by Peter Green
Alcibiades sat quite still, mechanically cutting at his bird-trap, incapable of thought. A tear rolled slowly down his cheek and dropped into the dust. Two days later he listened to Pericles’ funeral speech. It was a most moving occasion.
Chapter 2
The opposition had received a check, but nothing more. All through the year that followed Pericles received daily reports from his agents of seditious talk, secret meetings, rumours of illicit clubs. Alcibiades saw a good deal of these agents. Many of them were sailors; dark, heavily muscled men who spent days at a time in the taverns of the Piraeus, drinking with shopkeepers and farmers. But a few were of a different calibre: small, intelligent Ionians with white faces and restless eyes, who talked in whispers with his guardian. He began to get an insight into another side of politics.
The tactics had changed. Instead of open attack came a persistent stream of private slander and abuse. It was spread in secret, and there was no checking it. Most of it was directed personally against Pericles and Aspasia. Day by day Pericles sat, heavy-faced, silently reading every kind of vilification. Sometimes he would crumple up the papers and throw them away; more often he left them, neatly arranged, to be sorted and filed away by his secretary.
There were other and uglier rumours. After the suppression of the revolt, it was said, he had had the ships’ captains and officers of the Samian fleet crucified in the market-place of Miletus and kept alive for ten days. At the end of that time, so the story ran, they had been clubbed to death and their bodies cast out on the public rubbish-dump without burial rites. The comic poets had always made passing allusions to him. Most of them were adherents of the peace party, and violently conservative. Now they broke out in an unprecedented campaign of scurrility. Pericles was an onion-headed Zeus; the helmet he wore to conceal the deformity of his skull was pictured as the Odeum, the concert-hall he had recently completed. Aspasia, thinly disguised, figured in comedies as Hera or Heracles’ mistress Deianeira. Pericles stopped going to the theatre, but the attacks went on, and produced full houses. At length he confessed defeat, and forced through a bill in the Assembly forbidding reference to be made in plays to living political personalities.
If he expected an immediate demonstration which he could use to enforce his position, he was disappointed. An ominous quiet brooded over the City, and the playwrights complied with the new regulation without a murmur. For several evenings he sat at his desk, leaving his food untouched, reading and re-reading the meagre reports that came in. Alcibiades had never seen him look so old or tired.
It was a long time before the storm broke. The earliest warning of it came in a long and detailed agent’s report; the first substantial one to emerge since the decree. Pericles read it aloud, frowning, his lined face charged with anger.
‘It is publicly said’, he read, ‘that Pheidias the sculptor, on pretext of arranging for free-born Athenian women to view the works of art in the temple, makes assignations with them for the General. In particular, the wife of Menippus is named as having been privy to these designs—’ He broke off. ‘Menippus!’ he exclaimed: ‘it’s ridiculous. The man’s one of my oldest friends.’
Aspasia said: ‘I ought to have seen this coming. It’s my fault. You should never have passed that decree. I know you only did it for my sake.’
Pericles made a distracted gesture with one hand. ‘What can we do?’
‘Nothing,’ said Aspasia firmly. ‘If they’re going to exile Pheidias they’ll do it somehow. You’ll only weaken your own position if you try to defend him.’
‘But he’s one of my oldest friends. I can’t abandon him like this.’
Aspasia said, coolly, ‘You knew what might happen when you came to power. You can’t let personal considerations sway you now. This thing will blow over, as other things have. All you have to do is to wait.’
Pericles said: ‘I’ve provided against one charge, in any case. The most likely thing they’ll try to prove is embezzlement of material.’
Aspasia nodded.
‘Well, the gold plates are all detachable, and all secretly numbered. I had a check made with the Treasurer. He’s a man I can trust.’
‘Good so far. But they’ll find something else.’ She looked round and saw Alcibiades. ‘We must know when they’re going to move,’ she said. ‘Alcibiades can go to places where no man could and avoid suspicion.’
Alcibiades said, eagerly, ‘I’ll do anything you want me to.’
