The Road to Sardis

by Stephanie Plowman

  ‘He’ll get the army to mutiny,’ said Grandfather.

  ‘Not with Nicias as colleague,’ said Uncle again. ‘Nicias will have done all he can to undermine his position—we can be sure of that.’

  ‘But the fellows in Athens aren’t sure,’ said Grandfather, ‘so he’s not being arrested.’

  ‘Which would at least be a positive move,’ said Callistratus. ‘We’d know where we were. As it is . . .’

  ‘I know,’ said Uncle. ‘The worst of two worlds. He’ll give them the slip, of course.’

  ‘You know how I feel about him,’ said Grandfather, ‘but even I can’t blame him if he doesn’t come back all meekness to a select hemlock party. But what’s happened, Callistratus? Some shady character coming forward with evidence about the mutilations?’

  ‘I don’t think we’ll hear any more about the mutilations,’ said Callistratus, rubbing his eyes. ‘They’ve served their turn, haven’t they?’

  ‘Stampeded everybody into a blind panic? Yes. So what’s the charge?’

  ‘A charge they can prove,’ said Callistratus. ‘Profaning the Mysteries at a party.’

  ‘Clever,’ said Grandfather shortly. ‘Only the rigidly respectable were shocked when he did that—but since the mutilations, Athens has gone hysterical about anything that might offend the gods.’

  Next day I went back to Athens, spent most of my time down in Piraeus, waiting for the despatch vessel’s return.

  Salaminia returned one remorselessly hot afternoon when the sun hit the sea as blindingly as it would hit a metal shield, the smell of fish and tar made me sick, and the blood pounded through my head if I made the slightest movement. I was wondering how much longer I could keep up my self-imposed watch, when suddenly men were calling to each other, there was a speck coming through the heat haze, and soon she was close enough to identify—no mistaking her long, narrow hull.

  Crowds gathered—crowds almost as large as those that had seen his triumphant departure. Crowds in a different mood, though. The ugly silence was so profound that you could hear the creak of wood, of leather, the slap of the water against the ship’s side as with furled sails she came into harbour—I cannot explain the stillness because Piraeus in those days was the busiest, noisiest place in the world; I can only say that all work and conversation ceased as Salaminia came into port.

  As the sound of the last orders came over the waters, I pushed forward. I do not know what I looked like—my face felt stiff—but people gave way before me. I stood there at the quayside, waiting. Oddly enough, though she had seemed to approach with extraordinary speed, the last moments dragged out interminably, she moved by crawling inches before the ropes were thrown ashore, made fast, the gang-plank was run out.

  In minutes he would come up from below, cross the saltstained, sun-baked deck; no need to wonder how he would look, he would always hold his head high—I had not acknowledged his wave when he rode down in triumph, but I would go forward now, and grip his hand. He was of my blood. He had become drunk one night and taken part in an act of profanity—but Nicias was not going to bring him down with his own brand of filthy cleverness if I could help it.

  But he did not come. Two worried-looking men came ashore hurriedly, shouldered their way through the crowd, demanded horses. ‘He’s dead,’ someone yelled suddenly. ‘He resisted arrest—’ ‘Use your head,’ came another voice. ‘They were supposed to be careful, weren’t they? No talk of arrest—he was just to accompany ’em back to assist enquiries. Clever, that!’ ‘He’s cleverer still—artful as a cartload of monkeys. Think he wouldn’t see through it?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said a fat man sweating next to me, ‘he committed suicide.’

  I turned on him in sudden fury. ‘Suicide!’ I said viciously. ‘Can you see him committing suicide?’

  ‘Here,’ he said, backing, ‘keep your distance! Who the devil do you think you are?’

  ‘Who the devil ‘d’you think?’ demanded a sailor. ‘Isn’t he the dead spit of Alcibiades in a rage? It’s his cousin, young Lycius.’

  Two of the crew of the Salaminia, obviously bursting with information, saw the likeness too. They called across to me to come nearer, and told me what had happened.

