The Road to Sardis

by Stephanie Plowman

  ‘Well,’ he said, in a tone of sweet reasonableness, ‘how else does one treat them? They are nothing better than savage animals, these are the slaves who can’t be taught or trained; they’re sullen, vicious, brutish, stupid, they haven’t intelligence, willingness or good looks. No craftsman would buy them, no master of a household, they’re the dregs left unsold at the end of the auction. What else can one do with them but sell them off at cheaper rates for work here in the silver mines?’

  Sosias, seeing we did not look as gratified as he felt we should have been after our treat, said gruffly, ‘All they need here is a strong body—they don’t have to think, they only need to understand your spoken order.’

  ‘Like animals,’ said Callistratus.

  ‘Wasn’t that exactly the point I made?’ said Nicias pleasedly. ‘And I assure you they’ve no cause to grumble—they’re infinitely better off here in Laurium than the Sicilian quarrymen are—my business connections in Syracuse tell me they’re literally buried alive in the stone quarries outside the town.’ He began to titter. ‘They marry there, you know—in those conditions. The children run screaming at the sight of a horse or an ox. The wonder is that the beasts don’t panic at the sight of them—their eyes go like fishes’ in the dark, and . . .’

  Sosias, seeing that gratification was still slow in dawning on our rather set faces, jumped in again with further inspiring information. He began to talk statistics, Nicias listening, head wagging in approval, of each man hewing about 250 cubic inches in an hour in the hardest stone.*

  Callistratus interrupted abruptly. Did the City supervise the working of the mines in any way, he wanted to know. But of course, cried Nicias, there were special laws making it a crime to destroy pit-props, and so on.

  I heaved a sigh of relief, said in my ignorant way that I was glad the miners had some kind of state protection.

  Nicias looked at me in absolute stupefaction. ‘Miners!’ he said weightily, when he’d recovered his breath. ‘These laws were made to protect something far more valuable than slaves—they were made to protect private property!’

  ‘We must go, Nicias,’ said Callistratus evenly. ‘Have you finished your business here?’

  ‘Not altogether,’ said Nicias mournfully; his soothsayers had been right, his investments were threatened since a dozen of his slaves had died since his last visit.

  ‘Surely you don’t have to worry about that?’ queried Callistratus. ‘I thought your contract stipulated that there would be replacements for any—er—wastage?’

  Sosias had moved away to bawl some orders. Nicias said hurriedly,

  ‘Yes, but his idea of replacements aren’t er—’

  ‘What do they die of?’ I asked loudly.

  ‘No real disease,’ he said snappishly. ‘The stupid fools just make up their minds to die.’

  Well, we left Laurium, and after some miles the flowers began to bloom again; it must have been Spring because I can remember purple orchids in the pine woods, and the smell of lavender was strong on Pentelicus and the thyme was rosy on Hymettus. It was only when we neared home that I could bring myself to speak.

  ‘Our greatness isn’t built on that!’ I said passionately.

  ‘It wasn’t,’ corrected Callistratus. ‘Free workers built it up over the centuries, but now . . .’

  ‘Do you think Grandfather can get anything done?’

  ‘He’ll do his best, but fighting Nicias is like fighting a Hydra.’

  Grandfather did fight in the Assembly to get something done about the working conditions in Laurium, but people would not listen to him because he spoke against the most god-fearing man in Athens. And the fortune of Nicias, founded on the branded bodies of slaves choking to death in the mines of Laurium, grew so great that the gods must smile upon him, thought the people, and appointed him to a command for which he was totally unfit, chief command too, for he was so wealthy, and so could over-ride other generals—and so doomed other slaves who had once been Athenian citizens to an even worse rotting death in the stone quarries of Syracuse.

  * One of the ten Athenian cavalry commanders.

  * An output much higher than that demanded nowadays on the same sites, with dynamite and infinitely more modern methods being used.

