Marathon

by Christian Cameron

sun was lower in the sky.

  We sat and drank wine until the sun set, wine that went

  straight to my head, and we ate a big tuna that Melaina’s father

  caught. He came and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Stephanos

  loved you,’ he said. ‘You’re a good man.’

  That made me cry. I cried easily in those days.

  It was harder to abandon Chios than it had been to leave

  Miletus, because unlike these cheerful fisherfolk, I knew what

  was coming to them. The light hand of Persia was about to be

  was coming to them. The light hand of Persia was about to be

  replaced by an iron fist. I watched the sun set, and I knew that it

  would be a long time before I saw it rise here, in the east.

  Melaina came into my bed that last night, while I lay looking

  at the rafters. I didn’t send her away, although our lovemaking

  had more grief to it than lust. But she left before dawn, and she

  was a proper daughter again on the beach when she poured a

  libation and washed Harpagos’s shield in wine.

  Then my keel was in the water, and I ceased to think of her,

  because we went to sail an ocean ful of enemies.

  We ran north, evading everything we saw, until we entered

  the Bosporus.

  Kalipolis was stil free. We beached, and I embraced

  Miltiades.

  I’l make this brief. We wintered there. In the spring,

  Histiaeus – Istes’ brother, who left him to die – came to us,

  asking that we folow him to make a pre-emptive attack on the

  coast of Phoenicia – to show that the East Greeks weren’t

  beaten. It was a strategy that was a year too late.

  ‘I’l stay and defend the Chersonese,’ Miltiades said. ‘It is

  mine. But I wil lose no more men in Asia.’

  Histiaeus was captured in Phrygia a month later, trying to

  forage for food for his oarsmen. Datis executed him for treason.

  It was a cheap death for a man who had led the Ionian Revolt.

  He should have died on the wals with his brother.

  Less than a week later, Datis flooded the Chersonese with

  Scythian and Thracian mercenaries. He outspent Miltiades, ten

  to one, and in a week we lost four of our towns.

  to one, and in a week we lost four of our towns.

  We expected it, though. The east was lost. We loaded our

  ships, taking every Greek man and woman – the survivors of

  Miletus, and Methymna and Teos, and al of Miltiades’ men and

  their women. We filed ten triremes and as many Athenian grain

  ships, and we sailed away. The Scythians burned Kalipolis

  behind us, but we left it empty.

  Datis landed an army on Lesbos, and he swept the island

  with a chain of men al the way across, looking for rebels. He

  crucified those he caught, and he took the best of the boys and

  al of the unmarried girls, and sold them as slaves or took them

  for the harem. Then he went to Chios and did the same.

  There was no force in the world that could stop him. He

  harried the Aeolians, seling their children to brothels, and then he

  harried the Ionians, and humiliated them, island by island, until

  there was no longer the sigh of a girl or the worship of Aphrodite

  from Sardis to Delos. He broke the world of my youth. He

  destroyed it. I grew to manhood in the world of Alcaeus and

  Sappho. He destroyed Sappho’s school and sold the students to

  satisfy the lusts of his soldiers.

  You children know the world Athens made, and you think it

  good. I love Athens – but there was a fairer world once, a

  brighter place, with better poets and freer ways. Where Greeks

  and Persians could be friends with each other, with Aegyptians

  and Lydians.

  Datis kiled it, to break the spirit of the Greeks and reduce

  them to servitude. Truly, it was the rape of the islands that taught

  us Greeks what the Persians were capable of, and showed us

  us Greeks what the Persians were capable of, and showed us

  why we would have to fight, or see our culture die.

  Artaphernes resisted Datis, of course. But Datis was the

  Great King’s nephew and had won the great battle, and

  Artaphernes was considered soft on Greeks.

  Datis raped the islands, and we sailed away and left them. I

  sailed Black Raven into Corinth and unloaded the refugees,

  While Black took him back to sea as a paid ship, for Athens, I

  brought them north, to Plataea.

  Idomeneus was a bastard, for al I loved him, and when the

  treasure had gone over the side, none of it was mine or his – so I

  stil had riches, and I spent them that summer. I settled forty

  families in the vale of Asopus, and when I was finished, the

  money of my piracy was gone, washed clean in rescuing them

  from poverty, or so I hoped.

  And then I was just another farmer with a forge, for my gold

  was gone.

  While I was spending money like a drunken sailor, I heard

  the rumours – that I was a murderer, that I was accursed of

  Apolo. Al my father’s friends spoke up for me, as wel as al my

  own friends – Hermogenes and Epictetus the Younger, and

  Myron and his sons – but my absences, my riches and the

  constant murmurs of the sons of Simon, from Thebes, had their

  effect. Men pushed me away, in the little ways that men use

  when they are afraid. And to my shame, I responded with

  arrogance and let the distance grow.

