by Mary Renault
He grabbed her, wriggling, and reproaching his ingratitude with her melting eyes. The suitors stayed, however, and we should have been besieged all night, if they had not started to do battle for right of precedence. This drew the kennel-man, who had to get help before he could whip them off.
I looked round for the Helen who had caused the war. Like the first one, she had gone home again, and was curled at Anakreon’s side. What with sorrow and weariness and poppy-juice, sleep had at last caught up with him. He never stirred when I covered them both with the blanket.
After that, I went down to tell my brother, and anyone else who was still there, that the Great King was said to be dying. I remembered that Kambyses, who had killed so many men, had not begotten any. His only brother he had already murdered. He had no heir. Had he been a king in Homer, one would have foreseen great contests at his funeral games.
8
FOR SOME TIME, ALL eyes in Greece were turned on Persia. First we heard that Kambyses’ brother had after all survived, and assumed the throne. He passed many welcome laws, remitted taxes, and was well thought of, except that nobody ever saw him. After some months, he turned out to be a pretender. It was revealed by a concubine, and confirmed by the man who knew it best of all; he had cut the real brother’s throat on Kambyses’ orders. Having declared this, he leaped off the citadel wall, leaving Persia an anarchy. This is not a state which commends itself to Persians. Several lords made a pact together, first to kill the pretender, then to choose a king from among themselves by seeking a sign from heaven. They got into the Palace and did the deed, after which, as the world knows, Darius got the sign. It was to be that the chosen man’s horse would be the first to neigh after sunrise. So they all rode eastward together; and if Darius was the only one of them with horse-sense enough to know that a stallion will whinny when he scents his favorite mare, I should think the Persians were lucky not to get one of the others.
With all this, rumor had not much time for Samos; on the other hand, news came in faster from there. It appeared that the island was still being ruled by Polykrates’ regent whom he’d left behind to do it; and this was the same man, Maiandrios, who had been his envoy beforehand, to view Oroites’ promised gold.
Anakreon said to me, “I saw something of this. All we knew at first was that Polykrates was dead. So much we’d feared and half expected. I didn’t spend those first days in the state you found me in, when I’d just learned how he died. Before that I looked about. Maiandrios started with a great flourish about putting an end to tyranny; talked about setting up an altar to Zeus the Liberator. But I don’t remember any word about elections.”
Certainly none were held; in fact, when the opposition looked dangerous, Maiandrios invited its leaders to a conference, and chained them up in the castle dungeons. Then he moved into the fort himself, which Polykrates had never needed to do, and set about getting rid of anyone still at large whom he distrusted.
“Do you know what I think?” said Anakreon when this news came in. “He was in it from the beginning. Whose word did we have but his, about all this deceitful treasure? It’s my belief the only gold he ever saw in Sardis was what Oroites bought him with. I hope some god makes them both pay.” Maybe one did; for Darius was not long on the throne before he got rid of Oroites. Maiandrios did not rule long either; but while his tyranny lasted, the Samians looked back on Polykrates’ reign as a carefree summer.
Poets, musicians, sculptors, painters and potters were soon in flight before he had time to murder them; arriving mostly at Piraeus. Nearly all the talent from Polykrates’ court attached itself to the Archons’. Athens seemed to grow more splendid every day.
Ibykos got away by the skin of his teeth. He’d believed in Maiandrios at first, but, thinking it unseemly to court a new patron in the house of a murdered benefactor, had lived privately and not come forward with any praise. It was not long before he had word the Tyrant’s men were looking for him as a man suspected of treason; so he got off on a fishing-boat that night.
Hipparchos received him civilly, but did not ask him to remain. In the past he’d been a long time in Sikyon, down in the Argolid, a guest of the house of Kleisthenes; and ever since they’d married into the Alkmaionids, the Archons had counted them enemies. That was an undying feud, and poor old Ibykos had got himself mixed up in it.
