But no, she was recovering; it was Pericles they were mourning.
We heard later that a short time before he died, he had gazed earnestly at the group of friends sitting about his bed, and had repeated with all the energy he could summon up, some three or four times, that Plataea must be relieved—otherwise, he said, Athens would lose all claim to honour. Exhausted by this final effort, he closed his eyes, and some of his companions, thinking him already dead, began in breaking voices to recall the many claims to greatness of this, the noblest of statesmen. They spoke of his oratory, his generalship, his incorruptibility, his inspiration of the House of the Maiden.
But then Pericles opened his eyes and for the last time they heard the whisper of the golden voice as he said, quite clearly, ‘But no one has given the reason for which I myself should wish to be remembered in the hearts of my countrymen—no Athenian has ever put on mourning because of any action of mine.’
When Alcibiades heard this, he said incredulously, ‘Poor old fool, the fever must have weakened his brain—what a thing to say!’
It so happened that his despised cousin Adeimantus was serving with him; being half-drunk, he had the courage to sneer, ‘Bad disappointment for you, of course, that the old wretch didn’t use his dying breath to instruct Athens to regard you as his successor!’
Sometimes even a drunken fool can be remarkably accurate; Alcibiades promptly hurled his own winecup, with contents, into Adeimantus’ face, but said only, ‘You hog. I only meant that’s not the kind of thing I’d want to be remembered for.’
Well, he’s had his wish: Athenians don’t remember him for that reason.
At the next Spring Festival no general took the seat of honour where Pericles had been so long accustomed to sit, and into the tragedy he was presenting, Hippolytus, Euripides put the cry of anguished loss still felt by the bereaved Athenians:
Land of Athens, frontier of a famous city!
When was man more noble?
When was loss so bitter?
Three people that I loved fell ill of the second plague; Tecmessa recovered, Pericles was too tired to fight it, and Timotheus too broken-hearted. What we had seen and heard outside Plataea left him an easy prey to the disease when it attacked him a few days after our return. His ashes lie on Salamis, near the house of Euripides.
And, far away in Sparta, old King Archidamus died, and was succeeded by Agis.
11
‘Alone, but for Patroclus’
My cousin came back to Athens, but from the story of his doings, which that winter ran round Athens like wildfire (for anything that Alcibiades did was news now), it seemed highly unlikely, said Tecmessa with some satisfaction, that he would ever condescend to visit us again. One action of his was particularly outrageous.
Alcibiades was lounging up one of the main streets one day, at peace with the world, one would have thought, since he had just invented a new kind of shoe promptly named after him and copied by all the young bloods of Athens, a fair number of whom were accompanying him at this moment, all devotedly wearing trailing robes and trying to talk with the notorious Alcibiadean lisp. Approaching them they saw a well-known figure—Hipponicus, the richest man, not only in Athens, but in all Greece. He was elderly, intensely respectable, and entirely inoffensive. And Alcibiades lounged over to him and smacked his face.
Tecmessa herself told me of this the morning after it had happened. I had not slept much in the night, as the weather had been vile, and the wind that had blustered around the house throughout the hours of darkness had kept me awake. Being rather sleepy, I was inclined to be fractious, so she regaled me with this story, picked up during her early morning marketing, to present me with the eternal Awful Example of disgusting behaviour. To give her her due, she was sincerely shocked by my cousin’s behaviour; to attack an elderly gentleman in this way—Hipponicus’ wealth didn’t matter, his age did—was quite the most outrageous act even Alcibiades had ever perpetrated.
The unexpected thing was that just after noon, about an hour after the rain cleared and the winter sun shone out with pale brilliance, my cousin came up the street, delicately picking his way through the puddles, and turned in at our door.
Tecmessa greeted him with extreme formality, and offered wine with the stiffest of etiquette; he, however, took the wind completely out of her sails by saying easily, ‘Thank you, no, I’ve had my share of good wine this morning. I’ve just come from the home of Hipponicus.’
