The Walled Orchard

by Tom Holt

  ‘Yes indeed.’

  ‘Now let us suppose you were in court and your defence turned on there having been a storm of rain. And imagine that, although you could find no one who had been out in the rain and thus was able to give evidence that he had got wet through, you knew that your neighbour had walked home an hour before and must have seen the dark clouds. Couldn’t you expect him to testify that it had been about to rain an hour before you said it would rain, which would give at least some weight to your account of events?’

  ‘Most certainly.’

  ‘But supposing that your neighbour had spent all his life in one of those hot countries south of the Ethiopians where it never rains, and so had not made the mental connection between dark clouds and rain. Would his evidence be any use to you? Or would it be potentially dangerous, like the evidence of the man who couldn’t recognise rabbits or speedwell?’

  ‘Potentially dangerous, of course.’

  ‘So we are agreed that a misleading witness is worse than no witness at all?’

  ‘Indeed we are.’

  ‘And that a witness who has no knowledge or experience of a thing is likely to be a misleading witness, even if he is inclined to tell the truth?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘And didn’t we say,’ said Socrates, leaning back again, ‘at the very outset of our discussion, that the main difference between men and women was that men go out in the world and women stay at home; and that therefore men have knowledge and experience of the world that women inevitably lack? And isn’t it true that the sort of thing that generally crops up in lawsuits as needing to be proved by evidence is exactly the sort of thing that happens out in the world, where men meet and do business and have contact with one another? The sort of thing, necessarily, that women have no knowledge or experience of, and therefore should not testify about?’

  ‘Naturally,’ I replied.

  ‘So you agree that only men are qualified to give evidence in lawsuits, and women should be debarred?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You do realise,’ said Socrates, ‘that everything I’ve been saying up till now has been a load of old rubbish?’

  ‘Yes, Socrates.’

  ‘And yet you found yourself forced to agree with it?’

  ‘Yes, Socrates.’

  ‘Because I was talking so fast, and so fluently, and with such an air of intelligence and authority and being about to make some intelligent point, that you didn’t care to interrupt me? And by the time you had worked out that I was talking nonsense it was too late to contradict me without seeming petty or just plain stupid?’

  ‘Exactly so.’

  ‘Well, Eupolis my friend,’ said the son of Sophroniscus, rising to his feet and brushing the dust pointedly off his backside, ‘that’s the one and only way to win lawsuits in this City. If you can charm them with words and bewilder them with plausible ideas, you’ll be all right. If not, you’ll have to accept that in the absence of divine intervention you’re probably going to die, and it serves you right for not consulting a competent expert, like myself. Only I wouldn’t have helped you if you’d offered me all the wealth of King Gyges, after what you said about me in those so-called Comedies of yours; and neither, I expect, would any of my fellow philosophers. Good luck, Eupolis, you need it.’

  ‘And the same to you,’ I said. ‘See you around.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Socrates over his shoulder, and he walked happily away down the street.

  ‘What an unpleasant man,’ said Phaedra. ‘He’ll come to a bad end one of these days.’

  ‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘But at least he kept me from falling asleep, which is more than you could do.’

  ‘I don’t see what you’re complaining about,’ interrupted Leagoras, who had listened to our discussion with rapt attention. ‘It all seemed to make perfect sense to me.’

  Phaedra and I both looked at him, and he seemed rather offended. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I reassured him, ‘it’s not your fault.’

  ‘It certainly is not,’ Phaedra agreed. ‘Isn’t that Aristophanes over there?’

  We all looked round, and saw the son of Philip, dressed in an unusually sombre gown and carrying a plain olive-wood walking-stick, following Demeas and his crowd of witnesses, slaves and other attendant Furies. A friend of my uncle’s once told me of the mighty carvings his grandfather had seen in Sardis, when he went there as a young man; vast reliefs, stretching as far as the eye could see, showing the Great King of the Persians marching to war with all the nations of the earth in the van, and his hawks and his hounds and his gigantic royal umbrella. I suppose the Great King of Persia looked every bit as menacing to his subjects as Demeas did to me then, on his carvings at least. But Demeas achieved his effect without hawks and hounds and umbrellas. He had presence.

