Salamis Read online

  Sparthius nodded. ‘Good. Very good.’

  He motioned to the helmsman and orders were given.

  I’d never been on a Spartan warship and it was interesting. There were fewer shouted orders than on one of my ships; everything seemed to happen with the gravity of ritual, and yet … everything happened. As an example, given the rather rough nature of the beaches at Salamis, sailors on the small foredeck – almost a castle – began raising a stone anchor and fitting it to a wooden stock in the bow. Then they fitted a pair of lighter stones to the anchor cable. It was a very seamanlike operation, but there were no orders given from the command deck, and the oar-master almost didn’t know the anchor was being prepared.

  I was impressed, yet at the same time, I admit to having reservations. The cacophony of my command deck, with shouted orders repeated in all directions, meant that every crew station knew what was being done. In a storm, the helmsman still knew what was happening forward. But the Spartan way was very … intimidating.

  Fancy that.

  Regardless, we landed prettily, and I took my Spartiate friends to meet the High Priestess. I’m happy to say that Eugenios was waiting with a clean chiton and a fine himation – now that is service. I emerged from the waves like a king, or at least a well-waited on prince, and took my Spartans to their audience, where, of course, they behaved perfectly. It was delightful to see Sparthius, all his front teeth lost in some long-ago encounter, as big as a house and as dangerous as a lion, impressing this tiny but determined old woman with his perfect manners.

  She, in turn, was delighted to meet them, and she did as much – or more – than any Athenian I had seen to convince these two men that she, at least, valued them and the alliance for which they stood, and when the trierarchs and helmsmen of the other ships came up to be blessed she spoke to each one, Spartan and Corinthian, with a light in her eye that made them smile. She really was a fine women and her dignity was not so immense that she could not laugh.

  I heard that laugh, and another with her, and I turned and found myself looking at Lykon, son of Antinor, who had stood with me at my wedding, and who I accounted among my best friends. He had once been a man so handsome as to be pretty, and much whispered about, but a boar hunt on our mountain had gotten him a scar on his face that turned a feminine beauty into a masculine one.

  I waited as he chatted with the High Priestess, and yet our eyes met and we both smiled and years fell away behind me. Lykon and I had been friends before the Medes landed at Marathon – when my lovely wife Euphonia still walked the earth. In fact, back when she was as young as Heliodora …

  When he was done speaking to the priestess I swept him into a crushing embrace and he crushed me right back. And then another pair of arms encircled me, and I had to laugh through tears. Lykon’s nearly inseparable friend Philip, son of Sophokles. His grandfather had been a king in Thrace, but he was as Greek as me. At least as Greek – and much richer.

  Actually, I wasn’t certain of that. Even with Athens in flames and Plataea the same, I was probably a fairly rich man. When you stop counting, you have reached some level.

  Hippolyta was beaming at me and I bowed. But behind her was Aristides. I didn’t get to him in the press of men because Hippolyta took my hand. Hers was old and very delicate, but surprisingly strong.

  ‘Such lovely young men,’ she said. ‘Please make clear that they are to keep their distance from my girls.’

  A bucket of cold water on our reunion. But Hippolyta was correct, of course, and I understood that I had made myself their guarantor in her eyes. So I collected the trierarchs and Bulis introduced me.

  ‘This is Arimnestos of Plataea. I have fought beside him.’

  They were immediately silent. Hah! Praise indeed, eh?

  I pointed out the young women of Brauron and how they were trained, and I managed to include the names of a few fathers – including my own. Men smiled, but not like wolves.

  ‘We will make arrangements,’ Bulis said. He nodded sharply.

  Two thousand young oarsmen and hoplites in their physical prime. Somehow, they all kept their hands and their mouths to themselves and they went, unmolested, to bathe in the sea or perform their dances between the black hulls of the Greek ships. We all managed, somehow, as if the presence of so many beautiful maidens was an everyday occurrence. Perhaps it was, in Sparta. But it certainly kept our minds off the Persians.

  The coming of Lykon and Aristides and Philip marked the end of my black days and the introduction of busy visiting among the ships. I had a symposium on the sand, with proper couches – kline – loaned by Brauron in exchange for all the spare bows I found in a few visits along the beaches. Aristides was there, and Cimon, and Aeschylus and Phrynicus too, and Philip and Lykon and Brasidas, Bulis and Sparthius. The Spartans almost spoiled my little party by bringing another young man, Callicrates, one of the most beautiful men I had ever seen, tall and heavily muscled. He was a little older than Anaxagoras. Pericles was too young for a symposium, but not too young to fight, and he didn’t miss an opportunity to mention that to his father or mother. Xanthippus, his father, refused the invitation for him, and declined to come himself, so we had an empty couch space and the beautiful Spartan lay down by the stolid Ionian.

  We had fish, of course, and some very nice squid. Listen, if you must feast with the richest men in the Greek world, Eugenios is the man to have at your side, like Idomeneus in a fight. Yes, Idomeneus was there as well, sharing his couch with Styges and throwing food at Lykon.

