The Flowers of Adonis

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  And then there was the sound of running feet and somebody outside shouted, ‘Get up to the Agora! They’ve murdered Hyperbolus!’

  (Hyperbolus, originally exiled from Athens, had become one of the most vocal of the Samos Democrats, a veritable gadfly of a man. At normal times one could not really blame anybody for murdering Hyperbolus; but these were not normal times …)

  I ran out; men were coming up from the galleys. I saw several of the Paralos marines and joined up with them as we ran, sea-men joined us, some few shipyard workers, but not many of those. Thrasybulus, Trirarch of the Vixen, appeared from somewhere. He shouted to us, ‘Up to the Agora! The Oligarchs are out for blood, and Hyperbolus won’t be the only one!’ And we ran headlong for the great open market-place in the midst of the town.

  Angry crowds began to press in on us, with more of the galley crews and the troops pushing through to swell our ranks. There were shouts of ‘Kill! Kill!’ and shouts of ‘Get the arsenal!’ and shouts of ‘Alkibiades!’

  Everyone knows how that day went. It was fairly hot work for a few hours, but fortunately some of the citizens realised the plot, and most of the troops stood firm by their officers, and little tough Thrasybulus was there to take the lead. Even so, if the Oligarchs had got the arsenal things might have gone differently; but they lacked a leader to match the Vixen’s Commander, and Ariston and some of our lot got there first and with the master of armament and his own guard and its clerks and storemen, contrived to hold it in the face of a sharp attack. By the end of the day it was over, with a couple of our own men lost to about thirty of the Oligarchs’. And when the rest of the fleet returned in due course, we were maybe a trifle loud-mouthed, and prone to admire the length of our own shadows in the sun.

  We called an Assembly, all together though, townsfolk and fleet; we banished certain of the ringleaders including Charminius, and pardoned the rest. They were poor stuff, for the most part, not worth troubling about. Then we elected new Commanders in place of those we had exiled. Thrasybulus was an obvious choice; the other, Thrassylus, was less obvious, for it isn’t often that the troops elected an ordinary captain of hoplites to the high command. But he was a natural leader, if a bit of a rogue, and popular with the troops. Both of them were the men for the moment. And we had no cause to regret the choice.

  The Paralos sailed for Athens at once, to carry the news of the attempted uprising and its crushing, to the city, in the hope that this, reaching the Athenian Oligarchs in time, might prevent a similar attempt there.

  The trireme returned after some weeks’ delay, lacking several of the crew, left behind imprisoned; and the Trirarch, who had barely escaped himself, had a desperately ugly tale to tell.

  The Paralos had been too late with her news; too late by many days. Paesander and his crew had gone straight ahead with their plans, and in Athens the Oligarchs had prospered better than on Samos. The orator, Androcles — he who had originally indicted Alkibiades — had been murdered like Hyperbolus. That had been done in the name of clearing the way for Alkibiades’ return; but Alkibiades or no, it had removed one of the most potent of the Democratic leaders. And other deaths had followed already, of men opposed to the Oligarchs; the Gods alone knew how many more were to come. Athens, a democracy for four generations, was being ruled by four hundred men, and the four hundred controlled by a mere five, of whom our good Democrat Phrynichus was one. I suppose, having spoken out so hot against Alkibiades’ return, his skin felt safer that way. Fines and banishment were becoming the small change of life, murder walked the streets, and the whole city was in the grip of terror. I was rather glad, then, that my mother was dead and I had no family any more. I was in better case than the men who kept watch or lay down to sleep that night in fear for wives and kinsfolk at home. The men from the Paralos were spreading through the streets and wine-shops of Samos, the rumour that the Oligarchs, caring only to save their own estates, were preparing to treat with Sparta. They had sent an embassy to King Agis back at Dekalia, ran the report; and there was a fort already going up at the mouth of Piraeus Great Harbour, which all men knew was to cover the Spartan fleet against attack from us.

  All this in a few weeks.

