by Peter Green
• • • • •
Alcibiades lay at his ease on the famous day-bed he had had slung in the stern of his trireme, and lazily watched the rowers bending to their task as the quayside of the Piraeus slid slowly towards them. He looked lean and fit, and exceptionally pleased with himself. His trip down the Ionian coast had been a great success. The Persian pavilion he had acquired was even more lavish in design than he had hoped; many other gifts of Eastern dress, turbans and jewels and fine shoes, had been pressed on him; and when it came to a question of provisions, the cities he had visited were only too willing to compound for such bulky and perishable stuff with payment in gold.
As the trireme slid alongside the dock, he stood up, still wrapped in the gorgeous purple and gold cloak he had been presented with at Ephesus. He hesitated a moment; then stripped it off and tossed it to a slave, leaving only a plain white tunic. Ahead of him he could see the squat heavy merchant craft which had accompanied him on his tour; it was already secured, and the crew were driving off the herd of black Phrygian oxen with which it had been laden. He smiled in satisfaction; then glanced at the milling crowd awaiting his disembarkation to see if any of his friends were there. If he had expected a reception, he was disappointed. The only familiar face was that of his uncle. Axiochus stood alone, leaning on a pile of barrels, without even a slave to attend him. Alcibiades frowned. Something must be wrong.
He went quickly down the gangway with his long springy stride, and greeted Axiochus with a cheerfulness he was far from feeling.
‘You had a successful trip I see,’ said his uncle, watching the efforts of the slaves to drive the unruly oxen away.
‘It could have been worse . . .’
Axiochus said, his eyes on the ground: ‘I have bad news for you.’
‘Bad news? Has Nicias—’
‘Nothing to do with politics. It’s about your wife.’
Alcibiades said stupidly, trying to adjust his thoughts, ‘Hipparete?’
‘You knew she would bear her child while you were away,’ said Axiochus, looking at him for the first time; ‘the child she could ill afford to bear. Yet you were determined to go. I might have known better than to believe you’d give her a thought while you were away.’
‘The child is delivered?’ asked Alcibiades eagerly.
‘It is.’
‘Is it . . . is it a boy?’
Axiochus nodded.
Alcibiades clapped his uncle on the back. ‘What more could I have asked for?’ he cried. ‘Come, we must drink to the child’s health, now, this moment.’
Bubbling over with enthusiasm, he took Axiochus by the arm, and began to walk off towards the nearest harbour tavern. Then he looked at his uncle’s face, and stopped.
‘What are you so glum about? Is this a moment for sadness?’
Axiochus said: ‘Have you forgotten your wife?’
‘Of course not . . . I . . . What do you mean?’
‘Hipparete is dead.’
For an instant the swarming many-coloured harbour faded away. The bright day seemed to turn to darkness; Alcibiades was conscious of a feeling of vertigo, and instinctively put out a hand to steady himself. In a shocked voice he said: ‘She died in childbirth?’
‘Yes. She was never strong. You knew that. And after the first time she should never have had another child.’
‘When was this?’
‘A week ago,’ said Axiochus.
‘She is buried?’
‘With her father. We waited till yesterday, but you did not come. Then we could wait no longer.’
‘But the child is well?’
‘The child is well. One of your slave-women is nursing it.’
Alcibiades made a futile gesture with his hand. Axiochus had never seen him more helpless. The effect of the news was as startling as Alcibiades’ previous indifference had been shocking. Axiochus said: ‘What will you do now?’
Alcibiades only half-heard the words, fighting with the black desolation that was surging up to engulf him. He saw, now for the first time, how without realising it he had come to depend on the quiet woman whom for seven years he had, at the worst, cruelly misused; at the best, taken for granted. But the sorrow he felt was at least equalled by the overriding shame at the knowledge of his own weakness. It was with an immense effort that he steeled himself to say: ‘You ask what I shall do? I shall go to the Games.’
‘Now? At once?’ Axiochus was shocked out of his habitual dispassionateness.