Anakreon greeted him as a friend, and was sad to part with him. He’d long forgiven him for his first, sycophantic song in Samos; as he said to me, “My dear, it was just that it was so bad, and nobody dared to say so.” Since then, he had made a whole garland of fine songs, love songs mostly, to please himself. I buried my private grudge, which he had never known of, and joined the party to see him off at Piraeus. “One can forgive him anything,” said Anakreon going home, “for the sake of that song that likens the lover to an old chariot-horse, trembling when it is yoked for another race.”
I don’t think he had any great wish to stay in Athens. His tall frame was bent under its costly robe, his gold-pinned hair was snow-white; he was at the time of life when many men will crave for familiar things. He went first to Syracuse, where I don’t doubt they made him welcome; but soon crossed to Italy, and ended in Rhegium where he was born. No doubt he did well there; one day when he was crossing the hills, some robbers thought it worth while to kill him. That’s a hazard of our calling; Apollo has no friends among barbarians.
For some time we talked of him, and sang each other the new songs he’d brought; but there was so much talent in the city, even so great a man could pass by and be not long missed. Those years were rich and sweet, and I shall say so still. One must not renege upon the Muses.
Artists and craftsmen prospered; and the countrymen were still safe under Solon’s laws. No man could distrain another for a debt. Hippias did the rounds of Attica to judge causes, just as his father had done. People missed the old man’s presence, but the verdicts were pretty fair, if not quite so wise. Hipparchos supported his brother when required, pursued the joys of life, and furthered the arts. Hippias’ children were growing up; it seemed, in those days, the dynasty might last a century.
Attic potters were famous now from Sicily to the Euxine. The sculptors came closer every year to that marriage of flesh and mind that their sons achieved. Just to walk through the city would lift your heart. For that matter, they are doing great things now and will do greater, if they only know where to stop. Well, if they don’t I shall never see it.
Hippias entertained many foreign rulers and statesmen, and leading Athenians who had supported his father’s faction. Thinking Anakreon too frivolous, he often called on me for a hero song; King Theseus was his favorite theme. These evenings, I thought of as rehearsals. Politicians will always prefer the useful to the true; and beauty will hardly tickle their hairy ears. Most of my best I gave at Hipparchos’ parties; but the best of all, I think, at Lyra’s. Disdaining base lovers, and choosing those who could offer her worthy praise, she had flowed into the images the artists made of her and the poets sang. Whatever graces we assigned to her, she took on; and not skin-deep, either. Though I never got as much of her as I wanted, it was more than enough to spoil my taste for coarser fare. She left you nothing you needed to seek elsewhere, beauty or wit or the crafts of Aphrodite. All one wanted was more; and not to know that next night was another man’s.
However, rare bliss does make for restlessness. There were one or two old companions who made me feel at home and knew my ways. As for Thalatta, for years I never entered the street where her place had been.
One evening, I went with Theas to Piraeus. He had to spend the night on board, for some reason to do with cargo. We ate at his favorite inn, and parted at the door. I was unhitching my mule to go home, when I heard a woman cursing. That’s nothing much in Piraeus. Then I heard my name.
She came from the waterfront into the dim light of a window. Somewhere behind her, the cresset on a moored ship flickered and danced. But for her voice, I would not have known her. She had thicken
ed, and was painted like a Lydian, black round the eyes and a scarlet mouth; her bracelets were of copper and glass beads. She was tousled and dirty; she looked like the lowest of dockside drabs, the kind who will go on board and be passed round among the rowers. I stared at her wordless, my chief disgust for myself. She stood there cursing me in the thieves’ cant of the wharfside, as if I had made her what she was. I took it she must be drunk.
I ought to have mounted and ridden off; but she had revived my anger. “Yes,” I said, “I know I spoiled your game. Was I really the first who was not ashamed to tell? It was just by chance I had a good friend to listen.”
“A friend!” She screamed it; I drew back from her dirty nails. “A friend!” She swung round with her back to me, and dropped her coarse patched robe. I exclaimed with horror. She was ribbed with old whip-scars; her back was like a Phoenician galley-slave’s.
Resentment followed shock. “If you made off with some sailor’s wages,” I said, “what has that to do with me?”