  16

  Coming of Age

  It was my eighteenth birthday and Grandfather had presented me to the rest of my clan, who had accepted me; and my name was inscribed on the parish roll. Then in the temple of Aglaura I took the oath taken by every Athenian citizen when at eighteen he begins military service.

  ‘I will not disgrace my sacred weapons nor desert the comrade who is placed by my side. I will fight for things holy and things profane, whether I am alone or with others. I will hand on my fatherland the better I have lived in it—’

  Callistratus and my uncle stood together, watching me, and then I had the strange feeling you always get when someone is staring hard at you, willing you to look at him; I shifted my gaze slightly, while swearing to hearken to the magistrates and obey the existing laws, and there, inevitably, stood Alcibiades, not looking quite at his best (from his slightly bloodshot eyes I gathered he had not long left one of his special parties), but, even in this condition, contriving to look ten times more alive than practically everybody else in the temple. And he was grinning broadly as I said my piece. I gathered that when he had sworn the oath he had not taken it at all seriously. He seemed to think it extremely funny that I should be looking so solemn about it.

  Before we moved off (recruits are always taken round the temples), he came across, flung his arm about me, fixed my grandfather with his brilliant blue gaze, and, drawling and lisping even more than usual, all with the intention of maddening Grandfather, he said with mock rapture, Didn’t he sound delightful! So young, so modest, so intense? Looking so charming, too. I don’t wonder all the sculptors are running after him to be the young Apollo or the young Achilles!’

  My grandfather, who loathed the fact that I was pursued by sculptors, grew, not unfittingly, as red in the face as a fiery dawn presaging a stormy day. The tempest broke. Alcibiades replied, ‘Damn it all, I’ve a right to be here! He’s my cousin. Anyhow, Lycius,’ and he threw me a wavering ghost of his conquering smile, ‘you know my house is always at your disposal as a refuge from domineering relatives.’

  With which he strode away, lurching slightly from time to time.

  ‘He’s so offensive because he’s really fond of you in his peculiar way,’ said Uncle suddenly. ‘You’re practically the only relative he has left, too. He loathes Adeimantus, and doesn’t care much for his own child.’

  ‘There’s Pericles’ son.’

  ‘Oh, Alcibiades can’t stand him, he can’t forgive him for being Pericles’ son, that’s the point. Alcibiades thinks he could have carried on the succession so much better!’

  And then it was garrison life for me.

  I served in the cavalry, and, since I had to supply my own horses, there remained some familiar things in this new, excessively tiring life.

  Athens never maintained more than a thousand citizen cavalry, and since there were more citizens than this liable to cavalry service, being one of the thousand had a great snob value, because we were picked only after rigorous testing and selection. I sailed through the trials easily enough, due to Callistratus’ coaching; I think I should have jumped off the Acropolis if I hadn’t. Besides I wanted to be in the cavalry, because—well, at eighteen you like showing off what a wonderful horseman you are, and you have the most splendid chance ever of showing off in the Panathenaic procession when you make your horse prance and rear to draw attention to your horsemanship.

  Yes, you had a good time in the cavalry, using long cavalry spears as vaulting poles, practising throwing the javelin on horseback at a suspended shield, and, of course, knowing one was a good rider, and that while the cavalry instructor called you all the names under the sun, he really knew you were not too bad. Rowing drill was different. Once in a while a barre
l-chested creature seemingly carved out of rock would appear before us and march us off down to the harbour, bawling at us all the while, ‘Each trireme needs a trained crew of two hundred men—got that? In times of emergency you young gentlemen of the cavalry will row too—got that? And tonight when you look at your rowing blisters on your hands, and elsewhere—and they’ll be big as hen’s eggs—got that?—you’ll tell yourself, “That’s a sign of patriotism!” Got that?’

  We all bawled back, we had, but though he was truthful enough and that night we were gloomily surveying great blisters on our hands, and getting kind friends to tell us about the other blisters out of our line of vision, I regret we did not hail them rapturously as signs of patriotism.