  When we were done eating, conversation turned to the war. I cannot, to be honest, remember everything that men said, although most of it was worthy of thought. Callicrates declined to speak, and Anaxagoras spoke very well, prompting Bulis, who was on my couch at the time, to suggest that between the Ionian’s head and the Spartan’s body, we had the makings of a god.

  Well, it was funny at the time, I promise you.

  Phrynicus was just explaining to the Spartans and Corinthians how Aristides had come to be exiled and how all the exiles had been formally invited back when Bulis said in my ear, ‘I have a message from Queen Gorgo.’

  Gorgo was a widow. I had not really considered that Gorgo was as much a widow as Penelope, but I had seen the depth of her bond with her husband. What can I say that I have not said other nights? Leonidas was more exactly like a god than any other man I have met.

  Despite which I had a human urge to go to Sparta and see if his widow desired comfort. Bah! Perhaps I am too honest for you. But men are not simple animals – or rather, sometimes we are, are we not?

  ‘I am to tell you that Artaphernes is dying or already dead.’ Bulis had not met the Persian satrap. But he certainly knew of him.

  The words went through me like fire.

  Gorgo was not the only beautiful woman to be made a widow that autumn. Briseis’s husband – my friend and sometime patron – Artaphernes, the Satrap of Phrygia.

  His death meant that Briseis was free. Briseis was many things – and I will confess that by the standards of Greek womanhood, she was a terrible woman, an adulteress and a shameless user of her body for political ends. Like a man, in fact.

  But she was, in her way, absolutely honourable. She had promised me, a year and more before, that when Artaphernes died, she was to marry me. I had prepared a house for her, a house that now lay in ashes. But there could be other houses.

  At the time, Artaphernes had himself asked me to come for her when he was dead. His son by another woman, also called Artaphernes, hated her for displacing his own mother. And so it goes: politics and marriage are deeply intertwined, with the Persians as with the Greeks.

  His death also meant that the last voice of reason on the Persian side was silenced. That probably meant little, for he had been left behind when Mardonius, his political enemy, marched to triumph in the west.

  It made me wonder if Artaphernes had been dire
ctly in contact with Gorgo. Certainly she was in contact with the exiled Spartan king, Demaratus.

  All the busy plotters. It occurred to me then that Briseis and Gorgo might be very good friends, or deadly rivals. For a moment I thought of what it would be like to introduce Briseis to Jocasta …

  ‘You are as tense a boy in his first fight,’ Bulis said. ‘This is important news, I take it. I also have this for you.’

  What he handed me was a needle case, the sort any poor free woman has, a thing made of wood. This one was agreeable; the turning was excellent, and the lid locked to the base with a little click. But I could buy one in any agora for a drachma or less.

  Inside were several fine bronze needles, worth far more than the case. In fact, they were a rich woman’s needles. I was a bronze-smith and I knew how to make a needle, although not as fine as these. These were masterpieces, with long, tapered eyes in a shaft that had been narrowed throughout its length by patient filing with tiny files, themselves carefully made. One of these needles was worth ten or fifteen drachma, almost a month’s pay for an oarsman.

  They said Briseis as clearly as a signature.

  I dumped them out in my palm. Lykon came and sat on my couch just at that moment.

  ‘Those are fine!’ he said. ‘Thinking of taking up embroidery?’

  We all laughed and I dropped the needles, point first, back into the case. And in doing so, I felt the secret.

  I excused myself to order more wine and found Eugenios, and after passing my redundant request (when did Eugenios need an coaching on a symposium?), I passed into my tent. I used an eating pick to reach into the needle case and there, sure enough, I found a single leaf of papyrus. I sent a Thracian slave for vinegar. I was so impatient I could not go back to the party.

  The boy came back at a run. He had a small amphora of our own Plataean vinegar, made of our own grapes, pale and watery though it is. I brushed it on the papyrus.

  Just for a moment, one word appeared, before the liquid ruined the papyrus leaf. Just for a moment the word burned at me, brown on white.

  ‘Come.’

  I wish that I could claim credit for the brilliant plan to scout the Persian-held beaches that was concocted that night, but as it was, for as long as a runner takes to run the stadion, I considered summoning Seckla and Leukas and all my people and taking Lydia to sea.

  It was not my patriotism that saved me, I must tell you. In that moment, I had fought the Persian unceasingly for fifteen years and I owed the alliance nothing. Even with all my friends right there on the beach, I felt pulled to leave immediately.

  But thirty-five is a little different from seventeen, and one thing I knew was that the whole Persian fleet lay on the beaches of Phaleron, blocking the only good exit form the Bay of Salamis. Even if I rowed west and went south around the island, I would have to pass in full view of their fleet, or risk some very complicated blue-water navigation at the edge of autumn.

  I knew I could do it.

  I knew that it would be more noble to help defeat the Medes first.

