Marathon

by Christian Cameron

  Al Athenians – or at least, al rich Athenians of good birth –

  seemed to be locked in a contest for power. An Athenian would

  put this differently, and prate about arete and service to the state.

  Hmm. Listen, children – most of them would have sold their

  mothers to become tyrant.

  So, for those locked in the great games there were three

  roads to power – although each road had some side turnings and

  branches. A rich man might folow the path of arete, spending his

  money wisely on monuments at home and at Olympia or Delphi,

  competing in games and putting up teams of chariot horses,

  competing in games and putting up teams of chariot horses,

  paying for triremes for the state, sponsoring religious festivals –

  al as part of a slow rise to public esteem. In this way, and by

  using public honours to promote his own folowers, a man might

  build a gigantic faction that would alow him to leap to the

  tyranny. The Pisistratids had done it, making themselves tyrants.

  And the Alcmaeonids were on the same path, and Cleitus, in

  particular, exemplified the path of arete.

  That said, I have to add that there was a deep division among

  the old aristocrats. On the one hand, there were the eupatridae,

  or wel-born, descended from the gods and heroes, like the

  Pisistratids and the Philaids, Miltiades’ family. On the other hand,

  there were the new men, the new families – al stil aristocrats,

  but ‘recently’ ennobled by wealth and political position. The first

  of these families were the dreaded Alcmaeonids, whose famous

  ancestor, Alcmaeon, was enriched in Lydia by Croesus. There

  were other families of ‘new men’, and while at times the new

  men and the old families acted together – as aristocrats – to

  protect wealth and privilege, at other times they were at daggers

  drawn.

  Then again, a man like Themistocles could choose a different

  path. He was born to comfort, and his father, Neocles, was

  reckoned rich enough, but he was not wel-born by any means.

  However, by making himself the hero of the masses, the voice of

  the oppressed, the hand of justice to the lower classes,

  Themistocles harnessed the largely unvoiced power of the

  disenfranchised and the under-enfranchised, and turned them into

  a powerful force that could, on occasion, defeat the middle class

  and the upper class and demand power for their chosen orator.

  For al that the Pisistratids were wealthy aristocrats, they had

  always held the love of the demos – the people. And remember,

  odd as it sounds, in a wel-run tyranny, the poor men had the

  most power.

  Finaly, a man such as Miltiades might find a third path.

  Miltiades and his father were members of one of the oldest and

  richest of the eupatridae families, but they rose to power and

  wealth through overseas adventures – piracy, in fact. Through

  military action, sometimes in the name of Athens and sometimes

  in their own name, they accrued wealth by something like theft,

  and enriched other men who then became their folowers and

  dependants, alowing them to attract a folowing in al three

  classes – and alowing them to build up a massive military force

  that neither of the other two systems ever created. If we had

  won at Lade, Miltiades might wel have been tyrant of Athens.

  He’d have had the money, and the military power. That’s the

  real reason Cleitus hated him.

  Let me add that, however cynical I am, and was, about the

  striving of these men for power, I wil testify before the gods that

  Aristides, for al his priggishness, never had any end in view other

  than the good of Athens. His party, if you can cal it that, his

  faction existed only to support the rule of law and prevent any of

  the others from rising to tyranny. So let us say that there was a

  fourth faction – a faction of men who folowed the path of arete

  with no end in view but the good of their city.

  with no end in view but the good of their city.

  Naturaly, that fourth party was the smalest.

  So, I had falen into the middle of the competition, and now I

  was sitting on my horse, blocking the narrow lane, as

  Themistocles and a dozen club-armed thugs surged towards us.

  ‘Chairete!’ Aristides caled.

  Themistocles was a handsome man, tal, wel-built, with

  broad shoulders and long legs and a ful beard like a fisherman.

  He had a sort of bluff, hail-felow-wel-met humour that made

  men like him. He stepped forward, but I’d have known him

  anyway, as he was a head taler than his folowers and the best

  man among them. He looked like a good man in a fight.

  ‘Aristides! A pleasure to meet an honest man, even if he is

  mounted on a horse!’ His horse comment was meant to remind

  his own people that he, Themistocles, was walking, not riding.

  Aristides nodded. ‘I’m doing the rounds of my farms. Are

  you to be at the festival today?’

  Themistocles leaned on his stick. ‘Love of the gods and love

  of the people go hand in hand, Aristides.’ He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I see we might make common cause, as we al seem to be

  sporting some token from the Alcmaeonids!’ He pointed at the

  bump on his head and his black eye – to Aristides’ injuries, and

  my bandages. Then he turned to me and, with an exaggerated

  manner, said, ‘You must be the foreigner from Plataea, sir.’

  Clearly he knew exactly who I was.

  I slid from my mount and took his hand in the Athenian way.

  ‘Arimnestos of Plataea at your service,’ I said.

