Killer of Men

by Christian Cameron

  ‘Come with me,’ he said, and took me to Darkar, the steward, another Lydian.

  ‘Darkar is the man who controls this house,’ Master said. ‘I’m lucky he allows me to live here. Darkar, this young man is to be my son’s companion.’

  I bowed to the steward. He nodded. He was a slave.

  ‘He will need money,’ Master said.

  Darkar nodded, went into a storeroom and emerged with a purse. He handed it to me. ‘Fifty gold darics and some change,’ he said. ‘You will only be told once. If you steal, you’ll be sold. If you don’t steal, you’ll receive a bonus to put away towards your freedom. Understand?’

  I nodded. Fifty darics was the price of a hundred slaves. Or a ship. And he said eleutheria, freedom, as if it was a certain thing. ‘Master, why do I need so much money?’ I asked the steward.

  ‘Never call me master, boy. This is your companion’s money. You but carry it for him, and watch it, and count it – treat it carefully, for they never will. Give me a good accounting, and I’ll speak well of you. My word caries weight, when it comes time for freedom.’

  Freedom!

  Of course, in my head, I wasn’t really a slave, so I looked at the purse and considered running for a ship.

  Ionians. Too much money.

  At any rate, the moment I had the purse in my hand, I ran off to the market and bought a good, lightweight bow. I paid well, almost half a daric, and I pocketed the change. What do you think? I knew that they couldn’t catch me. I put the change in a jar in the garden. And I had the bow on Archilogos’s bed when he awoke in the morning, and forty-nine golden darics left to show on my accounts.

  The whole time that Artaphernes was with us, we shot until my fingers bled. That’s an expression you hear, but in our case, it was true. First you shoot until your fingertips swell, and after a while they hurt as if stung by ants and they turn bright red. But a pair of boys, each eager for praise and fearing the catcalls of the other, will go right on, until the fingers turn a darker colour, and then the abrasion of the bowstring will break the swollen flesh, and they bleed. And later, if you go back to shooting before the calluses grow, the scabs break and they bleed again. The bowstring of our bow had a brown spot at the draw point from our blood.

  Archilogos never tired and never gave up. His whipcord body was proof against fatigue, and he would run and shoot, do lessons and shoot, go to the theatre and shoot. Anything to impress his hero. He’d learned a few lines of Persian poetry and he’d declaim them, hoping that the Persian would overhear.

  The Persian had troubles enough without the adoration of the boy. First, it was obvious to me, after the sexual politics of the farm, that the Persian was deeply in love with Mistress, and that she toyed with him. But even that was of little moment next to the greater matters that surrounded us.

  It was the years of the seventieth Olympiad. In Greece, the last of the great tyrants had gone and peace began to emerge from her nest. But in Ionia, the tyrants still held sway. Not law-givers, men who make good laws and then relinquish control. I speak here of strong warlords and aristocrats who aped Persian manners and ruled Ionia for their own benefit, not that of their cities.

  Hippias, the tyrant of Athens, had been overthrown in my childhood. He had retreated to Sigeum in Asia, a city that his family, the Pisistratidae, ruled in much the same way as Miltiades ruled the Chersonese. Hippias was in Ephesus with his own train of soldiers and courtiers, making noise in the lower city and spending money.

  My second night in the household, I heard the satrap at dinner. He was complaining to Hipponax about the Greek lords on their islands, and how their bad rulership reflected poorly on the Great King and would, if left unchecked, lead to revolt.

  ‘And men blame me!’ he complained. ‘I don’t have enough soldiers to punish Mytilene! Or Miletus! And what good would it do me to take them – I would only punish the very men of the city who are treated so ruthlessly by the tyrants I wish to be rid of!’ He looked at his host. ‘Why are you Greeks so rapacious?’

  Hipponax laughed. ‘I suspect that the tyrants merely do as they think a Persian would do, lord.’

  The satrap frowned. ‘I hope that this is humour, my friend. No Persian lord would behave this way. This is weakness. These are rulers who do not trust themselves, nor do they tell the truth to their people or their king.’

  Hipponax shrugged and looked at his wife. ‘Is it really so bad?’ he asked.

