The Wooden Walls of Thermopylae

by Nick Brown

  This taught me just how much the power of the Archonate had decreased since Themistocles held it before Marathon. Whatever transpired here today would still have to be passed to the court of the Areopagus but it was clear that the line of power was sharply bending. Most of the early crowd were democrats who made way for Cimon so we passed through the stinking masses to the front, where we were embraced by a great knot of rowers gathered around Agesilaus. He seemed to be enjoying himself: the rowers were. They’d been well provisioned and it was clear the wineskins had been passed round several times.

  Aeschylus shouldered his way through to us and was greeted with a cheer; he was becoming known as a poet and better known as an active agent of the Demos.

  “There ought to be some good material to put into the mouths of Gods and heroes from today’s performance, try and remember all you can.”

  He accepted the proffered wine skin and drank deep. You didn’t need eyes to know the crowd was growing, you could hear it and feel the pressure as more and more tried to squeeze into the orchestra. Then the jeering began. It started at the periphery and moved inwards, growing in volume. Catcalls and insults so loud and numerous that any meaning was lost, smoothed out to a single wave of imprecation. Some of this stemmed from anger but most from frustration as the democrats understood where the real power still lay – and it wasn’t with us. There was no representation from the rowing benches in the Areopagus.

  The jeering grew in intensity as did the jostling; it was difficult to keep one’s feet as their minders pushed a way through to the dais for Megacles and his supporters. I noticed with interest that Xanthippus didn’t make his entry with them. Then the named Archon – sorry, reader, I can’t remember his name, but at least that’s an indication of the way the office had declined – tried to open the debate. No one paid any attention and it was left to Themistocles to move forward to assist him.

  “Friends, friends, we are all fellow Athenians and all must be heard. It is our way. Please hear your Archon speak.”

  This was greeted with cheering followed, gradually, by silence. The Archon nervously scuttled forwards and quickly called Aristides son of Lysimachus to speak first. This was unexpected as we were here to listen to Themistocles delivering a denunciation against Megacles’s faction.

  My first impression of Aristides as a public speaker was surprise: he had a thin and reedy speaking voice and was too concerned with a type of pedantic exactitude to get straight to the point and so tended to lose his audience. In every other respect he was a clever choice: everyone remembered his courage holding the centre together side by side with Themistocles at Marathon.

  “Athenians, I fail to understand the need for this meeting: let me enumerate our successes. We have prevailed at sea against Aegina. Since Marathon we are safe from Persia, where I am informed there are grave internal matters occupying the Great King. We must now restore the old principle of Eunomia and put aside foolish talk of harbours and fleets. Do we wish to draw the world’s eyes towards us? Do we wish to arouse envy amongst both the Hellenes and the Barbarians? Do we wish to stir up a wasp’s nest of discord in our city and overturn the rule of natural law handed to us by the city fathers? Do we –”

  Themistocles cut him off.

  “The Persians are on Aegina; soon they will be here, Aristides. It pains me to break your flow. You are a dear comrade, at Marathon we stood together, guarded each other’s backs, and took each other’s wounds. But you have been misled.”

  This was better. We ceased being restless; the chorus had left the stage and the satyrs were on. Aristides looked perplexed. Whatever he’d expected to be accused of, it certainly wasn’t having been misled. The pause this prompted in his peroration was fatal to his argument; Themistocles ploughed on.

  “Let me pose some different questions. What would have happened if we’d had the fleet I proposed? Why are the Persians on Aegina? Why is it so easy to ravage our coastline? The very mention of this and the grief of friends, who have lost home and family, move me to tears; forgive me, countrymen.”

  He paused at this point and made a great show of tears: being able to cry at will like he could is a hard won skill; ask any player. While Aristides tried to reply the crowd broke out in groans and weeping. I wasn’t sure the weeping of the sailors was genuine but there again there are none more superstitious or emotional than they are. The communal wailing continued at great volume until Themistocles, having recovered his equanimity as quickly as he lost it to grief, bellowed.

  “Athenians, which set of questions do you want the answers to?”

  There was a clamour of people shouting, “Yours, yours, Themistocles.” He listened, stretching it out, judging his time, then spoke earnestly like a father proffering the advice that will save his son.

  “Very well, but you will have to forgive me if I seem to stumble. Remember, I am a simple man unaccustomed to public oratory unlike my friend Aristides or his friends Megacles and Hipparchus, who I see skulking in their seats, simpering.”

  In fact they were neither skulking nor simpering, they were on their feet screaming abuse at Themistocles. I realised then they’d been played: this wasn’t the assembly they’d expected or agreed to. But it was too late and their screams of protest were drowned out until Themistocles continued.

  “Perhaps they don’t relish the plain speech of a simple man or the assembly of free Athenians. But they’d better listen to this because our future freedom depends on these answers. Well, do you want to hear them, free Athenians?”

  There was a roar of yes so coordinated that it seemed to emanate from one gigantic throat.

