Our visitor had thawed sufficiently to Callistratus to extend goodwill to me. ‘Now you know why mathematics lessons are so important,’ he observed. Then, turning back to Callistratus, he asked, ‘How did you manage to calculate the height of the walls?’
Callistratus laughed. ‘By counting the number of bricks,’ he said. ‘In fact, towards the end, we were counting bricks in our sleep. It must have been the most roundabout way of planning an escape ever known; we couldn’t worry about the direction to take once we were over the wall, or about the strong or weak points of the guard—no, all we were concerned with was where in the wall the bricks were countable, because only there could we work out the approximate height. The ground around Plataea is broken, the Spartans wanted a level top to their wall, so no two parts of it were the same height. With different layers of bricks at different points, we could only be sure of the height of that one particular part where the bricks stood out best, and that was on the western side, near the road to Thebes.’
‘Bad luck,’ said the visitor.
‘No—it was really a blessing in disguise,’ said Callistratus. ‘Well, we made our ladder, and then all we had to do was wait for a night like last night, with plenty of wind and rain and no moon.’
They had crossed the ditch between Plataea’s city wall and that built by the Spartans without much difficulty, for it was a shallow affair, the rock lying only a little way beneath the soil.
They reached the enemy wall undetected; there was no moon so they could not be seen, and they had deliberately waited not only for a night of rain and wind, but a night when the wind would be in their faces, to drown any possible noise. They moved rather like beads on a string, a fair distance between each man and the next so that there would be no clattering of weapons from collisions in the pitch darkness. Some of them carried shields and spears, others javelins and bows. When they reached the selected point in the wall, midway between the two watchtowers, the first twelve men up carried swords, and dealt with the enemy in the watchtowers. Then came the men carrying spears; they could not manage shields as well, so the next company carried these for them. The spearmen were to hold the wall while the others came up and over; Callistratus was one of these.
Everything had gone very well until a vicious gust of wind hurled a handful of sleet in the face of a Plataean on the top of the ladder. Blinded, the man grabbed wildly at the battlement to keep his balance—and a length of tiling came away in his hand. The man ahead of him, who had just gained the wall, gripped him and kept him from falling, but the tiles crashed down with an earsplitting din. The Plataeans winced, then took a firmer grip on their weapons, and grimly waited for trouble.
Trouble came, but it was not as bad as might have been expected. It was then that the escapers appreciated the possible drawbacks in the Spartan character—too much discipline, not enough imagination. The enemy came duly thudding up on to the wall, to man their own particular sections; the only sector lacking its share of garrison was the part held by the Plataeans, because the men in the towers had already been dealt with. So the Spartans manned their posts with the greatest vigilance, and did not stir from their own sectors.
The only uncharacteristic part of their behaviour was the sending up of some hysterical fire signals to warn their Theban friends that something was happening, but the Plataeans had bargained for this. The Spartans had been sending so many fire signals—for the most taciturn of races they were oddly talkative in this respect—enough, in fact, for the besieged garrison who, after all, had a front seat to all this, to work out the various meanings. Therefore, the moment the Spartans began brandishing torches to tell the Thebans, ‘Attack from inside the city’, Astymachus, from inside Plataea, began to signal, ‘Friend approaching’. Faced with such a complete contradiction, the Thebans could only signal back, ‘Where?’ But this was precisely what the Spartans could not tell them, for the moment my father heard the noise from the wall, he sent his Athenian detachment, yelling like madmen, to make a false attack at the point directly opposite the one where the breakout was being made.
This bewildered not only the Thebans, but also a special reserve of three hundred men the Spartans had formed to deal with emergencies, who had come charging out to patrol the outside of the ditch, and cope with anyone trying to escape. Dreadfully confused by the sounds of distant fighting, the conflicting fire signals, the noise of the storm, they blundered about in the outer ditch, having to fight their way against the boiling congestion of the watchtower troops yawning, cursing, trying to grab weapons and get to their posts. So, of course, was the picked detachment, its only thought to carry out its orders to rush to the point of danger—but not knowing where the point of danger might be.