  He had given them the slip, of course, after accepting the invitation to return home not with mere calm—with positive enthusiasm. He welcomed, he had said to Nicias in his public farewell, this opportunity to prove his innocence. The very officers sent with his recall had been sorry for him—poor devil, he obviously had no inkling of what awaited him in Athens.

  But he had and when they anchored off Thurii on the return voyage he slipped overboard at night, swam ashore, and vanished. No one knew where he was now.

  A couple of hours later Callistratus came down a winding alley and discovered me drinking in a quayside tavern.

  ‘You’d better come home,’ he said. ‘If you want to get drunk, it might as well be on decent wine and in comfortable surroundings.’

  It hurt considerably to raise my eyes to look at him. ‘What’s happened?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, they’ve grasped the opportunity—his escape’s an admission of his guilt, he’s condemned to death in his absence, the State confiscates his property.’

  ‘Just as well his wife’s dead,’ I muttered into my wine.

  ‘One thing she’s spared, at least. You know, getting drunk so squalidly isn’t much of a tribute to him—he always does things in style.’

  So we went home. Grandfather and my uncle came in from Marathon later that evening and sat up into the small hours discussing the possible results of what had happened, but while they spoke of the fate of the Expedition, I thought only of a homeless penniless exile.

  I thought of him even more poignantly, some time later when the State sold his confiscated property. I stood for the last time in the house with the marble pillars, the rich hangings from Persia, the frescoes he had had painted on the walls. I can remember getting red in the face at the sight of some of those frescoes, and being glad Grandfather was not with me—not that there’d been any likelihood he would come, of course, because Grandfather did not gloat. Which was more than one could say about the other people who had invaded Alcibiades’ home—although I admit quite a few were out to combine business with pleasure, and snap up a bargain or two while about it. Adeimantus, too thick-witted to grasp it wasn’t the thing to ape my cousin’s ways any longer, was there, hair in long ringlets, wearing a fringed cloak, a purple robe trailing to his heels, an onyx ring, and lisping babyishly, ‘Of course, all this business has shown quite clearly that public life isn’t fit for a gentleman.’

  ‘Hasn’t been since Pericles handed power over to the rabble,’ grunted his companion. ‘He as good as told ’em to soak the rich.’

  ‘And just at the time when decent living was getting too expensive for someone who can’t improve his income by work! It’s high time,’ said the caricature of my cousin querulously, ‘that the mob realised that a gentleman who keeps up a certain graciousness of living is doing a public service, to the benefit of the State as a whole.’

  His companion grinned. ‘That’s what he said, about entering all those chariots at Olympia—and much good it’s done him. Still, we ought to benefit by getting a couple of cheap slaves in the sale.’

  ‘When are his Syracusan horses coming up for sale?’

  ‘Stud costing a pretty penny, eh?’

  ‘Well, you can’t call yourself a gentleman unless you have at least a couple of thoroughbreds.’

  I vowed in my heart I would buy his horses, no matter how much they cost me. As I did when the sale began—Adeimantus had to content himself with my cousin’s Syracusan cook (who had made Sicilian cooking all the rage and was the best man in Athens for conger eels and pastry) and his stock of Chian wine. I bought a few other trifles and oddments—stupid things, such as a pair of white felt slippers, a coat of Persian wool. But I also bought the scarlet and white vase from Crete I had given him on his marriage, his chest of
books, the dagger left him by Pericles.

  I tried to smuggle all these into the house, but Grandfather, who had evidently guessed where I had been, was on the lookout for me, and came out when I was muttering instructions to grooms and household servants. ‘I thought you’d go for the horses,’ he said without surprise. ‘There’s a place ready for them. I don’t suppose you’ve an obol left to your name now, eh? Good God, what’s all this other stuff?’

  I think it was my stressing of the fact that I had bought Pericles’ dagger that assuaged his grave fears that I myself intended to wear the slippers and the Persian coat.

  Next day I took my purchases, except the horses, to my little farm. I did not stay there long. I kept remembering how he had come out that day, sauntered about the dark little living-room, told me he had bought horses in Sicily—yes, he was just back from Syracuse—and was going to win the chariot race. He had won the chariot race. As an Olympic victor he could claim free board at the official guest house for life—I began to laugh at that, went on laughing.