‘Hippo—’ Tecmessa’s composure fled entirely. She almost dropped the wine jar, and beat a hurried retreat in complete disorder. Alcibiades, looking after her pleasedly, announced he’d guessed that would send her packing.
‘Isn’t it true, then?’ I queried.
He grinned and bent to tweak my hair.
‘Oddly enough,’ he said, ‘it is.’
‘You’ve been to the home of Hipponicus, the man whose face you smacked?’
‘So she’s passed on the whole story—where did she get it? At the market? Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I told him he could give me a good hiding if he liked. He didn’t. He gave me a drink instead and asked me to dinner tomorrow.’
‘But why did you smack his face?’ I demanded. ‘Had he made you angry?’
‘I’d never spoken to the old fellow before in all my life,’ said Alcibiades, grinning.
‘Then why—’
He gave a shout of laughter. ‘Oh, Lycius, he looked so pompous and self-satisfied, strutting along the street, such a devil of a fellow in his own estimation—I just had to.’
It didn’t seem a very good reason to me. My grandfather was anything but a tolerant man, and he could not stand conceited fools, but I knew even he, at his most intolerant, did not go around smacking the faces of people who irritated him. Surely my cousin realised how wrong he had been? Surely—and here I cheered up amazingly—since he had gone along this morning to tell Hipponicus to whip him, this had been the same thing as being sorry? To help him to admit he’d been in the wrong, I prompted, ‘Then why did you go along this morning and—and make friends?’
‘Ah,’ said Alcibiades, grinning more delightedly than ever, ‘that was an idea that occurred to me—one of my better ideas, as a matter of fact. The old fellow has a daughter—’
I suddenly didn’t want to hear the rest of the idea, though I could guess what it was. I merely asked, ‘And is Hipponicus friends with you now?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said with his peal of laughter. ‘He even thinks I’ve been slandered in the past, so much so that a little simple family life—marriage for example—would make me an entirely reformed character. He introduced me to his heiress, Hipparete. She was impressed because I said I was coming along to see my little cousin left motherless and alone.’
I said, wrinkling my brow in some distress, ‘Alcibiades, I get awfully worried sometimes because I keep forgetting Mother. It’s more than two years now since she died, and I can’t remember much about her.’
‘I wouldn’t bother much about that,’ said Alcibiades, yawning. ‘She was just like mine—painfully ordinary, but even more so.’
I could not entirely understand his words, but the tone of voice was enough to fill me with sudden furious resentment, which, combining with the prickly temper arising from tiredness, made me yell, ‘You beast! Talking of my mother—and your own—like that!’ And I rushed at him, fists flailing, and managed to thump him once, and then he, roaring with laughter, caught me and tickled me till I was hiccupping with helplessness. Then he put me down and said, grinning, ‘Now I’ll have some of that wine Tecmessa started offering me. Going to pour it for me?’
‘I hope it chokes you!’ I flared. I gave him another thump, gabbled, ‘You’re as bad as that beast Agis. I hate you both!’ tore past him out of the room, started in one direction to seek the comforting company of Tecmessa, then, not wanting her to know why I’d been crying and why I was trying to get away from him, I changed direction and made for the hall, f
or the doorkeeper would still be gossiping in the kitchen, wondering what Alcibiades had been up to now. I could hear my cousin calling me; evidently he was still laughing so much he could hardly speak.
‘Lycius, don’t be a little idiot! Come out of wherever you’re hiding and . . .’ His voice receded as he went off to the far part of the house where he thought I had taken refuge with Tecmessa and the women. I stood there in the darkest corner of the dim hall and wept silently, wishing either that he would just let me adore him, instead of so often making me hate him, or, if he would not be so obliging, that I could die. I saw no other alternative.
There was a light footstep, a very light footstep, as someone came in from the street. I jerked up my head, prepared to retire further into the dark corner. That easy footfall spelt youth; with Theron dead these four years, the only young men who ever came to the house were friends of my cousin, trying to track him down if they had lost him. I did not want to confront one of them.