  And then we were considered good enough for garrison duty and patrol work outside the City—Theron’s work when Thebes had attacked Plataea. Our spell of service, however, had nothing so eventful in it, the only real excitement I can remember is the day when Callistratus came riding across the hills at noon to share his bread and olives with me.

  We sat in the shade of a myrtle beside a trickle of a stream, and enjoyed the stillness. The peace was absolute; further down the slope my comrades were having a breather, and no shepherd pipes were heard, of course, for no shepherd ever plays at midday, for fear of disturbing Pan, who takes his rest at noon. The God’s kindly feelings for our City are well known, but the temper of no one, god or man, is at its best after being rudely roused from a much-needed nap. So at mid-day in the country it is always just sun and silence; only the grasshopper is sufficiently lacking in consideration or possessed of sufficient nerve to break the stillness.

  ‘Have you been into the City lately?’ I asked.

  ‘A few weeks ago. Are you behaving yourself?’

  ‘Am I not! I’d have you know that our company’s had a vote of thanks from the people in this neighbourhood for not being noisy and giving trouble generally! Yes, it’s true! If you go into the City again, tell Grandfather that. Did you see him last time you were in?’

  ‘No, I meant to, but didn’t have time. I saw Sophocles, so of course I had to go across and pay my respects, and we had a longish talk, and that took up my free time.’

  I expressed my envy. Callistratus said shortly, ‘You mightn’t like the City very much at present,’ and was gone with a wave of his hand.

  I didn’t worry much because he had said he did not like Athens at present. Admittedly it was an odd remark, but as I wrapped myself up in my cloak the night after our meeting, I had it all worked out: the odds were that as he had turned away from his conversation with Sophocles, some old city father had come waddling up to him—I’ve suffered the same thing myself—and said, ‘All, young man, that’s the type of poet the City can be proud of; very glad I am to see you listening to what he has to say instead of running mad after that impious wretch Euripides who parodies the Divine Books, and makes gods act like men and not the best of men, either! What language! What morals!’

  I could see Callistratus fretting beneath his usual impeccable courtesy, bottling up his feelings because he loathed flaring out at older men, and finally getting out of Athens, galloping up into the hills, and muttering, ‘What a place! What a hellish place!’

  What had occasioned the remark, however, was a far different matter.

  A short time after I had received my spear and shield from the State, that State laid siege to Melos.

  Melos is a small island, roughly equi-distant between Athens and Crete; it was, therefore, a strongly strategic spot in any conflict, but its inhabitants, like so many unfortunate inhabitants of strategically important states, wanted only to be left in peace. In the war they had been neutral; now, of course, we were officially at peace. It was decided in the City to send an expedition against Melos.

  Training in the countryside, we heard scraps of news, but lived our day-to-day life at such physical pressure that between drill and sleep there was little time for reflection. Someone back up from the City may have mentioned there was going to be an expedition to Melos, but we were all far more excited over the prospects for the Olympic Games, above all the prospects of Alcibiades, who was determined to win the chariot race. He had written frequently asking me to get leave to come down and see his team, to go with him to Olympia. I was tempted; after all, my father had won the chariot race and I, of course, dreamed of doing the same myself one day. Alcibiades knew this, wrote as much, described how he had cheered my father on—and then I remembered another voice recalling how he had cheered my father on, Astymachus, Callistratus’ father, dead more than ten years, in the same hour as my father, and I wrote back and wished him all success, but said I could not go.

  Well, he won his race—he made sure of it, in fact, by entering seven teams, which came in first, second and fourth—and Athens went mad. No one would hear a word against him. They even swallowed a story he had put about that Euripides asked if he might write an ode commemorating the victory. I myself rather basked in his reflected glory, though I wondered how large a millstone of debt he had incurred for his triumph. That was our sole topic of conversation in the frontier forts and camps—Alcibiades and his horses—and all the while Athenian envoys were telling the people of Melos that we were going to war with them because they had offended us in the past in this respect—they had chosen to remain neutral, and for an island to stay neutral in the seas we controlled was an insult to our prestige.