  It wasn’t good being at the farm; it would be worse back at Athens with half the population congratulating themselves over the bargains they had picked up at the sale—yet to Athens I must return.

  By the time I had regained the City my head was aching; I told myself it was the heat that made the sun-baked stones quiver.

  I did not want to see or talk to anybody. Luckily, Tecmessa was the only member of the household to see me as I went in from the stables; I said to her rather awkwardly that I had a headache, and was going to my room, and she said she would see that no one disturbed me.

  Yet it was she herself who disturbed me some hours later, at the time when dusk had fallen over the City and a little purple light lingered only on the crags of Salamis. Therefore I could not see her face as she stood in the doorway, but her voice was terrifying enough. ‘Lycius,’ she said rapidly, stumbling in her haste, ‘there’s bad news.’

  ‘He’s dead,’ I said. ‘Someone’s killed him—’

  ‘I don’t know—I only saw the look on your Grandfather’s face as he came in with Callistratus. They weren’t talking.’

  I went along the corridor, but could not bring myself to go in to hear the news at once. To collect myself I went into the outer court, and walked up and down for a moment, biting my knuckles. A bat came swooping in out of the dusk; somewhere an owl hooted. ‘The evening brings all things home’; Sappho had written that years before. I turned and, walking very carefully, went along to hear the news.

  23

  ‘A man who loves his country’

  By that time I was convinced that my cousin was dead, and his shade seemed to pace beside me—all pride and gaiety and passion, though a ghost

  I saw my grandfather first; he had obviously just risen from his marble arm-chair, was stalking up and down muttering incoherently. That didn’t scare me very much—what did scare me was the sight of my uncle and Callistratus, Uncle sitting with his head in his hands, and Callistratus, leaning against one of the columns, staring down at the floor. As I slipped in, he was saying, not raising his eyes, ‘What about Lycius?’

  I could see the little pulse beating in his neck. ‘I’m here,’ I said. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

  They all looked at each other, and I could not read their expressions. That was the beginning of the real horror—the knowledge that, whatever the news, it had for the moment transformed the people closest to me into strangers. I was feeling sick, and to my shame my hands trembled when I repeated my question. And Grandfather replied in a whisper, ‘No, he’s not dead—better for you if he were. He’s gone over to Sparta.’

  I set my back to the door, feeling as if at any moment my knees would give way under me. Then Callistratus was beside me, gripping my arm strongly, saying in a low voice, ‘Hold up.’

  He and my uncle pushed me into a chair. One of them gave me wine. I still felt curiously tired, even frozen, but at least my wits returned sufficiently for me to hear what was being said.

  ‘It’s an act of desperation,’ said my uncle.

  ‘Meaning he acted on impulse?’ said Grandfather. ‘No . . . It was all deliberately planned from the moment the officers from Salaminia boarded his flagship.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ said my uncle.

  ‘Of course you can’t, you’re not eaten up with ambition, but it’s true, it’s the only explanation—otherwise, why did he take the news as he did?’

  From his place beside me, Callistratus said, ‘That’s worried me right from the start. The meekness of it wasn’t in character. Knowing him—or thinking I knew him—I expected his reaction would be a—a kind of incendiary speech to the Expedition, inflaming them to mutiny—“Men of Athens, I, your general, face arrest and death . . .” He could even have claimed he was thinking of Athens, not himself—that his arrest spelt the end of the Expedition. I don’t say it would have worked, but it’s what one expected.’

  ‘Because we thought we knew him. It’s plain now that nobody knew him,’ said Grandfather. ‘From the time he saw the Salaminia, he must have known his plan to be a conquering hero was over—we couldn’t understand why he didn’t make a fight to save something from the wreck. We didn’t realise he’d thrown everything overboard to give all he had to another idea—revenge on the City for daring to take his great chance from him. Didn’t you, Demosthenes, say only the other day that when he was a child, if he couldn’t have a toy, he’d smash it?’

  ‘I still can’t believe he knew what he was doing,’ said my uncle.