Her look of bitterness pierced me despite myself. I had come from a good meal with good company; she must be living in some wretched kennel, if she had a roof at all. I took a few drachmas from my belt-bag. “Well, we had what we had. Take this for old times’ sake.” She snatched it from me, her eyes still cursing. I rode off quickly, in case she worked with a robber.
It was not a tale to entertain one’s friends with; but then, one evening, I was sitting alone with Hipparchos. I remember, we were planning that year’s theoria to Delos. Winter hanging on late that year, he called for some spiced wine while we broke off business. A brazier in the corner; a pale cold sky; little clouds edged with blue enamel. He wore a robe of cream combed wool with a yellow border, the end trailing beside his deer-footed chair. He pushed the tablets and scrolls aside, to talk, and told me some current joke about a greedy hetaira. It reminded me that I had confided in him before; so I told him how the tale had ended.
He gave a wise, kindly smile. “Well, well. That was her destined fate. She had a mean sense of her calling. True artists, like our Lyra, will take ten times as much, and a man will thank them for the privilege.”
I did not much want to talk about Lyra; so I answered, “Yes. But this girl—whatever possessed her to blame me? She showed me her back as if she were accusing me.”
He put his head on one side, as if thinking better of something he’d meant to say. I looked at him.
“My dear friend. I see I had better tell you. Neither of us is to blame; but I suppose she could not know it. Now it all comes back to me. When first I heard how you had been treated, I told the story—of course, without using names—to a certain man we know, whose name I won’t use either. He was much moved, and begged, almost demanded, the woman’s name. I was willing to tell him so much for his good. He was so enraged that I knew what he would say, before he could get it out. Yes, fooled just like you. I have seldom seen a man so angry. He said that my other friend, whoever he was, had been too forbearing. Now I know what he meant. My dear Simonides, I am sorry you had so ugly an encounter. But even if he paid off your score too, I can assure you she deserved it.”
That was enough. I could picture her pointing me out to this second victim—or the tenth, maybe—as the ugly man who was threatening to buy her, unless she was rescued first. The whole thing hung so well together, that I never questioned it. Indeed, even to this day I have no certainty.
9
NEXT YEAR WAS AN Olympic one. The sixty-fourth, it must have been. Why do the Olympics never stale? The last I went to was the seventy-fifth; but it seemed as fresh as ever.
There is the ancient beauty with its changes: the oaks of Kronos may shade one from heat or shelter one from rain; the Alpheus may chuckle low on its pebbles, or rush down in spate; the women across the water may be sunning themselves with straw hats and fans, or huddled in their scented tents; it may be sweet and balmy or grilling hot, the athletes plastered with dust and sweat like clay.
There is always something new; a dedication in the Altis, new craftsmen showing work; the horse-copers’ pitches down the road to tempt chariot lords, the bloodstock and handsome mules. I bought a mule that year myself, a sweet grey mare with the smooth pace that feels a part of one. Dear Leuko, she helped me to many a song.
There are new faces, and altered ones: the young wrestler who just held his own last time, now sheathed in bronze muscle in his pride of strength, victor of the pankration; some new poet from Further Greece; a philosopher from Ionia, who’d once have recited his theory in Ephesos or Miletos; a lord who inherited since last time, and is entering a chariot team; boys become youths, youths become men. And the shift of politics between city and city, nowhere to be studied so well as here.
Always I rejoice most in the athletes, dedicating body and spirit to the god: ambitious, emulous, passionate to win; and yet, making their offering. It is nearly always a joy to hymn their victories. There can be bad winners, as there are bad losers, but they are few, after their long training at Olympia itself, when the spirit of the place seeps into them. There are always ways of hymning a man who has won fairly, but whom one does not much like. One goes off into digressions about his ancestors or his city or the family’s patron god. They never notice, if the song goes well; and one has earned one’s fee without telling lies. Other poets know, but that is our private mystery.