But the person standing framed in the doorway was not one of my cousin’s friends, was not anyone I had ever seen before, I knew, though I could not see his face as his back was to the light. But he was very tall and he had an air of watchfulness, an alert way of holding his head slightly to one side as if listening, a way of carrying himself that I had never seen before—I knew that. He wore armour, was splashed with mud to the thigh, his foot—the right foot—was quite bare.
Across the hall the tall stranger said in a whisper, ‘You’ve been crying, haven’t you? Well, you can stop now; I’m here.’ And in two, three, rapid strides he was standing before me, then dropping down to kneel with one arm about me, to say, ‘I may not be very good at it, but I’ll try to make up for everything, and—’
And then he broke off short and said, ‘I beg your pardon! I—I thought you were my brother. I—it was stupid of me, I should have remembered he was about as big as you when I saw him last, four years ago. He—why he must be twelve now!’
I said, ‘Are you Callistratus?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m Callistratus. Has Timotheus talked about me then?’
‘Come from Plataea?’ I stammered in wild excitement. ‘Is my father with you, Callistratus?’
He stood up then. ‘No,’ he said in a remote voice, after a pause. ‘Two hundred of us broke out, but your father’s with my father, Lycius—it is Lycius, isn’t it?—and my mother and little sister. Only fighting men had any hope of getting out. Father wouldn’t leave Mother. Your father couldn’t because he was wounded in the summer and is still lame. But I had orders to come, because they were worried about Timotheus.’
I whispered, ‘Timotheus is dead.’
‘Timotheus—dead? When did he die?’
‘Two years ago. It was the plague. But he—it didn’t hurt him as much as it hurt my mother.’
He whispered something under his breath, then bent down, drew me out of the shadow, and looked closely at me.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know your mother was dead,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Your father doesn’t know either, of course. He gave me messages for her, but the person I must talk to first is your brother—that’s Theron, isn’t it? Will you take me to him?’
I said desolately, ‘He’s dead, too. He was killed at Potidaea three and a half years ago. Sometimes I think everyone’s dead except me—and you now, Callistratus. I’m so glad you’ve come.’
‘Is that why you were crying, because you were lonely?’ he asked very gently. I meant to snatch at the excuse offered me, and say, yes, it was, but, with him watching me, found I could not. He had very bright grey eyes, seeming amazingly light in a face tanned dark by wind and sun, cool eyes, eyes, I knew, that rarely smiled nowadays, though once they might have been gay enough. I could not lie with that bright glance bent upon me; even if he had not been looking directly at me, I do not think I could have told a lie to someone with the air that was Callistratus’ own, something I could not identify at the time, something I now know was an air of supreme efficiency, tried and proven.
I was puzzling over what was so strange and distinctive about him, gazing up at the lean young face, too hard, too wary for a boy’s—when, from a sudden exclamation behind me, I realised that my cousin, hearing our voices, had tracked me down at last.
‘Why!’ I said, not bothering to turn to look at him, ‘I’d forgotten all about you!’
After that, I suppose it was impossible that my cousin should ever like Callistratus.
However, he chose on this occasion to mask dislike with affability.
‘Introducing us, Lycius?’ he said. ‘Your friend isn’t by any chance Jason, turning up with one foot bare?’
As he spoke he lounged over with careful casualness so that the shaft of sunlight, streaming in through the open street door, burnished his red-gold hair and splendid tunic as flatteringly as it showed up quite mercilessly Callistratus’ mud-streaked, battered armour and weary face.
‘This is Callistratus, son of Astymachus,’ I said enthusiastically, tugging at the hard, strong, right hand. ‘Timotheus’ brother. His father’s in command at Plataea—he’s Father’s friend. He—Callistratus—has just got out. Oh, and this is Alcibiades, son of Clinias,’ I added rather perfunctorily to Callistratus. ‘He’s a cousin of mine. Oh, Callistratus, you will be hungry and tired, so we’ll go and look for Tecmessa.’
Dragging him off, I said airily over my shoulder, ‘Goodbye, Alcibiades. You needn’t worry about me now.’
