It was a nut. He had been eating nuts, and he threw hard.
I caught it.
He nodded, whispered something to the beautiful woman at his side and turned away. Then the guards moved us on, up the acropolis and into a slave barracks at the bottom of the temple district. In the morning, I was sold to the man who had thrown the nut. He came in person to collect me. I had no idea what he saw in me, any more than I knew why I was a slave, but the man obviously saw something he liked and bought it – or rather, his beautiful wife did. Later, I came to know that he was simply that way, and his life of random acquisition had probably saved my life and my spirit, for the slaves who went to the temple sometimes became priests, but those who didn't died of the work. The rest of the parcel I came up with carried mud bricks for the new priests' barracks for two years. Back-breaking labour in the sun.
A priest told me that my new owner's name was Hipponax, and that I should call him Master and avert my eyes. Hipponax put his carnelian seal on a clay tablet, grabbed me by the neck and hustled me out of the slave barracks. At the portico of the great temple, he stopped and looked me over. Then he made a face. 'Well,' he said, 'you were cheap.' He laughed. 'Aphrodite's tits, boy, you stink. Let's get you a doctor.'
We walked down from the acropolis, past the magnificent steps to the Temple of Artemis and into the lower temple precinct, where he took me to the Temple of Asclepius. We don't even have Asclepius in Boeotia. He's a healing god.
I was there for three days. They cleaned my leg and poured wine over it twice a day and wrapped it in bandages. I was bathed and fed well – coarse food, but there was barley bread, pork and lots of onions, and I ate like a horse.
Let me give you, in a sentence, the difference between Ephesus and Plataea. At the Temple of Asclepius, I was housed in the precinct of slaves. I thought I was living with aristocrats. My bed had linen sheets and a white wool blanket, and they gave me a linen chiton to wear as if it wasn't worth more than my best spear. I was waited on by free men and women until I was healed. Imagine!
Most of the other men in my ward were victims of old age, and most of them were Thracians. In fact, the overwhelming number of slaves in Ephesus were Thracians, blond men and women with robust bodies and big heads. And I didn't have a word in common with them.
On the third day, my new master came and fetched me. I was clean. All my hair had been cut away and my head shaved. I thought it was a condition of servitude, but it turned out that they did it to rid me of lice. They shaved my pubic hair, too. That worried me. Easterners were notorious for their sexual licence.
I wore my linen chiton when I followed my master on to the street. The sun, reflected from marble and pale grey stone, blinded me. I had a crutch and I hobbled along behind him as best I could.
We walked down just one level of the town. The acropolis was at the top, and then the temples, and then – the rich.
He took me into the main entrance of his house, and it was so magnificent that I stopped behind him and looked.
In the entranceway, under the gate that led from the street to the courtyard, there was a fresco of the gods sitting in state, painted in colour on the plaster. On either side, carved as if from life, there was a maenad on my right and a satyr on my left. Once I walked two more steps under the portico and into the courtyard, I saw that every column was a statue of a man or a woman, each standing like slaves awaiting service, holding the roof, and under the arches there were more painted scenes – scenes from the Iliad and scenes of the gods. Zeus ravished a very willing Europa, and the only cowlike thing about her was her eyes. Achilles held his arms high in triumphant revenge, and Hector lay at his feet.
'Welcome,' my master said. He smiled. 'Let's have a look at you.'
He pulled my chiton off. The beautiful woman came out into the courtyard, followed by two female slaves. All three of them were perfumed, and all three were wearing garments better than Plataea's finest wedding dress. The lady had gold earrings and a necklace as broad as a soldier's girdle that seemed to be tied with the knot of Heracles in gold, although I didn't think that was possible. I caught her name from my master – she was Euthalia, and that name was right for her, for she was beautiful and well-formed, and child-bearing had not touched her, except to give her the strength of face that most matrons get when they have had the rearing of a child.
I took the knot of Heracles as a sign. Heracles was the family patron, and there was his sign in the home of my master. Heracles had been a slave. I took it as a sign and I still think it was.
They ran their hands over me and played games. The slave girls fetched a ball and threw it at me. I caught it. The man nodded. Then he swung a stick at me – slowly, but with some force. I moved. I ducked. I ducked a blow and caught a ball without dropping my crutch.
Finally, the man nodded. 'What do you know of horses?' he asked.
'Nothing,' I said.
Both Master and Mistress looked disappointed. 'Nothing? Speak the truth, boy.'
I shook my head. 'I have touched a horse,' I said.
That made Mistress smile. 'He could be taught,' she said.
'He will be too tall soon,' Master said. 'But it is worth a try.' He put a finger under my chin and raised my face, the way a man does with a shy girl. 'What's your name, boy?'
'Arimnestos,' I said. 'Of Plataea.'
'You're a Greek,' he said.
'Yes, master,' I answered.
He shook his head. 'Well, I'm glad to have a Greek slave, but the man who sold you is a fool. You were a free man, weren't you? And you were trained to be an athlete.' He glanced back – he almost treated me as a person and not a household object. 'I am Hipponax. You've heard of me?'
'No, master.' I hung my head. He had expected me to know of him. He had expected me to know of horses, too.
I had never thought of Calchas's training as training for sport. 'I was trained to hunt and fight,' I said. 'Master.'
He pursed his lips and looked at Mistress.
She smiled back at him. It was good to see them together, they were so much of one mind. 'Don't be offended because a slave does not know your poetry, dear. He can't read, after all.'
I wondered if I was foolish to brag about my skills – but I did not want to go back to the priests. And they seemed like good people.
'I can read and write,' I said.
'You can read and write Doric?' master asked. 'Or Ionic? Or both?'
'I can read the Iliad and the Odyssey and Alcaeus and Theognis,' I said.
Mistress smiled broadly. 'I think you owe me a new robe of my own choosing, dear. Oh, that Daxes will be so angry.' She clapped her hands. Then she came and ran a hand down my flank, and I shivered, and she laughed. 'You can fight, catch a ball and read. Fine accomplishments for a young man. But your name is barbarous. I think we shall call you Doru. A spear – a Dorian. An intrusion to our family.' She smiled at me and turned back to Master. 'I am going to try and spend a few useful hours accomplishing something at my loom.'
Master kissed her shoulder. It was a shock – everything was a shock, but his casual, open affection wasn't something I had ever seen Greek people do. 'I can think of another role for him, if he can hunt and fight,' he said, 'and read.'
'As can I. But let's have him put to the farm with some reins in his hand first,' she said. 'And he can always drive for Archilogos if he can't last a race.'
'So he can, my dear. Your usual splendid eye for good muscles.' He turned back to me. 'Arimnestos, we are sending you to learn to be a charioteer. Do you think you will like that?'
I might have said many things. Instead, I shrugged. Really – I was ten thousand stades from home and my world was dead. What was I to do? Escape? It never crossed my mind. It sounded better than being pissed on, or hauling mud bricks for priests.
So I went to the farm with an old slave and slept well enough, and in the morning, I started to learn to be a charioteer.