Head and heart of the games is the athlete. You could say of the chariot-race that it is a rich man’s toy, a contest whose prize goes to one who did nothing but spend his gold. Yet, like all the rest, I am its captive. After all, in Homer, godlike Achilles put it first, and one can’t argue with that.
Though the owners don’t mount their chariots, there is no event where you see more endurance, courage or skill. When I was young and poor, and had no one to command a seat for me, I used to spread my blanket overnight on the slope beside the track, stretched out full-length to keep a place for my master, so that he could sleep under cover and come down next day. The last two times, the boy did it for me. I daresay he won’t need to again.
That year, though, I got a seat and even an awning. The Archons had brought a large company, with many men of rank. It overflowed the Athenian placings, and but for Hipparchos, we three poets would have had to take our chance on the slopes; it is not every patron will displace minor nobles for bards. Chairs at Olympia are for the great alone; but we had a bench with cushions, were well up the bank, and had a good view of the walk-past.
For the honor of the house, Hippias had entered a chariot. He had barely seen it, leaving everything to Hipparchos; so it was gorgeous, with the Race of Pelops in gilt relief. The horses were good Thessalians, and the driver, who had come with the team, was Thracian. He looked strong, but was rather big; your first-class driver can manage without weight, because he gets the team to think along with him. Such men are rare, however, and we all cheered the chariot on its way.
“Here’s Kimon’s,” said Anakreon, and gave me a nudge.
Kimon son of Stesagoras sat in the row below the Archons; a man getting on in years, high-colored and hawk-nosed. His faded yellow hair was clubbed into a net in the old-fashioned style, and the pins that fixed it were headed with golden grasshoppers, meaning that his Attic ancestry went back forever. He looked a perfect type of the old oligarchs who in their great days had been little lords accountable to no one, ever since the line of High Kings died out. Moreover he was a Philead, and even the Alkmaionids ranked no higher, besides the Phileads having incurred no family curse. At one time they had been at open war with the Pisistratids; most were in exile; and how Kimon, alone of them all, came to be in the seats of honor was already an Olympic legend.
Anakreon, who had kept his eyes on the chariot, suddenly grabbed my arm. “By Zeus, look! It’s the same team again!”
For some reason, this was Lasos’ first visit to the Olympics. He was short-sighted, which always made him fretful at the races. “The same as what?” he said.
Anakreon and I s
tarted together to enlighten him. “Those mares. He won the last two Olympics with that same team.” “They must be now—what—ten years old at least, that’s if they were two-year-olds the first time.” Just then the charioteer raised his arm to salute the owner. “He’s the same too,” Anakreon said. “That little dark Sicilian.” “They look in good shape,” I said. “Mares are clever, if they can stay well.” Then both of us said together, “What if they win?”
“What if they do?” said Lasos curiously. “Will it be a record?”
“No, it’s been done by a Spartan once. But don’t you know what happened last time; why Kimon is sitting here?”
“Don’t tease the poor boy, Simonides. What happened, my dear, was that Kimon proclaimed the victory in Pisistratos’ name, instead of his own. He gave it to him, an Olympic chariot crown. He might nearly as well have presented him with a city. So the Old Archon shook hands on it, and invited him back from exile. That’s why he’s here, instead of over there.”
He pointed along the course, to where the Alkmaionids were gathered. It was only at times like this that one ever saw them; and then, if you had sense, it was at a distance.
“Well,” I said, “I doubt he could ever have won with two-year-olds; they seldom stay the distance. They may even be eleven by now or even twelve.”
“Eleven. They were three-year-olds, he told me so at the time.” Out of the three of us, only Anakreon had been eminent enough, eight whole years back, to talk with Kimon. “They’ll never do it again,” I said. “It’s just a fancy the man has taken.”
It was a big entry that year; thirty quadrigas, no less. It seemed to take half the day getting them into the starting-stalls, after the place-lots had been drawn. Each four had a pair of grooms to lead it and help the charioteer; but there were more than the usual run of tangles and bickerings. No owner of sense will run stallions where mares are running, but the horses were excited as always by the crowds, and some charioteers are not above a sly flick of the whip at another team, if the umpire is not looking.
