The Pericles Commission

by Gary Corby

  I found the Archon the next day in his suite in the row of offices in the new Stoa next to the Agora. I had to sit on a low stone wall with the other men who wanted business with the busiest executive in Athens. Some of the men whiled away the time playing games, using boards that had been scratched into the stone, and pebbles of different sizes for the pieces. It was close to midday by the time a man with a paunch, tired eyes, and garlic on his breath came to tell me the Archon would see me.

  Conon was balding, with a few thin strands of hair surviving above his ears. He had a rounded, lined face. “What do you want, and it better be simple,” he snarled.

  “It’s about Ephialtes’ death-”

  “ Everything’s about Ephialtes’ death,” he interrupted me. He pointed to the low stone wall where I’d been waiting with the other supplicants. “Every accursed man sitting out there wants something done right now, before the civil administration collapses in the fighting.”

  “You think there’s going to be fighting?”

  “What do you think? The only line longer than that one out there is the one before the courts for disorderly conduct. I’ve already had three wealthy men from good families in here this morning demanding action because their sons and slaves have been assaulted by rioters. One of the sons is dead. Two of them insist the army be called to attack the next mob that appears. They forget the mob is the army. Oh Gods! I can’t believe I volunteered for this job.” I suppressed the temptation to pat him on the back and make soothing noises.

  “I think my problem might be simpler,” I encouraged him.

  “I hope so.”

  “Who inherits Ephialtes’ estate?”

  “Simple, you think?” He paused to shout through the door. “Tiro! Get your ass in here!”

  Conon’s secretary entered with barely a raised eyebrow. “Yes, Conon?”

  “This young fool thinks Ephialtes’ estate is simple.” They both shared a good laugh at my expense while I sat there.

  Tiro relieved my ignorance. “The case is one almost beyond any experience of the law. Ephialtes had no male issue, so the wife should be forced to marry the nearest male relative. The problem is she’s insane, mad as a crazed cow, and it is impossible to force any man to marry such a woman. In fact there’s an ancient edict that forbids it, since the mad are cursed by the Gods, and no man may be forced to incur a curse he doesn’t deserve.”

  Conon added, “Besides which, if what I hear is true, any man who did marry her is likely to get a knife between his ribs, or his head cracked in.”

  I said, “So on the face of it Stratonike gets the property herself.”

  Tiro shook his head. “No. It is absolutely impossible for a woman to own property.”

  “But wait! What happens if a man dies and there are no male relatives of any distance?”

  “Then the state takes control of the property and administers it for any girl-children until the time they marry, after which the property is sold and the sum goes to the state, after allowing for suitable dowries. But that doesn’t apply here, because there is a distant male relative. What’s his name, Tiro?”

  “Rizon. And we must find a way for him to inherit.”

  “Then it seems to me there’s no solution at all.”

  “That’s because you don’t credit me with doing my job well,” Conon said. “It’s radical and controversial, but I found a way out. Ephialtes had a daughter by his mistress. She’s a metic, so we can do whatever we like to her. She will be allowed to inherit and be forced to marry in place of the insane wife. Her name is…here, let me see…ah yes, Diotima of Mantinea.”

  I stumbled from the Archon’s office in a state of shock. What sort of man was this Rizon? I had to find out.

  I banged on his door harder than is polite. When his house slave answered I demanded an immediate interview on a matter of importance to the state. This got me to his public room.

  I saw quickly that Rizon was a man of low means. His house was of the smaller sort. I spotted only two slaves, both men. His furniture was wooden but rough.

  Rizon walked in. He was a middle-aged man, perhaps in his mid-thirties. He had a thin face and was balding, but I could see he was reasonably fit. The puzzled expression on his face turned to startlement as soon as he saw me. I was startled too. I had seen Rizon before, in the company of Archestratus, when I first interviewed him. He had been one of the men present when Archestratus explained the laws of inheritance.

  He said, “I know you, but I can’t place where.”

