Salamis

by Christian Cameron

  Polycritus smiled without mirth. ‘I can be off the beaches before the sun rises another finger’s width,’ he said. ‘See that you Athenians keep up.’

  Cimon caught me as other men began to race for their ships. ‘Let’s form together,’ he said.

  ‘When Themistocles turns,’ I said, ‘I’ll be going on. All the way to Ephesus.’

  Cimon knew why. But he was still hesitant. ‘You could find yourself alone in a sea of enemies.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ll come too,’ I said.

  He scratched his beard. ‘Prizes,’ he said aloud.

  And then he turned and ran for his ships.

  The squadrons were putting every hull in the water – indeed, the Athenians were fitting out half a dozen captures from the battle, although none of them was fit for sea quite yet. But we had volunteers that morning – hoplites and other middle-class men who offered to pull an oar. I had intended to take only Lydia, but it became plain to me that, again, Themistocles was right, traitor or no – we had to be ready to fight again. So I lost an hour putting together crews for all five of my ships. I put Megakles into the ship Hector had taken, with Hector and half a dozen Athenian archers and as many hoplites as marines. We promised the oarsmen their freedom at the right end of the sea if they would row, and they did, at least that day. We renamed the ship, and Hector called her Iris, to no one’s surprise.

  We were not the last ships off the beach, but Xanthippus’s Horse Tamer was making the turn by the island and preparing to enter the open sea by the time my column was formed, with Naiad and Iris in the lead where I could watch them, and Black Raven and Amastris and Storm Cutter behind me. There were almost two hundred Athenian ships in four columns, over stades of sea. We rowed from the beaches to Psyttaleia, and there I caught up with Cimon’s squadron.

  Then we saw the difference between the old sea wolves and the new ships made plain. Eurybiades had done well to train this fleet – better than many I had seen in action – and they could row, they could back water, and they could manoeuvre. But sailing and sea-keeping in a pursuit are very different from keeping a careful line, forming an orb, and backing water. Now the new Athenian ships with their heavier, slower design were struggling, and their deck crews fumbled with raising sail.

  Cimon turned out of the column. We had come off the beach as a mob and then made our way through the narrows at Psyttaleia in single file, but now he turned north towards Phaleron and raised his sails in ten beats of a calm man’s heart – beautiful seamanship. And every trireme in his squadron followed suit, so that they seemed to blossom like flowers.

  We followed his lead. I could hear Hector and Megakles shouting at a new and unwilling crew and I didn’t want to pass them, so we lost distance on our leader, but soon enough their boat-sail set, and then their mainsail, and Naiad was twice as fast with her good Ionian crew. Lydia had the sails on the wood already and they went up like glory, and the three old pirates behind me were as fast, and then we were running along Xanthippus’s inboard column, passing ship after ship. Xanthippus waved, or perhaps shook his fist, as we passed – certainly Cleitus looked none too pleased, but if I was going to contribute my part of the wedding, I needed some ready money and there it was, four hours’ sailing ahead of me.

  It became clear as we ran down on the enemy that they were in no condition to fight. They had almost no formation – indeed, three hours into the morning, I could have snapped up a pair of ­little merchant tubs, but they weren’t worth the bother. The Ionians weren’t stopping to protect anything, the Phoenicians had their morale broken, and the Egyptians, although we didn’t know it, had been stripped of their marines by Mardonius – Egyptian marines are crack troops and no mistake – and consequently the Egyptians didn’t dare try any kind of conclusion with us, but simply ran downwind.

  It was glorious.

  Cimon and I exchanged just two signals all day, one query from me and his answer that we’d stick together.

  But it was heady stuff, to be at sea on a perfect autumn day, not a cloud in the sky, the sea blue, the sky bluer, the wind behind us, the sun warm – running at a fleeing enemy! I wish I could tell you some great event, but it was simply beautiful to go along, to eke every scrap of speed out of the hull, only to have to slow again to avoid over-reaching the slower ships. Naiad was a fine ship, but Iris had a curve to her hull – a common enough flaw in hasty boatbuilding, or so Vasileos used to tell me – and she sagged off to starboard all the time, keeping Megakles and Hector busy.

