The Road to Sardis

by Stephanie Plowman

  ‘A fool among men is he who sacks cities, brings desolation on the temples, the groves, the hallowed places of the dead, and thus has brought destruction too upon himself . . .’

  No, Alcibiades did not like it. As we watched him, we saw him half-rising from his seat, with real ferocity in his eyes. His neighbour, rather shocked, laid a hand on his arm, drew him back; at my side Socrates murmured, ‘He can never see beyond a personal application, can he?’

  I whispered back, ‘You mean he thinks he is Athens now?’

  Socrates replied, ‘You misunderstand me; this play isn’t an attack on Athens, it condemns all insolent conquerors, who are as doomed as their victims.’

  Even as he spoke we saw the victims; the Gods vanished, and there lying in the dust was an old white-haired woman. I remembered then the first time I met Euripides, how he had told me that, since his childhood, war to him had meant the desolate figure of an old woman slave. But as the play went on, I realised that the happenings of a dozen years ago had given him other images too, a younger captive creature, newly made husbandless, with a baby in her arms. And as Andromache, widow of the chief defender of Troy, bade farewell to her child—‘Thou little thing that curlest in my arms, what sweet scents cling all round thy neck . . .’ I can quote no more, the tears blind me, yet they cannot blind the inward glancing eyes of memory. I can see now the sudden movement beside me as Callistratus, in silence, covered his face, remembering that he had told Euripides he would never forget the sweet smell of his baby sister’s neck as he buried his face there for the last time before going out into the wind and rain and the breakout from the town.

  Fools were to say that the play was shot through with hatred for the City. Did they not hear the prayer of the captives that the Gods might guide them to Theseus’ land, ‘the gentle land . . . Athens, where good spirits dwell,’ above all, were they deaf to the loveliest poetry he ever wrote, the poem he had written for me on my fifteenth birthday, with the promise that when he wrote his finest play, he would use it in the chorus? As he used it now, to bring peace after the moment of most poignant pain in all the literature this world will ever know, the baby snatched from the mother, and then . . . and then . . .

  ‘In Salamis, filled with the foaming

  Of billows and murmur of bees,

  Old Telamon stayed from his roaming,

  Long ago, on a throne of the seas;

  Looking out on the hills olive-laden,

  Enchanted, where first from the earth

  The grey-gleaming fruit of the Maiden

  Athena had birth;

  A soft grey crown for a city

  Beloved, a City of Light . . .’

  And Callistratus’ hands moved away from his face, he found it within himself to look at me and say, in a whisper, ‘He wondered if you would mind having your poem set in this play; I said you would not—and asked him to place it in that particular setting because I wanted you to know that you, above all, helped me to go on after that had happened to my mother.’

  The Trojan Women was never an indictment of Athens, but God knows it was a warning. Time and time again came reminders that the great host doomed by the Gods was eager to embark—just as men and boys sat impatiently in the theatre now, their minds firm fixed on the ships assembled at Piraeus and Phaleron.

  The last lines of all ran, ‘Forth to the Greek ships and the sea’s foaming . . .’

  Did any of those restless listeners pay sufficient heed to the play to recollect, in the bitter future, the last words spoken by Hecuba—‘Forth where the new long day dawneth to slavery?’

  And did any of the people of Athens, watching the fates of the women of Troy, recall in the empty years to come how Cassandra had cried of the miserable fate of invaders dying in a far-off foreign land, of women dying lonely in a home left desolate, of old men vainly awaiting the return of sons they would never see again?

  After the final summons to the waiting ships, silence by the chorus was followed by silence from the audience; we who read the lesson well enough were still too moved to applaud, and the majority, seeing in the play nothing but accusation that our conquering fleets and armies were tainted with impiety, sat at first in an angry silence, but as our little party made its way out—by tacit consent we left before the new play began—furious murmurs were beginning to rise all about us.

  Outside, Grandfather’s first comment was, ‘This is a bad day for Euripides; it’ll be the beginning of the end for him as far as Athens is concerned.’

