by Peter Green
‘Take?’ queried Pericles, frowning.
‘It would be best if you commanded in person. While feeling is running so high it might, be impolitic for you to remain here. By the time you return victorious public indignation may have subsided.’
He hesitated. ‘In any case,’ he concluded, ‘such a step could do you nothing but good. You know, of course, what the playwrights and lampoonists have been saying.’
‘Hermippus?’ said Pericles, and quoted:
O King of the Satyrs, why will you not
Take the spear in your hand, and abandon the brave
Words that you wage the war with?
‘Precisely.’
Pericles thought for a moment. Then he said: ‘I think your plan has much to recommend it. How many heavy-armed troops can we dispose of now?’
‘About eight thousand: perhaps more.’
Pericles said: ‘Four thousand will be enough.’
‘Where will you go?’
‘Epidaurus. If we can capture it we shall have a port in the Argolid.’
It was on the tip of Hagnon’s tongue to raise Demosthenes’ proposal for the occupation of Cythera, but he restrained himself.
‘Even supposing you take Epidaurus—and it’s very heavily fortified—can you hold it with infantry alone?’
‘I had thought of that. How many old galleys have we got laid up in the port unfit for war-service?’
‘About a hundred.’
‘Good. Take fifty of them, have the benches knocked out and stalls put in, and we can use them as horse transports.’ Pericles calculated for a moment. ‘Allow six horses, their equipment and riders, and enough forage to last them the voyage, to each ship,’ he said. ‘That means we can take three hundred. It should be enough.’
‘What about the other four thousand? Are you going to leave them in Athens for defence?’
‘No,’ said Pericles decisively. ‘You’re going to take them.’
‘Where?’
‘To Potidaea.’
‘But there are enough troops tied up there as it is.’
‘Exactly. The sooner the place is taken—and it must be taken—the better. In a sense you’ll be going as a replacement. I’m recalling Phormio. His sixteen hundred men should be enough to fortify Athens.’
‘When do you wish me to sail?’ asked Hagnon.
‘Immediately after me. But wait till Phormio returns to relieve you. You can use the intervening time to restore order in the City. I will arrange for this task to be placed in your hands.’
‘And when are you leaving yourself?’
‘As soon as possible. Perhaps within two days, if the arrangements can be made.’ He drained his wine. ‘Good-night,’ he said abruptly, and was gone.
Hagnon sat for a long time listening to the tumult outside. Then he poured himself another cup of wine, drank it quickly, and went to bed.
• • • • •
Alcibiades and Adeimantus watched Hagnon’s troops disembarking with the lazy indifference born of long campaigning experience. Both had changed a good deal in the two years they had spent abroad. Adeimantus was swarthier than ever, his skin the colour of a walnut, his beard a luxuriant blue-black. Alcibiades’ blond hair, on the other hand, was bleached almost white by sun and salt; his rangy coltishness had filled out; and the puckered scar running down his left cheek gave him a curiously distinguished air. He lay on his stomach on the springy grass, shading his eyes with his hands against the glare of the midday sun.
Each galley discharged its complement in turn; they splashed through the shallows to the narrow shelving beach, looking around nervously as if expecting an attack from the bushes. Archestratus and some of his senior officers were there to meet them.
‘This is more promising,’ said Alcibiades. ‘They’ve brought some siege equipment.’ He pointed to where a score of men were manoeuvring a large battering-ram ashore. Others were carrying scaling ladders. ‘It looks as if Hagnon means business.’
‘A bit late in the day,’ said Adeimantus. ‘Since Phormio enforced the sea blockade they haven’t been able to get any supplies into the town. I’ve heard they’ve been reduced to eating the dogs.’
Hagnon’s troops had by now joined a detachment of the besiegers stationed on the seaward end of the earthworks, and an animated discussion was taking place. The two young men strolled over to hear the latest news from Athens.