  Well before evening, I let Lydia have her head, and we raced past the ships ahead of us and caught Cimon’s Ajax. Because of the perfect wind and the oars all being in, Seckla was able to lay me alongside Ajax in easy hailing range.

  ‘Are – you – going – to – weather – Cape – Zoster?’ I roared.

  Cimon vanished for a moment and then reappeared. ‘Yes!’ he called back. ‘Good idea!’

  I had my people brail up the corners of my great sail until Lydia proceeded at a more sedate pace and we dropped back into our slot in line. The ships were now spread over the seas – we had, for the most part, six or seven ships’ lengths between each ship in our column, and half a dozen stades between the columns; indeed, the seaward column was more like a flock of birds. As the day went on, it became obvious that there would be no fight. Our enemies were running.

  Our course had been south of west all day, past Phaleron and Aegina just visible on the starboard side. In fact, some ships of the seaward column turned due south and camped on Aegina’s beaches, but kept on a more westerly course. Cape Zoster protected a set of beaches, the last really good beaches before Sounion, and I promise you, not a man in my ships or Cimon’s was eager to return to those beaches.

  We had plenty of daylight left. I remember this mostly because what came next surprised me. My head was down, looking after Leukas, who was in great pain despite a draught of poppy from one of the doctors on the beach. All I could do was hold his hand and sacrifice to the gods. I did both. Something bad was happening in his guts.

  ‘Better have a look,’ Seckla called. I thought perhaps he was just trying to give me a break – is it horrible to say that spending time with a dying friend is hard on the soul?

  But Seckla was not just buying me a minute’s reprieve from my conscience. Technically speaking, we didn’t have to ‘weather’ Zoster, because the westerly allowed us to swing past without much course change. But when we were well past we could see a big portion of the enemy fleet – and we knew there were no allied ships north of us.

  ‘Ten, fifteen, eighteen, twenty-four,’ I counted. I looked back at Seckla. Brasidas came up.

  I thought that they were Ionians. I didn’t recognise any ships, but they were still many stades ahead of us. The problem was that we were no longer in company with the rest of the allied fleet; they were well over the horizon already, headed for anchorages and beaches on Aegina and the islets.

  Cimon gave the signal for us to form line.

  We obeyed. But we were under sail, and before the ships came up with him he’d turned further north, so that we formed our line at a narrow angle to the coastline.

  After almost an hour of very tense sailing Cimon flashed our signal for taking our sails down and preparing to fight. Naturally this slowed us a good deal, but our oarsmen had had a picnic all day and were happy to get a little exercise, or so the wags phrased it. Still, by the time we had all twenty ships in line, oars out and in good order, the Ionians were gone. They didn’t stop or slow or threaten. They just ran.

  Except the three that were coming towards us with men waving olive branches in the bows.

  I didn’t know any of them, but we picked one up, and Cimon’s ships took the other two. Mine was Chians – that is, men of Chios. The navarch’s name was Phayllos and he knew me – knew my ship, in fact.

  I was in armour, and so was Brasidas, but I didn’t even ta
ke an aspis when I leapt from my ship into his. We clasped arms and I was glad for us both that we had not gone ship to ship a few days before – there was no hatred between us, or even anger.

  ‘I don’t want to run any more,’ he said with a shrug. ‘And the Phoenicians didn’t play fair this morning with fresh water, so my crew is parched. I have heard you are a fair man and have men of Chios among your people.’

  Brasidas looked him over. ‘Did you fight at Salamis?’ he asked.

  Phayllos shrugged. ‘We fought, and fought well,’ he said.

  Brasidas gave me the movement of his eyebrows with which he expressed approval and admiration.

  ‘Are you worth a ransom?’ I asked.

  ‘I am, and so is my nephew,’ he said. He pulled under his arm a very thin, not very handsome young man in beautiful armour. The fit of the armour almost made the boy – and I use the term carefully – look like a man.

  But despite his spotty face and his starveling build, the boy had a certain presence and good manners. He bent his knee. ‘It is an honour to be taken captive by the famous Arimnestos of Plataea,’ he said.