Aspasia smiled. ‘Go to Pheidias,’ she said. ‘Tell him what you know, and warn him to be prepared to leave Athens if necessary. Then go down to the Port. That’s where they hold their meetings. Find out what you can.’
Alcibiades went out and came back wrapped in a cloak. It was dark outside. Aspasia suddenly said, ‘Take care of yourself, my darling,’ and kissed him.
It was a warm summer night, but he found himself trembling uncontrollably.
• • • • •
He found Pheidias alone in his house. The old man made him sit down and poured him a cup of wine. Then he said: ‘I fancy I know why you’re here, boy.’ His eyes still twinkled indomitably under the bushy brows.
Alcibiades rapidly told him all he knew. Pheidias nodded. ‘I thought as much,’ he said. ‘Listen, Alcibiades. I love my City. That sounds trite enough, doesn’t it? But I love her enough not to run away at the first breath of trouble. If they want to bring me to trial, here I stand: they can come and fetch me. When you’re my age, you think twice about setting out on your travels.’
Alcibiades said nothing. Pheidias took a long pull at his wine and went on: ‘They can hardly condemn me to death. At the worst I shall have to do what you’re trying to make me do now. And if I run away, everyone will take it as an admission of guilt. Besides, it’d be denying too much; I should, by that one action, abrogate all that we have worked and fought for for twenty years.’ He finished his drink and said: ‘Tell Pericles that I’m much obliged to him for his warning, but that I shall stay here.’ He glanced at the boy’s cloak. ‘Where are you off to now?’ he asked.
‘Down to the Port. I may be able to pick up some scraps of news.’
‘No need, my boy. Do you think I haven’t kept myself informed? I’ll tell you exactly what’s going to happen. They’ve suborned one of my assistants. A fellow called Menon. He was the man who spread that story about the temple being turned into a high-class brothel.’ He chuckled. ‘I rather liked that. Don’t tell your guardian I said so. Imaginative touch. But heavens above, can you imagine the Olympian in your wildest dreams ever—’ He broke off. ‘Now where was I? Ah yes. Well, the plan is, I’m told, that Menon is going to inform against me in the Assembly. If I guess rightly, he’ll take the suppliant’s seat and demand immunity from punishment in return for information beneficial to the well-being of the State.’ He chewed the words over thoughtfully.
‘The question is,’ he resumed after a pause, ‘the question is, what’s the charge going to be?’ He sat back in his chair, very cheerful and red-faced, ticking points off on his fingers. Alcibiades stared at him, slightly perplexed.
‘Well, as Pericles may have told you, they can’t get anywhere with an embezzlement charge. That leaves blasphemy and’—he hesitated, and his voice changed—‘a little matter of detail in a certain shield you may remember seeing. That’s really blasphemy too, I suppose. I don’t know if they’ve found it yet, though. No, I think we can be pretty sure that blasphemy it’ll be, in the long run.’
Alcibiades said: ‘When do you expect the accusation?’
‘Any day now. Don’t look so sad, boy. I’m an old man. I can’t complain.’
‘But it’s all so unfair! You haven’t had anything to do with politics.’
Pheidias said: ‘If you’re going to survive in this city you’ll have to grow up fast. It doesn’t matter to them how far I’m involved. I’m a friend of Pericles. To them I merely represent a way of attacking him.’
‘Do they hate him so much, then?’
‘Him, and everything he stands for. One of these days you’ll learn that an idea can produce more hatred than a man; but it’s easier to kill the man. So you identify the two.’ He yawned and stretched his arms. ‘I’m going to bed,’ he said. ‘Come to the trial, young Alcibiades. It’ll teach you more than you’d ever learn at school.’
As he stepped out into the street Alcibiades saw the old sculptor snuff the lamp with a strong finger and thumb.
• • • • •
The formal accusation in the Assembly came three days later, and the preliminaries went very much as Pheidias had predicted. Alcibiades managed to get through the crowd on the first morning of the trial, and watched Menon’s performance in the Suppliant’s Chair at the altar. There was a strained attentive silence, broken only by Menon’s voice. Then the President whispered with his colleagues, and immunity was conferred. The crowd sighed in anticipation, and Menon embarked on his indictment.
