Achilles His Armour

by Peter Green

  ‘What I have to say can be briefly told,’ he observed. ‘All of you will know something of it already. Our plan to invade Sicily is no secret. What no one must know except ourselves is that this will only be a beginning. Sicily is little in itself. But from Sicily we can go on to such conquests as we have never dreamed of. Think, gentlemen. To the south lies Carthage—an ill-equipped and barbarian country, yet fabulously rich in gold. To the north again is Italy: a land of virgin forests, waiting for the axe to give us a greater fleet than we have manned in all our history. And in the west, Iberia, with its fighting mountaineers, the best mercenaries in Europe.’ He paused. ‘Ships, men, and money,’ he said quietly: ‘the things of which above all we stand in need. And then, then when we have them all, then we can return home.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘With that fleet, and those troops, and the spoil we carry, we shall close every harbour in the Peloponnese, smash Sparta’s ships and destroy her utterly by land. Only then shall we have come into our true inheritance.’

  The drip of the water-clock on the wall fell into the silence. Axiochus counted the drops: ten, twenty, fifty: still no one spoke. He collected his thoughts with an effort, and said at last: ‘You have given us much to think about. It would be difficult—and here I feel I speak for all of us—to discuss your proposals without time to consider them. With your leave then, I move that this meeting be adjourned. You can find us all if you need us.’ He rose to his feet; and the others, with some relief, followed his example. Only Pulytion still sat in his chair, bulkily hunched over the table, seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts.

  If Alcibiades was annoyed, he did not show it. He had relapsed into his lazy pose, leaning back at his ease, watching his friends as they took their leave with rather more speed than strict politeness demanded. Axiochus paused in the doorway and asked: ‘What is our attitude on this matter of secrecy to be? I take it your strictures don’t apply to a limited expedition against Sicily?’

  Alcibiades said impatiently: ‘Use your brains, uncle. Why else should I be telling you all this now, at the beginning of winter? We have five months to get the public used to the idea. This is your concern, all of you. Discuss it with your friends, extol it in public—especially in the schools and the gymnasia. The young men will be all for us.’

  ‘And the old?’

  ‘Those that are foolish enough to oppose us will, we hope, at least have the sense to know that they can do nothing.’

  Axiochus went out silently, the rest following him. Alcibiades and Pulytion were left alone, facing each other along the whole length of the table. Neither could see the other’s face clearly: the candles glowed between them. Pulytion raised his head from a contemplation of his plump, well-kept hands, which were placed before him, palm downwards, on the table, and said: ‘That was a most remarkable discourse, my dear Alcibiades. Listening to it I was reminded of our late friend Cleon on the platform. Can it be that you have acquired his tricks of speech along with his ideas? It’s not really necessary to harangue your friends as if they were a public crowd, you know. Or is it possible that you are foolish enough to honestly believe everything you say?’

  ‘How dare you suggest—’

  ‘Please don’t interrupt me,’ said Pulytion. His voice was gentle, meditative almost; but it cut cleanly through Alcibiades’ angry exclamation. ‘You should know as well as I why I dare. I have been backing you financially for some time now. Since the death of your wife you have become almost totally dependent on my support—both you and your party. I do not mention this from any spirit of animosity; I am merely suggesting a good reason why you should listen to me. Further, I may see more clearly into the present situation than you do yourself. You flatter yourself on your insight, your capacity for intrigue. It is a dangerous assumption. I grew up living on my wits in a country where intrigue offered the only means of survival; and if I’d had your self-confidence I shouldn’t have lived to be a man.’

  He paused to see if the shadowy figure at the far end of the table would offer any comment. But Alcibiades remained silent. Pulytion went on:

  ‘I am a man of business, and I regard the present venture as a business proposition. I am not concerned with glory, or power, or any of the intangible objects that supply you with your incentive. I am prepared to invest very large sums of money in you and the scheme you have outlined. Not unnaturally, I would like to be reasonably certain of getting some adequate return for my investments. I would be less than honest if I did not admit that there are several things which cause me considerable concern.’

  ‘Name them.’ The sharp staccato monosyllables were in odd contrast to the Syrian’s leisurely remarks. It was apparent that Alcibiades was experiencing great difficulty in controlling himself.