  He seemed to look straight through me as he passed, as if I was already a hungry ghost twittering hopelessly on the wrong side of the river. But Aristophanes accidentally caught my eye, and gave me such a look of repressed hatred that I was quite startled. For a moment I wondered what was upsetting him so much; then it occurred to me that he blamed me for putting him in a position where he would have to make a public exhibition of himself, giving evidence against a Comic poet at a political trial. I could see his point; there is, even in Athens, a certain stigma attached to participating in one of these affairs, and there are still a few right-minded people in the City who disapprove. But even so, I took it rather hard that I should be blamed; it was Demeas’ fault, after all. Perhaps I’m too sensitive. Anyway, I looked away until the procession had taken itself off to another part of the porch.

  ‘Nervous?’ whispered Phaedra in my ear.

  ‘No,’ I said truthfully, ‘or at least not in the way you think. I feel like I’m about to send out a Chorus.’

  ‘Oh, you,’ she said. ‘You’re just vain, that’s your trouble.’

  I hadn’t thought of that. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ I said.

  ‘Or perhaps I just can’t take this sort of thing seriously. There’s Socrates back again, look; I expect he’s going to listen to the trial.’

  ‘You ought to charge him a drachma,’ said Phaedra. ‘He would, in your position.’

  ‘Where I’m going,’ I replied, ‘I’ll only need two coins, on my eyes.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ said Phaedra, ‘think positive. How are you feeling? Sick? Dizzy? Splitting headache?’

  ‘That comes later,’ I said, ‘just before it’s my turn to speak.’

  Leagoras leaned across and said, ‘Best of luck, Eupolis. If you don’t make it, can I have your plough with the bronze handles?’

  ‘If you can beat the bailiffs to it,’ I replied, ‘certainly you can. Tell them I borrowed it from you and forgot to give it back. Though they won’t believe you. It’s not in your nature to forget about a thing like that.’

  Leagoras seemed offended again, and sat back in his seat. A moment or so after that, the herald came out and summoned Demeas and me into the Court. I kissed Phaedra on the cheek, quickly, and avoided her eyes; then I stood up, shook myself like a dog waking up at dinner-time, and walked towards the gate. I remember thinking that this is how my actors must feel, when the herald calls them on for the first scene.

  The first thing I did when I got inside the Court was to examine the jury. I was looking for at least one familiar face — out of five hundred and one men, I must know at least one of them. But at first their faces were a sort of brown and black porridge, and they looked like a great legendary monster such as Hercules might have faced in one of his less probable adventures. Then I caught sight of a man I recognised; I couldn’t think of his name, but I had seen him recently, in the Market Square or the country. He was biting a chunk off a thick black crust of barley-bread, and he had his little wine-flask, shaped like a donkey, in his left hand, ready to soak the pap in his mouth to make it soft and malleable for his few remaining teeth. I have rarely seen a less prepossessing creature. Next to him
was a tiny little man, seventy if he was a day, with a few scruffy wisps of white hair on a pointed brown skull, and he was talking very rapidly to nobody at all. I knew him for one of Cleon’s Dogs, the old hard-core jurymen of the Brotherhood of the Three Obols. Many of them had recently died of old age (or, some said, of grief at the death of their master) but there were still a few to be seen, walking in along the country roads before dawn to get to the Court in time to be at the head of the jury queue when their tribe was on duty. And wasn’t that one of Little Zeus’ brothers, huddled up under the wall in a very old cloak? I hoped it was; surely he would be for me. Then I remembered hearing that they were all dead; there had been a little resurgence of the plague in their village in the mountains, which had wiped out the entire population except for an old man and a baby. One thing at least reassured me; they looked remarkably like all the theatre audiences I have ever inspected, with that same air of relief that the Tragedies are over mixed with impatience for the Comedy to start.