• • • • •
Hagnon’s first attack failed; and within a week it became appallingly clear that the troops he had brought from Athens were infected. The camp had not even the scanty medical equipment available in the City, and the veteran besiegers learnt at first hand the nature of the calamity they had hitherto avoided. Under a blazing August sun, short of water, the salt from the sea-winds scouring them pitilessly, they died in their hundreds. It was impossible to bury them in the hard ground, and there was not enough timber to build them funeral pyres. Accordingly they were thrown into the sea; and their white and swollen bodies, halfpicked by fish, drove backwards and forwards with the tides, and were fought over by screaming gulls. Another attack was out of the question. After a month Hagnon had lost more than a thousand of his original force, and decided to evacuate the position, leaving behind the veteran corps he had come to assist.
But when he set sail, one lowering September morning, and headed across the Thermaic Gulf to the coast of Magnesia on the first stage of his voyage home, Alcibiades went with him.
• • • • •
Badly mauled, the plague raging among his men, Pericles limped back to Athens from Epidaurus. He summoned the Assembly the day after his decimated fleet anchored in the Piraeus, to be greeted by the ironic cheers and angry murmurings of a near-mutinous dockside crowd. The expedition had been a complete failure, and there was no disguising the fact; it had done him considerably more harm than good. Athens during his absence had been reduced to some sort of order; if the ravages of the plague had not been checked, at least there were visible signs of action. Hagnon had done his work well. But no policing could crush the slowly mounting tide of hysteria that the events of the past few weeks had provoked. In the Port or the City, everywhere Pericles was aware of glances of hatred, of knots of men talking in whispers at street corners, who became silent as he passed by.
Despite the confusion that still reigned, the Assembly was well attended. Pericles had expected some sort of angry demonstration when he stepped forward to speak; instead he was greeted by a silence that was considerably more unpleasant. He seemed, however, unaffected by it.
‘Your indignation at me,’ he began smoothly, ‘did not take me unawares: I knew the reasons for it. Why have I called this Assembly? First, to remind you of certain facts which you may have forgotten. Secondly, to protest against any unreasonable annoyance you may feel at me, or any excessive depression that your sufferings may have induced.’ A growl of anger ran round the assembled multitude. There were no words distinguishable; it seemed merely an inarticulate protest against these well-worn and complacent phrases.
‘I believe that private citizens benefit more from the greatness of the State than from any individual well-being that carries public shame in its wake. However affluent a man may be, if his country is ruined he is ruined with it. But if the State flourishes, it can always preserve any unlucky individual.’ A voice shouted from the crowd: ‘Do you think Athens is flourishing, Olympian?’ and was immediately drowned in a roar of laughter. ‘You’ve ruined us fast enough,’ called another: ‘you can’t help yourself, let alone anyone else.’ ‘What were you doing at Epidaurus, General? Discussing philosophy?’
For two or three minutes pandemonium reigned. When at last Pericles could get a hearing again, he resumed his speech exactly where he had left off, with no reference to his interrupters whatsoever. They were puzzled by such cavalier treatment, and he got through the rest of his speech more or less untroubled. He only once referred to the plague, and then in the most general terms. ‘The hand o
f Heaven,’ he cried, ‘must be suffered with resignation; that of the enemy with courage. Thus it was in Athens in time gone by; and I should be sorry to see it changed today.’ His listeners gasped and said nothing. There was really nothing to say. He ended with a rhetorical flourish, calling upon them to face the future with courage. Only then did a yell of execration burst from their throats, that rang round the City and was faintly audible in the port five miles away. In silence Pericles descended from the rostrum and made his way out, thickly hedged about with Thracian guards. After this speech everyone knew that his prosecution would only be a matter of time.
In fact it did not come till Hagnon returned from Potidaea, his ship-loads of sick and dying a mute witness to yet another enterprise that had wretchedly failed. As soon as he landed he went to see Pericles. He found him at home, looking feverish and worn, and coughing a good deal when he talked.
When he had heard Hagnon’s account of doings at Potidaea, Pericles smiled and said: ‘We neither of us seem to have found particular favour with the Gods, do we?’