  “Well spoken, citizens. First I’ll tell you this: if we’d have had the fleet I’ve been pushing for, then the poor homeless Athenians here today would still be safe in their farms with their loved ones. They’d be there because that fleet would have stormed into the harbour on Aegina when the Demos on that island rose up. Then we’d have had peace and the Aeginian fleet lined up with ours against the Great King. Instead, the forces of repression on that island were able to suppress the Demos and butcher their leaders, our friends.”

  He struck a pose, hands on hips, and pushed his pugnacious chin out far as it would go. Pure Satyr play; and then shouted,

  “Who do we blame?”

  The name shouted out loudest was Xanthippus.

  “Wrong, friends. When he returned from Aegina I thought that too. However secret information has reached me that he was working with the democrats. Xanthippus is an Athenian patriot. Think again while I answer the next question.”

  I watched Aristides while this was going on; it was clear he had little idea what was coming next and less about how to counter it.

  “They were able to devastate our shores because we neglected to defend them. We neglected to replace our old ships and build new ones. We neglected to construct a fortified harbour to keep our triremes safe. Oh Gods, even saying this make me want to weep and scream.

  “Think, friends. Think, Athenians, reflect on what would have happened if it had been the Persians instead of Aegina. Every man of you dead, every young woman raped and enslaved, boys gelded, the old cast out to die, the city burnt. Aiee, aiee the grief of what might happen, no, what will happen when the Persians do come.”

  I saw that Aeschylus was making a mental note of this for future use. I’m sure that you, reader, have noted the similarity to a certain section of his great play, The Persians. Forgive me, I digress.

  “For they will come, believe me, and we are unready. Xanthippus has seen them on Aegina, he knows their intentions. For years you have heard my demands to fortify the Piraeus and strengthen our fleet. Why has it not happened, who is to blame? I demand to know: who is to blame? Who – Is – To – Blame?”

  Several names were thrown back at him: Megacles, Hipparchus, Aristides, and Kallixenos and from the front, round the Alkmaionid faction, were shouts of Themistocles.

  He raised his arms for silence.

  “We mu
st be more forensic in our search for the real evil doer, friends. Think back. Which man has opposed my proposals to make the city safe most vociferously, most consistently? Yes, yes, now you have it, I hear some of you calling his name and you are right.”

  He was screaming now, the crowd were worked to a pitch of fury; he brought them to the orgasm.

  “I name him. I denounce him. I denounce Hipparchus. I call upon the Areopagus for the test of Ostracism. I demand it, I demand it.”

  While the crowd screamed assent, Hipparchus fought his way to the dais bellowing in fury like a goaded bull.

  “You worthless lying bastard, I’ll pull the beard off your fucking low born face. Not even Athenian Xenos; fucking Xenos.”

  Themistocles re-composed himself into the righteous upholder of public order.

  “See friends, see how he scorns your wisdom, scorns your love of the city of the Goddess. Do I hear you insist that we petition the Areopagus to apply the test of Ostracism to Hipparchus son of Charmos?”

  The roar of yes was deafening, Hipparchus was hauled away out of the crowd to safety by his friends so he probably missed Themistocles’s concluding remarks.

  “I suggest, friends, that when the worthy fathers of the Areopagus convene above the cave on Lykabetos, you gather outside to help them make the correct decision for the safe future of the city.”

  The night following the Areopagus, Aeschylus told me about a party where Lyra would be performing. He suggested that if I waited outside she might allow me to escort her home. As I walked her home through the dark streets we noticed that giant pithoi for the collection of the ostraka had been positioned in their places in the Agora.

  Part Two

  Chapter Eleven

  We were away before the first streaks of rosy fingered dawn caressed the surface of the waters. My feelings were mixed; I’d come close to restoring amicability with Lyra but every time I found myself on the brink of something different we always parted. However my body, if not my mind, had healed and the companionship of the Athene Nike was equally seductive. We’d passed the promontory of Eleusis before Themistocles saw fit to confide our destination to us.

  The ship had been prepared in secret at very short notice and as a consequence we were six crew members light. This was partly compensated for by Cimon who, to his delight, Themistocles insisted sail with us. If you believe in omens, and sailors do, then Cimon’s boarding of the Athene Nike as a member of its crew rather than a young boy passenger was auspicious. He leapt lightly down onto the deck, scarcely causing the temperamental vessel to vibrate. There was a spontaneous outbreak of cheering from the crew like that which greets a hero. From that first step he was in his element.

  Cimon was to serve alongside of me as one of the ephibatai marines and, somehow, Themistocles had managed to procure for him Miltiades’s hoplite panoply. It wouldn’t serve for long; he was already taller than his father had been. But for him to be able to stand with the other armoured men as Themistocles poured the pre-voyage libation was a coming of age. Lysias was absent.

  As Eleusis faded behind us Themistocles beamed at Cimon and announced,

  “We’re headed for Sparta.”

  “I’ve always wondered if Sparta is as bad as everyone says it is.”

  I gave Cimon a laconic answer that a Spartan would have been proud of and one with the merit of being accurate.

  “It is.”