  The story had gained a good deal in the telling (though the bare truth was evil enough), but at the time we could not know that; and in the wake of the news the whole Athenian force went up in flames. Red rage swept through the port of Samos, and for that first night after the news came, the danger pressed more sharply than it had done on the day of Hyperbolus’ murder, for now the chief peril was within ourselves, in the fact that a quarter of the fleet at least had Oligarch sympathies; and with men frightened for families at home, and red-angry, roving at large through such a town as Samos, that was a danger to be reckoned with. A split in our forces now would bring the Spartan fleet down on us from across the straits.

  Thrasybulus reckoned with this, and gave orders that all shore leave was to be stopped and the men got back to their ships. Ariston and I spent a busy night rounding up the Hesperus’ marines, and it was close on dawn before we found the last three, good Democrats very drunk and hurling grubbed-up cobblestones against the street door of one of the pardoned Oligarchs, and got them back on board.

  Next morning, with everyone still ordered to remain on board their ships, or in the case of those whose ships were beached and dismantled, to take parade order beside them, our new Commanders came among us and went personally from ship to ship, binding every topman, every rower and marine by solemn oaths, to maintain the democracy, to hold together in undivided loyalty despite any personal differences in politics, to carry on to the full the war with the Spartan League, to have no dealings by herald or in any other way with the Four Hundred in Athens.

  It is wonderful, the steadying effect of an oath taken all together. It is akin to the habit of holding formation acquired on the drill-ground, that helps a man not to give back before an enemy thrust on the battlefield. The night before, the troops had been ready to fire Samos or fly at each other’s throats. That morning they had been only sobered up and sullen. But by the time Thrasybulus and Thrassylus had been their round, we felt ourselves comrades again; and had taken a long clear look at the fact that Athens must now be counted out, and we were alone; we, the Samos fleet, against the whole strength of the Spartan League.

  We took that first long look, and in an odd way, we found it good. At least we knew exactly where we stood now. We had no one to depend on but ourselves. It was for us to prove that ourselves were enough.

  After the Generals had made their round — it was evening by then, the black-plumed clouds of early winter breaking in the north-west as they did most evenings, and the sea beginning to shine — we sacrificed, the whole fleet together, the scented smoke of the storax drifting down from the after-deck, and we sang the Paean. We were a brotherhood.

  *

  Now that we stood alone, it was for us in Samos to take upon ourselves the powers that had belonged to Athens. Citizens and fleet together, we held another Assembly a few days later, and voted Alkibiades a full pardon on the old sacrilege charge. Next day Thrasybulus sailed for Sardis to bring him back.

  Sitting over a jug of wine in the Golden Grapes with Ariston that night, I said, ‘Will he come, do you think?’

  Ariston had no need to ask who I meant; when men said ‘He’ in Samos at that time, they only meant one man. ‘It’s what he’s worked for, all this while.’

  ‘I know. But just look at it, Ariston, it’s a situation from some crazy comedy. We’re calling him back because he and no one else can get us the help of Persia — and it’s become pretty plain that he can’t get it. He made the overthrow of the democracy a condition of his return, and now it’s the Democrats of Samos who are demanding it. In his place, wouldn’t you suspect a trap?’

  ‘Yes, I expect I would. But then I’m not Alkibiades.’

  I turned to him, not sure of his meaning, and he explained himself in his quiet careful way, as though I had asked
the question aloud. ‘If he was merely intelligent, he might very well smell a trap — that would be cold reason. But he doesn’t function on reason, our Alkibiades. He’ll come.’

  And I remembered Timotheus at the perfume shop, saying ‘We of Athens created him in our own image. We are part of him and he of us, woven into the fibre of our soul, and without him we are barren and lost.’ No, cold reason had no bearing on the case.