  It was a dark winter, with one beam of light. For when I was

  It was a dark winter, with one beam of light. For when I was

  settling my Milesians, I met Antigonus of Thespiae, the young

  basileus of that town. He took ten of my families and made them

  citizens, and we became friends quickly – and as quickly, he

  courted my sister. He was a wealthy man, and he might have had

  any maiden in the valey of the Asopus, but he courted Pen, and

  in the spring he wed her, and men came to that wedding who

  had whispered about me, and my life was the better for it.

  My mother stayed sober until the priest was gone, and I

  kissed her, and she cried. Then I folded my finery away and

  went back to the forge, and she went back to drinking, and men

  went back to whispering that the Corvaxae were al accursed.

  There were other fights, that last year. But the Ionian Revolt

  died with Istes, as he fel, shouting ‘Miletus’.

  I suppose we thought that the Long War was over. And I

  had forgotten my slave girl. I tried to forget Briseis, and Melaina.

  I tried to forget al of it. I ignored my armour and my helmet and

  I worked on bronze kettles and drinking cups.

  Until the archon came and asked me to return to teaching the

  Pyrrhiche.

  My calf throbbed and burned, and my hips hurt when we

  danced, but they al admired my splendid Persian scale shirt and

  my rich red cloak, and Myron came and embraced me.

  ‘Your new citizens have made us richer by a thousand gold

  darics,’ he said.

  ‘And fifty shields in the phalanx,’ Hermogenes said.

  The men of Plataea came to me, and clasped my arm. Glad

  to have you back, they said, but now I sensed the hesitation in

  their grips and the
tendency of their eyes to wander when they

  spoke. Plataeans didn’t just take off to fight in other people’s

  wars. Or show up with a passel of foreigners.

  But I was the devil they knew. And by then, thanks to the

  word-fame of my role at Lade, I was famous – so famous that it

  was hard for my neighbours to accept me as a man who danced

  and sweated and had trouble with his grape vines. Fame makes

  you different – ask any man who has won the laurel at Olympia

  or Nemea.

  May none of you ever experience defeat, and the death of al

  your friends. Idomeneus remained, back at the tomb of the hero,

  but he was as mad as a wild dog. Black was fighting against

  Aegina for Athens. Hermogenes was like another man – a good

  man, but a farmer and a husband. Al the rest of them were

  dead. Even Archilogos was dead. And I didn’t dare alow my

  mind to think about Briseis. In some way, I let her be dead, as

  wel.

  But one of the saddest truths of men is that no grief lasts for

  ever.

  My helmet was waiting, just where I had left it, on a leather bag

  on the great square bench that Pater had built. I had to hobble

  around the shop – my calf never healed, and as I said, I never

  ran wel again – and I was angry al the time. Hermogenes forced

  me to work, and Tiraeus fired the forge, and after mending a few

  me to work, and Tiraeus fired the forge, and after mending a few

  pots, my hands remembered their duty.

  I think it was a month after the Pyrrhiche, and perhaps three

  months after Pen’s wedding, before I looked at the helmet. I was

  surprised by what a good helmet it was, how far along I had left

  it. It seemed like ten years – like a lifetime. There was the ding

  where I’d mis-struck when the boy came to me with news from

  Idomeneus. I blinked away tears. Then I took out the ding with

  careful, methodical planishing, which seemed more restful than

  dul.

  When the bowl was as smooth as Briseis’s breasts, I turned

  the helmet over and looked at the patterns I’d incised.

  I had started the ravens on the cheekplates before I left. I did

  not love Lord Apolo any more. But the ravens seemed apt. If I

  ever stood in the phalanx again, I wanted to wear ravens.

  Instead of going to work on the helmet, I took a piece of

  scrap, pounded it out flat and tapped the ravens to life on a

  practice piece. I made a dozen errors, but I worked through

  patiently, reheating as I went. It was two days before I was

  satisfied, and then I went back and put the ravens on the

  cheekplates in an afternoon. I had time left to go and help my

  slaves prop the grape vines. Then I went back, looked my work

  over carefuly and polished it as the sun set behind the hils of

  home. I filed the ravens with lead on the inside, planished a little

  more.

  Tiraeus kept an eye on me while he put a new bail on an old

  bronze bucket for the temple. And then he looked at my work.

  bronze bucket for the temple. And then he looked at my work.

  ‘You’ve grown up,’ he said. And then, his voice rough, he

  pointed at the back of the skulpiece. ‘Little rough there.’

  I picked up the hammer.

  Ting-ting.

  Ting-ting.

  Part II

  Marathon

  Beneath this stone lies Aeschylus, son of Euphorion, the

  Athenian,

  who perished in the wheat-bearing land of Gela;

  of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon can speak,

  and the long-haired Persian knows it well.

  Epitaph on the Stele of Aeschylus the Playwright

  9

  It was late autumn, and the rains lashed the farm, and my slaves

  stayed in by the fire and made baskets for the next year’s crop. I

  was in the forge, hammering out the face of a new aspis – I

  needed a shield.