Hagnon shook his head. ‘The people accuse us of plain inefficiency.’
‘Could we have allowed for the plague? Hagnon, there are times when I ask myself why I have spent a life in public service. I have worn out my strength in working for Athens; and now when I need support more than ever before, she turns against me.’
‘There is going to be a prosecution, then?’
‘Yes. Cleon is behind it, of course. But he’s using rather different tactics from what I expected. He’s got hold of a priest to bring the charge: he’s going to make a religious issue out of it.’
‘The burden of it being, I suppose, that you have misappropriated the Goddess’s funds.’
‘Exactly. And in the strictly technical sense I suppose I have. What the fools can’t see is that if I hadn’t spent it on what I did, a Spartan garrison would be on the Acropolis at this moment.’
‘You can hardly expect dispassionate thinking from a large body of people just now. And you can’t really blame Cleon and his party for taking advantage of it.’
‘Is this a time for party politics?’ asked Pericles. He coughed violently and wiped his forehead. ‘But never mind about that. The fact is that this charge is coming up within the next few days, and it seems there is nothing that can be done about it.’
Hagnon said seriously: ‘You know what the maximum penalty is on a religious charge of this sort?’
‘Of course. Cleon’s not the man to let such a chance slip. He’s proposing that the trial should take place before a special jury with ballot-slips specially dedicated on the Goddess’s altar.’
‘Ingenious if blatant. Is there any possible chance of presenting accounts that the Assembly will pass?’
‘None whatsoever, I’m afraid.’
‘In that case,’ said Hagnon, ‘our only chance is to get the trial transferred to a normal jury, and press for a fine. There’s no doubt what verdict they’ll bring.’
‘No.’
‘I think, too, that if a fairly large fine, is exacted, public feeling will probably be satisfied. But I am afraid you will also be deposed from your command.’ Pericles stared at him incredulously. ‘It’s the least you can expect. On the other hand, after everybody’s had time to cool down, they’ll probably realise that you’re indispensable.’
‘I only hope that may not be too late.’
‘The campaigning season is practically over,’ said Hagnon as cheerfully as he could. ‘I doubt whether anything important can be done during the winter months. For the immediate present, though, I must think how this trial is to be arranged. It’s a difficult business. I must have help.’
‘If money is any use—’
‘No, it’s not that sort of a problem. Enough public opinion of an influential sort must be won over to sway the Assembly. I think Nicias is probably my man. He doesn’t count for much in a general way, but he has a large number of powerful friends. And no one can question his piety or good faith.’
‘True enough. Very well. I leave it in your hands.’
Hagnon hesitated and then said: ‘I brought young Alcibiades back with me.’
‘Did you?’ Pericles’ voice was calm and uninterested.
‘I don’t know what the reason is for your quarrel with him,’ Hagnon said, with painful honesty, ‘but at the moment you need all the friends you can get. Alcibiades has the makings of a fine general and statesman in him. His record as a soldier at Potidaea was excellent. He is a man I would rather have as a friend than an enemy.’ He paused. ‘Shall I tell him to come and see you?’
‘Hagnon: I respect you as a friend; I am grateful for what you are doing for me; but I would take it as a favour if you would refrain from meddling in my private affairs.’
‘I’m sorry. But I still believe I’m right.’ Pericles said nothing; and Hagnon took his leave.
• • • • •
As Alcibiades walked through the streets of the port, all at first seemed much as usual. Trade, at any rate, was undiminished: money was still more powerful than the fear of death, he thought, as he watched the big foreign merchantmen loading up at the quayside. It was only gradually that the true situation became apparent: a wine-shop that he had frequented now silent and boarded-up; two men carrying a rough makeshift coffin through the streets, and people making way for them as they passed.
Then, as he trudged up the five mile road to the City, he came upon the new mushroom town that had sprung up since his departure: row upon row of ramshackle hovels and tents, interspersed with smoking fires and hucksters’ stalls. Here men seemed too weary or dispirited even to talk. They sat in the autumn sunshine, gazing at nothing. Inaction hung heavy over this slumberous warren. Only here and there rose the thin keening cry of despair that told of another death. It was then that he missed the familiar birds of prey in the sky.