  ‘A bad day in one sense, perhaps,’ began Socrates, ‘but—’

  ‘You and your buts!’ snapped Grandfather. ‘You’d argue on your deathbed! I’ve heard too much of your hairsplitting where the Good’s concerned to start listening to your tongue wagging on what’s Bad. Another thing I’d like to know—where did they find a fool to put up the money for the play?’

  ‘Here, sir,’ said Callistratus. Coolly meeting Grandfather’s eye, he said, ‘Financing any play of Euripides would be better than providing a ship for this expedition; above all, to be remembered as having taken some part in the staging of this play—’

  ‘All right, all right!’ said Grandfather. ‘I might have known—no need for you to start making speeches at me! But tell me one thing—how in the devil did you get the Archon to accept it?’*

  Callistratus looked faintly embarrassed. ‘He’s rather elderly,’ he said slowly. ‘He finds the reading of plays a tiring business. A satyr play was submitted as well; he read that first, laughed over it—and rather skimmed through the others.’

  ‘Strategy for you!’ said Grandfather, with a short laugh.

  My uncle spoke for the first time. ‘Sir, in your heart you appreciated the play, didn’t you?’

  Grandfather answered with sudden quietness, ‘I suppose I can’t stomach the fact that Euripides has ten times my guts. I’d do a lot to stop this damned expedition, but I’d think twice before I’d take the risk that he has. By God, that young blackguard lounging in the front row didn’t like it, did he?’

  Callistratus, incredibly, laughed. ‘He’ll like the satyr-play even less,’ he volunteered.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s about Heracles and Sisyphus. Heracles, after terrific fighting, kills Lycurgus, and is bearing off the spoils in triumph. He meets Sisyphus, and that lying old wretch steals the lot—including Heracles’ lion-skin.’

  ‘I still don’t see why . . .’

  ‘Heracles wears a long trailing robe under the lion-skin, talks with a lisp, has a mask specially made . . .’

  Grandfather gave a hoot of laughter. My uncle asked suddenly, ‘And what mask will Sisyphus be wearing?’

  ‘We were lucky there—no need to get one specially made . . .’

  ‘You mean you could use one left over from The Knights? Nicias, by God!’ said Grandfather, and with my uncle, walked away, laughing.

  Left to ourselves, Callistratus, Socrates and I were grave again. Socrates said abruptly, ‘It’s more than a play—it’s a prophecy; prophets usually meet with more hatred than gratitude.’

  ‘But people must realise he had to write it!’ I said.

  ‘What made him do it?’ asked Socrates.

  ‘Why, pity, of course.’

  ‘Which is the worst argument you could make in his favour. People—states—society—distrust pity. Pity’s an emotion for rebels.’

  ‘We’ve set up an altar to Pity in the market-place.’

  ‘They disregarded that last autumn; they’ll ignore it now.’

  Socrates eventually tramped off towards Colonus; we, of course, went over to Salamis. At one point I said, ‘Euripides was in no mood to write a satyr-play, even if it were the only way to get The Trojan Women accepted. You wrote it.’

  ‘It was easier for me. It was the least I could do.’

  There was never any chance that Euripides would win the prize—if the satyr-play had not charmed the Archon who disliked my cousin, by making him the Heracles, traditionally th
e most thick-witted and cloddish of heroes, the tragedy would not have been performed at all. But though the prize went to Xenocles, we dared to hope that at least the rejected play would give thinking men food for thought. Thinking men, however, were few in Athens in that glorious spring—never has there been a spring more beautiful. The minds of all seemed irrevocably bent on Syracuse even after the mutilation of the Hermae.

  * Scripts were submitted to the Archon, an official elected for a year to take charge of everything in the sphere of public worship—which included the Festival of Dionysus. The Archon chose the plays to be performed; wealthy citizens gave the plays their financial backing—if they did not back a play, they paid for a warship.