  That’s all I managed to say: of all the places I never wanted to see again Sparta was top of the list. Therefore the shock of hearing our destination tossed out in such an offhand manner robbed me of my equanimity. Not Cimon though, to him it was a jolt of excitement. Themistocles was impervious to either reaction.

  “Yes, of course I’d forgotten you were part of Miltiades’s foolish and doomed mission to Sparta before Marathon, Mandrocles.”

  Cimon and I were kneeling on the deck either side of the trierarch’s chair occupied by Themistocles, in the stern. The only other man within hearing was Ariston the steersman and he was totally reliable, having presumably already worked out where we were headed. His only comment that morning was aimed at the new trierarch.

  “It’s too late in the year to be making a voyage like this in a trireme, beggin your pardon, sir. Too close to the storm season.”

  Themistocles without a shred of concern replied cheerfully,

  “Beautiful calm autumn weather: the sun shines and the sea is flat as a fishpond. What could be better?”

  “Maybe now, but the sea can change and change quickly.”

  After that, apart from rapping out the occasional observation concerning rate of stroke or need for sails to Theodorus, he sat slumped and taciturn in his seat. Themistocles seemed quite at home on a trireme; he could turn his hand to most things but from this quiet beginning he transformed our city’s relationship with the sea.

  Today, though, his mind was on other matters and he was expansive. In this way he resembled Miltiades: men who live a life of subterfuge and sublimation sometimes feel the need to unburden themselves. I think also that he was trying to pass on some of his thinking to Cimon, preparing him. Having brooded on it I asked him,

  “Why are we going to Sparta?”

  “Why not? No better time and we don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the last campaign.”

  “Because they wouldn’t help, because they gave a better hearing to Metiochus than to us, because they never came to Marathon.”

  “But they did.”

  “Only after the battle was long over.”

  “And how did what they saw affect them?”

  “I don’t know, I wasn’t there, we were back in Athens, remember?”

  “Well, think about it then. The great Spartan heroes arrive late at a battlefield. They arrive late because they had no intention of taking part in a battle that they believed it was impossible to win. When they arrive they discover that a rag tag citizen army of democrats has beaten the most powerful army the world has ever seen. How do you think that made them feel, Mandrocles?”

  I didn’t know what to say and anyway Cimon answered for me.

  “I think they would have felt ashamed and envious.”

  “Well done, boy, but Spartans never do anything without full consideration. I think they understood then that the balance was shifting, not only in Greece but in the world. That their farmyard hegemony was open to a little more scrutiny than they’d previously expected. But I think they experienced another most un-Spartan emotion: admiration. They saw what we did and wondered how it could have happened and in that moment they wished it had been them. I think because of those reactions, our reception will be very different from the one they afforded your father.”

  “But why go there now? After …”

  I left the words hanging, not wanting to seem like I was questioning the judgement of such a great man. I needn’t have bothered; he was beyond embarrassment in circumstances like these. He picked up my words and ran with them like an athlete at the great Olympia.

  “What better time to go, our Alkmaionid friends have plenty to keep them busy now with Hipparchus out of the city. Even I hadn’t anticipated the size of the pile of sherds cast against him. But there can often be a backlash, so where better for the leader of the patriots to be than defending the City of the Goddess on hostile territory? When I return with a pledge of friendship and a treaty to defend the Greek mainland against the Persians, then which true born Athenian will hesitate to cheer?”

  Explained like that, it was all so simple, and he hadn’t even finished.

  “Also, and you mark this well, Cimon, it’s sensible for people to get a break from you. It’s better to be missed than taken for granted which leads to resentment. That’s how they’ll be feeling about the Alkmaionids going on and on about the old days and poor old Hipparchus. Better still, by the time we return I’m sure I’ll have come up with substantive grounds to begin proceedings for Ostracism against Megacles. Only fair: give poor old Hipparchus a bit of company
.”

  He must have seen the astonishment on our faces, seemed to make him enjoy himself even more.

  “You have to be systematic like the Pythagoreans say, so I have all the things that I need to do on a list that I keep in my head. Right now the power has shifted towards the generals elected by tribe, but even so there are too many powerful men who don’t want any more change, want to turn back to the old ways. So I have them on a list.”

  I didn’t know what to say and Cimon showed signs of anger; this wasn’t his world. Themistocles ploughed on.

  “You’ll understand this, Mandrocles, it’s rather like the way you’d work your way through a list of the flute girls you wanted to fuck or boy acrobats if that’s what you prefer. Have one then scratch it off the list. Except my list goes: Hipparchus, Megacles, Xanthippus …”

  This was too much. I interrupted him.

  “But you have an agreement, he stood back and withdrew his support from Hipparchus, he helped you win, helped you ostracise his friend.”

  “Nothing lasts forever, boy.”

  Cimon asked him coldly,

  “Is that why you have kept close links with the Great King?”

  “Don’t forget about the next Great King, I’ve links with him too and closer ones.”

  “Why?”

  “Have you ever seen a burrowing animal dig out its new home, son of Miltiades?”

  Cimon, nonplussed, nodded his head.