Shadows of Athens

by J M Alvey

  ‘What?’ Megakles was audibly stunned.

  ‘I also wish to explain my contempt for the proposals put to me at your symposium. I remain convinced that Athens should look to the west, to Italy and to Sicily,’ Aristarchos continued calmly. ‘To build new cities on fresh ground rather than stealing land which our allies have ploughed for generations. I will never help foment mistrust between this city and the Delian League. I will never be part of conniving to wave a false threat of some Persian menace over everyone’s heads. I will never ally with men stirring up strife in Athens in order to fill their own strongboxes.’

  ‘I played no part in that.’ The stool’s feet screeched on the paving as Megakles lurched to his feet.

  ‘No,’ Aristarchos agreed, ‘but only because you were wilfully deaf while treason was discussed around your dinner table. Just as you were wilfully blind to whatever your son was doing, and with whom. An honest citizen, any responsible father, would have acted long since to curb his arrogance and greed.’

  To give Megakles his due, he rallied quickly. ‘I would warn you against rash accusations. You forget I have many friends in this city. Powerful friends.’

  Aristarchos was unmoved. ‘You may wish to consider how they will react, when they hear what I have to say. The Archons. The Polemarch. The Tribute Commissioners. The Board of Auditors who will assess your fitness if you’re ever selected for high office. The men who will ratify your accounts if, by some miracle, you’re approved to serve a magistrate’s term. The senior men of your own noble lineage when they hear just how your son’s treason threatens them all with utmost disgrace.’

  ‘It will just be your word against mine,’ Megakles snarled.

  ‘No, it will not,’ Aristarchos assured him. ‘I can call a witness to the plotting you allowed to flourish under your very own roof.’

  That was my cue. I walked through the archway to the outer courtyard. Lydis followed, carrying my stool and retreating as soon as he’d set it down. I took my seat.

  Still standing, Megakles stared at me, dumbfounded. He didn’t have the faintest idea who I was.

  ‘This is Philocles,’ Aristarchos said helpfully. ‘He was with the musicians you hired for that symposium you invited me to. He heard everything that was said.’

  ‘One of those Aitolians?’ scoffed Megakles. ‘His word is no good in Athens. You might just as well put forward the slave who carried your torch.’

  ‘Hardly. I value my slaves. In any case, you are mistaken. Philocles is an Athenian citizen who can call any number of men from his district to vouch for him and his family. Though I’m surprised you don’t recognise him,’ Aristarchos remarked. ‘He wrote the comedy I sponsored for the festival.’

  I was pleased to see a flicker of uncertainty on Megakles’s face. Nevertheless, he half turned and took a pace as though he was about to leave.

  ‘And of course, your son tried to have him killed,’ Aristarchos continued in that same measured tone. ‘To add to the first murder we can lay at his door.’

  ‘What?’ Megakles turned back. Apprehension coloured his protest. ‘Nikandros would do no such thing.’

  ‘You don’t know your son very well.’ Aristarchos was politely contemptuous. ‘Do you know how he was financing his attempt to beggar the city’s leather workers so that your tanneries and workshops would profit?’

  I followed his prompt. ‘He told me he had raised loans against the produce and the property of the farms and the vineyards you own.’

  ‘He did what?’ Megakles was aghast.

  ‘Without your knowledge or consent?’ Aristarchos pursed his lips. ‘That disgraces you both. Or it would, if it were true. In fact, Nikandros was conspiring with a wrestler who claimed the protection of your patronage. We have yet to establish where they got the silver that funded their treason.’

  I made sure my face was as calm and assured as my patron’s. In fact, we had yet to establish if Nikandros had raised loans using Kerykes land. It would take twenty or thirty days for Aristarchos’s men to ride out into Attica and return with any proof either way. But when I’d said I didn’t believe it and cited Iktinos’s threats to Nikandros, Aristarchos had been convinced.

  He was still speaking. ‘Philocles was attacked outside the house which you own in Limnai, where Gorgias has been living whenever he returns to Athens. That’s where he takes a break from his travels masquerading as a scroll seller called Archilochos. He has gone the length and breadth of Ionia assiduously stirring up resentment and doubt as to the Athenian people’s good faith. Do you seriously expect the city’s great and good to believe that your son did all this without your knowledge?’