  20

  The Mutilation of the Images

  In Athens, of course, every private house has a square figure of Hermes in the doorway; one night practically every one of these was mutilated. The result was uproar, the panic arising largely from the fact that with the prevalent obsession, people felt everything and anything had to do with the Expedition. The superstitious, headed by Nicias’ supporters, bleated about the evil omens of the mutilation—no expedition could hope for success if it sailed after such sacrilege. The mob shouted back that the expedition was going to sail and the mutilation was all part of a conspiracy to bring about a revolution and overturn the democracy, this being the idea of my cousin. He had seen his supporters shaken for a moment, and knew there was no rallying cry so effective as that democratic institutions were in peril. He did not explain how the mutilation linked up with an attempt at revolution.

  Callistratus, I noted, was looking thoughtful. After a moment he suggested to me that we should go swimming. I was more than agreeable; anything to get away from this disconcertingly hysterical Athens.

  I dived and plunged as if to wash away all the superstitious fear that seemed to seep around the City these days, and then stretched out and drowsily admired the way the sea changed colour—offshore purple, lightening to deep blue, and then, as the water grew shallow, changing on the yellow sand to darkish green. But Callistratus remained wide awake, and just as I was dropping off he poked me with a toe.

  ‘Do you want to know who I think is behind this new trouble? Nicias.’

  I reared up then, all my drowsiness jerked out of me. ‘Nicias?’ I said with a yelp of laughter. ‘The pious Nicias going round with his own little chisel?’

  ‘I don’t mean Nicias in person,’ said Callistratus with some irritation, ‘but I think he gave the fellows who did it their instructions, and paid them well for it.’

  ‘D’you mean he’s turning revolutionary? Nicias going to overturn the democracy and—’

  ‘Nicias going to do all he can to stop that Expedition sailing for Sicily, as he told us that day at the Assembly.’

  ‘Well,’ I said with a grunt, sliding down into a comfortable sprawl again, and closing my eyes, ‘he hasn’t been very successful, has he? He hasn’t stopped the Expedition. What’ll he do next—try to burn down the Acropolis? Can’t you just see him leaping from rock to rock like a goat, a flaming torch in either hand?’

  But Callistratus tiresomely refused to follow my flights of fancy. His voice was grim as he replied, ‘At the end of the Assembly, he told us that the Expedition might not sail at all, or Alcibiades might lose his command.’

  I didn’t leap up at this; instead I drew myself up slowly to rest on one elbow and look hard at his unsmiling face, and then I said very soberly, ‘You’re right, of course. He’d be the first suspect. He’s wild enough for anything, he makes fun of all accepted beliefs, he likes shocking people—’

  ‘He probably gave his enemies the idea by that insane parody of the Mysteries,’ said Callistratus in a hard voice. ‘They’re just waiting a little longer, and then the whispering campaign will begin linking the two—a man who’d mock the Mysteries wouldn’t hesitate to mutilate a few statues.’

  I said hesitantly, ‘Are we going to do anything?’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Expose the whole affair. Tell people Nicias is behind everything.’

  ‘Who would believe you?’

  ‘Precious few,’ I admitted. After a moment I resumed. ‘In any case, it’s not a question of are we going to do anything—it’s should we?’

  ‘Well, should we?’

  I said slowly, ‘I hate what Alcibiades is doing, but I don’t like the way Nicias is working against him, They’re both dangerous in their way, but my cousin’s more natural. It’s like seeing fight between a leopard and a snake; I’d want the leopard to win:

  Callistratus made no rejoinder. I said tentatively, ‘I’d like to tell Alcibiades what you think.’

  ‘That may be difficult,’ said Callistratus. ‘A warning’s not much use unless it’s given privately, and you can be sure that Nicias has people watching your cousin.’

  ‘A letter—’ I began, and then answered myself, ‘No, that wouldn’t be any good. You can’t argue in a letter. I’ll have to meet him.’

  ‘It had better seem accidental,’ said Callistratus. ‘Is there anyone you could trust to take a message?’

  ‘Ariston—he was in my cavalry troop.’

  ‘I think we can manage it without raising suspicions. From all accounts, the two fellows at Alcibiades’ house the other night were so tickled by your reactions that they’ve blared an account of them all over the City, and, when you add to that the attitude of your family, I don’t think even Nicias will think of collusion. This is how you’d better do it.’

