Claiming to recognise their shipmates in the audience, they praised these men for their supposed gallantry outside Troy, all the while slyly alluding to recent scandals and humiliations that had been the talk of Athens’ taverns through this winter just past. The crowd loved it.
Then our heroes counted themselves, to discover with comic dismay that their side amounted to the two of them up on there on the stage. The audience chuckled as the actors ran to and fro, looking in vain for someone, anyone else to add to their number.
Eventually, grudgingly accepting democracy soon provoked a lively squabble over which of them would do better in a popular vote. Finally the two men shrugged and nobly wished each other good luck, before walking to opposite ends of the stage and each confiding in the audience exactly how they intended to court popular goodwill with bribes and gifts.
Chrysion promptly led the chorus in mocking them both. The gods themselves would appoint this new city’s leaders in a properly conducted ballot for magistrates and council members. The only time these heroes would see a popular vote was if the people chose to expel one or other of them, for the sake of peace and quiet hereabouts.
Thersites grovelled, swearing he hadn’t intended to cause any strife.
Meriones agreed with fulsome apologies. Then he clapped his hands.
‘If we’re to build a new city, we’d better start building. If you want an assembly and the rule of law, we’ll need a council chamber and courts.’
Apollonides interrupted. ‘First and foremost, we should build a temple, high and bright on that sacred hill. After all, the gods help those who help themselves.’
When I’d written those words, I’d been confident that everyone agreed on the merits of Pericles’s building plans. I thought I was happily reflecting Athenian pleasure in the rewards of the peace we now enjoyed for the first time since our grandfathers’ day. This morning I couldn’t help wondering what the Pargasarenes and the other Ionians made of this notion. I looked down but all I could see was the backs of the allied delegates’ heads.
‘Who should we dedicate this new temple to?’ wondered Thersites.
‘Athena! Who else?’ Meriones indicated the imaginary landscape with that same sweeping gesture. ‘We’re surrounded by olive trees! How can we doubt her blessing in sending us here?’
‘What tools do we have for building this city you’ve got planned?’ Thersites looked around.
Meriones heaved an exaggerated sigh and offered his spear. ‘It’s a bit narrow for a shovel, but I suppose it’s the best we’ve got.’
Thersites went to retrieve his shield. ‘We can use this for carrying things.’
Meriones considered his helmet. ‘A bucket?’
Thersites nodded before suddenly clapping a hand to his head in a florid gesture of despair. ‘But how can we build if we can’t measure anything?’
‘Oh, that’s no problem,’ Meriones laughed, confident. He reached under the front of his tunic. ‘There you are. That’s a foot long.’
It worked, thanks to Nymenios’s expert knowledge of how to cut and sew leather. As Menekles tugged on what I sincerely hoped everyone in the audience had just assumed was the usual comedy phallus, the jaunty red cock tripled in length.
Judging by the roar of astonished hilarity from the entire theatre, we’d successfully kept this trick up our sleeves. Well, not our sleeves exactly.
Apollonides had to wait for the noise to die down to have any hope of his next line being heard. ‘A foot? I don’t think so. I think you’ll find this is a foot!’
With a jerk and a suggestive thrust of his hips, he produced a cock twice the length. That got an even louder and longer reception. People probably heard the laughter in Sparta.
Apollonides and Menekles had to stand there waiting for the roars to subside, waving those ludicrous phalluses around before they could appeal to their loyal Achaeans to decide which standard measure they were going to adopt.
Naturally the chorus responded by displaying their own suddenly impressive appendages. I saw the riotous mirth sweep all around the theatre with private satisfaction. Follow that with your pretty Butterflies, Euxenos. Whatever else they might think of my play, those judges in the front row would have no trouble remembering it, no matter what the Brigands, the Sheep or the Philosophers might get up to.
Best of all, the audience loved it. I’d promised Aristarchos they would, because he’d looked extremely dubious when I outlined this particular part of my plan. As I’d explained, it’s all well and good having comedies that promote civic virtues and honour the city’s democracy by means of elegant satire, but when an Attic farmer comes to the city after a year of seeing the same faces, the same houses and trees, and the same mule’s arse day in and day out, what he really wants is a play with plenty of belly laughs and lots of cock jokes.
Lysicrates timed his entrance superbly, ostentatiously creeping along the stage just in front of the scenery with a finger held to his mask’s lips to hush the audience.
‘Well, that’s an interesting tool!’ He stepped up close, so the rapacious Egeria could peer over Thersites’s shoulder. ‘This new city of yours will be full of marvellous erections!’
Thersites shrieked and ran off the stage, high-stepping like a startled satyr. Egeria scampered after him, hitching handfuls of skirts indecently high.
Once the laughter had died down, the audience got a chance to catch their breath as the chorus sang in a more reflective mood. They painted a lyrical picture of the fine buildings that would adorn their new city. This would be the Builders’ legacy for their sons.
With my words and Hyanthidas’s music, it was a very fine song. But was it long enough? I knew what was coming next and wiped apprehensively sweating hands on my second-best tunic. Lysicrates and Apollonides had rehearsed this next series of swift-moving scenes time and again, but there were so many ways that things could go horribly wrong.
‘Nice new city