  Looking at Megakles’s slack jaw and hollow eyes, I was convinced he hadn’t known a thing about it, but that wasn’t the point.

  Voice shaking, he still tried to strike back. ‘Accuse my son and you accuse your own, and others besides. You’ll make more enemies than me if you drag any of this into court.’

  ‘You think his friends’ fathers will rally to you?’ Aristarchos raised his voice. ‘Lydis!’

  The slave reappeared with two letters. He handed them to Megakles. I never did discover what they said but Megakles paled as he read them.

  ‘It’s Nikandros who has made powerful enemies for your family,’ Aristarchos said softly. ‘Seeking to take advantage of foolish boys easily led.’

  ‘We’ll see about that.’ Megakles turned the papyrus sideways as though he was going to tear both sheets in two.

  Lydis was too quick, plucking the letters from his hands.

  ‘You honestly think that I’d hand you the originals?’ mocked Aristarchos. ‘Even if I were so foolish, a letter can always be rewritten.’

  Megakles threw up his hands in extravagant fury. ‘I cannot believe that you’d condemn your own son. Such cruelty to your family! Such disloyalty to your bloodline!’

  ‘I have three sons still living.’ Aristarchos looked at him, as cold and unyielding as marble. ‘You have only one.’

  I found myself wishing I wrote tragedy. The theatre sees so many Cleons and Agamemnons condemning their nieces and nephews and sons and daughters with foot-stamping denunciations. If I could pen such a brutal judgement delivered with composure as ominous as this, I’d have an entire audience holding their breath.

  Megakles looked at the paving, histrionics abandoned. Aristarchos continued serenely.

  ‘Not that I intend to bring such treason to court. I have more than enough evidence to accuse Nikandros of corrupting temple officials, and extorting compliance from others with threats of violence. That’s how he secured all the hides from this year Dionysia’s sacrifices.’

  Lydis had been busy while I’d been trying to trap Iktinos. Aristarchos had always intended to secure a fallback position.

  ‘Tell me,’ he invited, ‘is he looking to put every other tannery and leather worker out of business or merely to make sure they’re obligated to your family? Though I don’t suppose it matters. Any jury of honest tradesmen and craftsmen will see a rich man greedy for still more coin, who is willing to ruin men like themselves by destroying their humble livelihoods.’

  ‘There are no laws against securing commercial advantage,’ blustered Megakles.

  ‘There are laws against bribery,’ Aristarchos pointed out.

  ‘Go ahead then,’ Megakles spat. ‘Call us before the courts and we’ll see who wins. I’ll have Glaukias compose my son’s defence. Who will you have at your side? This—’ he gestured at me, struggling to find some insult bad enough ‘—comedian?’

  Aristarchos’s grin reminded me of the crocodile Zosime had drawn for me once. Those lethal creatures were one of the few things she remembered from her childhood in Egypt.

  ‘Strato and Pheidestratos were stupid enough to underestimate Philocles, and they lost.’ He waved that away. ‘There’s no need for you to spend your money
on Glaukias. I have no need to prove anything before a court of law.’

  ‘What?’ Now Megakles was thoroughly confused.

  Aristarchos raised his voice in a shout. ‘Mus!’

  The massive slave reappeared. He was carrying a basket so big and so heavy that it was a burden even for him. He tipped the contents onto the paving in the middle of the courtyard. Broken pottery cascaded in all directions. Red dust rose from the slithering, cracking commotion and black chips skittered away from the growing heap.

  Mus stooped to pick up one of the shards and handed it to the gaping man. Nikandros’s name was scratched through the black glaze, leaving the letters as vividly red as the pottery beneath. All the other pieces said the same.

  Megakles looked at Aristarchos, appalled. ‘You wouldn’t.’

  ‘Oh, I would,’ he promised with absolute certainty.

  Megakles hurled the potsherd onto the heap. ‘It’ll be months before someone can call for an ostracism. Not until next year. It’ll be two months after that before there can be a vote to nominate anyone.’