  Late that afternoon I climbed the Acropolis in the company of Philocles, the son of Timocrates of Argos, a close friend of Euripides, and so known to Callistratus. Philocles was one of the contingent Argos was sending to Syracuse; he was with me on this occasion because, as he remarked in a good carrying voice, he wanted to see a group of horsemen dedicated by my great-uncle and namesake, Lycius of Eleutherae. So we inspected the statues, and then Philocles, with a start, recalled that he should get over to Salamis before nightfall and had to hurry away. I said I would stay where I was for a little while—until the sun had set.

  For a few moments, indeed, I forgot both inner tension and anticipation in the pleasure and awe the sight of the sun setting over the City gives even when you have seen it a thousand times.

  And then, just as the whole landscape was bathed in that glorious serene amber light, there was the sound of a footfall behind me, and my cousin’s ringing voice said, ‘Well, Lycius, I didn’t expect this!’

  I leaped up, took one wildly incredulous look at him, then burst out in loud furious hostility, ‘Oh, this is too much! Why do you have to be here?’

  He had a string of sycophants behind him, was a sight to make my grandfather foam at the mouth with his bracelets, and the gold grasshoppers* in his hair. I noted, incidentally, a few hangers-on, who were not exactly members of his party.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘For one reason, my grandfather has forbidden me to speak to you again!’ I yelled.

  ‘That,’ said Alcibiades, ‘is a classic example of your grandfather’s way of doing things; he tells you you’re not to speak to me, but if he sets eyes on me, he’s across and accosting me in no uncertain terms. Well, what are you going to do?’

  I bit my lip, glared, shuffled, said nothing.

  Alcibiades made a sudden abrupt gesture to his sycophants. ‘You make the boy shy,’ he said. ‘Go on down and wait for me at my house. Now, Lycius, for God’s sake remember your Alcmaeonid blood and don’t act like a—like a Boeotian; in other words, be reasonably civil!’

  In a lower voice he said, ‘Yes, I have a couple of fellows—humble well-wishers—permanently following along behind me these days, but with the rest of my party gone, they’ve had to go too—otherwise it would look suspicious. Now, what is it? Do you want me to take you on my staff to Syracuse?’

  I turned an astonished face to him—and yes, he was serious.

  ‘No!’ I gasped. ‘That’s the last thing
I want! I still think the whole idea is criminal lunacy, but I felt I must warn you.’

  ‘All right, warn me,’ he said, laughing.

  ‘We—’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Callistratus and I, it’s chiefly Callistratus’ idea—we’re pretty sure all this Hermae business is aimed at you. You gave the people behind it the opening when you staged your own version of the Mysteries at your celebration party, and they—’

  His blue eyes were diamond bright. ‘Yes, who are they?’ he said under his breath.

  ‘Nicias is behind it all.’

  ‘Nicias!’ Maddeningly, his first reactions were identical with mine. ‘Nicias taking his own chisel and impiously defacing the holy statues of the gods—and not modern stuff, mark you,’ he whined in Nicias’ own voice, ‘carved under the patronage of Pericles, who was precious little more than being an atheist, like all Alcmaeonids—’

  ‘The last time I heard you mimic him,’ I said rapidly, ‘he was looking at you with murder in his eyes. And the last thing he said to my uncle at that meeting when you’d had it all your own way at his expense, was that the expedition hadn’t sailed yet, and that as far as your command was concerned . . .’

  ‘He was proud to have me as a colleague?’

  I persisted stubbornly. ‘You must listen to me! Your party gave them the idea—Athens must be shown you’re an atheist, word of mouth reports aren’t enough. He hoped people would be so shaken they’d decide against any expedition setting out; he didn’t realise that this infatuation about Sicily is stronger than superstition. So now, he’s going to make damned sure that if the Expedition does sail you’re not going to be in effective control, and so the whispering campaign begins.’

  Alcibiades said quite incredulously, ‘And he—and you, evidently!—think I’ll lose my command because people believe I’ve mutilated those wretched bits of stone?’