  Then the indictment was read out.

  ‘Prosecution by Demeas son of Polemarchus of Cydathene against Eupolis son of Euchorus of Pallene, on the grounds of blasphemy. Penalty proposed: death. Demeas will now speak.’

  The water-clock was filled up and started to run. No one who has ever heard it from the dock will forget the sound that thing makes; someone, I can’t remember who, said it reminded him of a dwarf pissing into a tin bucket. I swear they designed it on purpose to put off defendants; you sit there listening to it gurgling and plinking away, and you forget all about the case that is being carefully built up around you like a wall round a besieged city. Then when your turn comes to speak you’re still listening out for it, and you lose your way in the middle of your best sentence, like Theseus in the Labyrinth. I still have nightmares about it, and I wake up sweating, only to find that it’s the rain trickling down off the roof, or one of the slaves skimming the milk.

  Demeas started with a blistering attack. I can’t remember who or what he was attacking — I don’t think it was me particularly — but I could see the faces of the jurors getting grimmer and grimmer as he reminded them of this terrible injury that had been done to them. There was, I remember, a short account of the sufferings of our men in Sicily; and for someone who hadn’t been there, Demeas did it very well. First the fever in the camp by the marshes; then the horror of the night on Epipolae, and the dreadful confusion and the screams of the dying; then the desperation of the battle in the harbour, and the slow misery of the march to the walled orchard. ‘And of these thousands,’ I remember him saying, ‘so few returned to the City of the Violet Crown; what irony, men of Athens, what terrible irony that one of those apparently chosen by the God should be the sole author of all this misfortune! But I say that this was Zeus’ work; he did not give this man the chance of a hero’s death, but preserved him to stand his trial before you today. Witness the ease of his escape — was this not some God, my friends, leading him like a sacrifice to the altar of Justice?’

  I thought of the smithy, and the cart with the olive-jar, and giggled. Unfortunately, Demeas saw this and pointed. ‘Our friend thinks it’s amusing, does he?’ he thundered. ‘Just as he thought it amusing to smash the statues of the Gods. Does the thought of our Heavenly patrons always produce this show of levity, I wonder? Does he snigger his way through the Lady’s procession, or deliberately sneeze at the moment of the sacrifice?’

  I wanted to know how a man could sneeze deliberately; but that would have to wait until after the trial.

  Anyway, Demeas rounded off his introductory remarks with a graphic description of the night of the mutilation of the statues, and started calling witnesses. I kept expecting Aristophanes to be called, but every time I saw the son of Philip prepare to get up from his place, Demeas called on another slave or hanger-on, and Aristophanes would settle back and fold his arms. At last, when I was beginning to think that Aristophanes wouldn’t be used at all, Demeas called him and put him on the stand. There was a faint murmur of satisfaction from the jury, and most of them stopped eating or cutting their toenails. Someone woke up the little old man, and he leaned forward on his stick to be able to hear what was said. When Aristophanes had settled himself, Demeas cleared his throat and began. He asked his questions in the usual tone of voice, and Aristophanes answered loudly and clearly, with his chin up.

  Demeas: Were you outside Eupolis’ house on the night in question?

  Aristophanes: I was.

  Demeas: Were you just returning from a party in honour of some friends going to the War?

  Aristophanes: I was.

  Demeas: Did you see Eupolis smashing up statues with a Thracian sabre?

  Aristophanes: I did.

  Demeas: Was he alone or with others?

  Aristophanes: With about ten others, whom I didn’t recognise.

  Demeas: Was Eupolis actively smashing statues, or simply watching the others?

  Aristophanes: He was actively smashing the statues.

  Demeas: Did you report this at the time?

  Aristophanes: No.

  Demeas: Were you afraid of what Eupolis would do to you if you reported it?

  Aristophanes: I was.

  Demeas: And were you subsequently in Sicily with Demosthenes and the army?

  Aristophanes: I was.