He began with the embezzlement. Alcibiades felt relief as he watched Pheidias’ face. But more was to come. Menon nerved himself, took a deep breath, and said:
‘There is a further charge I have to bring, gentlemen. It too is connected with the statue of the Goddess entrusted to this man’s execution. I worked with him on this task. It was part of the design approved, gentlemen, to design upon the Goddess’s shield the battle of the Amazons . . .’ Alcibiades bit his lips. Menon went on to describe what he himself had seen a year before. ‘Therefore, gentlemen,’ he concluded, ‘I submit that Pheidias be publicly tried before you on these charges: embezzlement and impiety.’ He sat down, pale and sweating. I wonder how much they paid him, thought the boy. He looked round the crowded Assembly at all the solemn appurtenances of Justice, and began to laugh hysterically. The man next to him told him to hold his peace. The voting was taking place.
Alcibiades waited, his palms damp. The crowd seemed to him like a many-headed monster, licking its lips, waiting for a fresh victim. Yet, he thought, there must be many, many here who wish him well; who would not lift a hand to strike him or harm him in any way of their own accord.
The voice of the President of the Assembly rang out, with a sonorous and dignified preamble. Alcibiades heard nothing: in sudden fear he had clapped his hands over his ears, shutting out the words he dreaded. But nothing could drown the roar that went up from the Assembly, or disguise the unmistakable sound of a vindictive mob. The full meaning of what had happened came home to the boy. Trembling, he thought: I loved him. I’ve known him for years, and I never realised it. He’s been more of a father to me than Pericles ever could be.
But there was a hush in the crowd, and he suddenly realised that Pericles was speaking, breaking down the embezzlement charge with facts and figures. Oh stop it, stop it, thought Alcibiades to himself; you’re not doing any good. Don’t you see that the rest will stand? Do you have to expose yourself like this? But as he asked himself, he knew that the gesture had to be made; and that if he stood in Pericles’ shoes, he would have to make it himself, or never feel a man again.
The President noted down details, and presently thanked the General, in a dry voice, for his information. Alcibiades saw two Thracian guards standing on either side of Pheidias. He turned away and left, not waiting for the Assembly to break up.
The next day Pheidias was formally tried and condemned: not to exile, as he himself had predicted, but to life imprisonment. Pericles saw him before he was taken away. He said to Aspasia, wearily: ‘He was so cheerful. I could have stood it better if he’d been heartbroken, or reproachful with me. But he said he was a lazy old fellow, and prison was an ideal place for him. He certainly seemed well enough.’
A week later, Pheidias was dead. The prison authorities gave the cause as heart failure, due to old age. It did not take long for one of Pericles’ agents to establish beyond doubt that Pheidias had been poisoned. In the same report came the news that Menon had been granted immunity from taxation. When Pericles came back from the Assembly and read this, he said: ‘He might have added that the people—wisely, I fancy—commanded the Board of Generals to make especial provision for Menon’s personal safety.’ He began to laugh bitterly. ‘I am chief General,’ he said.
Chapter 3
During the four following years Alcibiades forgot the political troubles which had made such an impression on him at the time. With the death of Pheidias the attacks largely ceased. After a year Pericles rescinded his veto on the playwrights’ freedom of speech; but few took advantage of it. Alcibiades left school, and began to haunt the philosophers and travelling quacks in the market. He also began to take an interest in horses. Pericles spent nearly a year away in Thrace, cruising round the Black Sea and establishing trading posts on the coasts of the rich Crimea cornland. He wrote several letters to Aspasia. He had established a new city, he wrote in one of them: it was called Amphipolis, and was situated on the River Strymon. There followed several pages of its possibilities: the timber to be worked, mines to be sunk, the Thracian trade-routes to be watched. Aspasia read it all, found nothing further, sighed, and went about her daily tasks.