  Brasidas laughed outright. He didn’t speak, but his laughter spoke volumes.

  ‘You made no bargain,’ I said. ‘I could take the two of you and clear your benches over the sides – in pursuit, it’s within the laws of war.’

  Phayllos was a brave man. He was afraid, but he bore it with nobility. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I told the oarsmen and the marines that very thing.’

  I nodded. Brasidas did his eyebrow thing again. We were in agreement that these were good men and deserved decent treatment. I’m not saying that, had they been oily or arrogant, we’d have massacred their crews. Merely that honour calls out to honour, and dishonour encourages the same, or so I have often found it.

  The time it took us to take those three ships cost us any chance of snapping up any more Ionians. So we turned, left our masts down, and rowed a little north of west onto the beaches by Cape Zoster. We landed early enough, but it was a major chore fetching water from the one creek big enough and deep enough to water us, and there were neither shepherds nor sheep to feed more than three thousand men.

  However, we were well prepared, with dried meat and sausage. I saw to it my own people were fed and then we squandered our reserves on our captives.

  Cimon and I had a meeting over garlic sausage and onions and very, very good wine.

  ‘It’s like going to a good symposium at a poor man’s house,’ Cimon joked. ‘We spent all our money on the wine!’

  ‘We need some merchants full of supplies. Mine are all running in the Bay of Corinth.’ I shrugged.

  Cimon nodded. ‘What are we going to do with our captures?’ he asked.

  ‘Ransom the trierarchs and let the rest go,’ I said. ‘If we’re lenient, we might pick up more and we won’t have to fight.’

  Cimon chewed a bit of gristle and spat. ‘Just what I was thinking. I’m going to be a very poor oligarch, friend. I enjoy this far too much.’

  ‘Stealing money from those too weak to defend it and spending it all on symposia and flute girls?’ I chided him. ‘You’ll be the perfect oligarch.’

  ‘You were right, too,’ he said. ‘We beat the Medes.’

  The stars were rising. I could hear Phayllos, who was already friends with Brasidas, laughing his deep laugh.

  ‘I don’t want to be Tyrant in Athens,’ Cimon said suddenly. ‘I don’t give a shit. I’m ruined, and my father would be enraged. I want this – for ever. I want to sail and sail, to beat Persia every day, to conquer them and rule a great empire.’ He paused. And grinned – self-knowledge is always the best tonic, or so Heraclitus used to say. ‘All that on one cup of good wine. I’m sorry, my friend. What do you want?’

  ‘I want Briseis,’ I said. Indeed, I felt like a young man, with his first woman before him – and I felt the cold hand of time and fortune on me, too. She might already be dead, with some eunuch’s hands round her lovely throat. I had not hurried, or so I told myself when I was honest.

  Cimon laughed. ‘You are consistent, I’ll give you that.’

  After a pause, he said, ‘I expect we’ll get more surrenders to­morrow.’

  I sat with my back against a rock, still warm from the sun. ‘I can take the Chians home and the Lesbians too. I can use them as cover when I move into Ephesus. If I get ransoms out of them, so much the better.’

  Cimon nodded. ‘Well, I got two good ones, ten days’ pay for all my rowers in each ship.’

  I smiled. I knew something Cimon did not know and I had no reason to tell him. I remembered his father all too well. All Cimon had to do was say ‘walk with me’ and he’d be Miltiades come to life.

  ‘So you are content that I keep mine and you keep yours?’ I asked.

  ‘Seems simple,’ Cimon said.

  While we were talking, more allied ships appeared. They were from the northern column, and we had Themistocles with us, and Eurybiades, in an hour. I fed them both sausage and Eurybiades opened an amphora of good Aeolian wine and we sat at a small campfire. Siccinius waited on us.

  Probably the most remarkable thing was that as we all settled in to drink, Brasidas came up – and Eurybiades greeted him by name, rising as if Brasidas was one of the peers.

  After a hesitation so brief that I think I’m the only one to have noticed it, Brasidas accepted this and saluted Eurybiades as one man does another and then settled comfortably, as if this was not an ­epochal event in his relations with his former city.