  The satrap raised a cup of wine. ‘It is. And Hippias – this former tyrant – has been at me again and again to take Athens back for him. What does the Great King want with these yokels?’ His eyes crossed mine. I lowered my eyes as slaves do, but I couldn’t help bridling at the term ‘yokel’ from a barbarian, even if he was handsome as a god.

  Hipponax nodded at me. ‘That young man has been a warrior in the west, haven’t you, lad? That’s a spear scar on your thigh. Go ahead – you may speak.’

  I was behind Archilogos’s couch, and I was caught with a pitcher of water in my hands – hardly the most warlike pose. ‘Yes, master,’ I said.

  Artaphernes smiled at me. ‘You fought for Athens?’ he asked.

  ‘I am a Plataean,’ I answered. ‘We are allies of Athens.’

  Hipponax laughed. He meant no harm, I think, but his laugh hurt me. ‘See how the westerners are? That’s a town smaller than our temple-complex claiming to be the “ally” of Athens, a town so small we could fit five of them inside Ephesus.’

  Artaphernes dismissed me with a flick of his fingers. ‘I have never heard of your Plataea,’ he said. I don’t think he meant it unkindly, but the gods were listening. I wish I could say I replied with something witty, or strong. Ha! Instead, I stood like a statue as he went on. ‘However provincial Athens is, men here in the islands and on the coast look at the tyrants and talk of rebellion. They have never seen the wrath of the Great King, or how he disciplines rebellion. They are like children.’ He drank. ‘You know Aristagoras as well as I do. He has taken an embassy to Sparta and Athens asking for fleets and soldiers to raise rebellion against us. And farther from home, men like Miltiades of Athens foment war.’

  I leaned forward at the mention of my hero. I hadn’t heard his name in a year. It was as if I had been asleep.

  ‘That warlord! What do we care for him? He’s just a petty brigand.’ Mistress was amused. ‘A handsome brigand, I’ll allow. A far better man than Aristagoras the windbag.’

  ‘Miltiades has most of the Chersonese in his hand,’ the Persian said.

  ‘The Lydian Chersonese?’ Mistress asked, alarmed.

  Master laughed at her – not mocking, but honest laughter. ‘Nothing to be worried about, my sweet. Miltiades has his lair in the Chersonese of the Bosporus – over by Byzantium, north of Troy.’

  ‘He has more men and more ships each year,’ the satrap continued, nodding. ‘And he preys on us. Soon, I will need to mount an expedition to evict him from the Chersonese, I have so many complaints. But when I go against him, he will counter by pushing Samos or some other island into revolt. He spends silver like water. And these fool tyrants play into his hands!’ He drank again. ‘And yet – bah – why do I bore you with these matters of governance?’

  All of that sounded like my Miltiades. A thumb in every wine bowl. And lots of silver.

  Mistress smiled. ‘Because we are your friends. And because friends ease each other’s burdens. Surely, lord, you can just buy Miltiades? He worships money, or so I understand.’

  The satrap shook his head and rolled over on his couch. I thought that his trousers looked ridiculous. Greek men – even Ionians – display their legs to show how hard they exercise. A man in trousers looked like some sort of effeminate clown, but otherwise, I thought him the best figure of a warrior I had ever seen. I understood why Archilogos was so eager to impress him.

  He held out his hand for wine. I cut off another house slave and filled it for him, and he flashed me a smile. ‘It is not Miltiades who really worries me,’ he
admitted. ‘It is your windbag, Aristagoras of Miletus. My spies tell me he is to speak to the assembly in Athens.’

  Hipponax yawned. ‘Ephesus can defeat Athens without help from any of the other cities, if it comes to that,’ he said.

  Artaphernes shook his head. ‘Don’t be too sure,’ he said. ‘Their power is growing. Their confidence is growing. I do not want the westerners involved, if there is to be trouble in the islands.’

  There was more of the same – indeed, an old man’s memory being what it is, I’m not sure that I even have what they said in the right order. But Hipponax and Euthalia took the parts I have given them. They were supportive, loyal subjects of the Great King.