Meanwhile the Plataeans were bolting over the wall as fast as they could scramble, and now that there was no need to be quiet, they were breaking down the battlements to make the space more level to take a greater number of ladders. Not that theirs was a disorganised, panic-stricken haste; each man in his turn, as he reached the head of the ladder, stood waiting there for a few moments, so that if he saw any enemy running along at the foot to attack the helpless men climbing the ladder, he could send arrows or javelin into them.
Not, as Callistratus pointed out, that their troubles were over once they had got down the ladder on the other side. The crossing of the outer ditch was the worst part of the night’s happenings. Snow and sleet had filled it so much that the shorter Plataeans could scarcely keep their heads above water and the freezing wind had made a scum of ice form at the top, not hard or thick enough to walk upon, which, combined with the unexpected depth and the sickening cold of the water, made the passage a far lengthier affair than had been foreseen.
And it was at this point that the Spartan three hundred picked troops turned up.
‘If you can think of any more disadvantageous position in which to await an attack by picked Spartan troops, I can’t,’ said Callistratus. ‘I stood up to my neck in icy water, numb with cold. I’ve never felt so helpless in all my life as when I saw those torches bearing down on us from the north.’
But it was the Spartan torches, of course, that saved the Plataeans. Not only did they blind their bearers, so that they were unable to see the escapers, but it made them a perfect target for the arrows and javelins of those already across the ditch. Then the last men scrambled up and out, and off they set, along the road to Thebes, the road running to the north. They did this in the hope that the enemy, at last understanding that a party had broken out, would rush off along the south-eastern road to Eleusis and Athens. Which they eventually did.
‘But it all seemed too good to be true when we saw the torches vanishing up the road to Cithaeron and heard what shouts carried above the wind dying away,’ said Callistratus. ‘We started laughing like fools then, slapping each other on the back until it occurred to us we’d better save our breath and keep going. So we marched at the double about three-quarters of a mile along the road to Thebes, before it was safe to veer off to the east. Once we got up into the mountains, of course, we were safe.’
It had been a thousand to one chance, and it had been a brilliant success. Two hundred and twenty had set out; seven lost their nerve and turned back; one was captured. It was magnificent, it was glorious, it was exploit enough to bring our visitor to his feet repeating Odysseus’ description of his own Ithaca:
‘A small place, but a good place for breeding men.’
Callistratus looked at him; some of the strain had left his face in the excitement of reliving the adventure, but now he looked and sounded unbearably tired as he said harshly, ‘But how much longer can she hold out? Now that people here know how bad things are, they’ll send help, won’t they? Lycius’ father said they were bound to, once they knew how desperate we were. If they could send troops all the way to Potidaea, he said, they—’ His voice slurred suddenly.
‘I must go,’ said the visitor. ‘I have been here too long already, but so gallant a tale . . . I could n
ot cut it short.’ He went across and put his hand on Callistratus’ shoulder. ‘Believe me, I am grateful to you for your courtesy,’ he said. ‘If I can be of any assistance to you in the future, I hope you will call on me. This is no empty offer.’
Callistratus, his eyes half-closed, heaved himself up to his feet, stood swaying with weariness, as he tried to make the proper polite responses. My instinct was to stay with him and let a slave see the visitor out, but from what Timotheus had said two years before, and from what I had seen in the past few hours I realised that Callistratus, a stickler for courtesy, would think poorly of my manners if I did this, and I could not bear him to condemn me. So I ushered our visitor out, stopping in the corridor only to whisper to a slave to take in lamps, and tell Tecmessa the visitor had left.
Callistratus’ story had taken hours in the telling, and dusk had fallen as we came to the outer court, just in time to find the doorkeeper admitting another visitor, but this time someone well-known to me—Euripides. He and Callistratus’ interrogator were old acquaintances; it was in their greetings that I discovered that my uncle’s friend was Thucydides, son of Olorus. To me Euripides explained that he had forsaken Salamis because he, too, had heard of Callistratus’ arrival; Timotheus had talked so much about his brother that Euripides felt he already knew him, and he wanted Callistratus to come over to stay with him.