  “We met at the home of Archestratus.”

  “Ah yes, Pericles’ agent. What do you want with me? I assume Pericles is not asking for an alliance with an unknown sandal maker.”

  “That’s what you do for a living?”

  “It is. Would you like a new pair?”

  “I’m more interested in what you were doing with Archestratus.”

  “The same as everyone else you saw there, sucking up to the next leader of the people. Unlike your master, I believe in the democracy.”

  “Pericles is not my master-”

  “Oh?”

  “And in any case Pericles is more a democrat than Archestratus, if what I’ve heard from Archestratus so far has any meaning.”

  “Or Pericles hides his aristocratic leanings better.”

  “I’m not here to bandy words about politics.”

  “Then I wish you would tell me why you are here, so I can get back to my work.”

  “When Archestratus said he didn’t know who inherited Ephialtes’ estate, why didn’t you declare yourself?”

  Rizon held out his hands palms up and said, “For a very simple reason. I had no idea then. Of course I knew I was distantly related to Ephialtes, but it came as a shock when the secretary to the Eponymous Archon came to me the next day and informed me that not only do I inherit, but I am the only male relative of any sort.”

  “Where were you on the morning Ephialtes died?”

  “In my workshop, of course. Are you suggesting I might have shot him?”

  “You inherit. It’s a motive.”

  “Only if I know it.”

  “There’s only your word you didn’t.”

  “Then accuse me before the judges and we’ll see what evidence you’ve got.” He threw down the challenge confidently. Unfortunately I shared his confidence. An accuser whose charge fails pays a heavy penalty to the accused, and I couldn’t afford it.

  “Do you know about Stratonike?”

  “His wife? I gather she’s mad. But it shouldn’t be a problem. They tell me I have to marry the daughter of some whore he got a child by. Frankly I’m looking forward to it. I hear she’s a decent-looking tart, and her mother’s probably taught her all the tricks of the trade.”

  I pushed my way out of the house, desperate for some fresh air. Behind me, Rizon’s slaves were picking him up off the ground. I hoped his jaw hurt as much as my fist.

  I felt completely drained, I could feel the investigation slipping away from me, and I’d lost the will to continue. I decided to go to the Agora and find somewhere I could sit quietly and drink.

  I never got the drink. A mob was pushing and jostling about. I thought, rolling my eyes, that it was another riot by men angry at the death of Ephialtes and fearful of a coup, and expected Pericles to arrive at any moment to quell the disturbance. The crowd was too dense for me to see what was happening at the center, but I could see Archestratus on the other side, standing upon something to give him height and shouting at the crowd. I couldn’t hear a word he said, I could only hope he was having some effect.

  A man on the fringe told me two dead men had been laid out on a trestle table in the Agora. I pushed my way through with a terrible feeling in my heart, and looked down to see the two old slaves who cleaned the Areopagus. Their throats had been cut. Their faces were masks of horror. They’d seen their fate coming to them, but had been too old and weak to resist.

  They had given me the most important clue I’d di
scovered, and I never even knew their names. I whispered to them, “I told no one. No one!” But then I realized that I had. I’d told Pericles, and Diotima, and my family. And someone had known to kill them before they could testify.

  I tried to search their bodies for any clue who might have done this, but the crowd were having none of it.

  “Here, you! What are you doing?”

  “He’s doing something to the bodies!”

  “Sacrilege! Stop him!”

  I became fearful and stopped. In this ugly crowd, anything might happen.

  I don’t know who started it; the mob surged like cattle into the streets. I was carried along in the center whether I wanted to go or not. The men stopped outside a place I knew, the home of Xanthippus.