  ‘First, and perhaps least important, there is this exceedingly ambitious scheme of yours. How far it is founded on sound knowledge I may not be competent to judge. But I am a merchant, and I know something from necessity of the ways of foreign parts. I know the Carthaginian: he is not a fruit ripe for the plucking, but a fierce fighting soldier, who might well defeat the combined power of both Athens and Sparta. I know something of Italy. It is a rugged, mountainous country, of great size; and its inhabitants are more warlike than those Iberian mountaineers whose prowess you so extolled. If it had been Hyperbolus who had made these claims, I should have laughed him to scorn. As it is you, whose judgment I respect, I am bound to consider them seriously. It occurs to me that in this case your judgment may have been swayed by your wishes. And that brings me to a more important matter—yourself.’

  ‘Myself?’ If there was anger in Alcibiades’ voice, there was also fear.

  ‘You are the greatest asset such a venture could have; I admit it at once. But you are also its greatest danger.’ Pulytion’s voice remained smooth and unhurried; he handled his dangerous theme as if it had been an abstract problem of philosophy. ‘I have already suggested that your attitude of mind has blinded you to certain dangers. I know of no greater source of disaster than . . . a fanatic. That weakness destroyed Pericles, for all his greatness. It nearly destroyed Athens with him. I have no intention of being involved in a similar catastrophe because of you.’

  ‘Is that all you have to say?’

  ‘No.’ Pulytion sipped his wine, savouring it on his tongue. He had never lost the sensuous delight in luxury of the poor man who has become fabulously rich. He sighed and said: ‘Popularity is a double-edged thing. It can bring men into power, as it has brought you into power; and it can and does pull down those it has set up. It can tempt them into excess, as it has tempted you; and, much worse, it can delude them into belittling their enemies. I will be quite honest with you. You have been incredibly foolish. No one but a man with your genius could have been so foolish, but that doesn’t mend matters. You have antagonised everyone. Men like Nicias and his aristocratic friends loathe you for your dissolute ways, your addiction to strange foreign cults—I admit I was responsible for that—and what they regard as your treacherous traffic with Cleon, not to mention your open animosity against Sparta. The farmers and landowners are afraid you’ll plunge them into another war. They’d do literally anything to stop you: they’ve seen the workings of your mind, they know you plan on the grand scale. They’re afraid. Even the popular party, who want everything that you do, would be glad to see you turned out of power. They have a different motive—envy. You are the insolent aristocrat who stole their plans. You are the man who had their own leader ostracised by a political trick. You tried to use every faction in Athens for your own ends. I doubt not you thought yourself extremely clever. And what has the result been? For the first time in memory oligarchs and democrats in this City are united on one thing—your destruction. At the first hint of failure, the whole pack of them will turn and pull you down.’

  He paused, and went on in a softer voice: ‘I know I may risk your enmity for speaking bluntly. I know that I am only saying to you, perhaps more brutally, what many people have said to you before. It may
be too late; it’s certainly too late to undo what has been done. You have only one hope, my friend: success. Success in this city is forgiven every crime. I have found that out in my own case. And knowing that, I am still prepared to support you, because I believe you have the roots of that success in you. If a man of business must be cautious, he must also take risks.’

  ‘How is that success to be won?’ The voice from the end of the long table was faint and toneless.

  ‘Forget your ideals: only remember your ruthlessness.’ The answer was equally detached; the whole conversation had a curiously dreamlike quality, an unreality which removed it from time and place. ‘You may think yourself hard. You’re not hard enough.’

  ‘Have you forgotten Melos?’ Alcibiades’ voice was high and nervous.

  ‘No: but you should have done. Do you imagine that the whole City, let alone myself, doesn’t know the remorse you felt? You weren’t strong enough to take the consequences of your actions. You voted for the death penalty on the islanders, but refused to sail on the expedition yourself. And now you’ve bought a Melian woman from the slave market and set her up in your house. Oh, I know you have your own reasons. But gestures like that are useless. They don’t appease your enemies, and they make your friends distrust you. You’ve chosen yourself a hard path. Well and good. But it doesn’t permit you the luxury of self-indulgence when you have a bad conscience; it scarcely allows you a conscience at all . . .’ He rose ponderously to his feet. ‘I’ve said all I have to say. I won’t ask you to comment.’

