soldiers — a palpable threat. And by pointing them out, Kineas hoped that he had been sufficiently subtle in suggesting that they could be bested.
‘I wish to show you what cavalrymen look like. Perhaps, having seen them, you will say that professional soldiers have the time to practise such things — but I’ll tell you that these skills can be taught to you, and you can master them and serve your city with pride.’
Kineas rode in silence to the head of his own men. He pitched his voice low, hoping the gods would carry his words to his own men only. ‘Gentlemen, I’d appreciate it if you’d put on the finest display of horsemanship in history.’
Diodorus smiled coldly. ‘At your command, Hipparch.’
‘Start with the javelins,’ he said. ‘At my command, form file from the left and throw at the gallop. Then form your front and halt just short of Memnon’s line. And gentlemen, when I say just short, I mean the length of a horse’s head. Throw both javelins if you think they’ll both hit the target — Ajax, Philokjles, throw just one. Ready?’
A shifting, some glances.
Kineas looked around, found Arni waiting by the barracks door. ‘Collect the javelins as soon as they score and bring them back here.’
Arni nodded.
‘File from the left, skirmish! ’ Kineas shouted, and led the way.
All the way down the sand to the target, Kineas had time to consider whether he could have handled them any other way — and then he was ten strides from the butts, his first javelin away, his second just as he passed — not his best throw, but in the target and he swept by, curbing his charger and bringing her to a canter so that Diodorus caught him up easily, and then Crax fell in behind him. He refused to turn his head and count the hits. The Hippeis on the sand were watching closely — Lykeles fell in, and then Coenus behind him, and then Philokles and Ajax — gods send they hit something — and then the Gauls, and the line was formed. Kineas shouted, ‘Charge!’ and the line went back to a gallop. Just short of Memnon’s waiting men, he shouted, ‘Halt!’ They were knee to knee, aimed at the center of Memnon’s line. Memnon’s men flinched — more at the back than in front. Kineas’s men had their own troubles — Ajax nearly lost his seat and Philokles, despite the month of practice on the road and a week’s drill in the hippodrome, had his horse rear under him and threw his arms around her neck to keep his.
The hoplites had lost their ordered ranks and Memnon was bellowing at them, his voice high with real rage. Kineas ordered his men to face about and led them sedately down the sand to the waiting Hippeis.
Diodorus leaned over to him. ‘Memnon will make a bad enemy.’
Kineas nodded. ‘I didn’t see much choice. Perhaps I can sweeten him later — but they all hate him. And I need them to be united.’
Diodorus shook his head. ‘Why? Why not just collect the money and let them rot?’ But then he smiled and shook his head again. ‘At your command.’
‘Many of your mounts are untrained for war,’ Kineas called to the men waiting on the sand. ‘Many of you are not expert at mounting, or throwing the javelin, or staying in ranks. We can teach all of these things. We would like to teach you. And every man who loves his city should want to learn. At the next muster, I expect every man in armour and atop his horse. At the next muster, we will throw javelins until the sun sets. Cleitus?’
Cleitus rode to the head of the muster. ‘I intend to learn what this man has to teach.’ He turned and rode back to the ranks of the fully armed men. It wasn’t a long speech, but it had its effect.
When Niceas declared the muster complete and announced the next one at the new moon in just three weeks, there was a buzz of talk, but no angry shouts. Kineas was greeted afterwards by at least twenty men, many of whom found it necessary to stress excuses as to why they were not mounted today, but would be next time.
As the last of them trickled out of the hippodrome, Diodorus unfastened his chinstrap. ‘The town’s armourers will be busy men for three weeks,’ he said.
And then came the summons from the archon. Kineas heard it from one of the palace slaves and nodded curtly. To Diodorus, he said, ‘We dine tonight with Cleitus. You, Ajax, and one of the gentlemen.’ Nodding at the retreating figure of the slave, he shrugged. ‘If I survive meeting the archon.’
