So the farmers of Athens were ruined. They starved or were driven to borrow from bankers or rich neighbours. Everywhere men whose fortunes had grown fat in war-time from trade or munitions or slaves were buying the little farms for a song and adding one to another, and running the whole as one big concern. If the late unlamented Nicias had not had his throat cut in Syracuse, he would have been like an ox on the corn-heap.
As I said, I was lucky, lucky in being able to hold on to my own land, even more lucky to be able to help friends to hold on to theirs. I should have been happy, God knows I wanted to be happy, I tried to be happy, but I just did not know what to do with myself, short of buying a rope and hanging myself with it. My heart and mind ached incessantly with the intolerable wish that I might have died with the others at Syracuse. I still could not stop expecting to see Callistratus turning the corner of the market place, or overtaking me with his long ranging stride as I walked under the plane trees in the Academy. Salamis itself I could not face at all, though it was haunted by the kindliest of ghosts.
Ariston found life little more bearable; soon he left Athens looking for a nice, short, local war to take part in—nothing large, nothing long drawn out—we’d had enough of those big affairs. Just a small sideshow. With himself on the victorious side, for a change. I was too lethargic to do anything so positive. I remained in Athens, keeping myself from suicide by occasional visits to Socrates, and by reminding myself that Callistratus had somehow contrived to keep going after all that had happened at Plataea.
But one night a ghost other than Callistratus spoke to me.
The doorkeeper came in, grumbling about some foreign sailor who had come ‘sneaking up to me out of the dark’, asked if this were my house, thrust a letter into the doorkeeper’s hand, then had taken to his heels.
I opened the letter casually enough, thinking this would be my first news of Ariston. But it was not. It was my last news—of someone else.
It was smoke-stained, charred at one edge. It ran:
‘It’s an odd way to begin a letter, but if I could be sure you were alive, I might never write this. I know you got away from Goat River, because I camped out on the heights, waiting for the inevitable to happen, saw it happen—but Paralus got away, with Conon’s squadron. Yet, from the news that filters through to this barbarous hole, escaping that slaughter doesn’t ensure survival a year later, with Athens starved into surrender, and now Critias cockahoop with a Spartan garrison at his beck and call. As I see the situation, the odds are that you’re dead; it’s more or less in that belief that I’m writing to you. I couldn’t bear knowing I was confessing to anyone (even you) that I’m getting superstitious.
‘For that’s what it adds up to—superstition. I told myself this morning that I’m no better than Nicias was—worse, in fact, because if he had a bad dream, he’d have had a conference with his soothsayer directly before breakfast and had it all nicely settled, instead of mulling over it for hours on end. Of course the time and place are both against me, too—there’s nothing to do in the depths of Phrygia in the winter—precious little to do in summer, if it comes to that, but winter’s a foretaste of death. And that’s not a happy description, especially in my Nicias-like frame of mind.
‘But about my dream. Like most dreams, it’s lunacy. There’s a girl here called Timandra—I dreamed I was wearing her clothes, and that she was holding my head while, as far as I can make out, she painted my face. That’s all. And one doesn’t need a soothsayer to give an obvious interpretation—I’m getting soft, like a woman, because I’m not leading a man’s life. I know it! Haven’t I tried hard enough in the past months to be on the move again—in action; sitting out the end of the war took years off my life.
‘My plan’s simple enough—I want to persuade the Great King that our defeat leaves Sparta all too powerful—that is, all too likely to threaten Persia—and that therefore he should safeguard himself by restoring Athenian power to such an extent that she’ll be an efficient check on Sparta. There’s nothing novel in it, I tried to do it a few years ago, but I’m going to try again the moment I get permission to go up to Susa, because I think that now there’s more chance of success. I didn’t get very far with the idea last time because my way was blocked by young Cyrus. Then he was the favourite son of an elderly, not very intelligent father. Things are different now; he’s only the younger brother of the new Great King who, from all accounts, isn’t all that much more intelligent than his father, but one of the few ideas he has in his head is that he doesn’t like his young brother Cyrus at all. So, Lycius, once I can get to Susa and see Artaxerxes, I think he may well listen to what I have to say, for no better reason than that he hates Cyrus even more than Cyrus loves Sparta. But, more than this, I can give him information that will clinch the matter—I know for a fact that Cyrus is plotting to dethrone him—with Spartan help. Once I tell Artaxerxes, the game’s won.