‘As soon as I have made all necessary preparations. Gods above, uncle! Would you have me sit in my house and mourn like any woman? The world can’t be held up because of my loss.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘Afterwards,’ said Alcibiades, ‘afterwards, there is Sicily.’ He turned as he went and said over his shoulder, with some effort at his old insouciance: ‘Don’t worry, uncle. I shall see that the child is well cared for.’
Axiochus watched the tall elegant figure plunging through the crowd till it was lost from sight. He has seen everything and learnt nothing, he thought, except to handle power as if it were a toy, because he has always won it easily. He is thirty-five years old. But he is still a child.
• • • • •
From all corners of the Greek world competitors and pilgrims were pouring into the little town of Olympia in the west of the Peloponnese. In every state of the mainland the sacred heralds had proclaimed a month’s truce for the festival; and now the roads were choked with chariots and foot-travellers, litters and horses, all making for the tiny plateau under the mountains where two famous rivers met. There were Spartans and Athenians, men of Corinth or Argos, raw-boned islanders with their rough, hardly intelligible dialects, men from the hills of Aetolia and Acarnania, swarthy Sicilians from Gela or Syracuse or Acragas. For months they had trained and laboured, spending their own and their country’s money; and now they came to the test under a blazing August sun, their only reward a crown of wild olive, a victor’s statue, and lasting fame.
In three hundred years Olympia had grown from an insignificant village to something approaching a city: a city whose entire existence was dedicated to the pursuit of athletics, and which for three years and eleven months remained in sleepy oblivion. But for the eighth month of each fourth year it was transformed. Till then it was a museum, empty and deserted but for caretakers and workmen and a handful of innkeepers. The stadium and racecourse gleamed white and empty in the sun. The stables and gymnasia, the banqueting halls, the offices of the judges, the colonnades were all bare and silent; the taverns only frequented by some casual traveller from Pyrgus to Arcadia, or a sun-blackened labourer strayed in from the fields.
But now the sacred city was transformed. The wide streets were packed with sightseers, all talking excitedly in many tongues, a motley shifting pattern of dress, where the short brown Spartan kilt mingled with the gorgeous cloaks of Corinthian or Milesian businessmen. Indeed, the Olympian Festival seemed devoted as much to trade as athletics or religion. In every available space hucksters plied their wares; the pavements were blocked with quack doctors and astrologers, sellers of patent salves and liniments for wrestlers or horses, itinerant poets and philosophers bawling their works at the tops of their voices, and offering copies of them for sale. Every bed in the inns had been bespoken months before; and the weary pilgrims who arrived late could be seen every night, wrapped in their cloaks, close-packed in the colonnades and public porticoes. Despite strict prohibitions on betting, every corner marked the stand of some plausible tipster, usually a Syrian or Phrygian who had no scruples about making open profit from Greece’s greatest international festival. Prices were regulated by the stewards of the Games, but still scandalous; and more money changed hands in a month at Olympia than anywhere else in Greece during a whole year. One most profitable sideline was debarred from exploitation; no woman was allowed to set foot within the precincts.
Alcibiades, armed with the gold of Chios and Ephesus, found no trouble in stabl
ing his teams and finding lodgings for himself and his charioteers. The taut, expectant atmosphere with its hectic undercurrent of chicanery suited his mood exactly: he spent an idle day wandering round, admiring the treasuries of the various states, with their gold plate and tripods and vases; watching competitors practising in the gymnasia under the stern watch of the Stewards. In the afternoon he and his Thracian groom, together with many other competitors, took his first two pairs out to get used to the unfamiliar track, with its dazzling marble barriers and the sharp treacherous turn at either end of a mile-long stretch. They drove easily, keeping the horses in check, watching for patches of crumbling ground, any irregularity of surface.