  ‘He knew,’ said Callistratus, ‘that message to Messina—before he ever left the Expedition . . .’

  Feeling like a man shipwrecked on a little rock beat upon by a rising sea, I whispered, ‘What happened at Messina?’

  ‘He’d started an intrigue with people in Messina to surrender the town to us. The opposition—who favoured Syracuse—had no inkling. He sent them information of all that had been planned before he went aboard Salaminia.’

  My uncle cried out in a kind of agony, ‘And he was brought up by Pericles!’

  ‘And educated by your friend Socrates,’ said Grandfather, staring at me. ‘That won’t do Socrates much good. Maybe he’s already regretting he beat off those spear points at Potidaea.’

  But at the time that did not seem important. I said, ‘How long has he been in Sparta?’

  It was Callistratus who answered. ‘He made his way to Argos first. He was there when he heard he’d been condemned to death in his absence; he said “I’ll show them that I’m alive”. He’d already asked the Spartans for a safe-conduct, offering to help them in any way he could. When he heard that the Syracusans had sent appeals for aid to Sparta, and that Sparta had offered Syracuse moral support, but nothing practical, he decided not to wait for the safe-conduct.’

  I cannot remember in detail how I learned the truth after that, remembrance of the dreadful story comes only in the blurred outline of a nightmare. My cousin had made a speech to the Spartans, after which the Syracusan envoys and their Corinthian friends, grinning, said there was no need for them to say a word.

  By that speech he not only persuaded our deadliest enemy to send help to Syracuse, he brought her back into the war against us, he put the weapon into the Spartan hand, and he directed that hand unerringly at the joints in our armour. He told them what lay behind the expedition to Sicily—only a stepping-stone to the conquest of Italy, Carthage, Spain—then back to achieve the real target of all our scheming, the crushing of Sparta. And since he had begun his speech by expressing his undying hatred for the City that had condemned him to death, which he now condemned to death in its turn, they believed him, those stolid Spartans.

  I do not think the quicker-witted Corinthians and Syracusans believed it all—but for their own purposes they pretended to. But the Spartans were scared, they followed his advice to send help to Syracuse, above all, to send a general to Sicily.

  But this was not revenge enough.

&
nbsp; Those left in Athens, those who had destroyed the dreams of aggrandisement he had just described, would doubtless feel concern enough over the fate of the expedition of which they had robbed him, but this was not enough. They must have the everpresent fear of an enemy on Athenian soil. At this, one of his Spartan hearers had spat, commented, ‘It didn’t seem to worry them in ten years of fighting.’

  Then Alcibiades showed them how they had gone wrong, told them what we had always feared. Seize and occupy Decelea, he said. Hold that fort between Pentelicus and Parnes throughout the year. They might destroy all Attica then, and it would not be safe to go on working the silver mines of Laurium. Athens could be ruined, Athens would be too scared to send help to Sicily.

  Just as there has never been such black treason, so there has never been so decisive a turning point in any war. But for that speech, Sparta would have sent no help to Syracuse, and Syracuse, disheartened, would have surrendered. Yet what more than anything else made us realise how much he hated us was the advice he gave about Decelea. He knew that the moral effect would be worse even than the physical ruin. In the earlier part of the war, the Spartans had always left by the autumn, each year the country people might go back to their farms, to replant and repair, In the six years since fighting had ended, people had toiled endlessly to revive their farms—now everything would be absolutely destroyed, they could not go back, they could not hope—Attica would become a desert.

  Yes, he hated us.

  He had the sullen Spartan faces staring at him as enraptured as any Athenian crowd had done—all the Spartan faces, that is, save one. Agis’ cold eyes were hostile. The wolf could never have any love for the leopard.

  And Agis’ harsh voice cut gratingly through the murmurs of assent.

  ‘Pretty talk,’ said Agis, ‘but do you expect us to believe it?’

  ‘Why is it so hard to believe?’ asked my cousin slowly.

  ‘Because not so very long ago you were telling the Athenians how much you loved ’em. Now you’re expecting us to believe you hate them, that you’ve thrown over patriotism.’