by Tom Holt
After three days, Pericleidas came into the room where we slept and said, in a rather embarrassed manner, that he had arranged a passage home for us. We thanked him profusely. This seemed to make him feel worse. He explained that the ship we were going home on was one of his. We thanked him again. He explained further that all his ships were cargo ships laden with dried fish; they were therefore not immensely comfortable. We said that that didn’t matter; going home was the important thing. Actually, said Pericleidas, wretchedly, there was only enough room on these fish-cruisers of his for a working crew. He hated to impose like this, but…
So that is how, when anyone in a poem or a reading purports to give an account of what it is like to sail a ship on the open sea, I can stand up and tell him he’s a liar, because I have done it myself, and it’s no fun at all. You get very wet working a ship, particularly if you haven’t the faintest idea what you are supposed to be doing and the rest of the crew are muttering about you being bad luck and how they ought to throw you overboard before you bring on a thunderstorm. Oh yes, we were also chased by pirates in the Straits of Rhegium. They were very enthusiastic, those pirates, and were just about to catch up with us when one of the crew had the wit to shout out that our cargo was nothing more valuable than dried fish, and to throw a jar over the side to prove it. The pirates picked up the jar, opened it, and stopped following us, which must be a very significant comment on the quality of Pericleidas’ stock-in-trade.
And then, after a long and exhausting journey, we saw Cape Sunium on the horizon and heard the ship’s captain saying, with evident relief, that this was where Eupolis and Aristophanes were getting off. For two pins, in fact, they would have landed us at Sunium; but we persuaded them to take us into Piraeus by giving them the remainder of our Sicilian money.
As we cruised round the Attic coast, I suddenly started to feel sick. That was not the motion of the ship —I had got over that after the first couple of days of our voyage; it was a sort of fear, that Attica would not be what it had to be, in order for me to stay sane. Attica had to be a happy ever after, a place where the story could end. I had tried to picture it in my mind while I was in Sicily, but no image would come; and I had put together a rather unconvincing reconstruction to take its place. This Attica was half an enormous theatre filled with laughing people, backing on to a maze of cosy little streets, and half a sort of pastoral idyll, jammed permanently at the end of the olive harvest, with carts creaking down narrow lanes. The reason why I chose the olive season was that I could remember what an olive cart looked like; it had two wheels, an ox between the shafts, Aristophanes in the storage-jar and cavalrymen all round it. The cavalrymen seemed a little out of place in Attica, but that couldn’t be helped. Now if this phantom Attica didn’t exist, what was I to do? I realised, as we sailed on from Sunium, that I really didn’t want to go home; that was the very last thing I wanted to do.
Aristophanes was also very quiet. We had spoken very few words to each other since we reached Catana, and we seemed rather embarrassed to be in each other’s company, as if each knew a terrible secret about the other and didn’t trust him to keep his mouth shut. In my case of course, I did know quite a few things about the son of Philip that would, if made public, utterly destroy him in Athenian society, and I felt sure that he had invented a corresponding number of calumnies about me; but although we said nothing to each other about it, we seemed to have reached an agreement that when we got home, we were going to have as little to do with each other as possible.
But of course you don’t want to hear all this; you are asking yourself why, if we were coming from Sicily, we passed Sunium before reaching Piraeus. Well, if you had used your head you would have realised that our captain wouldn’t want to go further down the Argolid than he absolutely had to, what with the War and everything, and had thus sailed straight from Methana to Sunium across open water. He then backtracked from Sunium to Piraeus, intending to go back the way he had come after that. The result of this complex manoeuvre, besides bad temper on everyone’s part, was that we didn’t make Piraeus until about half an hour before dawn.
I don’t know what exactly I had been expecting; whether I had assumed that the Polemarch and the Council would be there to meet us, with garlands and honey and flute-girls, or perhaps a more modest delegation led by one of the lower ranking magistrates, or perhaps just a few friends and relatives. Instead, there was nobody to be seen anywhere, not even the usual crowd who lounge about the docks waiting for someone to spill a jar so that they can dart across and steal the contents. The only living creature was a dog, whose barking brought the toll-collector out, and he was only interested in separating the captain from his harbour dues, and took no notice of us whatsoever.
