‘As many as we can,’ said Callistratus.
At the end of that dreadful summer my grandfather returned. Callistratus had been given special leave from the fleet. Athenian consciences were being pricked, a trifle belatedly; the Athenian honorary citizenship was now transformed into the real thing for those of Plataea who survived. I think it was generally realised that while the fall of Plataea had not meant much in a military way, it had mattered a great deal morally.
Callistratus and I went back to Athens to await my grandfather; he came in just as the lamps were being lit and, as we stood hesitantly, he came forward, put one hand on my head and another up to Callistratus’ shoulder.
‘My dear boy,’ he said, ‘I’ve agents working to find where your mother and sister may be; if it costs the last penny I possess, we’ll bring them back to freedom.’
And to me he said, Well, Lycius, there aren’t many of our house left now, but live and die as your father lived and died, and I’ll be proud of you.’
‘Callistratus,’ I said, ‘is training me to fight so that I can kill Spartans as soon as possible.’
‘Quite right,’ said my grandfather.
One of Grandfather’s agents found Callistratus’ mother in Corinth, and told her that Callistratus was alive in Athens, that his Athenian friends were prepared to pay any price to restore her to freedom.
‘But,’ she interrupted him, ‘there is only one way in which I can attain freedom now.’
Yet she had been very glad to hear that Callistratus was alive; she sent him her love and blessing, and besought him to ask his friends to continue to search for his little sister. As for herself, she said she had been treated as an animal for too long to be able to live as a human again.
Grandfather’s agent eventually withdrew, meaning to get in touch with her again next day. The other slaves had told him pityingly that she was still dazed with grief at losing her child; she had not shed a tear in the days when she had first been brought south from Plataea, after the Thebans had sold her to a dealer in Corinth, but when she learned that they were taking the child from her to be sold in Asia Minor where Greek children were keenly sought by Orientals, she had fought like a mad woman, clutching the little one to her in a frenzy. They would talk to her, said the slaves; she was sure to see reason.
But when Grandfather’s agent sought her out next morning, they told him she had hanged herself in the night.
14
A Comedy by Aristophanes
I think Callistratus had one last hope, that the war would end soon so that he might search for his little sister. Whenever he could, he would go down to Piraeus and talk to foreign sailors and merchants, desperately learning the languages that might be helpful in his quest. Eupedos adopted him as his heir; he accepted reluctantly because my uncle Demosthenes told him he would be able to play a more efficient part in the war. He was already an Athenian citizen, and with Eupedos’ fortune as his inheritance, he might serve in the cavalry, in which Uncle believed he would have a great future.
And life for me was all schooling, with each tomorrow treading relentlessly on the heels of today, an endless procession of chilly dawns when I got up and trudged through the streets, usually in the company of Glaucon, the son of Aristocrates and the younger brother of Conon, who had been Theron’s closest friend. He was a dark-eyed, eager-faced boy who, even at that age could draw extraordinarily well—when he drew with lead or charcoal on the smooth white boxwood given us for drawing-lessons, he very rarely had to use his sponge to rub out anything.
Ours was a progressive school, for we read not only Homer but the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and—progressiveness indeed!—Euripides. It was at this time that I made the disconcerting discovery that many people thought my quiet friend was not only odd, but downright dangerous, with his revolutionary ideas on men, and gods—and women. I first learned this when some of my schoolfellows disappeared one day, never to return; their fathers had withdrawn them because we had begun to read Euripides. If only, I felt miserably, he would leave Salamis, and walk smilingly about Athens, like the handsome, the adored Sophocles!
I think the worst experience of my schooldays, though, was the day at the end of the month after the fall of Plataea, when I took the money for my school bill as usual, and the headmaster drew me quietly aside and told me there was no need to pay my school fees in future, as the City always educated at public expense the sons of men who died in battle—just as, when, I did my military service at eighteen, the City would give me my equipment too. I used to dread the last day of the month after that; every other boy would come in bearing in the folds of his cloak the coins that meant he had a father.