  It was a fine fire, and just because I know that Themistocles was a black traitor didn’t mean he could not be good company, especially when he was relaxed and victorious. Eurybiades treated him with deference, which he craved. I was polite.

  But when the opportunity came, I pounced. I made the face men make when they want to piss, and leaped to my feet. Then I followed Siccinius a few paces into the darkness, to where he and two of my sailors had set a couple of boards over three small rocks and put wine on them for serving – like a crude symposium, in truth.

  But I didn’t have to chase him. In fact, when he saw me coming, he placed his amphora on the side table, gave orders about mixing the water and the wine, and then beckoned me, and we went around a great boulder – some god or some titan had thrown it there, no doubt – and it was he, not I, who began.

  ‘Will you truly see me a free man?’ he asked.

  ‘I will,’ I said, not only because I would, but because I knew he had something important to say. Even in the darkness, everything from his posture to his voice betrayed his tension and his emotion.

  ‘The Great King is running for home,’ he said. ‘He is going overland – with half his army.’

  I stroked my beard. ‘How do you know?’ I said. I raised my hand for silence. ‘I mean, do you know, or were you simply told?’

  ‘I saw the horses prepared, I heard him order Mardonius into ­motion, and I heard the orders he gave Artaphernes.’

  It was too dark to read his face, but I could guess.

  ‘You know how important Artaphernes is to me,’ I said.

  ‘I know he is your enemy,’ he said. ‘Lord Cyrus could scarcely hide that. And let me say, my lord – I have earned your citizenship. I took a risk, a very real risk, in approaching Lord Cyrus.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked as urbanely as I could manage. ‘A smart boy like you should have used my request as a cover for his whole mission.’

  Silence passed, like time, but heavier.

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked.

  ‘I want you to tell me the truth,’ I said. ‘Did you speak face to face with Cyrus?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  Most men give themselves away when they lie. It is a simple thing, but liars tell stories and truth-tellers say things like ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Some men are verbose
by nature so it is not an absolute law, but it is a good guide.

  ‘And what order did Xerxes give to Artaphernes?’ I asked.

  ‘My lord, I can tell you more than that – I can relate to you what conversation Artaphernes had with Diomedes of Ephesus,’ he said. ‘But then I will require your oath, and some reward, because I will be leaving my own lord.’

  I was, in my turn, silent. Just by pairing Artaphernes and Diomedes he made my blood run cold and my heart beat fast. In fact, I didn’t really need to know what they said to each other. But the mere idea that they had talked was a terror to me. And the fact that this spy knew my affairs so well that he knew that these two names would affect me meant that, on the one hand, he must be telling the truth, and on the other, than he was appallingly well-informed.

  ‘Freedom, citizenship in Plataea or Thespiae, and a farm and ten talents of silver,’ I said. ‘But that’s all I can ever offer. Be bought, or do not be bought.’

  He moved, and I realised that he – as slave – was holding out his hand for a gentleman’s hand clasp.

  I’d been a slave, and I gave it.

  ‘I give you my word, and my oath to Zeus, Lord of Kings, and Poseidon, my master every day at sea, Horse Tamer and Giant Killer, that I will give you your full reward, citizenship, ten talents of silver, and a good farm, or I shall be accursed, if you will aid me to your fullest in the recovery of the woman I love and the saving of her children,’ I said. I had learned a little about oaths.

  ‘Wow,’ he said, or words to that effect. ‘Very well, lord. All know you are a man of his word. Here is what I have. Diomedes and Artaphernes are allies in this – they both hate Archilogos and his sister too. Archilogos was to be held as long as possible on the beaches to let Diomedes have the start of him. Artaphernes is racing to Ephesus on the Royal Post, taking the place of the messenger the Great King was sending to Sardis.’

  ‘Heracles!’ I swore. ‘Artaphernes is putting his revenge on his father’s wife over the Great King’s commands?’

  Siccinius shrugged. ‘I find Persians even harder to understand than Greeks,’ he admitted. ‘But he hates her, and he claims she has humiliated him. He means her to die very badly.’