He passed slowly along the familiar road, his heavily-shod feet ringing on the flags. He noticed that many of the tombs by the roadside were falling into disrepair from neglect. At the Piraeus gate into the City he was challenged by the sentries: at first sight they failed to recognise him. When they did they greeted him with enthusiasm, plying him with questions about the siege. But he gave them brief and absentminded answers; and after a moment left them, walking as if in a dream down the broad thoroughfare through the Smiths’ Quarter. As he passed inside he noticed the tents erected on the city walls; and all the way across Athens he had almost to fight his way through crowds of farmers and field workers who thronged the streets. The gutters were piled high with refuse, and the smell was abominable.
Axiochus greeted him warmly. Neither war nor plague seemed to have affected either him or his establishment. He was paler than Alcibiades remembered him, with the unhealthy pallor of the drunkard who spends most of his time indoors. He embraced his nephew warmly, and sent his slaves scurrying for washing water, wine, and the evening meal.
‘I won’t bore you by asking about the campaign,’ he said. ‘Let me bore you instead.’
Alcibiades sat down and stretched out his legs. ‘Thanks for the consideration. What’s been happening since you wrote? You have the air of a man with a secret.’
Axiochus smiled almost deprecatingly. ‘I must confess I’ve been busy,’ he admitted. ‘I suppose you’ve heard about Pericles?’
‘Yes. Hagnon told me. When’s the trial?’
‘It’s fixed for the day after tomorrow.’
‘What do you think the result will be?’
‘No doubt at all,’ said Axiochus emphatically. ‘He’s as guilty as he could be. There’s a strong body of opinion against him, anyway. The verdict’s a foregone conclusion.’
Alcibiades eyed his uncle thoughtfully. ‘One gathers you don’t disapprove.’
‘Disapprove.? Why should I? The man’s a public danger. Ruining Athens. All these fanatics are the same; they never know when to stop.’
The slave came in with a large flagon of wine and poured ou
t two measures. For a moment or so uncle and nephew drank in silence, watching one another carefully. Then Axiochus went on: ‘I told you a good deal of what I thought in my letter. By the way, I hope you destroyed it?’
Alcibiades nodded without replying. Axiochus stared at the scarred, impassive face. ‘You’ve grown up a good deal since I saw you last,’ he said at length.
‘You’ve changed somewhat yourself.’ The young man’s voice was wary.
Axiochus suddenly burst out: ‘Good God, man! Are you standing up for Pericles? You haven’t any particular reason to be grateful to him.’
‘No. But I’m not a complete fool. I’m not going to argue about the rights or wrongs of this war. The only thing that matters for the moment is winning it.’
‘You’re not as clever as I thought you were. Haven’t you considered the possibility of a negotiated peace?’
‘Of course. But Sparta will never negotiate with Pericles. The Spartans know too well what he stands for.’
‘Doesn’t that suggest anything to you?’ asked Axiochus.
Alcibiades said softly: ‘I see. A revolution.’
‘That’s rather a crude word. Should we say the transfer of the government to the responsible members of the community?’
‘My dear uncle: you accused me a moment ago of lack of cleverness, but you’re dealing entirely in abstractions yourself. For all practical purposes Pericles is Athens. If he’s deposed there’ll be complete chaos. None of his own followers have the calibre to succeed him. Cleon and his group are only waiting for the chance to seize power. And you sit here plotting to restore an oligarchy. Haven’t you got any practical sense at all?’
Axiochus said: ‘Cleon has been very useful to us. We have had no part in Pericles’ impeachment. All we have to do is to wait for, the chaos and take advantage of it.’
‘I suppose it was you who sent those envoys to Sparta asking for terms?’
‘Yes. Our journey was not so entirely profitless as you may have been led to believe.’