  The guards were still on duty, but they were swept away like flies. Ten men in the face of hundreds would have been fools to stand and fight. They ran through into the house and slammed the door behind them and barred it shut. The mob began forcing the door. Fortunately Xanthippus was no fool, he had had the door reinforced when the troubles began, and the angry men couldn’t batter it down. Someone broke into a nearby home-the women inside screamed as they were invaded-and emerged dragging a dining couch. Others helped him carry it to the door and used it as a battering ram. A few men grabbed torches hung outside for night time, and lit them. They threw the torches high onto the roof of the two-story building. Arson is a terrible crime punishable by death, but no one saw who threw the torches and even if they had, I doubt anyone in that crazed riot would have done anything other than cheer.

  Men appeared on the rooftop carrying buckets. They tossed water on the torches before they could set the building alight, but they were targets and the crowd pelted them with stones and several daggers. One man was struck on the head. He let out a loud groan and fell backward into the courtyard below. I don’t know whether he died.

  The pack had dispersed enough now that I could force my way out. No one was thinking, they just wanted to kill Xanthippus. I ran around the block to the back of the building. Slaves were pouring out, carrying whatever valuables they could. It was like watching ants escape a damaged anthill. A young woman was shepherding three slave children out of the house and down the street. They were crying in fear. The guards who had escaped the front of the house were now cordoning the escape route. They stopped me from continuing.

  “Let him through!” Xanthippus was standing in the courtyard, calmly overseeing the withdrawal. The old man, thin but lively and alert, reminded me of a General commanding in the heat of battle, which was no coincidence. Xanthippus in his younger days had been a General, and had given Athens victory at the Battle of Mycale. I noticed the statue of a dog, sitting straight and proud, alongside the altar to Zeus Herkeios. I had never seen its like before. It was such an odd thing that it stuck in my mind. I went to Xanthippus.

  He said, “Tell Pericles what is happening, and for all our sakes find Pythax and order him to quell this mob!”

  I nodded and ran off without saying a word.

  I banged on the door of Pericles’ home and pushed my way in the moment the house slave pulled back the bolt.

  “Quick, where’s Pericles?”

  The slave pointed upstairs.

  I crashed through the door to his inner sanctum and stopped. Pericles was leaning forward, in close conversation with Conon the Eponymous Archon.

  He looked up in great annoyance, but before he could speak I said, “Your father’s home is being attacked by a mob. He’s evacuating out the back.”

  I’ll say this for Pericles, he doesn’t waste time in a crisis. He jumped up and raced downstairs, calling for slaves to come with him.

  Conon stood and said, “What are you waiting for? Fetch the Scythians at once. Do you know where to find them?”

  I nodded and left. Fortunately someone had already had the sense to alert them, because I was running out of breath. I met them coming downhill, dressed in their leather armor and carrying their unstrung bows to use as wooden staves, long loops of rope, and heavy buckets of something. Pythax was in the lead. He saw me and said, “You were coming to us?”

  I gave him a rapid description of the riot as I had last seen it. Pythax didn’t break his quick march for a moment. When I finished, he barked orders to the men behind us. We broke into a trot.

  As we approached the street, half the men peeled away and took off down a side alley. Those who stayed with Pythax unrolled the rope and pulled it tight to make a barrier. Other men took rags and dipped them into the buckets, then wiped them along the rope, which I saw was now heavily covered with paint. The remaining men stood behind the rope line wielding the staves.

  The Scythians commenced a slow, steady march down the street. I saw the Scythians who’d broken away appear at the other end, doing the same. The rioters were trapped between the two lines. Most shied away from the painted rope, falling back and causing confusion for the more aggressive men coming forward. Those who pushed past tried to break through. Their hands became smeared with the paint and they were beaten back by the staves. The men in the center of the mob became aware they were trapped and turned their attention from attack to escape.

  In the time I’d been away, the door had been broken down. It lay hanging off its hinges in pieces. I suppose a few men had entered the building, but now everyone realized the only escape from the Scythians was through Xanthippus’ house. The mob surged and pushed. Men tripped and fell and were trampled. I could hear their screams beneath the feet of those still pushing.