  From his chair Alcibiades said: ‘I must thank you for your plain speaking. It’s a quality I appreciate . . .’ He played with the stem of his wine-glass, feeling for words. ‘I shall consider all you have said most carefully . . . But one thing I can and will tell you now.’ His voice was firm and, confident again. ‘Whatever happens, I shall not abandon what I have begun. Whatever the cost, whatever the opposition, we shall have Sicily.’

  Pulytion chuckled, quite unmoved by this outburst. ‘I knew that,’ he observed. ‘I shouldn’t have wasted my time on you otherwise. Will you never learn that my only real interest in you is a financial one?’

  • • • • •

  Over the winter months Alcibiades’ political club acquired a valuable new member. Since the days of his boyhood Alcibiades had seen little of Demostratus; indeed, conscious that he had treated his former lover with scant consideration, he had avoided him with some embarrassment. But Demostratus, older and wiser now, showed no resentment; and it was inevitable that he and Alcibiades should be thrown together. They were both of aristocratic blood; they both had dreams of power and conquest. It was only the accident of their personal relationship that had kept them apart so long. So it came about that it was Demostratus who was sent by Alcibiades, with great secrecy, on a private mission to the two Sicilian towns of Segesta and Leontini, with certain specific instructions as to what he should do there. He came back to Athens in the New Year, slipping into the Piraeus unnoticed with his single ship, and went straight to Alcibiades’ house.

  It was a raw, wet day, with a sharp wind blowing off the hills, driving the rain into his face as he hurried along. The streets were almost deserted. Alcibiades’ steward, impassive as ever, took his sopping cloak, and showed him at once into the big living-room. Alcibiades was sitting at the table, a map spread out in front of him. He sprang up when he saw who his visitor was.

  ‘What news have you?’

  He waited, eager and impatient, while the big man, shivering from the cold, wrung the water from his thick grey hair and stretched out his hands to the glowing brazier that stood in the middle of the room. His heavy muscles gleamed in the winter light.

  ‘Good and not good.’

  ‘When I want to consult an oracle, I’ll go to Delphi. Explain yourself. Will they send an embassy or not?’

  ‘Oh yes, they’ll send an embassy. Both of them. Segesta’s only too willing. Her usual quarrel with Selinus. She’d be glad enough to have Athenian arbitration. The men of Leontini are more clever. They haven’t forgotten the last Athenian expedition to Sicily, and they’re still living in mortal fear of the Syracusans. They gave me very smooth answers; but I fancy they have a fairly shrewd idea of what our real intentions are. So they were ready to oblige us as well.’

  ‘But the bad news . . .?’

  Demostratus sat back, warmer now. He said: ‘I’m afraid the men of Segesta weren’t quite honest with me. I said nothing, but I noticed a lot. They were very eager to convince me of the financial support they could give to an Athenian expedition. It was quite impressive at first. They showed me a large collection of gold and silver in the treasury. They entertained me lavishly at the houses of their chief men. That was what gave me the first clue. One evening when I had drunk rather a lot, and was slightly bored by the conversation—they’re very provincial in Segesta—I fell to examining the excellent gold plate of the dinner service. It occurred to me I had seen it somewhere before. I had. Two days before, at a very similar feast. Afterwards I made discreet inquiries. I was quite right. They had taken all the best vessels they had—they even stripped the temples—and sent them round from house to house, wherever I was. It needed little further investigation to ascertain that most of the money in the treasury had been borrowed in a similar way from neighbouring cities.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing. What was the point? The embassies are coming. That’s the main thing. They’ll make all kinds of promises to tempt us to Sicily. But when the Assembly finds out they’ve been tricked—’

  ‘It’ll be too late,’ said Alcibiades. He yawned. ‘I don’t know what you’re worrying about. We have all the money we need for this expedition. If the secret doesn’t leak out till we’ve sailed, the Segestans will have done us a good turn. The main opposition in the Assembly, when you come down to facts, will be a financial one. What could be simpler? A small expedition, no bigger than that we sent ten years ago. And all expenses found. They’ll vote for it without a second thought.’