  He nodded, glanced at Aristides, then back at me, and I

  He nodded, glanced at Aristides, then back at me, and I

  thought he might let go of my hand. ‘I have heard . . . things

  about you.’ He looked at one of his men. ‘Recently.’

  I smiled. ‘Nothing that might disconcert you, I hope?’

  Themistocles considered me, and then looked up at Aristides.

  He was finding, as men have found since the invention of the

  horse, that it is much easier to stare a man down than to stare

  him up. ‘Your foreign flunky is making trouble among my

  people,’ he said to Aristides.

  Aristides shrugged. ‘The Plataean is no man’s flunky,

  Themistocles. And just as he is not my flunky, so they are not

  your people.’

  ‘Don’t be a stiff-necked prig,’ Themistocles said, al the oil

  leaving his voice. He leaned closer. ‘Your man has tried to buy

  my mob. We should be acting together these days, not making

  separate efforts. And the mob is mine, sir.’

  Aristides looked at me, and I couldn’t read what he was

  thinking. ‘Is this true?’ he asked.

  I smiled. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘You lie,’ Themistocles spat.

  Aristides pushed his horse between us. ‘Themistocles, I have

  warned you before that utterances of this sort wil not win you

  friends.’

  ‘Get your money out of town, foreigner,’ Themistocles shot

  at me. ‘No one buys mobs without my say-so.’ That last was

  directed at Aristides, not m
e.

  I stepped towards him and his people began to close around

  me. ‘I am Arimnestos of Plataea,’ I caled out. ‘And if one of

  me. ‘I am Arimnestos of Plataea,’ I caled out. ‘And if one of

  you lays a hand on me, I’l start kiling you.’ I looked around at

  them, and they desisted. The man closest to me was a big man,

  but when his eyes met mine, he stepped back and gave me a

  smile.

  I was the Arimnestos the man-kiler.

  Aristides looked pleased, which puzzled me.

  ‘I mean no disrespect,’ I said to Themistocles. I wanted no

  trouble with the demagogue. ‘What I have paid for wil only

  benefit you.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Realy?’ he asked.

  Aristides was watching me. I shrugged. ‘I would not tel

  every man on this road,’ I said. ‘Nor have I bought a mob. I

  have bought information, and I paid wel.’

  ‘What kind of information?’ Themistocles demanded.

  ‘Information regarding my court case, of course,’ I said.

  This satisfied him immediately. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘A certain slave

  in the brothels, I gather?’ he said, looking knowing and yet

  deeply concerned. The only sign of his hypocrisy was the speed

  of his direction changes.

  ‘Exactly!’ I proclaimed, as if stunned by his perspicacity.

  He dropped me as if our business was done, then he and

  Aristides exchanged a commonplace or two and we passed

  through his retinue. When I glanced back, Themistocles was

  smiling at me. Aristides was not.

  ‘What are you up to?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. I smiled at him. ‘Nothing that would interest

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. I smiled at him. ‘Nothing that would interest

  you, sir.’

  He rubbed his beard. ‘You’ve got Themistocles riled, and

  that’s never a good thing.’ He reined his horse. ‘You know what

  you are doing? You’re sure?’

  I shrugged, because I wasn’t at al sure that I knew what I

  was doing. ‘I’m fighting back,’ I said.

  ‘Gods stand by us,’ Aristides said.

  When the sun was high, we left our horses at his stables and

  walked into the city together. Men were gathered everywhere,

  and I was reminded of Athens’s power by seeing how many men

  she commanded. There must have been twelve thousand men of

  fighting age in the Agora for the performances, and that is a fair

  number of decently trained men – a greater total than Thebes

  and Sparta together, and therein lies the secret of Athens’s

  strength. Manpower.

  When Athenians gather, they talk. It seems to be the lifeblood

  of the city, and they talk of everything from the power of the

  gods to the roles of men, the rights of men, the place of taxes,

  the weather, the crops, the fish – and back to the gods. Standing

  with Aristides in the Agora, trying to guard him, I was dizzied by

  the power of the ideas expressed – piety and impiety, anger and

  logic, farming advice, military strategy – al in a matter of a few

  minutes.

  We were al crushed together when the magistrates went to

  the public altar of Zeus near the Royal Stoa and made the

  opening sacrifices. Then the ‘good men’, the athletes, the

  opening sacrifices. Then the ‘good men’, the athletes, the

  Olympic victors, the poets, the priests and high aristocrats,

  processed to the wooden seats that had been arranged – pray,

  don’t imagine anything elegant or splendid like modern Athens,

  honey. We’re talking about wooden stands that creaked when

  too many fat men climbed the steps! But after some time, the

  crowd settled, and the poor metics and foreigners and lower-

  class citizens pushed in around the sides and in the space

  between the stage area and the stands.

  Early on, I spotted Cleitus. He was wearing a magnificent

  embroidered himation over a long chiton of Persian work, and he

  was easy to pick out, as he was sitting in the first row of the

  stand.