The chariot-races were held on the second day of the festival. The first was spent by competitors and judges alike in prescribed sacrifices—where Alcibiades’ lavish dispatch of his black Phrygian steers caused considerable comment even in a place where lavishness was expected—and the administration of oaths. Alcibiades swore without concern to obey the rules of the Games, and had no difficulty in proving himself of pure Greek stock; when he further blandly affirmed that he was not disqualified by any political or moral considerations, some eyebrows were raised among those who knew of his reputation. But the Stewards made no comment.
• • • • •
By noon the preliminary heats had been run off, and Alcibiades had good cause for his exultant mood. Of the seven teams he had entered, three, including his own, had won through to the finals and now the ten surviving entrants were lined up for the final course which would, after this morning of nerve-racking strain, set the coveted crown on one man’s head.
Alcibiades glanced along the line. He had drawn a good position, two from the inner barrier; and of the teams between him and it one was his own third pair. He saw two Syracusans, with their compact high-stepping island horses, heavy of shoulder and awkward of gait, that had won the prize so many times in the past; a Corinthian, leaning over to stroke his sweating mares, fresh from their last heat. He was aware that his hands were damp and aching from the control they had exercised during the past hours. His face was covered in dust and sweat; the delirious roar of the crowd still rang in his ears. He was very near the point of nervous exhaustion; yet he stood awaiting the starter’s signal as if it were the first race of the day. Nothing could go wrong now. He knew every inch of that gruelling track; the dip on the first bend where he had forced his near-side competitor into the barricade, the, slight but deceptive rise towards the finishing post. He was trembling with excitement; and when the arm with its blazing torch fell, it seemed that his stallions had recognised the signal themselves, and plunged forward without waiting for his word of command.
For an instant it seemed as if the two teams to his right would bunch in front of him; and for the first time he used his whip. The stallions snorted with rage, gathering up their strength for this final effort, and in a flash he was through and beyond the rest, hugging the inner rail, the thudding of hooves and the yells of the spectators mingling in his ears. He made the turn at breakneck speed, never leaving the barrier for more than a yard, tilting crazily on his nearside wheel. The crowd gasped. Then close behind him, out of the corner of his eye, he saw two flying manes slowly drawing level with him, and laid on his lash again. It was not till the two chariots were racing neck and neck, less than a foot separating their wheels, that he saw that his rival was his own Thracian groom. Furiously he bent forward; his whip cut a dark line through the gleaming heaving backs in front of him. But he was a good enough team-driver to know when he was getting the last ounce out of his horses. Then—as if by a miracle—the big greys that clung to him like a shadow slid imperceptibly backwards again. For an instant his eyes met those of the Thracian: then they were both over the line, with hardly a yard between them.
Five minutes later Alcibiades, sick and faint, heard the heralds proclaim that his team had won first, second and fourth places, and that he himself would receive the crown from the hands of the judges. But when the Thracian offered him his congratulations he said nothing.
For three days he lay in his lodgings, the tide of reaction weighing heavily on him, ignoring the messages of congratulation that poured in from all quarters, asleep when the Athenian sacred envoys to the Games paid their respects in person. Out in the blazing heat the foot-races were being run, and after them came boxing matches and wrestling bouts, javelin-throwing and, last of all, a gruelling race for men in full armour. But on the fifth day he rose and put on his finest robes, and made the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Then, his fair head crowned with wild olive, he rode in procession with his fellow-victors to the banquet which had been prepared for them, the gold and silver vessels lent by Athens to grace the festival carried behind him, the tumultuous cheers of the great crowd beating in deafening waves against his ears. He sat very high and straight on his horse, the scarlet and gold trappings shining bright through the dust, the smoky torches flaring into the evening sky and picking out the jewels that studded his belt, the great gold brooch on his shoulder. His face betrayed no sign of triumph, nor any emotion; his eyes were ahead of him, and he looked neither to right nor left to acknowledge the acclamations that were being showered on him. But his heart was beating like a drum; it was his moment of vindication, of absolute power. Now, he thought, I have had the omen. Nothing can fail me now.
The torches streamed in the wind as he rode into the great square.
