‘Red cloaks for the bloody warfare that raged around the walls of Troy.’ I gestured with my cup. ‘Blue for the endless seas that Odysseus sailed on his quest to get home.’
Telesilla’s eyes brightened. ‘When do those performances start?’
‘In the afternoon on the first day of the festival,’ Zosime answered. ‘Once the heat of the day has passed. The Iliad is told over the first three days and the Odyssey takes two more. Each day’s performance lasts well past midnight. One poet recites his allocated episode, and then passes the story to the next man, like a runner in the relay race.’
‘It happens up at the Pnyx,’ I added. ‘The People’s Assembly is suspended for the festival, along with the Council and the courts and other official business. The assembly ground there is big enough for everyone who wants to come and listen, and the poets use the speaker’s platform so everyone can hear.’
‘The hill’s high enough to catch the breezes, and people come and go,’ Zosime added. ‘There’s so much else going on around the city that people want to see.’
‘Like the musical competitions. Those start on the first day as well,’ Hyanthidas said lightly.
None of us were fooled. This would be the most important competition of his career.
‘We’ll be there to see you show the rest how the twin pipes should be played,’ I assured him.
Telesilla smiled fondly as she took his hand. ‘I don’t think I have the stamina to endure five days of epic poetry. I’ve usually had enough after a couple of hours.’
‘You and just about every other visitor.’ I grinned. ‘But seeing the entire epics performed is one of the things that makes our festival special. It’s a fine way to honour great Athena, since she was so central to those momentous events.’
‘Does anyone ever sit through the entire recital?’ Hyanthidas was curious.
I shrugged. ‘I can’t speak for every Athenian, but most people I know have come each day and stayed in the audience from start to finish at least once. After that, we just stop by to enjoy our favourite episodes.’
I had been twelve years old the first time I had listened to the epic tales day after day, sitting up on the hill with its views over the city with my father and my three brothers. We had shared the thrills and the heartbreak with the blithe ignorance of youth. We had no reason to think that such tribulation lay ahead for us. Young as we were, we knew the great statesman Pericles had been elected to high office and he was promising to lead Athens to glory. Since then, my brother Lysanias had died in battle, and my father had died of grief. Homer’s poetry stirred very different feelings in me these days.
‘You need to bring a good thick cushion,’ Zosime advised, ‘as well as snacks and plenty to drink. Lots of water to go with your wine. There’s a breeze up there, but not a lot of shade.’
I knew she and her father had sat through both poems at the last Great Panathenaia. It had been the first panhellenic festival since they’d come to Athens from Crete. That was before I had met Menkaure, and before I knew he had a daughter as charming and quick-witted as she was beautiful.
‘It’s a good place to arrange to meet people,’ Zosime added. ‘Especially if there’s a particular poet you want to see. Only the most skilful performers are chosen to take part.’
‘They know this will be the greatest audience they’ll ever have—’ I broke off as voices grew louder on the other side of the tavern.
Pretty much everyone around us turned to see what was going on. The red-cloaked poets were shifting on their stools, challenging each other. I realised I’d been mistaken when I thought this was one gathering. There were two factions sitting around separate clusters of tables. The trio of poets who would be performing episodes of the Odyssey looked on from their corner.
I sat and listened like everyone else. If we tried to carry on our conversation, we’d be competing against men who’d spent a lifetime training their voices to carry across a crowd.
At other cities’ festivals, epic poets compete for silver instead of honour with shorter recitations, or they claim some street corner or a spot in the marketplace, to solicit coin from passers-by with dramatic recitations of well-known tales reworked in their own words. A poet who can’t make himself heard isn’t going to eat.
‘A true poet who honours Homer does not work from a script,’ a full-bearded Ionian with a barrel of a chest boomed.
Another man with a similar accent nodded emphatic agreement. ‘Listening and learning is the only way to truly commit the master’s works to memory. If a man cannot do that?’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘He has no right to sully these poems with his inferior skills.’
An Athenian sitting at another table answered him with careful precision. He’d either drunk a little too much wine and would rather people didn’t notice, or he was striving to keep his temper.
‘The truest test of an athlete is seen when all comers compete on a level racetrack. We should strive for such fairness in our own contests, and have everyone learn from the scrolls that preserve great Homer’s poems uncorrupted.’
Another Athenian nodded. I noted he also had one eye on the audience in the tavern, but at least he was trying to keep the peace. ‘Learning at the feet of a master is very well in theory, but not every man who recites the great deeds of the heroes can be considered a master. Some are no more skilled than those chattering birds that mimic human speech. Surely young poets are better served by learning from an unsullied source?’
‘Surely there must be at least one Athenian who doesn’t answer every question