  A set of priests and priestesses came forward, purified the

  crowd and made sacrifices. Then we al sang a hymn to

  Dionysus together and the plays began.

  I don’t remember much about the first play – just that it was a

  typicaly reverent piece about the birth and nurture of the god. At

  least, according to an Athenian. We have our own ideas about

  Great Bacchus in Boeotia. But the second play was

  Phrynichus’s.

  I saw him as soon as the chorus came out. He was behind

  them, wearing a long white chiton like the one that the archon in

  Plataea wears, and he looked more scared than he had been

  when the Aegyptians were storming our deck at Lade.

  I began to push through the crowd towards him. It was not

  easy – everyone had heard that The Fall of Miletus was a

  different kind of play, and men wanted to see the poet, to watch

  different kind of play, and men wanted to see the poet, to watch

  him as they watched his play. I had managed to get close to him

  when the chorus, dressed as skeletons in armour, linked arms

  and sang:

  Hear me, Muses! What I tell,

  Is wrought with horror, and yet heroes walked there, too!

  And where our fair maidens once walked,

  Fire has swept like the harrow,

  Breaking the clods of dirt, and making the ground smooth.

  Hear me, furies! And men of Athens!

  We died on our walls, in our streets, in the breach,

  Where the Great King’s siege mound rose.

  So that, where once our maidens for their young swains sighed,

  Those same young men wore bronze, and for the

  Want of Athens, there we died.

  I’ve heard Aeschylus, and I’ve heard young Euripides. But

  for power, give me Phrynichus. And he was actualy at the battle

  – wel, Aeschylus and his brother were there, too. Aeschylus

  was also next to me as I came up to Phrynichus, pushing rudely

  through the crowd. He took my shoulder.

  ‘Not now,’ he said, pointing to Phrynichus, who was

  watching his chorus exactly as Agios watched his oarsmen in a

  sea-fight.

  So I stopped and listened. I had been there, of course – and

  yet I was enraptured by his words. He laid the blame for the fal

  of the east on Athens. That was the point of his play – that the

  rape of Ionia was caused by the greed of Athens. Yes, he made

  Miltiades a hero – and that must have sat il with some – but the

  greatest hero was Istes, and he towers over the play like

  Heracles come to earth.

  It was frightening to listen to a man speak words I had

  spoken in council. And there was the man playing Miltiades –

  not that he was named, for in those days, that might have been

  considered impiety – and he stood forth and said:

  Today, we are not pirates. Today, we fight for the freedom of the Greeks,

  although we are far from home and hearth.

  And men cheered. Cleitus looked around. He was angry –

  doubly angry, I think. His men should have made a disturbance

  by then, shouldn’t they?

  Hah! I’m keeping my plan from you c
hildren. It helps build

  the story, does it not? But not many men can say that in one day

  they bested Cleitus of the Alcmaeonids and Themistocles of

  Athens in a contest of wits. Let me tel it my own way.

  The play was only halfway through when the first man in the

  crowd gave way to tears. And by the time Istes died (in the play,

  he asks ‘Where is Athens?’ as he fals to his death), men were

  weeping, some were pouring dust on their heads and the whole

  row of Alcmaeonids were looking uneasy under al that dignity

  and good breeding.

  It was a mighty play.

  And then there was my contribution.

  Not long after Istes’ death, when the angry crowd was to

  understand that the maidens of Miletus were being ravished

  offstage by the Persian archers, I saw a man come to Cleitus.

  offstage by the Persian archers, I saw a man come to Cleitus.

  His face was broad and puffy – or did I imagine that? And when

  he whispered into his master’s ear, Cleitus flushed red and stood

  up.

  We were separated by ten horse-lengths, but the gods meant

  him to know. I caught his eye. And I smiled.

  Whatever the news was, it passed from man to man along the

  Alcmaeonid family seats. Several of them pointed at me.

  Aeschylus watched them, and then Sophanes pushed up next

  to me.

  ‘What have you done?’ he asked.

  ‘An act of piety and justice,’ I said quietly.

  I wasn’t there to see it, but Cleon told the tale wel. This is what

  happened.

  In a south-side brothel owned by the Alcmaeonids, a group

  of oarsmen swaggered in demanding wine – no uncommon thing

  during the feast of Dionysus. But when they had their wine, they

  demanded to see al the girls, and having chosen one, they beat

  the owner and his bruisers to death with their fists. Four men

  died. The girl they took away with them.

  Oh, it’s a nasty business, children.

  Out by the tanneries, a smal crowd descended on a taverna

  known to be owned by one of the gangs of toughs who

  ‘organized’ things in the town. They puled four men out of the

  taverna and stabbed them to death. The four men were literaly

  cut to ribbons.

  Up on the hil by the Acropolis, another pair of bruisers were

  Up on the hil by the Acropolis, another pair of bruisers were

  caught by a smal mob and cudgeled to death. Sailors were

  blamed.

  But the worst atrocity, in the eyes of the ‘good men’, was