  Pythax shouted orders, and the rope men at both ends of the street closest to the door started to edge toward one another, supported by the stave men who hit out over and over again. They met at the entrance and joined the ropes, so it formed a semicircle protecting the entrance. They took two steps toward the center of the street. The mob saw that they were well and truly trapped, and became docile. The only way out for them now was to wait to be let out.

  Pythax ordered again, and all but a few of the Scythians armed with staves filed into the house. I followed them in. I could hear Pythax shouting at me, but I ignored him.

  Broken furniture was lying about, pottery and statues were smashed. The rioters were fighting with anything that came to hand; anyone the Scythians caught was being hit hard. A few men had snatched spears off the wall. Those the Scythians took on three to one to suppress any chance of anyone being hurt, any Scythian that is. A quick glance into the courtyard told me Xanthippus and his household had all made it out. A few rioters had taken that route too. They were the smart ones.

  I stepped around struggling men and ran up the stairs. Xanthippus had cleared his private papers off his desk before fleeing. I cursed the man’s foresight. I scanned the room for anything that might help me. There were small bags made of soft, thin leather on a shelf. They were empty. A few papers were scattered about the floor, dropped in the rush. I picked them all up and stuffed them into my tunic, then made my way downstairs again before anyone noticed where I’d been. The fighting had finished, the Scythians held the field. They were dragging the unconscious into the street.

  I surveyed the mess that had once been the home of one of our premier citizens. All the internal rooms would have to be rebuilt, and the door and all the furniture was in splinters, but the outside structure was solid and the fires had been extinguished quickly.

  I could see that outside Pythax was processing the men within the rope barrier; each was being taken straight to a magistrate. I hoped they’d enjoyed their riot, because now they would each be paying a very substantial fine to the state. The ones caught inside would be paying compensation to Xanthippus for the damage. It would probably drive most of them into bankruptcy, which meant Xanthippus could legally sell them as slaves to recoup his losses. I wondered whether he would take that drastic step, which would make him even more unpopular with the people than he already was, or whether he would absorb his loss so as to be seen as magnanimous. Personally, looking at the damag
e they’d done, I’d have shipped them straight to the slave market at Piraeus.

  I didn’t read the papers until I had them safely back home. Unfortunately none of them was a receipt for payment of a new bow. Most of them were notes or bills of the usual household kind. One did look different though. I read it again. It was an old order for a box of fragrant herbs. That didn’t sound like Xanthippus to me; he had no women in his household. The handwriting appeared different too. I turned it over. Scribbled on the back, in the same handwriting as the front, was a note. “I will meet you at the Areopagus at dawn.” I stuffed that note back into my tunic and went back out onto the streets.

  The temple of Artemis Agrotera, the Huntress, is to the southeast of the Agora, across the river in the deme of Agrai. The way took me down Tripod Road, one of the busiest roads in Athens and always crowded, despite being so broad that two large horses could pass each other and not touch. Not that there was room for the horses; as usual, Tripod Road was overflowing with merchants and their donkeys, and men traveling to or from home. The donkeys were kicking up an uncomfortable amount of dust, so that my nose itched. Every now and then one would brush by me, and its rough coat would leave a smear on the material of my chitoniskos.

  Bordering both sides, like soldiers standing to attention, were the many bronze tripods that give the road its name, too numerous to count without making an effort I had never bothered with. Each tripod was a simple bowl, held aloft by three legs, with a chain running between the midpoints of the legs to hold them in place; each stood upon a stone base, some tall and ornate, some low and elegant, each different in design or style. Most of these monuments were so old that they had tarnished with neglect and gone green. Others were well cared for, and a couple were shiny new. No matter its condition, each proclaimed a victory in the choral competition at the Great Dionysia. Every tribe enters a chorus of boys and of men for the choral event, and the choregos who produces the winning performance is awarded the bronze tripod with which to record his triumph. He places it along this road, so men forever after will be able to read of his success from the plaque he attaches, which records the name of the choregos, his tribe, the name of the poet, and the name of the musician who accompanied the singing on the aulus pipes.