Diodorus raised an eyebrow. ‘The archon can hardly be offended by a minor scuffle between mercenaries. Is this dinner purely social?’
‘Nothing in this city is purely anything, Diodorus. Bring Agis. He’s a talker.’ Kineas decided to wear his armour. He rode to meet the Archon.
This time, the Archon was not in the murk of his private citadel. He was sitting in the open in the agora, flanked on both sides by files of fully armoured soldiers, giving justice at the courts. The market was full of people: men walking arm in arm, talking; men doing business, from the sale of a farm by the fountain to the dozens of stalls set up by merchants along the sides. Kineas was surprised by the scale of some of the sales — one stall seemed only to be an office selling cargoes of late-season wheat to ship owners anxious to beat the first winter storm on the Euxine. And there were women. Women doing their market shopping, attended by a string of male slaves; slave women on the same errands, or buying for their households, or talking by the fountain. Finally, there were beggars. Dozens of children begged by the foot of the statue of Hermes and grown beggars sat by every stall.
Kineas had to wait while the archon heard a boundary dispute — lengthy arguments on both sides appealing to various customs and the views of various neighbours. Kineas gathered from the arguments that when land had been taken from the local tribe of Sindi, the demarcations of land grants had never been firmly settled.
Kineas had time to watch the archon. He was not a tall man and tended to slouch his shoulders and hunch his back as he listened to the debate before him, his chin resting on his right fist. He wore a simple white tunic with a red border and a heavy gold ring on one thumb, had a diadem on his head, but otherwise wore no sign of rank or ornamentation. Despite the cold air and an icy wind blowing from the north, he didn’t don his cloak. He had a heavy, dark beard shot with grey and his hair had begun to thin on his forehead. With the exception of the diadem, he looked every inch a Greek magistrate.
He settled the grievance in favour of the smaller farmer who had brought the charge that his boundary stones had been moved, and ordered that a cup of wine be brought. Then he motioned for Kineas to attend him.
‘Greetings, Kineas of Athens,’ he said formally.
‘Greetings, Archon,’ Kineas replied.
‘I’m told that the muster of the Hippeis went well. Here, stand close by me. You have the muster?’ The archon was convivial. Kineas thought he was about to place his hand on Kineas’s shoulder.
‘I have the full account of the muster to present to you, Archon.’ Kineas held up a scroll. ‘I was satisfied.’
The archon frowned. ‘I understand you took steps of your own to see that the muster would be full. Yes?’
Kineas hesitated and then said, ‘Yes. I asked several gentlemen to see to it that the importance of the muster was understood throughout the city.’
The archon grunted. ‘Harrumph. Kineas, perhaps I failed to make myself clear to you — or perhaps you have your own designs. In the first case, I am at fault; in the second case, you have done me a wrong. Had I wanted the men of this town informed of the importance of the muster, do you not think I could have passed that word myself? If I did not, perhaps you might have thought that I had my reasons?’
Kineas recognized that he was on dangerous ground. ‘I sought only to improve the quality of your cavalry, Archon. The first step on the road to training them was to draw them to the muster.’
The archon sipped his wine. ‘Perhaps,’ he said after a few long seconds had passed. ‘Kineas, you have come here to serve me and this city. You think, perhaps, that you understand us already. You see a tyrant on his ivory chair and some noble gentlemen who seek to keep the tyrant within the bounds of the law. Hmm? Very Athenian. I asked you here today — to the court — to see another thing. These cavalrymen of the city, these “gentlemen”, are the rapacious landlords who will try to gouge my small farmers. I must protect the farmers; without them, we have no grain. If I let the great ones enslave them, I have no hoplites. And the small men — they have rights too. I protect them.’
Kineas thought, the law protects them. But he remained silent, only nodding.
‘Many of your gentlemen do all in their power to impede the running of this city — even its security. Hmmm? When I hired you, I was not aware of your many connections — and I wonder if I have made an error. Have I?’