‘Now you will understand why I’m irritable and chafing, not sleeping well, having preposterous dreams when I do. There’s every need in the world to move fast—yet Persian officialdom won’t let me move at all. I must have official permission to go to Susa—and God knows how many satraps and chamberlains have to deal with the application before Artaxerxes sees it. I can’t pass on the information by letter—Cyrus has plenty of friends at his brother’s court.
‘They are bringing the lamps in now—supper, then sleep. If I have any more odd dreams I’ll scribble a description in the morning before I try to find some way of getting this down to the coast. A sudden thought—a pity I can’t have a talk with Socrates; I’ve been remembering that inner sense that warned him of danger. A dozen years since I talked to Socrates—he cut me when I came back to Athens; I suppose he regrets having saved my rascally life at Potidaea.’
Beneath were scrawled sentences in laborious Greek.
‘They set fire to the house, hoping to burn us to death inside. They piled wood outside the door, and lit it. He threw the bedding on the flames to stifle them, slammed the door shut, then he took his sword, and wrapped his cloak about his left arm for a shield. I said he should not go, because the men who had done this would be waiting outside to see us burn. He said, “I know, I mean to kill them.” He told me to hide, and see what happened, and if he could not do it in the morning, I was to try to send off the letter he had been writing before supper. He repeated your name so that I should remember it. Then he drew back to gain speed, and told me to fling open the door again, so that he might rush out. I cried to him not to do this—the fire still burned outside, and he would have to leap through it, perhaps even touching it with his bare feet. But he laughed, and ran, and sprang out. I saw his foot touch the burning wood, but he did not seem to notice it. There were many men outside, but he rushed at them, and they fled before him, and I began to hope, for he was never like other men, and what other man could make a host of enemies flee before him in this manner? But I could not hope for long, for from the darkness came the twang of a bow, and an instant after the first arrow came a javelin, then many arrows and many javelins. It was quick then, for they could see him clearly, with the brightness of the fire behind him. There were many wounds, and all in front but they did not dare to come out of the darkness until he had fallen and lain unmoving for many minutes, and even then, though they came and stood in a great circle about him, still they did not dare come too close.
‘It was a calm night, with no wind. I could hear what they said, even though they spoke in low voices. The king’s brother Cyrus had sent the order to the governor, they said, and one man, the most richly dressed there, said “As a favour to his Spartan friend, Lysander,” and laughed.
‘As soon as they had gone, I went out, and managed to carry him in. I do not know how I managed to do this, but I took him back into the house with no one to aid me, wrapping my own clothes about him, and I washed the blood and smoke from him. I do not know the manner of honourable burial in Athens, but I did what I could in accordance with the customs of
my own people, painting the face to give it the appearance of life and health, and next day gave almost all I had to give him proper burial. I did not give all, for I kept back a little to try to carry out his last wish, and find a man to take his letter to Athens.
‘He taught me to read and write. There was little else for him to do here.
Timandra’
After a few minutes, I called to the doorkeeper, telling him I wanted to talk to him. I carefully moved out of the circle of lamplight, for I did not want him to see my face.
He came in, grumbling. Such fellows, he remarked, coming to our door would give the house a bad name. Any amount of people had seen him arguing with the man, him with his queer foreign way of talking, gabbling away. ‘And then he hadn’t got the name right, master—laugh, I couldn’t help it, fuming as I was. “Lycius, son of Polystlatus,” he said. “Son of Polystratus!” I shouted, but he shouted back, “Polystlatus!” Daft, I call it! Why, what’s wrong, master? Is your old wound troubling you?’