  God knows if the men who spoke this blasphemous rubbish believed it.

  The people of Melos would not give up their neutrality. They pleaded to be allowed to continue in their old peaceable ways. No, they were told, if they were allowed to defy us, who would fear us? A fleet blockaded the port then; an army was landed on the island. They resisted desperately, and withstood a siege for nearly a year. Then there was treachery and unconditional surrender, and a debate in the Assembly. That debate was over, the decision had been taken and executed, when in late February I completed my second year of training and went back down to the City.

  Callistratus met me that afternoon, Callistratus, remember, with the memory of Plataea burning within him. We climbed up the Acropolis, and sat there, and he told me we had meted out to Melos the fate to which Sparta had doomed Plataea—the men were slaughtered, the women and children enslaved.

  He ended harshly, ‘And as I went to the debate, a good half dozen people came up to me in turn and congratulated me on this stroke of luck. You see, there’s all that land ownerless. They’re sending out colonists. And my well-wishers said, “Now my dear fellow, here’s your chance to set yourself up after losing so much when your own home was lost.” They congratulated me.’

  ‘My grandfather?’ I said after a moment.

  ‘Voted as you would expect. He looks all of his seventy years now. Your uncle scarcely spoke for days afterwards, looked like a ghost. And Euripides—’

  ‘Yes? What about Euripides?’

  ‘He told me he’ll never go into the City again. He’s very isolated now. I see him because I seek him out, but he’s deliberately lost contact with his other friends, and he leads a solitary life on Salamis.’

  ‘But why did we do it?’

  ‘I tell you, they talked about the loss of prestige if poor little Melos were allowed to get away with her “defiance”. We’re super-men these days, we Athenians—gods rather. So, as the Gods strike down those who’re arrogant, we wipe out the population of Melos.’

  I nerved myself. ‘What did my cousin say?’

  ‘He spoke in favour of the decree. It was his support that got it passed. Always remember he’d just won the chariot race in the Olympics. Because Alcibiades said Melos must be wiped out—Alcibiades with the laurels fresh on his brow—people followed his lead like sheep. But I don’t want to discuss your cousin with you; I’d rather you did that with your uncle and grandfather. Ask them to tell you about the Syracuse scheme.’

  ‘Syracuse?’ I said staring. ‘What’s Syracuse got to do with Athens?’ and then unbeli
evingly, ‘But aren’t you coming down into the City with me?’

  ‘No, I’m going over to Salamis before it grows too dark. Euripides wants to talk to me about his latest play; I promised him I’d go long before I knew you’d be in Athens.’

  ‘Let me come with you.’

  ‘No, of course not; you must go and pay your respects to your grandfather. Besides, you’ll have to learn about Syracuse, and I don’t want to talk about it before Euripides.’

  I was thunderstruck. For weeks I had been planning how we would spend this day—sitting talking here on the Acropolis until that brief moment, always breathtaking, when the dying sun still glowed on the Parthenon and Hymettus, though the City below was bathed in shadow; and then we would go home together. Well, now it seemed we were not to go home together.

  I was so bad-tempered by this time, I even began to feel jealous of Euripides. What was so wonderful about this new play, I demanded. What was it about? Some episode in the Trojan war, said Callistratus. And then he said in an entirely different voice, ‘You’re thinking that since I’m deserting you on your first night here, it would serve me right if you went straight off to your cousin’s house, wouldn’t it? Go if you want to; you’re of age. He’ll welcome you with open arms, and you may find it enlightening.’

  Right, I’d go to Alcibiades.

  More, I hoped Alcibiades was throwing one of his wilder parties, with everyone (and that would include me) soaking up wine like so many sponges, and flutes and dancing girls in abundance. I shuddered a little at the last thought, but did not falter in the headlong stride taking me down from the Acropolis.

  But Alcibiades’ house was significantly quiet; I told myself I was bitterly disappointed that the night air was not resounding to the sound of revelry. The porter received me warmly.