One summer afternoon, nearly three years after Pheidias’ death, Alcibiades returned home after an exasperating morning in the Market. A consignment of Thessalian horses had been shipped in the day before, and he had gone with Xanthippus and Paralus to watch the auctioning. He had been fascinated by the scene: the tense ring of bidders, the Thessalian grooms with their queer clipped dialect and big capable hands; and the horses themselves. They were stocky and heavy-shouldered, quick-footed and shaggy-maned, and each one was branded in the shoulder. The air was full of the smell of sweat and straw and dung.
‘They’re chariot horses,’ he said, excitedly. Xanthippus nodded. He was chewing a straw, and his underlip dropped as he stared into the middle distance.
Alcibiades followed the circle with his eye; and suddenly he knew that he would never be happy till he owned his own team of horses. He spoke his thoughts aloud. ‘I’ll enter a chariot for the Games,’ he said, his eyes sparkling. ‘No—wait—not one chariot—two, three, more still!’ Paralus laughed sourly and said: ‘Well, there’s nothing to stop you, is there?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t you know? Do you think your father didn’t provide for you? There’s plenty of money for you when you come of age. And an estate out in the country.’
Alcibiades, who had plied his guardian with political questions at an age when most boys were still playing dice and learning Homer, had never thought till that moment of how he would live when he left Pericles’ house. Pericles had never mentioned his father to him, nor discussed his affairs. He suddenly saw a golden prospect opening before him. He listened to the prices being bid for the horses; and the figure which a moment ago had seemed astronomical now swam temptingly within reach. He remained staring until the last one had been sold.
He found Aspasia in her room at the back of the house, behind the courtyard. She said, smiling: ‘Aren’t you a little too old to come visiting in the women’s quarters?’ She was wearing a long white diaphanous dress through which her brown limbs were faintly shadowed. She stretched herself on the day-bed. ‘What are you so excited about? she asked.
Alcibiades told her. Her eyes opened. ‘Yes, of course it’s true,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how much there is exactly, but Cleinias wasn’t a poor man by any means.’
Alcibiades said: ‘I want to buy a chariot. I want to wear fine clothes like Hipponicus.’ His eyes glowed. Aspasia laughed.
‘Wait a bit! You aren’t of age yet. Till you are, Pericles administers your estate for you. And I can’t see him financing you in race-horses.’ She laid a hand on his arm. ‘It’s not so bad, my dear. You’ll be enrolled a citizen next year. You should get your estate at least then.’
Alcibiades sat down on the bed beside her. He was suddenly terribly aware of the warm scented body lying so close to him.
‘Couldn’t you persuade him to let me have a horse? His blond loc
ks fell untidily over his forehead. He watched Aspasia, saw the pupils of her eyes contract strangely, and become suffused. He realised that her whole body was trembling. He bent towards her, slightly, the merest gesture, hardly knowing what he did; and then her arms were round his neck and she had pulled him down on to her fiercely and violently. Her mouth found his and devoured it. He had never known such kisses before. In a whirling daze his hands instinctively sought and found her breasts. A red-hot iron seemed to stab through his belly. Then the mists cleared, and he found himself on his feet again, shaking and crying. Aspasia lay where she had been, her knees drawn up, her breasts bare. As he watched, her whole body was racked by an enormous shuddering, that seemed to spring from her loins and radiate to every limb. It was something organic, a metamorphosis.
He stared, appalled, in his confusion feeling himself to blame. Slowly the spasms became less violent; and then he saw her relax completely. Her face returned to its normal lazy expression, and she looked up at him and smiled.
‘I—I thought you were ill,’ he stammered. Aspasia laughed, a deep, contented laugh. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not ill. Come here, my darling.’ He stood irresolute, then went to her, feeling empty and ashamed. Aspasia stroked his hair gently, and then kissed him, barely brushing his lips with hers. You shall have your horse,’ she murmured, her mouth buried in his hair: ‘you shall have your horse.’ He got up again. Aspasia made no move. Overcome by shyness and confusion, he turned to the door.