‘It’s an excellent idea,’ said Thucydides, ‘but it will have to wait until tomorrow; the boy’s sleeping on his feet—my fault, I’m afraid.’
‘If he’s asleep, I’m glad,’ Euripides said. ‘The longer he can forget things, the better.’
‘Forget what, Euripides?’ I asked. ‘Escaping? But that was wonderful!’
‘No, not escaping,’ said Euripides. ‘I meant forget that other people are still there.’
I said carefully, ‘I expect I’m wicked, but I can’t remember Father all the time.’
He looked at me compassionately. ‘It’s not his father he’ll think about; he’ll remember his mother and little sister. It’s different for most of the others who got away—their wives and children came to Athens four years ago, so they’re rejoining their families.’
‘This boy’s lost his for good,’ Thucydides said abruptly. ‘When there was fighting to do, he hadn’t time to think, except that his immediate danger was greater than theirs, but when he wakes tomorrow . . .’
‘Will the City make use of the Plataeans—real use of them?’ Euripides sounded suddenly old.
‘A fuss will be made of them for a time,’ said Thucydides in his precise way, ‘and then they will be forgotten. Obviously. We won’t want to remember that once there was an ally called Plataea who on Athenian advice defied the Spartans and Thebans single-handed, and was left to face the consequences alone.’
They had forgotten me as they paced up and down the outer court. The wind—that same wind that had driven sleet into Callistratus’ face the night before—was bitterly cold; I can remember still how it whistled among the columns, drowning that constant hooting of owls that is so much a part of Athenian life, the intermittent barking of homeless dogs. But most of all I remember the strange, almost unrecognisable voice coming from the cloaked figure of Euripides, the low, furious voice exclaiming, ‘What could be easier than to send troops through the passes?’
Thucydides said something I could not catch, and immediately there came a rejoinder in that tone of suppressed violence I still could scarcely accept as the voice of my quiet friend.
‘In God’s name, why should we expect them to endure? Those sullen, murdering swine in Thebes have been waiting for us to take action ever since the siege began. They moved all the peasants from the villages into their city, didn’t they? Have thickwitted Thebans more sense than all our Board of Generals put together?’
Thucydides spoke with sudden loud harshness. ‘Haven’t you yet reconciled yourself to the fact that, with Pericles out of the way, Athens has lost all sense of honour and obligation? Once in a while these fellows taking his place remember to talk about such things, but, before we’re much older, they won’t bother to give it even so much as lip-service.’
A bat swooped into my face, startling me into giving a little shriek. They remembered me then. ‘You must go in, Lycius,’ said Euripides. ‘It’s too cold for you here, and in any case it’s time you were in bed. Tell Callistratus to come over to me tomorrow—and you’ll come yourself, of course.’
I said in a whisper, ‘How much longer can they hold out?’
He said gently, ‘It must all be over very soon, if no help is sent to them. There’s only a handful of men left.’
‘But more than two hundred people came out with Callistratus—there’ll be all that extra food.’
He shook his head. ‘They can’t go on much longer.’
‘What will they—the Spartans—do then?’ I asked in a ghost of a voice.
Thucydides replied, ‘They can’t do much—there’s always that thought to hold on to. Plataea stands in such a very special category.’
Trying to face up to the worst that could happen, I said, ‘They may pull down the walls.’
‘And let people say they’re no better than the Persians?’
Euripides said softly, ‘Walls don’t make a city,’ and quoted Aeschylus, on the Athens destroyed like Plataea by the Persians fifty years before:
‘While her men live, she has a breachless wall.’
A little comforted by this, I bowed to them and turned away. They fell again to deep discussion, and neither the rushing noise of the wind nor my scurrying footsteps could drown all that Euripides was saying—disjointed words, with the phrase ‘the honour of Athens’ recurring again and again.