  As the companion to Archilogos, I was excused a great many duties in the house, but I was smart enough to know that it was by willingness to work and not by arrogance that I would gain the alliance of the other slaves and the steward. So I put my master to bed and then returned to the andron to help tidy up. It wasn’t bad work – there was plenty of wine going around among the slaves, and as long as we didn’t chip the ceramics or dent the metalware, Master didn’t seem to care much what we did. I took tray after tray down to the kitchens, and then I helped the girls wash the cups in hot water, which was what Cook liked to see.

  My young master had a sister I hadn’t met yet, named Briseis after Achilles’ ‘companion’. People choose the oddest names for children, eh, honey? Greece is full of Cassandras – what kind of name is that for a girl? Anyway, her companion was Penelope, the same as my sister, and I met her that night. Penelope was just my age, had red hair like Miltiades and was of the same mind as me – to do some extra work and be seen as a help. So we washed cups and drank wine together, and we talked of our lives. She wasn’t born a slave, either. Her father sold her when her family lost their farm. He still came and saw her, though.

  I listened, as well as talking. It was a new experience for me, and she commented on it. Emboldened, I tried to kiss her, and I put a hand on her breast, but she slapped my ear hard enough to make me see the stars. Then she flashed me a smile.

  ‘No,’ she said. And slipped away.

  I liked her. I even liked the slap, and I’ll jump ahead of my story to say that I started to make excuses to see her. The house was big, but it wasn’t that big – it’s just that while Mistress came and went from the women’s quarters as she wished, we men weren’t allowed there.

  I went to bed late and with much to think about.

  And in the morning, we went for our lessons to the great Temple of Artemis. It was my first time inside the precinct. I climbed the steps with a certain awe, because they were so high and so much of the precinct was stone. In Boeotia, we put down a couple of courses of stone to raise the building clear of the damp, and then we build the rest in mud brick. But the Ephesian temple was all stone, with marble steps and marble pediments and lintels, and painted statues of Artemis and Nemesis – and Heracles. I think I spoke aloud in wonder to see my ancestor so nobly arrayed in a foreign land, wearing a helmet like a lion’s head and holding a club. I touched the statue for luck.

  When we reached the top we passed beneath the magnificent portico, into the blinding sunlight of the courtyard, which was paved in pale golden stone. Gold and bronze statues caught the light reflected by the brightly coloured marbles.

  Archilogos didn’t give it so much as a glance. ‘Don’t gawp like a peasant,’ he said. ‘Come!’

  He marched me to the steps of the great temple itself. There were dozens of young men there and in the cool space under the columns. Most sat around tutors, but the biggest crowd gathered around a white-haired man who was so thin that his bones threatened to burst from his skin. He wore a chlamys without a chiton, like the young men, but he had an ugly, bony body – except that his muscles stood out like a Boeotian farmer’s. He seemed very old to me.

  He watched us come, although there were a dozen boys around him on the steps.

  ‘You are late,’ he said to my new master.

  Archilogos smiled. ‘Pardon, master,’ he said. ‘I should not have waited so long to dip my toe.’

  This comment made the other boys giggle. I had no idea why.

  The teacher glared at him. ‘If you understood what I said,’ he commented, ‘you would know how foolish that last sally sounded. Why do I teach the young?’

  ‘We pay well?’ another wag said.

  Boys began to laugh, but he old man had a stick and it smacked into the jokester’s shins before he could move.

  ‘I neither accept pay nor do I ask for it,’ the teacher said. ‘Who are you, boy?’

  That last was directed at me. I was not the only companion present. ‘I belong to Archilogos,’ I said meekly.

  He grunted. ‘Not in my class, boy. Here, you are your own man. Your own mind. For me to mould as I see fit.’ He coughed into his hand. ‘What do you know? Anything?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Nothing.’

  He smiled. ‘You have a nice combination of humility and arrogance, young man. Sit down right here. We are talking about the logos. Do you know of the logos, young man?’

  ‘No, teacher,’ I answered.

  And so I met Heraclitus, my true master, the teacher of my soul. But for him, I would be nothing but a hollow vessel filled with rage and blood.

  At the time, I was enraptured to find another thinker like the priest of Hephaestus from Thebes. This one was even deeper, I thought, and I sat in the shade, my back against a warm marble pillar, and let him fill me with wisdom.