  ‘Quite so,’ Aristarchos agreed. ‘Which gives me plenty of time to secure all the votes I could possibly need to condemn your son. All those tradesmen and craftsmen I mentioned? Athens has what, thirty thousand citizens? Let’s say so, for the sake of argument. I’m sure we can persuade six thousand of them to turn out to make sure that he’s exiled. They’ll have no time for you either, after they’ve heard about your family’s plot to monopolise the leather trade. Then there are your son’s cronies’ promises to help Metrobios get the same stranglehold on carpenters and joiners.’

  Kalliphon and Pamphilos had confirmed that.

  ‘You’re putting your trust in artisans?’ Megakles sneered. ‘The well-born—’

  ‘Let’s say a thousand men in Athens are wealthy enough to be called upon to finance festivals and triremes. Maybe fifteen hundred?’ Aristarchos leaned forward. ‘You think that you can convince them to vote to exile someone else in hopes of saving Nikandros? They’re more likely to vote against him, and to make sure their sons and brothers and nephews do the same, once they learn how you and he have hoarded your family silver abroad in order to shirk your share of such obligations to our city.’

  Because that’s the thing about ostracism, as we’d explained to the Pargasarenes. They’d heard of the custom, obviously, but it turned out they were vague on the detail.

  A case for ostracism doesn’t have to be argued before a jury. There is no burden of proof. There simply have to be enough votes cast by the People’s Assembly, declaring that it’s in the city’s best interests to send a known troublemaker into exile. Since there are generally a few candidates who’ve made themselves sufficiently unpopular, a second vote is held to choose which particular man to condemn.

  ‘Athens’ citizens, from highest to lowest, won’t even have to bring their own potsherds. We’ll supply everyone who wants one a token with Nikandros’s name on it.’ Aristarchos gestured at the heap. ‘Though of course they might choose to condemn you instead. No father can truly be innocent of his son’s crimes.’

  Megakles was sweating now, sickly pale. He couldn’t drag his eyes away from the broken pottery. I silently acknowledged that Aristarchos had been right. He’d insisted that uttering this threat wouldn’t be enough. We needed to make his son’s peril too real for Megakles to ignore.

  So Menkaure and Kadous had loaded a handcart with discards and breakages from the alley behind the workshop. We’d been up since dawn sitting alongside Aristarchos’s slaves, all laboriously scratching Nikandros’s name onto shard after shard after shard. Not that there were six thousand pieces to condemn him here, but we didn’t imagine Megakles would count them.

  ‘Of course, someone else may decide to level charges of treason at one or both of you,’ Aristarchos mused, ‘once they have heard the case for your son’s exile. Especially once they’ve heard these Ionians’ evidence.’

  That was the Pargasarenes’ cue. Tur was the first to appear through the archway, as quick as a hound after a hare. Sarkuk and Azamis followed while Lydis and Mus fetched their stools. Aristarchos welcomed them with a courteous nod.

  ‘Our friends here will investigate Gorgias’ rabble-rousing in every town and village he visited calling himself Archilochos. He was there at your son’s instigation. If our fellow citizens choose to condemn such treachery before the courts, Nikandros won’t be choosing some comfortable city to wait out ten years of exile.’

  Aristarchos remorselessly outlined the worse fate that threatened Nikandros.

  ‘He’ll be sent to the city’s executioner and I don’t imagine you’ll be permitted to buy him a kindly cup of hemlock. Not when everyone learns that you can afford it because you’ve conspired to avoid paying what you owe to this city. How do you suppose it will feel, to lie shackled hand and foot to a wooden board, while the strangling collar is tightened? Do you think he’ll still be conscious when he’s cast out beyond the city walls with the executioner watching over him until he finally dies?’

  Megakles looked as if he was about to pass out. He collapsed onto his stool, barely managing not to slide off it and onto the floor. ‘He barely clings to life as it is. You accuse him when he lies so grievously injured? When he cannot defend himself?’

  ‘Then what will you do to save him? What will you do for your wife and daughters? If your son is exiled or executed, your death will leave them at the mercy of whichever relatives claim your property is forfeit by Nikandros’s disgrace.’