In retrospect all those days from the time I was ten years old seemed to be springtime, with Glaucon running races with me under the white poplars of the Academy or swimming in the creeks and inlets (my choice) or (Glaucon’s choice) haunting the workshops of the sculptors, for even so early he wanted desperately to be a sculptor, even though he was sure his father would never hear of it and he did not think it worth his while to talk about it at home. I did not mind falling in with his wishes, because sculptors’ workshops were among Socrates’ favourite haunts; on one occasion, indeed, we found not only Socrates, but his wife, Xanthippe. To be quite honest, we heard her long before we set eyes on her, a high-pitched wail sounding shrilly above all the hammering; ‘Why can’t my husband be sensible like other men and do an honest day’s work? Asking questions! Does that feed me and the children? You don’t have to worry—you can go out to dinner every night . . .’
I would have turned away in great embarrassment if it had not been Glaucon’s birthday; I had promised the sculptor to sit for him for two hours if he would let Glaucon stand beside him and watch all that he did; I couldn’t think of a better present. So, very red-faced, we shuffled in, to the accompaniment of shrieks from Xanthippe, who had been in a bad enough temper when she set out to track down her husband with a demand that he should return to stone-cutting immediately in order to pay off a few bills. Now to find him idling in a sculptor’s workshop, of all places, added fuel to the flame.
Glaucon could at least take refuge behind a block of marble and hope to remain unseen; I had no such luck. Scarlet-cheeked, I had to take up a central position. The apprentices were frankly grinning; the sculptor, though a friend of Socrates, was suspiciously solemn; tears of mortification stung my eyes. Socrates himself, when I dared to steal a glance at him, alone remained unmoved, and when Xanthippe, with a final shriek an easterly gale might have envied, took herself off, he came across to me and chatted unconcernedly about a million and one things. It was only when he was about to go that he said under his breath, ‘I’ve been talking nonsense to you for the last halfhour, but I’m not now. Remember this, Lycius; if ever you realise that the gods have called you to be their soldier, you will realise one thing more—that you must stay at your post.’
All Athens talked about Xanthippe’s invasion of the workshop until, in fact, far more sensational news came along. News provided by my uncle. Off the west coast at Pylos he had first managed to get two hundred Spartans marooned on an island, and then—and this was so incredible that people could not take it in at first—he had made them surrender. Cleon, the politician who talked as if he were Heracles, but who looked more like the Erymanthine Boar, turned up in time to claim credit for the victory; this was not resented by Uncle, whose only concern was getting his captives safely back to Athens, to serve as the best of bargaining points, but it caused immense chagrin to Nicias, a yellow-faced owner of mines, leader of the ‘respectable’ conservative citizens and property owners. He had goaded Cleon into going to Pylos, hoping he would meet with disaster; in the wild rejoicing following Uncle’s victory, few save Grandfather remarked that it was an odd kind of patriotism that cared nothing for a disaster to the City—if by that disaster a political enemy were brought down.
But Grandfather’s misgivings could not flaw his delight in Uncle’s succes
s; when it was time for the comedies, he was still glittering with pride, and sat smiling benignly round at the crowds jostling into the theatre. He even nodded graciously when Uncle brought over a friend to sit with us, and contented himself with the comment, ‘First time I’ve ever seen you at a comedy, Thucydides.’
Thucydides explained austerely that his friends wanted him to stand for general at the next election, and had persuaded him to come to the comedies.
‘To show that you’re human after all, so that you can cadge a few extra votes?’ queried Grandfather. He seemed to think this funny; Thucydides did not. However, being a properly brought up person, he replied civilly enough to Grandfather’s comments about service on the west coast, where apparently he had been with my uncle, and as they talked I wondered if he were standing for election as general because he thought the experience would help him as an historian.
The trumpet sounded, the herald was proclaiming, ‘Aristophanes, son of Philippos, presents his comedy, The Knights . . .’