When I say us, by this time I mean me. As soon as his feet touched Attic soil, Aristophanes was off like a startled polecat, without a word to me, the captain or anyone. He just muffled his face in his cloak and vanished, I think in the general direction of the City; but I couldn’t say for sure. I felt it would only be polite to thank the captain for putting up with me on the voyage, so I did this. The captain made no reply, so I shrugged my shoulders at the world in general, pulled my cloak round me, and started to walk towards Athens.
Of course the old Long Walls between Athens and Piraeus are no longer there, and I suspect that many of you who are reading this will not remember them. That morning, they seemed to go on for ever, and although I had walked that way hundreds of times in my life, they seemed very foreign and unfamiliar to me as I trudged along under them. I don’t know why, but I got it into my head that the City was actually empty, and that all its people were now in a hole in a marsh on the estate of Polyzelus. It was a very eerie sensation, I can tell you, and I didn’t like it at all. But when I was half-way to the City I saw a man hurrying up from the opposite direction, and to my overwhelming joy I recognised him. In a way it was like seeing a ghost, but he was real enough — Cleagenes the corn-merchant, who I had done business with a few times.
‘Hello, Cleagenes,’ I shouted.
He peered at me (he was short-sighted) and replied, ‘Hello, Eupolis. I haven’t seen you about for a couple of weeks now. Have you been in the country?’
I stared at him. ‘Come off it,’ I said, ‘I’ve been in Sicily with the army. I’ve just got back.’
Cleagenes gave me a curious look. ‘Don’t be funny at this hour of the morning, Eupolis, there’s a good lad. The army isn’t back yet.’
Back yet? ‘Honestly, Cleagenes,’ I said, ‘that’s where I’ve been.’
He frowned. ‘Have you come back with a message for the Council or a letter from Nicias or whatever?’ he asked. ‘If so, you’d better—’
‘Nicias?’ I said. ‘Nicias is dead.’
‘Dead?’
‘Dead.’
Cleagenes pondered this for a moment. ‘That’s not very funny, Eupolis,’ he said at last. ‘I suppose you’re just going home from a party with some of your peculiar friends. Take my advice, lad. Go home and sleep it off before you offend someone important. Some people have got sons at the War, you realise.’
Cleagenes bustled away, leaving me standing with my mouth open. But there was nothing to be gained by gawping (as my grandfather used to say), so I pressed on into the City towards my house. I saw a few people out and about once I had passed through the gate, but I didn’t stop and talk to any of them. Something told me that the best move at this stage would be to keep my head down until I had managed to find out what was going on.
It was easy to rationalise, of course; obviously, the news of the disaster had not yet reached the City. This was hard to credit; surely someone in authority at Catana should have sent a letter or something. But probably someone had left it to someone else, or it was still on its way, or the ship it was on had been sunk or stopped off at Methana to do a little business.
Then it occurred to me that, if I was right, the son of Philip and I were the only people in the whole of Athens who knew abou
t the destruction of the fleet. That was not a pleasant thought. Now it was clearly my duty (I couldn’t count on Aristophanes to do anything useful) to go and tell someone about it, such as the Polemarch and the Council. But would they believe me? Of course not. Cleagenes the corn-merchant hadn’t believed me, so why should the Polemarch? I would probably find myself in the prison for starting seditious rumours or something of the sort.
But I couldn’t just go home, take my boots and hat off, and pretend I had never been away. Leaving to one side the fate of the City, which was now totally defenceless and at the mercy of the Spartans (who undoubtedly knew), there was my peace of mind to consider. I couldn’t keep a forty-thousand-corpse secret to myself; I would burst, like the frog in the fable. Perhaps I could tell someone else who would tell the Council for me; someone they would listen to.