  ‘A small expedition?’ Demostratus wrinkled his forehead in a puzzled fashion. ‘Surely we want every ship and man we can get—’

  ‘Of course we do. But if I’ve judged my man rightly, we won’t need to ask for them. We’ll have them given to us.’

  ‘Given to us? By whom?

  ‘Nicias,’ said Alcibiades, and laughed at the bewilderment on the older man’s face. Then he leant forward and began to explain what he planned to do. It took him quite a long time.

  • • • • •

  The members of the secret society did their work well. All through the following month they dropped hints here and there; in the wrestling schools, among the crowds in the Market, at shops in the Smiths’ or the Potters’ Quarters. Young men at their games, old men by their work-benches argued and speculated, drawing maps of Sicily in the dust, discussing tactics or manoeuvres. Slowly the infectious tide of enthusiasm mounted. Nicias saw it, and was worried, especially as he had no means of stopping it. His intelligence service was sadly inferior to that of Pericles; and he knew little of the true facts of the case.

  But there were others who knew more than he did, and were not slow to guess what they could not prove. After Hyperbolus’ ostracism the leadership of the popular party had passed to one Androcles; a shrewd, sharp-nosed man, small in stature, but made of more dangerous stuff than his predecessor. He was not much given to public rhetoric: he preferred to work in secret, and he had a remarkable talent for intrigue. Observing the fate of Cleon and Hyperbolus, and profiting by the mistakes they had made, Androcles delegated any task involving unwelcome publicity to his willing and ambitious subordinates. His spies were everywhere: and the sum of what they reported to him added up to the one thing he had been expecting: the Sicilian expedition of which Hyperbolus had dreamed for so long. He had no quarrel with the expedition itself; all his craft was directed against the man who had, as he believed, usurped his leadership. But as yet he took no open
action.

  Not everyone shared his general optimism. The rumours of war and conquest fell with a different sound on the ears of the long-suffering farmers and landowners; the rich men who, had lost much and might lose more; the poor men who had had their very livelihood, their basic means of existence, torn apart by the schemes of ambitious soldiers and politicians, and who only now were beginning to recover from their losses. Their memories were long; and now, as they listened to the excited chatter of youths who had never known the horrors of invasion, whose heads were filled with nothing but dreams of glory and conquest, they too, almost insensibly, drew together, compelled by the necessity of common danger: and another society was formed. Its leaders hardly recognised it for what it was; they only knew that they faced great danger, and that nothing but concerted action could now avert it: perhaps not even that. But what could be done had to be tried.

  On the surface all was quiet: the ominous stillness of the gathering storm. But beneath a desperate struggle was beginning to be played out, where both sides fought in the dark, only half conscious of their adversaries’ existence. It was to this city that the envoys from Segesta and Leontini came, when the last April storms were breaking, and the flowers were beginning to stipple the hill-sides. It was a beautiful spring.

  • • • • •

  They came with sixty talents of uncoined silver, a month’s pay for sixty ships. It was a notable gamble, thought Alcibiades, as he listened to their chief speakers in the crowded Assembly. The gathering was tense and excited; it was hardly to be expected that Nicias would fail to notice the unusual feeling in the air. But he sat in his place of honour, listening unperturbed to the reports of the commissioners he had sent out to Segesta on the unparalleled wealth of the city. Alcibiades caught Demostratus’ eye, and smiled. Then it was his turn to speak. In a calm, almost off-hand voice, he moved that the Assembly should send help to these two cities, to which they were already bound by oaths of friendship and allegiance. The crowd hung on his words. Surely now . . .? But they were disappointed. He asked for sixty ships, no more than the ambassadors of Segesta had themselves proposed. Puzzled glances were exchanged. Then Alcibiades added, almost as an afterthought: ‘Lastly, I propose that this expedition shall be placed under the command of either one or three generals, as the Assembly shall see fit. The choice I leave entirely to your discretion.’ He stepped down from the platform and resumed his seat. A buzz of conversation broke out.