I settled myself comfortably, chin in cupped hands, elbows on knees—and then sat bolt upright with a scandalised yell. No heads turned in my direction, however, because next moment my yell of pure outrage was swallowed up in thunderous laughter from the audience, for there, writhing and groaning before a backcloth showing the front of a house, were two slaves, obviously recently whipped. One wore a yellowish mask that was unmistakably the face of Nicias—the other’s mask was a speaking likeness of my uncle.
I can’t remember all the details, of course, just as I was too young then to understand the cleverness and courage of it all, for the play was an all-out attack on Cleon, the false slave who had gained the complete confidence of the slaves’ master, Demos. I can only remember isolated things—Grandfather’s face, at first rigid with fury, at last crinkling into reluctant laughter, Thucydides’ look of shocked disgust, however, never relaxing—he was no doubt regretting he had decided to patronise the comedies, almost regretting, if this were the treatment meted out to generals, he had consented to stand for election—and finally, a few lines of dialogue stuck fast in my mind, over the years, down to the present day.
The two slaves, my uncle and Nicias, panic. The situation is desperate. Nicias groans, ‘It’s best for us to die,’ and my uncle replies, ‘Well, if it is, we’ll do it! What could be the bravest way?’
If I did not pay much heed to the play, others did, and with rapturous applause, applause redoubled when it was awarded first prize. Thucydides went on looking chilly; his only comment, when he and Grandfather rose to go was a terse, ‘This is no way to treat a successful general, Alcisthenes.’
‘Well,’ said Grandfather genially, ‘it’s better than the treatment an unsuccessful fellow gets—eh?’
But Thucydides, wrapping disapproval about him like a cloak, merely gave a formal inclination of his head, and hastened away.
‘H’m,’ remarked Grandfather to Glaucon’s father, who had just come over to greet him, ‘not what I’d call a good electioneering manner.’
But the electors thought otherwise, and Thucydides was duly elected. Immediately afterwards, he set off for the north, to keep watch over Amphipolis, centre of the Thracian gold industry. It was not a very effective watch, because the Spartan general, Brasidas, surprised Amphipolis by a night march in stormy weather, with snow in the air. An all-important bridge had been unguarded, we had lost our Empire in Thrace and the position was back as it had been before Pylos.
Thucydides was recalled to Athens by the Assembly, dismissed from office, tried. His chief accuser was Cleon, and he was banished for life. But at least he was spared what, I think, a man of his temperament would have found harder to bear. Exile leaves you your dignity; ridicule does not—and I think that Thucydides could not have endured being the victim of Aristophanes as well. But Aristophanes was kind. That spring he presented a play, The Clouds, attacking Socrates’ methods of teaching. People did not like it, and Aristophanes gained only third prize. Oddly enough, however, though people did not like the play at the time, they went on remembering it, even though they still had not understood it, and took as serious truth many of Aristophanes’ wildest jokes.
Cleon went north saying he would win back Amphipolis as he’d conquered at Pylos; as my uncle was not with him, he was defeated and killed. Brasidas died in winning the victory. So the two people who were bent on war disappeared; we still wanted Amphipolis back, while the Spartans yearned for Pylos. Thus what was to be known as the Ten Years’ War flickered out and the so-called peace marking its conclusion was given the name of Nicias.
Not that many people wanted over-much to wrest that proud privilege from him. It was a bungled affair—Sparta wanted a general peace, but could not get her allies to agree; Thebes, for example, refused to sign anything but a separate armistice, which could be ended by a mere ten days’ notice on either side. Nicias himself was so desperately eager to achieve ‘peace’ that he at once threw away the strongest weapon in his armoury—the Spartans taken at Pylos. Having handed them over, he tried to get something back in return. What should have been his first demand had been stressed to him by Grandfather the day before he left for Sparta. Plataea must be returned. ‘One can’t restore the dead to life,’ Grandfather had said, and for once he sounded his age, and more, ‘but the city must be restored.’
The Spartans, though Plataea had surrendered to them, said they had handed it over to their allies, and referred Nicias to the Thebans. The Thebans said they had not taken the place by force, but held it as the result of an agreement reached freely with the citizens.