  Demeas: Did you and Eupolis escape through Sicily to Catana after the defeat, and did you repeatedly save Eupolis’ life during that time?

  Aristophanes: Yes.

  Demeas: During the escape, did Eupolis freely confess that he had taken part in the desecration of the statues?

  Aristophanes: Twice.

  Demeas: Why are you now giving evidence against a man whose life you saved?

  Aristophanes: Because I feel it is my duty as a citizen.

  Now you can tell for yourselves, from this unusually long and detailed cross-examination, which lasted for at least a pint of Demeas’ time, that he expected it to be his most telling evidence; normally, Demeas would have given a précis of this himself and just called Aristophanes to affirm it, but in this case he wanted to drag it out for as long as possible, to get the maximum value out of it. He was right to do so, for the jury simply lapped it up. I have never seen such attention to a cross-examination in my life. Dramatically speaking, it was shrewdly done. I speak as a professional; if you can get away with doing something in a new and shocking way, it makes a much greater impression; and in something like a trial, if you can lodge something in the jury’s mind they are likely to believe it, even if you offer nothing in support.

  The rest of his evidence Demeas called in the usual way, by depositions, and then he had the law read and set about winding up his case. I shall always remember what he said.

  ‘Men of Athens,’ he started off, ‘ask yourselves this. What is a citizen? What does it mean to be a citizen of this City, to walk in our streets, vote in our Assembly, worship in our temples, serve in our army? What is our part in this great enterprise we call Athens? It is a man’s duty to work for his city, and not to work against it. Look around this City of ours. Look at the Long Walls, which Themistocles built to protect our corn supply in time of war, to link us for ever with the sea. Look at the Council House which Solon built, to house our democracy. Look at the Nine Fountains which Pisistratus and his heirs built, to bring water into the City and defeat drought and pestilence. Look at the Walls, which our forefathers built to keep out the Persians. Look at the Acropolis, which Pericles built to be our crown and our citadel. Look at all these things, which will stand for ever, and think of the men who caused them to be. They will be remembered; yet they did no more than their duty, which is, as I have said, to work for their City. And now look at the empty streets that used to bustle with young men, and the empty houses where so many Citizens lived who are now dead, buried in unmarked graves on the island of Sicily. Think who caused this desolation, and remember him; the man who brought about the destruction of our army and our fleet by his terrible blasphemy. That is
a man who did not do his duty, a man who did the very opposite of his duty, by working against his City. And now prepare to do your duty, men of Athens, by voting for his condemnation and execution.’

  Now that was meant to be the end of Demeas’ speech; and it would have made a good finale, and perhaps cost me my life. But as it happened, Demeas had been speaking rather quickly, and so he had come to the end of his prepared material rather earlier than he had anticipated. As soon as he stopped speaking, the water-clock made one of its characteristic noises, rather like a gurgling belch, as if to tell the jury that this particular speaker was giving them short measure, and Demeas realised that he was faced with a slight problem. You see, in those days it was regarded as the mark of a good speaker that he could exactly fill up his allotted time, uttering his last syllable precisely when the last drop of water hit the bowl; and conversely, a man who finished early was regarded as being no good and therefore a liar. After all his experience of the Courts, Demeas knew just by the sound of the water-clock how much was left in it, and so started improvising a little coda to fill in the excess time. Now when I say that he improvised, I am exaggerating slightly; all practised orators are familiar with the problem, and have little timed pieces, relevant to any theme, which will last a pint or a pint and a half, or whatever the time is that they have to fill in. They have to keep changing them, of course, for fear that the jury will recognise something they’ve heard before and start throwing olive-stones, but generally speaking these codas are traditional in form and substance; and an orator is often judged, by the cognoscenti, on the quality of these set pieces. It is argued that you can’t properly judge an orator’s talent by his actual speech, since he may have a really awful case to present (which hinders him) or an absolutely marvellous one (which gives him an unfair advantage). But the coda is more or less standard, and is marked partly on its content and presentation, and partly on the skill with which the orator makes it relevant to the prosecution in progress.