  Megakles stared at Aristachos. He tried to speak, only to cough and try again. ‘What can I—?’

  ‘Lydis?’

  Aristarchos’s slave promptly handed Megakles a list of the plotters we’d identified so far.

  The desperate man waved the papyrus, whey-faced. ‘I can’t put a stop to all this! Exiling me or my son won’t end it! Even if you called for an ostracism every year, you can only get rid of us one at a time!’

  ‘I need only to cut the head off this snake,’ Aristarchos told him with implacable menace. ‘That will be example enough. Your son’s exile, or your own if he dies, will leave everyone on that list desperate not to be the next man accused. No one will stand by your family once you’ve been disgraced, not when they realise your crimes implicate them. Far from it. They’ll be the first to condemn you, long and loud, to save their own necks from the strangler. They’ll be calling on Glaukias and every other writer for hire, paying fistfuls of silver for speeches to explain how grievously the Kerykeds misled them.’

  Megakles choked on his despair and buried his face in his hands. Silence filled the courtyard like the threat of a summer storm.

  Aristarchos threw him a lifeline. ‘You were going to ask me what you can do? Stop aiding this conspiracy. Stop supporting Gorgias. Turn him out of that house in Limnai and withdraw whatever help you’ve given him abroad. Stop allowing your son’s fellow plotters to use your house and hospitality to lure greedy men into their schemes. Stop buying all the hides from the temples and ensure your tanneries deal fairly with the city’s leatherworkers.’

  Megakles’s expression veered from precarious hope to dismay and back again. ‘But they will—’

  ‘Nikandros and his conspirators? What will they do?’ Aristarchos challenged. ‘Run to the Archons and complain that you’ve thought better of a scheme to undermine this city’s peace and stability? That you’ve repented of your part in a plot to bring down the entire Delian League, for no more honourable goal than making you and your rich friends still richer?

  ‘Point out how much trouble you could make for them, far more than they could ever make for you,’ he advised. ‘Make sure that they know you’ve left sealed records of vital evidence with trustworthy allies, to be delivered straight to the Archons, if anything untoward happens to you or your household.

  ‘That’s what I have done,’ he added, ‘in ca
se you get any ideas about sending some wrestlers to beat out my brains in a dark alley, or paying them to silence anyone else.’ He gestured at the rest of us.

  ‘I don’t . . .’ Megakles’s bemusement convinced me he knew nothing about Iktinos, but he abandoned all protest as pointless.

  Aristarchos studied him for a long moment until the fat man hung his head, a guilty blush restoring his florid complexion.

  ‘Most importantly,’ Aristarchos continued, ‘you will not say a word in opposition when a proposal comes before the People’s Assembly next month to make an unscheduled reassessment of our allies’ contributions to the Delian League’s treasury. You will convince all the men on that list to stay silent as well. This review will happen at the forthcoming Panathenaia, to ease their burdens before the scheduled reassessment the year after.’

  Megakles didn’t look up. ‘And then?’ he asked in a hollow voice.

  ‘Then I will burn the bushel-baskets of evidence that I’ve gathered,’ Aristarchos said calmly. ‘Though a denunciation will go to the Archons if anyone here dies a suspicious death, and the records that will prove it most assuredly remain.’

  ‘Will you swear it?’ Megakles rubbed a hand over moistly glistening jowls. ‘And to leave my son alone, if he lives?’

  ‘On whatever altar and by whichever gods you wish,’ Aristarchos promised.

  Megakles didn’t reply. He lurched to his feet and headed for the courtyard gate. Mus opened it to let him stumble out onto the street.

  ‘Lydis?’ Aristarchos’s nod sent the slave after the fat man. ‘Not that he’d notice a hoplite phalanx in full panoply following him at the moment,’ he observed. ‘But I think we should know where he goes.’

  ‘Can we be certain that he will yield?’ wondered Sarkuk.

  I wasn’t sure who the Carian was talking to, so stayed quiet. It wasn’t as though I had an answer. I had no idea what Megakles would do now.

  Aristarchos was more confident. ‘I believe he will.’

  ‘And the rest of our enemies?’ the Pargasarene persisted.