But Nicias soon forgot this trifling set-back when the Spartans dangled the restoration of Amphipolis under his nose; Amphipolis, after all, meant gold mines, so he gobbled up the bait, and came back in triumph, and shortly afterwards it was generally realised that we were not going to get Amphipolis, in the end. Sparta said her Thracian allies would not hear of it.
Callistratus started on his journey into Asia, to search for his sister. He said not a word about the negotiations over Plataea—or lack of them—in fact he spoke as little as, from his appearance, he slept. His nerves were on the stretch.
So this was peace, I thought bleakly. I didn’t think I should like it.
Part Two
‘The Natural Law’
415–413 b.c.
eteocles: I would go to where the stars and sun arise, to the depths of the earth, if such I could, so that I might possess the greatest of the gods, Power. That is the Good, Mother, and I will not surrender it to another, but keep it for myself. To let the greater go and take the less is the part of a coward.
Euripides: The Phoenician Women
15
An Olive Grove and a Silver Mine
But all the aspects of peace were not unpleasant. After ten years we began to learn again what it meant to have time—time to tend our bees, and grow our olives.
Grandfather caught hold of me by the scruff of my neck and hurled me into farming by sending me off to run the smallest and remotest of our estates. ‘No use acquiring land unless you know how to use it,’ he said. ‘Land’s not just there to be run by a bailiff to give you the money to go lounging off to Syracuse to get a Sicilian cook and a team of race horses.’ This because my cousin had written from Sicily inviting me to join him at Syracuse, which he was visiting.
The real work with olives does not begin until the autumn. It’s hard work, because there is no easy way of doing it—you have to pull the olives off the trees, you cannot shake them. The grape harvest had been fun; the olive was not. Sometimes I was so tired I could have banged my head against the nearest gnarled trunk.
But sheer physical weariness did not bring me so near to head-banging as did a quite unexpected visitor who turned up before the crop was completely gathered in.
My cousin’s appearance in my most remote olive orchard was as incongruous as the apparition of the Persian King might have been—and as unwelcome. The first I knew of it, he was embr
acing me, and exclaiming, ‘My God, Lycius, now aren’t you sorry you didn’t come with me to Sicily? And must you work like a helot? Still, I’ll give you a hand.’
Grinning, he promptly banged away at every bough within reach with a stick he was carrying. Olives plopped off in all directions. Don’t!’ I hissed. ‘You only do that if the branches are out of reach!’
‘My dear boy,’ he drawled, ‘this loving care for every confounded olive would have some relevance if you were a peasant living from hand to mouth, but damn it all, one day you’re going to be rolling in money, lucky devil! And . . .’
‘Grandfather wants me to learn the job properly,’ I said sullenly.
‘Oh, my God, your grandfather and his back-to-the-land movement!’
‘Well, he only left it because the Spartans came,’ I said resentfully. ‘Not like you!’ But I saw I might as well give up the idea of trying to talk as well as get on with the olive gathering. So after telling the slaves in a voice that—to my rage and shame—cracked with suppressed anger, that I would be back soon, I turned to him and said formally, ‘Will you come to the house for a meal?’
‘Lycius,’ he said, ‘you must bring large tears of joy spurting from the eyes of Pericles as he broods over us from Olympus! One of his young kinsmen at least knows how to do the Done Thing!’
At least I ignored the Done Thing in so far as I didn’t regale him with conversation as we went back to the farmhouse; I was too busy wistfully hoping that the wine I’d offer him would choke him.
‘Well!’ he said when we got inside. ‘This isn’t your usual style, is it?’
‘I’ve lived in farms before,’ I said.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘the sixty acre effort at Eleutherae, and the slightly bigger affair at Marathon, and then there are your Grandfather’s paltry plots at Eleusis and Acharnae—and the old boy owns most of the slopes of Parnes doesn’t he? All that pasture . . .’
The Road to Sardis Page 11