Chapter 25
Athens greeted him as if he had been a god. Never before had he set so high a stake on his beauty, his youth, his physical skill and flamboyant prodigality; never before had he so richly fulfilled all his hopes. And with complete success his behaviour became even more outrageous; it was as if he were deliberately provoking his hysterical flatterers to see how far he had them in his power.
He did not so much defy the laws as ignore their existence. On his return he commissioned a victory ode from the poet Euripides. His enemies were not slow to point out that in it he was credited with all three top places rather than first, second and fourth—as if that were not credit enough. Agatharchus was set to work to paint an almost life-size picture of his personal triumph, and took a certain pleasure in turning out a masterpiece of grandiose vulgarity. But Alcibiades paid him well for it, and exhibited it in the public gallery; and Agatharchus bore the remarks of his fellow-artists with equanimity.
On one occasion he demonstrated his power in a more striking way. There was a comic playwright named Hegemon who had got himself entangled in a libel case, and appealed to Alcibiades for help. Alcibiades, flattered, responded in an effective if disarming fashion. Accompanied by Hegemon, he walked into the public Record Office, demanded the documents relating to the case, and before the furious but impotent magistrate, calmly erased Hegemon’s name wherever it occurred.
This incident was like a blow in the face to the more conservative element in the City; but as far as the mass of the populace was concerned, it served merely to increase its author’s reputation. The political principles of an earlier age, never proof entirely against an unwieldy system and the enthusiasm of the moment, had been broken for ever by the cut-throat methods, the fears and ambitions of the war years. Today’s paralysis became tomorrow’s overblown optimism: public opinion veered uneasily between the hope of glory and the fear of defeat. In such an unstable atmosphere the erratic Alcibiades, unashamedly self-seeking, stood as a reassuring symbol of the private emotional uncertainties of all his fellow-citizens and by sheer personal magnetism drew them after him wherever he went. They applauded his triumphs and laughed at his excesses; and if there were those who thought differently, they did not as yet show it.
• • • • •
Towards the end of November came an ugly incident which showed, as nothing else could have done, both Alcibiades’ aims and the lengths to which the City was prepared to support him. The island of Melos, burdened with a crushing increase of tribute, had refused to pay. Her independence was only equalled by he
r rashness. After a six months’ siege the island fell, and the generals who had conducted the assault returned to Athens to learn the will of the Assembly concerning its inhabitants. At a fierce and disorderly meeting it was Alcibiades who, like another Cleon, proposed the slaughter of every adult male on the island; and Nicias did not utter a word against the motion which was carried immediately with hardly a dissentient vote.
The execution of this sentence shocked the whole of the Greek world. Melos was not a dependant of Athens; she was a free and autonomous ally, enjoying full rights of her own. Alcibiades could not have made a clearer gesture. The days for lenience were over; henceforward Athens would prove her right to rule. And it was noticed that no Peloponnesian state, not even Sparta herself, to whom the men of Melos desperately appealed, raised a finger to help the tiny island from destruction. If Alcibiades wished for a proof of the temper of the Athenians, he had it now beyond all doubt.
• • • • •
They had all gathered at his summons: Adeimantus, Axiochus, and several others, bound now by secret oaths of allegiance, welded through necessity into a formidable secret society. Last of all came Pulytion the Syrian, smooth and silent, grown plumper and richer with the years. He slid noiselessly in at the door and sank into a vacant chair.
It was late in the evening. The shutters were closed and the lamps lit; a heavy muskish atmosphere pervaded the large room. On the central table three candles in silver sconces winked above the winebowls and glasses; dark against the walls, the scarlet hangings took on the colour of spilt and dried blood. The assembled company were strained and expectant, sipping their wine uneasily, talking in muted voices, waiting for a lead from the elegant figure sprawled at his ease at the head of the table.
At last Alcibiades rapped on the board with his glass; and instantly silence fell. He looked round the attentive faces meditatively before he began to speak. His face was composed; but he could hardly restrain the excitement in his voice.