I was walking along thinking like this when a man touched me on the shoulder and said, ‘Is that you?’
I turned and looked at him. It was Philonides the Chorus-trainer. I said nothing.
‘Eupolis,’ said Philonides, ‘I thought you were away at the War.’
‘I was,’ I replied.
‘When did you come back?’
‘Just now.’
‘This morning?’
‘Yes.’
He studied me carefully; I wasn’t usually this taciturn, he was thinking, perhaps I was ill. ‘Have you been wounded?’ he asked. ‘Is that why you’re back?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘I’m all right.’
‘So what are you doing in Athens?’ It was extraordinary, I thought. Here is a man I know, being friendly in a normal sort of a way, and I suddenly don’t know how to talk to him. ‘Glad to see you, of course. And how’s the War going?’
‘The War’s over,’ I said.
He broke into a smile. ‘Already?’ he said. ‘I knew we could rely on Demosthenes to get it finished. He’s hot stuff, Demosthenes, whatever they say down at the Baths.’
‘We lost,’ I said. ‘Demosthenes is dead.’
‘Dead?’
‘Yes,’ I snapped, ‘dead.’
‘Oh God,’ said Philonides, and he seemed to sag, like a punctured wineskin. ‘So Nicias is in charge of the army?’
‘Nicias is dead too.’
‘Nicias as well?’ Philonides stared at me. ‘But that’s impossible.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘Then who’s in charge of the army, for God’s sake?’ he said. ‘Not that imbecile Menander. I couldn’t bear it. Or Eurymedon, for that matter. The man’s a fool.’
‘There is no army.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Watch my lips,’ I said. ‘There is no army. Got it? They’re all dead. All except maybe two or three hundred.’
For a moment his mind rejected the statement; then he believed it. ‘The whole lot?’ he said.
‘The whole lot.’
‘So what about the fleet?’ he demanded. ‘Where’s the fleet?’
I smiled, I can’t say why. ‘At the bottom of Syracuse harbour,’ I replied. ‘Most of it, anyway.’
He stood there for a moment, a totally empty man, a shell of a man, a man with no contents. His mouth was wide open, and I noticed how straight and white his teeth were for a man of his age. He clearly didn’t have anything to say, so I reckoned it was up to me to keep the conversation going.
‘I was lucky,’ I said. ‘I managed to get away to Catana with Aristophanes the son of Philip. He’s probably at his house by now, getting drunk I shouldn’t wonder. Go and ask him if you don’t believe me. How did his play do, by the way; the one he left with you?’
‘It came second.’
‘Second?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh well.’
‘All of them?’ he said. ‘That whole army?’
‘Yes.’
We stood there for a moment; there was no hurry about anything. Then Philonides said, ‘Have you reported to the Council?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘I’m on my way home. I badly need a wash and a shave.’
‘That can wait,’ he said. ‘Look, my nephew Palaeologus is a Councillor, we’d better tell him first.’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t mind,’ I said. ‘Shall we get Aristophanes to back me up?’
‘Good idea,’ said Philonides. He was excited, talking quickly; this self-imposed task was something he could keep between himself and what he had just heard. ‘Look, my place is on the way, I’ll send the boy round to Aristophanes’ place — you’re sure he’ll be there?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘he didn’t say where he was going.’
‘Oh well, never mind. We’ll send the boy anyway. Then we’d better get over to Palaeologus’ house.’
So that was what we did. The whole thing struck me as vaguely comical; after all, I reasoned to myself, if our army were dead now, they were likely still to be dead after I had had a wash and a shave, and probably would stay dead until I had had something to eat. But I didn’t want to say anything to Philonides; I felt it might upset him.
Palaeologus the Councillor wasn’t unduly pleased to see us; he had been up late the night before, he said, and he had a headache. I offered to go away and come back later, but Philonides shut me up. He said he had some terrible news. I objected that I was the one with the terrible news, and would he please stop upstaging me. He got rather upset with me at this and told me to be quiet; in fact, he was getting rather hysterical. Palaeologus the Councillor looked at me, since I appeared to be rather more in control of myself, and asked me what was going on. I told him.
‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘Oh God in Heaven.’
‘So you believe me, do you?’ I asked. ‘I thought I’d have difficulty convincing you.’
Palaeologus shook his head. ‘We’d heard news already,’ he said. ‘Well, sort of. We didn’t believe it.’
He explained. Two days ago, an Aeginetan scent-dealer had landed at Piraeus with a cargo of myrrh. He had sailed non-stop from Methana, and he was tired, and he wanted a shave, so he went over to a barber’s shop he knew just off the Market Square. While he was being shaved he started making conversation, the way you do in a barber’s shop.
‘Sorry to hear about your bad luck,’ he said.
‘What bad luck?’ said the barber.
‘In Sicily,’ said the Aeginetan. ‘It’s all over Methana. I’m sorry for you, really I am. It was a rotten thing to happen.’
‘We haven’t had word from Sicily for a while now,’ said the barber. ‘Things going badly, are they?’
‘I should say,’ said the Aeginetan. ‘Your whole army’s been wiped out.’
The barber stared at him for a second or two, then ran out into the street, still holding his razor, and started yelling at the top of his voice, ‘The army’s been wiped out! The army’s been wiped out!’ Now it happened to be just before Assembly-time, and so the magistrates and the archers were out, getting the red rope ready. They saw this lunatic running up and down, waving a razor and yelling, and arrested him.
He told them what he had heard and pointed to his shop, where the Aeginetan was sitting waiting for the rest of his shave. The magistrate marched into the shop, saw that the man was Aeginetan, and arrested him for spreading malicious rumours. He and the barber were in the prison at this very moment awaiting trial. The Council had been told, as a matter of routine, but they had ignored it. But what convinced Palaeologus was the fact that he knew (now he came to think of it) that I had been with Demosthenes’ army, because he had happened to see me at the dockside when he came to wave off his brother-in-law, and someone had pointed to me and asked him who I was.
Then Aristophanes arrived, looking very irritated at being disturbed, and confirmed what I had said. So we had to go down to the Council Chamber and wait until the Council could be summoned, and then the Councillors grilled us for what seemed like hours, asking all manner of trick questions to try and catch us out. This made Aristophanes livid, and he asked if they were calling him a
liar, but I realised that it was just Athenian instinct and answered their questions as best I could. Then we were shoved into a little room — me, Aristophanes and Philonides — and the door was bolted on us. We asked .why we were being locked up like this, but nobody answered.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘this is cosy. So what’s been happening in the City while we’ve been away?’
Philonides didn’t answer, and we sat there for a while staring at the walls. Then Aristophanes asked how his play had got on. Philonides told him it had come second.
‘Second?’ said Aristophanes, with disgust.
‘That’s right, second.’
‘That’s bloody typical, that is,’ he said. ‘You realise that the parabasis was a thorough condemnation of our Sicilian policy? God, we deserved to lose.’
After two or maybe three hours someone came and let us out. They told us to go straight home and stay there, and not to say anything to anybody. There would be widespread panic, the man said, and it was the Council’s job to make the announcement.
We were bundled out by the back way, past the ash-heap, and escorted home by archers; hardly a hero’s welcome, I thought, but then, who cares? It was nice that some things, like the Council, were still the same. I wondered how long it would last.
The archer knocked on the door for me; I imagine he thought I might try and communicate a coded message if I knocked myself. The slave opened the door and stared at me, and the archer more or less pushed me through the door.
‘Hello, Thrax,’ I said to the slave. ‘Is your mistress here, or is she in the country?’
‘She’s here, asleep,’ said the slave. ‘We thought you were in Sicily.’
‘I was,’ I replied, ‘but I’ve come home. It happens quite a lot, you know. Go and wake her, will you?’