‘No, I’m well enough,’ I said. ‘I realised something suddenly—that’s all.’
Realised that what Xanthias had heard was the last echo of the Alcibiadean lisp—Lycius, son of Polystlatus, he had said to the frightened girl in the last moments of his life, and so she had given the name to the messenger, after his dream had been fulfilled.
48
Council in Cyprus
I did not sleep that night, with the result that next day I was not thinking very clearly. It was in no thinking mood that I did what I had always done in the past when life seemed insupportable—I went over to Salamis. It was only when I was half-way across that I remembered the purple heights floating in the golden sea no longer contained counsel or comfort for me.
Still, I sought out the cave where he had once sat looking out to sea, and wondered if his heart had ached for it in exile in the barbaric land to the north. Some fools were already talking of the ‘peace’ he had found in Macedonia, even saying that by the power he had given the god in his last play, he had renounced his old ‘atheism’. Fools—to think that he believed in that god, he who had said, ‘If the gods do evil, they are not gods’.
To talk of happiness when he wrote that terrifying play . . . I could not bring myself to re-read it, because of its horror.
Then I was remorseful, as if a quiet, friendly spirit sat with me there within sound of the waves, and the high thin calls of seabirds. Beauty must come into anything he wrote—and then suddenly I was whispering lines from even that play of cruelty and barbarism . . .
‘Where is the home for me,
O, Cyprus, set in the sea?
Aphrodite’s home in the soft sea-foam,
Would I could wend to thee.’
Tiredness makes one fanciful, but at the end I could have thought that not my voice alone was whispering the lines.
And the way had been made plain to me. I must go to Cyprus and talk to Conon.
It was difficult to sail unobtrusively from Athens; the Piraeus was still something of an empty lake. At random I invented an excuse for my travels—I gave out that I was reverting to the family tradition of horse-breeding, that I was not much impressed by anything in the way of horseflesh coming from Thessaly or Corinth these days, and had suddenly conceived the idea of breeding a new strain for myself by crossing North African and European stock. I was therefore off to Libya.
So I boarded a ship sailing for Crete on the first part of my journey, and no one in Athens was to know that at Crete I looked for a ship sailing not southwards, but to the east.
Until I talked to Conon I had not been thinking clearly. All I wanted to do was to hurt Cyrus and Lysander—it was Conon who made me understand that in doing this I might also help Athens.
I suppose in a way I can be excused for having taken little interest in the affairs of Asia after Goat River. Living—with difficulty—from day to day does not help one to have an Olympian sweep of world affairs. But Conon, who had never forgotten that without Cyrus’ enthusiastic support, Lysander would never have had that fleet, had been keeping his ears open for any news concerning him, and what he had heard was interesting.
Twice since the beginning of his brother’s reign Cyrus had been caught plotting against him. On each occasion the King had been warned by Tissaphernes who’d been blind to Cyrus’ charm ever since he had been relieved of the vice-royalty of Ionia to make way for him. On each occasion, Cyrus’ life had been saved by the intercession of his doting mother.
‘There’ll come a time, surely,’ I said, ‘when his mother won’t be there to take his part—or she will have lost her influence on his brother?’
‘It’s happened,’ said Conon. ‘The King has a good-looking, shrewd wife, who detests her mother-in-law, and is out to break her hold over her son. Cyrus, knowing this, must be feeling a little cold about his shoulders. So if he wants to stay alive, he’ll be having a third try to get his brother down—soon, too.’
‘I hope Tissaphernes warns the King in time again,’ I said. ‘Remembering what Cyrus did for Sparta as Viceroy of Ionia, what he’d do as Great King doesn’t bear thinking of.’
‘He has large ideas,’ agreed Conon. ‘Too large for his father’s liking, for a start. That’s why, weak as he was, he wouldn’t allow Cyrus to be his heir. Oh, we hear everything in Cyprus! Cyrus was too headstrong, he said—would lead Persia into dangerous ways.’
‘And what’s Cyrus doing now?’