  In fact, much of it sounded like gibberish, and it was up to every boy to take what he could from the well, or so Heraclitus told us. On that first day, though, he turned to me, of all those boys. ‘So – you know nothing. Are you a hollow vessel? May I fill you?’

  I remember nodding and blushing, because other boys giggled and too late I saw the double entendre.

  ‘Bah,’ Heraclitus said, and his stick struck a shin. The owner squeaked. ‘Sex is for animals, boy. Talking about sex is for miserable ephebes.’ He prodded me with the bronze-shot tip of his staff. ‘So? Ready to learn?’

  ‘Yes, master,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘Here is all the wisdom I have, boy. There is a formula, a binding and a loosing, a single, coherent thought that makes the universe as it is, and we who sit on these steps call it the logos.’ He prodded me again. ‘Understand?’

  I looked at him. His eyes were dark and full of mischief, like a boy’s. ‘No,’ I admitted.

  ‘Brilliant!’ Heraclitus laughed. ‘You may yet be a sage, boy.’ He looked around and then back at me. ‘Have you heard the phrase “common sense”?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I answered.

  ‘Is it, in fact, common?’

  I laughed. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Superb!’ the old man said. ‘By all the gods, you are the pupil I’ve dreamed about.’ He leaned close and poked me with his stick again. ‘Which has the truer understanding, lad? Your ears and nose, or your soul?’

  I looked around, but all the boys were watching me. ‘What’s a soul?’ I asked. I had heard the word, but seldom as something that could sense.

  He stopped poking me. He turned to Archilogos. ‘Young Logos,’ he said, and suddenly I knew where my young master had got his name, ‘how much did your father pay for this slave?’

  Archilogos raised his hands. ‘No idea, master. But not much.’

  Heraclitus laughed. ‘Now I know that wisdom can, indeed, be purchased.’ He turned back to me and the stick pushed into my ribs. ‘Listen, boy,’ he said, ‘the soul is the truest form of you. It can sense the logos in the same way it can sense when another man lies, if you allow it.’

  I considered this. ‘What does it sense? If my eyes sense light and my ears sense noise, what does my soul sense?’

  Heraclitus stepped back. ‘Excellent question.’ He walked away a few steps and came back. ‘Work on it, and you will be a philosopher. Now we will examine some mathematics. What’s your name, boy?’ />
  ‘I am Doru,’ I said.

  ‘The spear that cuts to the truth, I see. Very well. On the feast of Artemis, have prepared an oration on what the soul senses, and how. You may present it to the other boys.’ Then he turned away. ‘Now. This is a triangle.’

  That was our first encounter.

  He was always a challenge. If you said nothing, he would hit you. If you spoke up, he would sometimes praise and sometimes deride and always force you to compose an oration to defend your views. I came to know that most classes began with one poor boy or another rising like a politician in the assembly to deliver a quavering oration in defence of some indefensible subject.

  I liked the mathematics. I came from a family of craftsmen, and I already knew how to make a triangle with a compass, how to divide it exactly in two parts, and a hundred other tricks that any draughtsman needs to know to copy figures or even just to make a nice circle on a cup.

  I lacked the language to be comfortable – they were Ionians and they spoke a different dialect – but from the first, Heraclitus put me at ease. When I sat on the steps of the Temple of Artemis, I was the equal of every other boy. That made me love the lessons more than anything.

  But I soon learned the language, and I drank in the ideas and words of rhetoric and philosophy the way a thirsty man drinks water. I learned to stand properly and to speak from low in the chest so that other men could hear me. I learned some tricks with words – phrases that would draw a laugh, and other phrases that were serious. I learned that the repetition of any line from Homer would make men take an argument more seriously.

  We learned to sing from another teacher and to play the lyre. Calchas had played the instrument well and I was determined to emulate him. You may judge the results yourself when I play some Sappho later.

  It was a game, but a great game. A complex game – as was the game of how to craft an argument.

  Heraclitus was severe on the difference between disputation and assertion. You know it, young man? They teach that in Halicarnassus, do they? Hmm. Honey, it is like this. When I say that the moon is made of cheese, that is an assertion. If I say it louder, does that make it more true? If I quote Homer that the moon is made of cheese, does that make it more true? What if I threaten to beat you if you don’t agree – does that make it true?