When years later I told my grandfather about this casual dismissal, he said he would have given a year’s income to see the look on Alcibiades’ face; at the time I didn’t bother to turn round because in the next instant we encountered Tecmessa coming hotfoot in search of the strange male voice.
She must have seen a likeness. I had not—no blame to me, because I had seen Astymachus only twice, whereas he had been a frequent visitor in the days before the war. She stood stock still, then said slowly, ‘It’s the son of Astymachus: has Plataea been relieved then?’
‘No,’ said Callistratus, ‘some of us got out, that’s all. Lycius’ father is still there—with mine.’
‘He’ll stay with us, won’t he, Tecmessa?’ I gabbled.
Callistratus said uncertainly, ‘I have a relative, Eupedos, here in Athens; I should go to him, but I came here first because I had messages from Lycius’ father and—’
‘Your cousin Eupedos is back up in Thrace protecting gold mines,’ I said, at which Callistratus muttered with the first smile I had seen in his eyes, ‘He would!’
Tremendously elated at seeing him smile, even briefly, I rushed to Tecmessa and besought her to add her entreaties to mine.
She said, ‘I should be very glad if you’ll stay here, Callistratus, for the child’s sake. You will, won’t you? I’ll see about getting a room prepared straight away, and then a meal, but first let me bandage your feet—they’re raw!’
‘Just my right foot. We all kept sandals on the left feet only for the breakout.’
‘Why?’ I demanded, devouring him with my eyes.
‘Lycius!’ said Tecmessa reproachfully; but Callistratus looked at me with another smile and said, ‘I kept a sandal on just the left foot, because that’s the—well, the foot of war, if you like, the out-thrust foot that faces the enemy. In that way we thought the right foot would get the better purchase in the mud, either for a thrust forward with the spear, or to kick a Spartan in the stomach, to double him up right on to the sword waiting for him.’
‘What a lovely idea!’ I said admiringly, practising spear thrusts and kicks—all aimed at an imaginary Agis.
12
Night Escape
Wild as I was to hear the story of Callistratus’ escape, I had sense enough to accept Tecmessa’s decree that after his foot had been bandaged and he had changed into some of Theron’s clothes, he was to eat a meal in peace and then sleep. Since I was being so restrained myself, my fury can be imagined when, before the meal was finished, the doorkeeper ushere
d in a thin-featured visitor I took at first for a complete stranger, but then remembered as my uncle’s friend who had stood beside him when the Strategos made his Funeral speech.
‘I really have no justification for this intrusion,’ began the unwanted visitor, ‘but when I heard the son of Astymachus was at the house of Polystratus . . .’
Poor Callistratus, who had been growing progressively drowsier from the moment he stopped being cold and hungry, invoked his innate courtesy, and placed himself at his visitor’s disposal. I slipped away to ask Tecmessa if nothing could be done to expel the invader; she said no, he might have been sent by the Board of Generals, but I could tell she was angry. So was I, when I returned, to find Callistratus too wide awake, and our visitor scribbling at his tablets.
All able-bodied men had been asked to volunteer for the breakout, because food supplies were running so low. Two hundred and twenty men had made the attempt to get over the wall and the two ditches with which the Spartans had surrounded the town.
‘We spent days staring at the walls trying to work out the heights, because we had to make the ladders just the right length,’ said Callistratus. He explained to me, standing at his knee, ‘They had to be just short of the top of the wall so that if the Spartans found out what we were doing, they couldn’t push them over; on the other hand, if they were too short we’d never get easily on to the wall-top.’
I still couldn’t grasp the point; at home we used one ladder for different heights, you just altered the angle. I said as much, but Callistratus replied with amazing patience that we sent only one man up at a time; at Plataea the ladders had to carry any amount of men—all armed. ‘That meant that if the angle were too steep, even if a Spartan didn’t come along at the top and push the ladder over, the weight of the men might very well make it fall backwards. Then, if the angle were too wide, the weight of us all would make the ladder snap.’
The Road to Sardis Page 8
