chambers that contained Mycenae’s power, the wealth that she imported and the goods she traded abroad, all centralized in the citadel, directed by the king and inventoried by Scribes.

  The bribe delivered to Pylos, Atreus once grumbled on return from probing the treasury, had made somewhat of a hole in the realm’s resources. None the less, he conceded, Eurystheus had judged rightly: the gifts and the Marshal’s diplomacy persuaded King Neleus to abandon his intention of raiding Mycenaean shores.

  ‘Neleus is failing,’ Atreus told me. ‘Sixty if he’s a day, and the Hercules raid quite broke him up. Nestor, his only surviving son, is running Pylos. He’s no chicken, either - twice your age. Dogmatic and full of bounce, but an intelligent man with unusual ideas. He is rebuilding the palace and citadel on a different site inland on a hill overlooking the bay - and is leaving the place unwalled. Nestor declares that fortifications didn’t save old Pylos from Hercules’ destruction; and in future his navy replaces walls.’

  ‘Like Cretans in olden days,’ I ventured.

  ‘You know that much history? I suppose you’re picking Gelon’s brains. Nestor may be right, but Achaeans conquered Crete despite King Minos’ ships. A long time ago: Acrisius, I believe, commanded that invasion.’

  ‘Pylos,’ the king continued, ‘can never be allowed to blackmail us again. Far too expensive. So our navy must be more than a match for theirs. I visited Nauplia’s yards a fortnight ago and sacked the harbour master - an idle layabout. Now nobody is properly in charge, and I’m sending you to supervise the shipwrights.’

  Atreus surveyed the sculpted bulls’ horns cresting the palace building - we were sauntering in the Great Court - and added, ‘There’s another question. Since ... Thyestes went, Tiryns lacks a Warden. I considered Copreus, my most experienced nobleman, an outstanding warrior, holds a lot of land - and is bent as a bowstave. I need a strong administrator: he’ll be responsible both for Tiryns and the whole shipbuilding programme.’ (That hesitant reference to Thyestes was the nearest he ever came, until Aerope’s end, to mentioning the disgrace that burned him like searing brands.)

  Atreus entered the portico and sank on a marble seat. His escort - a Hero guarded the King of Mycenae wherever he went and sentried his chamber at night - leaned against a pillar discreetly beyond earshot. I said, ‘You need a Hero who can think - rare enough, I allow - and a Scribe to keep his records.’

  ‘Quite so. You and Gelon. I’m proposing your name to the Council tomorrow. A formality, of course.’

  ‘Your older Heroes will make me a target of jealousy. Is it wise to arouse enmity?’

  ‘Do you care? You’re unscrupulous, ruthless and tough, Agamemnon, and one day you’ll be king. You’ll have enemies in plenty before you’ve finished: better start learning to cope with them now. You’ll take over Tiryns and Nauplia before the old moon sets, so make your preparations.’

  (I disagreed, then and afterwards, with Atreus’ brisk assessment of my character. All Heroes in these hard times have to be tough to survive, and some are perfidious crooks. I do not believe I am worse than most. A forbearance afflicting my nature - as, for example, tolerating Achilles’ tantrums during the Trojan siege - has often proved pernicious. In politics and statecraft - the dirtiest of games - I played the hands as I found them, and who can blame me for that? In war I obeyed the prevailing rule: no mercy for those who resisted - why should I be condemned for behaving as everyone does? I have come to the conclusion that a frightening reputation rests largely on my appearance: from Atreus I inherited an impressive stature, eagle features, blazing blue eyes and a cruel mouth. And for one who became the most powerful king in all Mycenae’s history it was fortunate indeed that very few men - perhaps Menelaus alone - have ever discerned the kindliness a forbidding exterior hides.)

  I duly informed Gelon, who was gravely enthusiastic. We strolled the ramparts by the north-west postern and discussed the problems arising from assessing and accounting the revenues of Tiryns: a much more complicated matter than audi
ting Rhipe’s receipts. As for the shipyards, he confessed his inexperience in maritime accounting, hazarded a guess that affairs were in a muddle and asserted a belief we could sort the business out. I confided my scheme of raising a chariot squadron, and asked him whether systematic payments were a feasible alternative to dependence on battle-plunder.

  Gelon rested elbows on parapet and gazed across the sun-soaked valley. ‘You mean a force of paid professional soldiers? It has never been done in Achaea, my lord, although his forefathers’ - he pointed his chin at Zeus’ tomb in the foreground - ‘kept a standing army in Egypt.’

  I stared, astonished, at the ancient oak tree shading the mound. The usual offerings that peasants deposited - dead doves, small pottery figurines, wheat-cakes - littered the ring of standing slabs. ‘Zeus, the first of the Heroes? An Egyptian?’

  Gelon looked equally surprised. ‘Didn’t you know, my lord? Zeus’ family certainly came from Egypt, though not of Egyptian breeding.’

  Leaning on the wall while a sentry paced behind us he related a history I suppose I should have known; but nobody bothered to tell me and, a man of the moment, I seldom delve in antiquity. Moreover I doubt whether many Achaeans outside the Scribal sect learn more of the past than their pedigrees. Four hundred winters ago - for me an unimaginable aeon, to Gelon as but yesterday - a dynasty of foreign kings, sprung from nomadic shepherds, governed the lands of the Nile until the Egyptians rose and expelled them. Some of them crossed to Crete: the Cretans, a peaceable race, unwisely allowed the refugees to land. They promptly fortified a place called Gortys, which to this day remains the island’s only fortified city.