  It was a good while before the Vixen returned; but we did not find time hang heavy on our hands for lack of occupation. We had been hearing for a good while past that the Spartans at Miletus were growing restive, waiting for Tissaphernes to bring in the Phoenician fleet that never came; and after the crushing of the Oligarchs’ plot on Samos, I suppose they grew somewhat desperate. At all events they came against us soon after with their full strength, something over a hundred triremes. With the ships that we had in port at the time we were well and truly out-numbered, and so we refused them fight until Strombichides who was up at Abydos, came sweeping down with three squadrons to strengthen us. Then the Spartans pulled back to Miletus and it was our turn to sail against them, and theirs to refuse battle. It was all a bit like cockerels squaring up to each other, all crow and stretched necks and ruffling feathers, with nothing to follow. But it kept our hands in and helped to pass the time.

  And no sooner was that over than a scouting vessel brought in word that ten ships of the Spartan League, had got through to the north, to Pharnobazus the Satrap of Phrygia (presumably he offered more regular pay than Tissaphernes had been providing of late), and that at their coming, Byzantium had revolted and gone over to them. That looked ugly for our Black Sea corn trade, but there was nothing we could do for the present but send up a squadron to keep watch in the Hellespont; a mere stop-gap move to hold the situation until Alkibiades came. We all knew that he was coming and over the whole fleet, as winter turned to spring, there was a sense of marking time, of lying to the wind until he came and the world and life itself moved forward again.

  And then at last, when the olive trees were in flower and the cuckoos calling, one dusk there was a fire on the beacon headland, signalling that the Vixen had been sighted. And next morning all Samos, citizens and fleet, crowded the waterfront of the harbour to see her come in.

  The day was hot for the time of year, one of those spring days that hark forward toward summer, and I remember the heat of my helmet scorching my forehead; and the sun-dazzle off the water as we strained our eyes toward the nearing trireme, trying to see the figures on the after-deck, the flash of the sun on the oar-blades, the white arrowhead of foam and oar thresh spreading from her prow.

  Then we saw him, standing alone save for the steersman in the stern. Bareheaded, with his helmet in the crook of his arm, and the sun beating on his bright head. The Vixen passed quite close to the Hesperus, so close that we lifted and rocked in her bow-wave; and I could see the look on his face as he stood with his head tipped back just as I remembered. It was the look of a man who has come back from the realm of Hades into the sunlight again; too grave for gladness; a look that greeted all things with a long, questioning, remembering touch.

  At first, as the Vixen came past the mole, silence had held the fleet. But as she swept across our bows the cheering began; and ship after ship caught it up until it reached the harbour walls, and swept all along the water-front, and crowded wharf and boatshed and rope-walk went up in a roar of joy to greet him. We knew that we had longed for him as he had longed for us; and we cheered Alkibiades home, back to his own again, as never man was cheered before. Some of us wept, too, I think. I am not even sure that I was not one of them.

  15

  The Soldier

  The next day, Alkibiades spoke to the Assembly. It was a magnificent speech, touching more in sorrow than in anger on his exile, and going on to assure us that Tissaphernes had promised that if he could only trust us he would sell his own silver bedstead before the Athenian Navy should want anything.

  When he had done, we shouted ourselves hoarse for him, voted him to the chief place among our Generals; and then the rank and file came pressing about him, demanding to be led at once against the Oligarchs at home.

  We are a people very fond of pulling down the memory of our great men; and I suppose one day they will say in the streets of Athens that Alkibiades cared for nothing but himself and the popularity that was meat and wine to him. But such a man, finding himself our darling again, would have done as we wished; and he did not. He had gained what he had been working for so long — he was back with his own again, shouted for, kindled by our love; and he risked it all, rather than lead us on a course that would have left our rear unguarded to the Spartan fleet.

  He refused, telling us, when he could make himself heard above the clamour, that now we had given him the official status of a General, his first task must be to return to Tissaphernes and see that the Persian’s promise was made good.

  I have wondered since, if he still thought he could steer the Satrap into giving us the help we needed; but truly, I think he did. He was no fool, and it would have been foolish to make that speech about the silver bedstead, except in good faith.

  He sailed for Sardis next day.

  I was sent aboard with a message for the Trirarch, just before the Vixen sailed; and my message delivered, I had just returned to go over the side again into the waiting boat, when I found myself face to face with Alkibiades. He looked at me for a moment, and then he did what no one else had done (but perhaps I was becoming a little more civilised to the eye by that time), he recognised me.

