Marathon: Freedom or Death

‘Of course. You have the right of it, my well-spoken friend.’ Aristides glanced away, at Jocasta, and they shared such a smile. It was a pleasure to see them together.

‘Well then. We Plataeans are the girls by the fountain. Come back and talk to us when you have learned to listen and to play tricks that please us. Until then, you and Miltiades and all these Pisistratids and Alcmaeonids are just boys wrestling by the fountain.’ I chuckled.

‘Who made you so wise?’ he asked.

I laughed. ‘A generation of girls at fountains in Ephesus,’ I said. ‘Now, how do I get my horse and my slave girl back?’

Aristides shook his head. ‘Ask after the trial,’ he said.

I coughed. ‘Trial? My trial? When is that? I thought you’d fixed that for me?’

He shook his head. ‘The law is the only glue that binds Athens,’ he said. ‘You will have a trial. I’ll be your speaker.’

‘When?’ I asked again.

‘Tomorrow,’ he said.

The idea of a trial drove news about Miltiades and the siege of Miletus out of my head.

In Athens, a foreigner cannot speak or defend himself at a trial of any kind. Without a ‘friend’, a proxenos, to represent him, a foreigner, even if he’s a metic who lives in the city and has a trade and serves in the phalanx, cannot utter a word in his own defence.

Actually, I approve of this law. Why let foreigners speak in your assembly? A pox on them. All they’ll do is stir up trouble.

Aristides walked with me as far as the first public fountain. ‘You are not permitted to speak,’ he said. ‘But that changes very little. You can still smile, and frown, and raise your eyebrows — you can control your emotions or give them free rein. Men know who you are — and if they didn’t yesterday, they will by this morning. The jurors will watch you. Comport yourself like a man. Ask yourself — what would Achilles do?’

I laughed. ‘Sulk in his camp until provoked, and then kill anyone who offended him.’

Aristides frowned. ‘The law is not a matter for levity. I must leave you — I have stops to make, and men to see. Be on the hill of the Areopagus by the middle of the day.’ He handed me a three-leaf wooden tablet with wax pages. ‘Keep this by you,’ he said. ‘I’ve written out the charges and your counter-charges, just in case another man has to speak for you. And I want you to understand. We’re suing young Cleitus for the civil loss of your chattels — that is, the girl and the horse. Of the two, the horse is by far the most valuable — and will, I think, trip young Cleitus up handily at the trial. Understand?’

I read the tablet quickly. The writing was tiny and precise, but I am a literate man — I was taught my letters early.

‘Will the trials go on at the same time?’ I asked.

‘Zeus! You know nothing of our laws. No. Your trial is for the murder of a citizen. That will be tried by the Areopagitica — the elders of the city. Friends of the Alcmaeonids, every man. In fact, more than half of them are Alcmaeonids.’ He nodded gravely. ‘The civil trials will be held when the roster allows — probably early in the spring. We’ll need a jury of at least four hundred.’

I swallowed some rage. ‘Spring? I promised that girl her freedom.’

Aristides shrugged. ‘I doubt you’ll ever see her again, frankly. I’ll see to it that you receive chattel of equal value.’

I shook my head. ‘Aristides, I trust you. But I will have that girl back, and I will free her. I swore it. It may seem a little thing to you-’

He shook his head in turn. ‘No — oaths to the gods are weighty matters, and you are a pious man. I apologize. I will do my best. But if they cannot kill you, these men will seek to hurt you — even your woman and your horse.’

I spat. ‘This is your democracy? Aristocrats hitting out at better men through their chattels?’

He went down into the Agora with the rest of his followers, leaving me two young men with staves: Sophanes, who already had a name as a warrior, and Glaucon, his friend. They were both aristocrats, both followers of Aristides and both very serious. They wanted me to tell them about Miltiades.

‘I want a good krater to take home,’ I said, ignoring them and shrugging off my rage. I put the tablet into the back-fold of my chiton — a beautiful garment of natural wool. ‘Something with a hero on it. Will you take me to the potters’ quarter?’

I had an errand on the way, and so I walked them down past the cemetery and took them to visit Cleon, my hoplite-class friend from my first campaign.

He met me in his doorway, and he barked like a dog, howled and threw his arms around me. Sophanes and Glaucon watched wideeyed as we drank a shared cup of wine — terrible wine — and traded tales.

‘You, Sophanes,’ he said, ‘you have the name of an athlete. Do you know that this big lummox charged the Persians single-handed at the Pass of Sardis?’ Cleon was proud to know me, proud to show me off to passers- by.

I shrugged. ‘Eualcidas of Euboea led the way, and there were ten of us.’

Cleon laughed. ‘It froze my fucking blood just to watch, by Aphrodite’s burning cunt.’ His face was red, and I thought that he’d had too much wine already. ‘You look rich and pampered,’ he went on.

I thought he looked like a broken man. ‘How are things with you?’ I asked. He had told me that his house was smaller than the stern- gallery on a trireme, and I could see it was true.

‘My wife died,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘And both of my children. Apollo sent some affliction, and they were gone in a week.’ He looked at the floor. Then he straightened his spine. ‘Anyway, how are you? Famous, I note.’

Talk of my fame made me nervous.

‘I’m here because Idomeneus killed one of the Alcmaeonids,’ I said, to cover the pain in his eyes with facts. Men do these things. Men are cowards when it comes to sorrow.

‘Good for bum-boy. For a kohl-eyed catamite, he’s a fine man. Killed an aristocrat? That’s something,’ he said.

I laughed nervously. Cleon was drunk, and difficult. Sophanes and Glaucon were both aristocrats, and they were not pleased.

I shrugged. ‘I have an appointment,’ I said.

‘Damn, you remind me of better times. I’m not even a hoplite any more, eh? Failed the property qualification.’ He looked at the floor, and then hugged me. ‘Damn, listen to me. All whines and self-pity. Come and see me again.’

I hugged him hard, took my two guards and left for the potters.

My two aristocrats clucked and muttered, and finally Glaucon spat that I had a friend of no worth.

I stopped and put a hand on his shoulder — older man to younger. ‘Cleon looked a little drunk. His wife and children have died.’ I held his eyes and the boy flinched. ‘He stood his ground and kept men off me — many times in the rage of Ares. When you have done as much, then you may speak of him in that way in my hearing.’

Glaucon looked at the ground. ‘I apologize.’

I liked him for that. The young are superb at disavowing responsibility — Hades, I was myself, so I know what I speak of. But this one was a better man.

We walked east into the morning sun and I lightened the atmosphere between us with tales of Miltiades. I was beginning the tale of the fighting in the Chersonese, and the Tearless Battle, where we took all the enemy boats with the loss of a dozen men and smashed the Phoenicians, when we crossed the festival road and found ourselves in the midst of a forest of brothels and taverns and free men’s houses. Only Athens could so hopelessly over-commercialize something as simple as sex. I remember losing the thread of my story as I contemplated — well, I’ll gloss over what I was contemplating, as you virgins would probably expire on the spot.

‘So we took fishing boats,’ I remember saying. ‘There was a fair fishing fleet at Kallipolis-’

The dagger punched into my back just above the kidney. The blow was perfectly delivered and had a great deal of force behind it. I staggered, fell to my knees and felt the blood leak out over my arse.

I should have been dead.

But I wasn’t. So I rolled through the fall and rose, my chlamys already off my throat and around my arm. As I came up, I had my knife in my right hand. Glaucon was down, but Sophanes was holding his own, his stick against