‘Collecting troops—not to use against his brother, mind you. He says he means to take police action against mountain tribes in the province of Pisidia—he’s also going to start a private war against Tissaphernes, who told those wicked lies about him.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s possible,’ I conceded.
‘You think so?’ Conon rubbed his chin. ‘As a matter of fact, if you hadn’t turned up of your own accord, I’d have got in touch with you. Because I’ve never heard of anyone chasing mountain tribes with heavy infantry, have you?’
‘Heavy infantry? Greeks?’
‘Cyrus,’ said Conon deliberately, ‘is beginning to recruit heavy infantry all over Greece—but only in driblets, so as yet people aren’t asking awkward questions. Most he’s getting from Arcadia—people are always getting out of Arcadia, because the glens are too narrow to keep much of a population.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Oh, yes. He’s aiming at a force of ten thousand.’
After a moment’s thought: ‘Where do the Spartans come into all this?’ I asked. ‘Cyrus couldn’t use Greece as a—a recruiting ground without their consent.’
‘Simple return for past favours? He let them use Persia as their treasury.’
I said, ‘There’ll be a Spartan at his elbow commanding those troops. Thickwitted as they are, they must realise they’re unpopular even with former allies; they’d never let ten thousand troops assemble without some kind of precaution.’
‘They’re following the old pattern,’ said Conon. ‘Loaning generals, as they loaned Gylippus. But in case of trouble they’ve gone even one better this time. The fellow Cyrus is borrowing is a technical outlaw. His name’s Clearchus—in the War they sent him up to the Black Sea to cut off our corn supplies. He showed the old Spartan weakness and took bribes. He had enough sense to break prison and bolted to Asia. He’s at Ephesus with Cyrus now.’
There was another silence for a moment, broken by Conon getting up and beginning to pace restlessly up and down. ‘Cyrus is bound to win, unless he does something incredibly rash or stupid,’ he said. ‘The Greeks he’s recruiting will do the job for him—Persians can’t stand up to Greek heavy infantry.’
I found myself saying, ‘I’d better go as one of his volunteers, hadn’t I?’
Conon swung round, his eyes blazing. ‘Fight for Cyrus?’ he shouted. ‘After what he did to us a couple of years ago? And under a Spartan general?’
‘I’m under no illusions,’ I said, ‘and I’ll hate it and myself, but someone from Athens must
be on the spot to see what Cyrus and Clearchus are up to. And I know a little Persian.’
‘You do? How in the devil did you manage that?’
I stared down at my hands. ‘Callistratus learned it—when he was getting ready to go to Asia to look for his sister. He taught me.’ Then I jerked my head up and said more briskly, ‘I must invent a pressing reason for turning mercenary. I’ll lose all my money in a shipwreck, I think.’
But it took more than an hour’s argument to persuade him that I was doing the right thing. He kept saying, ‘Serving under Clearchus! If he starts treating you like a helot—’
‘He won’t. Clearchus is going to find his new command rather a novel experience—I hope. Nine out of ten of them independent Greeks who hate Sparta. And he daren’t have them deserting, because each one is precious in Cyrus’ eyes. Clearchus will have to watch his step.’
‘I shouldn’t mind seeing that myself!’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘I’ll see you’re informed.’
Then and there we settled ways of sending messages—Conon had two Cypriot servants who would be waiting at Ephesus for my arrival.
We worked out the story about the shipwreck. I had taken all my money to Libya to buy horses, the ship had sunk on the voyage from Crete, and all I had saved was my life. So I would need money badly, and must turn soldier of fortune.
I must try to get in touch with Ariston; he might share the adventure with me.
We talked of other matters too, but they belong to Conon’s story, not mine. I asked him—as I had asked him in letters enough—why he would not return to Athens, now that we had freedom, if nothing else. He said, very quietly, that he had taken a vow not to return to Athens without a fleet at his back—and the means to rebuild the Long Walls. Nothing I could say could shake him; when he escaped from Goat River, he said, he had known that the end would come soon. He had taken the vow then, and he would not break it.
The Road to Sardis Page 37