  He said, ‘Arkadius! You here!’ And despite myself, it was as though the sun came out.

  I said, ‘Sir,’ as woodenly as I knew how.

  ‘Who are you serving with? What ship?’

  ‘Second of marines with Ariston of the Hesperus.’

  His golden brows jerked up under his helmet rim. ‘That’s a step down from lieutenant of marines with the Icarus.’

  ‘It’s a step up from the stone quarries,’ I said.

  His face went stiff for an instant. ‘Are you the only one of the Icarus marines left?’

  ‘So far as I know. Some were killed in the earlier fighting, or the retreat of course.’

  And then he asked for young Astur.

  It was likely that he would, of course; but I had forgotten that they were some kind of kin, and I was silent a moment; and I suppose my silence told him most of the story, for he said, after that moment, ‘Leave it. The boy’s dead and it makes no difference how he died.’

  ‘He was wounded before we went into the quarries. Scarcely any of the wounded lived; the flies and the stone-dust saw to that.’

  A kind of darkness came over his face. He said, ‘Men die in every war. It is not a thing to hold against the Gods.’ But I think he meant ‘against Alkibiades’.

  ‘We all came too near death to hold it against anybody,’ I said. ‘We were just very tired.’

  All about us on board was the last moment bustle of departure. A few moments more and they would be hauling in the anchor cable; already the bos’n had gone to his place, his pipes in his hand, and the Trirarch was glancing our way impatiently. I said, ‘May I go, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said; and then, ‘No, wait.’

  I turned back, enquiringly, and he said, ‘Arkadius, when I return I shall be taking the old Icarus as my flagship again. There’ll be a place for a lieutenant of marines.’

  I remember we were silent for maybe a heart-beat of time, looking at each other; and then I shook my head. ‘There are plenty of other men to fill it. I am well enough as Ariston’s second.’ He looked surprised. I don’t suppose he was used to men turning down the chance to serve close to him.

  I still don’t know why I refused. I told myself I couldn’t just abandon Ariston the moment something better came along. I suppose it was Astur, after all. Never let a dead friend spoil your chances.

  I went over the side and dropped into the boat, feeling him l
ooking after me, and wondered if I had damned my chances in the Samos fleet.

  But soon after he returned — still unsuccessful in the matter of Tissaphernes —I was promoted to lieutenant of marines again, and ordered to join the Trident. And I found later that it was on the recommendation of Alkibiades.

  *

  Soon after that, envoys arrived from the Four Hundred, among them our unlamented Democrat Admiral, Phrynichus, who had gone over to the Oligarchs to save his unpleasant skin. What possessed the Four Hundred to send him, I cannot imagine. Their reception would have been chancy enough without that …

  When they mounted the restrum to speak to the Assembly that had been called to hear him, the air was as thick with shouts of ‘Death to the traitors!’ as it was with rotten vegetable and bad eggs. One of my lads had got a very dead cat from somewhere. I should have stopped him throwing it, but I took care not to see until it was too late. There began to be an ugly surge forward among the troops, and I really believe the thing would have ended in murder, if Alkibiades himself had not sprung on to the rostrum and got them a hearing simply by being there.

  When he could make himself heard, their spokesman took over boldly enough, telling us that the Oligarchs had taken power in Athens, not to subdue the city or betray her, but to save her from the bungling of the Democrats who were so hopelessly mishandling the Athenian war effort. As for the accounts that we had heard of murders and floggings, they were gross fabrications. To hear him talk, you would have thought there never had been such merciful and high-minded men in Athens since the days of the Kings. We heard him out, with Alkibiades’ bright amused blue eyes on us; and we did not believe a word of it.

  And when he had done speaking, the clamour broke out again; a new clamour, this time, or rather an old one revived; for the shout began among some of the crews, that Alkibiades must lead them against Piraeus, to be done with these liars and traitors and restore Athens to her old state.