  The world was moving. I could feel it. The last cities of

  Lesbos were faling to the Persians, and in Athens, the stasis –

  the conflict – between the aristocrats and the demos was so bad

  that it had come to murder in the streets, or so men said, and

  Persian gold flowed like water to buy the best men. Closer to

  home, Thebes had begun agitating to take our city, or at least

  reduce our boundaries. And one voice carried clear from their

  agora to ours – Simon, son of Simon, loud in condemnation of

  our archon, Myron, and eager for my blood. Smal traders

  bought us this news.

  Empedocles the priest came out from Thebes in the last

  Empedocles the priest came out from Thebes in the last

  golden light of autumn, while the hilside of Cithaeron was a glow

  of red oak leaves. When he had given the blessing of Hephaestus

  to my forge and relit our fires after we swept the shop, he raised

  Tiraeus to the rank of master, as the man deserved. Then he

  looked at my helmet, running his thumb over the eyebrows and

  using calipers to pick out the measurements of the ravens on the

  cheekpieces.

  ‘This is master work,’ he said. He handed it to Tiraeus, and

  Tiraeus handed it to Bion. ‘And you are the master in this shop,

  so it is right that you too should be raised.’

  I think that the fires in my heart relit that day. I had not

  expected it, although in retrospect there were a thousand little

  signs that my friends had made plans for me to be raised to the

  rank of master. Other pieces were brought out by Tiraeus –

  things I’d forgotten, like a set of bronze pins I’d made for my

  sister’s wedding guests – and Empedocles laughed with joy to

  see them, and that laughter went through me like lightning on a

  summer’s day. I was, you know, for a time, the master warrior

  of al Helas – but it never gave me the joy that making gave me.

  Oh, there’s a lie. Kiling can be a joy. Or merely a job, or

  worse.

  So, because two of us had been raised, we gave a special

  sacrifice at the Temple of Hera, where my sister, now a matron,

  had just been anointed as a priestess. She was two months

  pregnant, just starting to show, and she officiated with the dignity

  of her new status. And Antigonus of Thespiae saw nothing

  of her new status. And Antigonus of Thespiae saw nothing

  wrong with having a master smith as a brother-in-law, so he

  came with a train of aristocrats to my sacrifice, and Myron

  arrived with the best men of Plataea, and I saw the wine of a

  whole crop drained in a few hours – but I reckoned it wine wel

  spent, because my heart was beating again.

  The next day, I took ten more amphorae of wine up the hil to

  the tomb of the hero, and I gave a smaler feast for Idomeneus

  and his men, and many of our Milesians as wel. We drank and

  we danced. Idomeneus had built a great bonfire, five trees’

  worth of wood, and we alternated between too hot and too

  cold, drank the wine and sang.

  It was late in the evening, and the fire burned high, and the

  younger men and women were piling my straw into a great bale

  – the better to share other warmths.

  I was twenty-seven, an
d I had never felt so old. But I was

  happy, pleasantly tired from dancing – the first good dancing

  since my leg was wounded. I was a master smith, and men came

  to my forge to talk about the affairs of the city. I might have been

  content.

  Idomeneus came and leaned against me in the warm-chil of

  the fire’s edge.

  ‘What ever happened to that slave girl you took away to

  Athens?’ he asked. ‘Did you sel her?’

  I had forgotten.

  The gods sometimes work al together, and the next day, when

  my head rang like my forge from the wine, Hermes sent me a

  my head rang like my forge from the wine, Hermes sent me a

  messenger from Athens, with payment for a load of finished

  bronze. He brought news that Miltiades had been arrested for

  wishing to restore the tyranny. And he brought a letter from

  Phrynichus, and a copy of his play, the famous Fall of Miletus.

  When I read it, I wept.

  In the letter, Phrynichus explained that the play had been

  written to awaken the men of Athens to what the Persians were

  up to. He said that he had written it so that men might recognize

  Miltiades for his role in trying to save the East Greeks.

  And he asked me to come to the opening of the play.

  In Athens, they have a different form of theatre to what we

  have in Boeotia, and I think I should explain. Once, in my

  grandfather’s time, I suppose, drama was about the same

  everywhere – much like a rhapsode singing the Iliad, except that

  the poet or a professional musician performed works of praise to

  the gods, or sometimes the story of a hero. In Athens, there was

  always a set of plays – at least three – and the best of the three

  received a prize in honour of the god Dionysus. Athens was

  certainly not the only city to give praise to the god of wine, nor to

  offer a prize for the finest poems in his honour, but Athens has a

  tendency to take things to extremes.

  The tyrant Hippias was a great worshipper of Dionysus, and

  men say that he inaugurated the practice of using a chorus – a

  group of singers – to support the main line of the play. So the

  dramas became more like a team sport – the poet or singer and

  his team of chorus members competed. It was demanding, both

  physicaly and mentaly, and that competition fired men to make

  physicaly and mentaly, and that competition fired men to make

  it better, more complex, more vivid.