The lamps were lit inside, and Tecmessa was arguing with Callistratus. ‘No,’ he was saying, ‘I won’t go until I’ve said goodnight to Lycius.’
‘I’m here,’ I said breathlessly from the doorway.
As I had left the outer court, I had felt for the first time the excitement of knowing, ‘I am going to see Callistratus.’ Yet it was as if I had always known that lamplit face, anticipated that smile at the end of all roads, that outstretched hand at the end of all journeys. But in the same moment that I began to understand the joy of comradeship, I felt the fear and pain of it, dim realisation that the day might come when I should suffer the wound that can never be healed, the aching wound that is the loss of a friend.
‘Well, here he is,’ said Tecmessa, giving me an irritated glare because I simply stood looking stupid, ‘and now perhaps you’ll agree to be sensible, Callistratus. It’s been a long day.’
Yes, he agreed, it had been a long day. Courteous to the last, through yawns that threatened to crack his jaw, he began to thank us for our hospitality. We said we had done nothing; I tried to tell him about Euripides’ invitation, but he was past absorbing any fresh information that night.
He kept saying as we towed or propelled him along the corridor, ‘I was scared of being lonely, even though I thought Timotheus would be here. I don’t feel so wretched now, though; there’s Lycius.’
‘Yes, I’m here,’ I said again.
‘Alone, except for Patroclus,’ quoted Callistratus. ‘Though strictly speaking, I’m Patroclus, being older, and being an—an exile.’
‘Drink this wine,’ said Tecmessa, ‘stop quoting Homer, and go to sleep. Don’t ask me how I know it’s Homer; I come from his own island, Chios. And now, Lycius, it’s about time I saw you off too.’
I climbed into bed still gloriously bemused; bright grey eyes and heroism and companionship had come into my home and life; for the first time I realised what a lonely creature I had been for the past years. But then I remembered the conversation in the outer court, and lay awake frozen with dismay for long hours before I fell asleep.
13
Worse Than Troy
Callistratus was very quiet next morning, but he said he would very much like to meet Euripides; he had always admired his work, but, of course, knew noth
ing written since Medea. But first he must consult the other Plataeans, to see if anything definite were planned for them.
‘You see,’ he explained carefully to Tecmessa and me, ‘I may be needed. If—if a relieving army is to be sent, we’ll all want to go back with it, of course.’
Tecmessa tried to say something and failed.
‘I know,’ Callistratus continued in his over-careful explanation, ‘that nothing’s been done in that direction so far, but I don’t suppose they realised how bad things are. Now that they have first-hand information—’
The City authorities held a beautiful ceremony, telling the Plataeans—as if they did not know already!—that since Marathon they had been honorary Athenian citizens, and they made promises. They did nothing.
By the end of the month Callistratus was back in action, though not the kind he wanted. Since no troops were being sent to Plataea, he joined the Navy. Pride came into this; he had not been able to bring much equipment with him from Plataea, and so, he said, the heavy infantry was out. Heaven only knows, he could have had all the money and equipment he wanted from our steward, but he stubbornly refused to take an obol.
Once the Navy people got over their amazement, they, of course, welcomed him with open arms. Anyone who could afford the equipment of a heavy infantryman opted for the Army every time, and, having experienced the two services I see every reason for the choice—better to footslog over a desert than sweat and curse on a hard bench in a hot and stinking ship’s hold. You would only do it in an emergency, when the City was threatened. So finding crews for the Navy was a perpetual headache, with two hundred men (excluding marines) needed to man a trireme. Usually the authorities had either to fall back on slaves, offering them freedom as a reward, or to hire people from outside the City, the Aegean Islands chiefly. They demanded, and got, a pretty high rate of pay, deserving it, of course, because theirs was one of those nasty but essential jobs. So even when the Navy was hideously expensive, you quite frequently had ships putting to sea undermanned.
The Road to Sardis Page 9