  But by Poseidon and Heracles my ancestor, I burned to get my hull in the water and sail to her that instant. That is what I felt for your mother, child. Perhaps she never launched a thousand ships – although I’d say that, in aggregate, she probably did – but that night, she nearly launched one.

  Instead, I returned to my friends and my couch next to Bulis, and discovered that in my absence they’d decided to have a look into Phaleron and tease the Great King’s fleet. It was Cimon’s plan, but I thought it had some of the madness of Idomeneus and they were all excited. I poured them one more bowl of wine well-mixed with water and sent them to bed as soon as they explained to me that we were all putting to sea before the sun rose.

  Aristides lingered with the two Spartans. ‘It’s the same as the days before Marathon,’ he said.

  ‘And Lade,’ I noted. ‘This war has seen many defeats and almost as many barren victories.’

  Aristides shook his head. ‘The word on the beaches to the south is that the Peloponnesian allies are threatening to cut and run for the isthmus,’ he said.

  ‘Not the Spartans!’ I spat.

  Bulis reached out and touched my arm, silently.

  Aristides shook his head. ‘Led by the Corinthians,’ he said. ‘I truly hope this raid gets us the favour of the gods.’ He shrugged.

  We all went to bed.

  Rosy-fingered dawn had not yet risen in her charming dishabille to touch the horizon when my oarsmen put Lydia’s bow into the waves. Salamis Bay is a tricky piece of water; the breeze brought a heavy chop from the south as we weathered the long point men now call the Dog’s Grave – you know that story?

  Eh? Well, Themistocles had ordered that all domestic animals be left in Attica to starve. He set the example, leaving a beautiful hunting dog to die. The dog supposedly followed him down to the water’s edge and then, after some howling, swam after the great man’s ship. Themistocles hardened his heart – not hard for him, I suspect – and rowed on, but the dog followed, swimming all the way across the bay to the long point of Salamis that seems to aim like an accusing hand at the harbour of Piraeus. Themistocles landed his ship and the dog swam up, utterly faithful, got itself up on the point: and then died. I heard the story a dozen times that week, as an example of bad omens and how untrustworthy Themistocles was. In fact, most families brought their dogs, and even a few cats. The Themistocles I knew would have told all the Athenians to leave their pets and then bribed someone else to carry his. I’m not sure I believe the story, even now, but that point is still called the ‘Dog’s Grave’.

  We could smell the burning over Attica. We could smell a carrion smell from slaughtered animals and a spicy smell, and over it all that sharp tang that we perceive after a fire.

  We put six ships to sea. Aristides was there in his Athena Nike with Demetrios at the helm, and I had Lydia. Astern of us in a short column of twos were Bulis and Sparthius in their Lacedaemonian Ares, with Cimon in Ajax and Philip and Lykon in Corinthian ships. It was a deliberate attempt to involve the whole fleet and I know, without being told, that Themistocles and Cimon hoped to provoke a general action.

  We were also the fastest ships available, at various points of sailing and rowing.

  Or perhaps that’s an excuse. We were six ships whose men and trierarchs trusted each other. Good ships, aye, and good oarsmen, were thick on the beaches that autumn, but trust was as thinly spread as good Olbian caviar at a poor man’s party.

  So as we weathered the long point, passing the island of Psyttaleia to our port side. The island cut off any view of Piraeus and kept the Persians around Athens from watching our movements. As soon as we entered the straits between Cynosura, the Dog’s Grave, and the island of Psyttaleia we felt the chop; it hit us for the first time, broadside on. It wasn’t so bad at first, because of the loom of the main island, but once we were in the open ocean, it was quite a swell. Good fortune and years of following Cimon and his father around the sea caused me to watch him as he passed the gap, and I saw that he put his helm over and turned south as soon as he ­weathered the point. I assumed he was being cautious about the placement of the Persians, but when it was my turn and I felt the first wave and we took water amidships because our sides were so low, I too turned sharply to the south, so that the morning waves came at my protected bow. On this side of the cape we could see, quite close to us, the ships of Aegina on their beaches. We waved and called in Greek to prevent an accident, and rowed south into the wind with every oarsman cursing. There’s another small island almost due west of Psyttaleia, and if it has a name I don’t know it, but we passed between it and Psyttaleia in water so shallow I had Seckla in the bow throwing a lead.

  Dawn was just staining the skies. The south wind moderated as the sun rose and in an hour, as the rowers cursed and the hoplites began to cook their sausages back on the beaches, we pa
ssed the promontory of Piraeus and opened the Bay of Phaleron – you know what that phrase means, honey? When you are close in with the land, sailing or rowing, the land all looks about the same and a headland can completely hide a small harbour, a bay, or an inlet. As you pass along the land, you may pass a headland, and then, all of a sudden, a ‘hole’ opens in the coast and you can see into the bay, the same way that you cannot see into the garden until you pass the first pillar there and get a peak through the door – see?

  So we opened the bay.

  And in it, on the beaches there, were all the ships in the world, or so it seemed. I had Seckla to do the counting – he was always a good counter, and the man doing the counting needs to have no other work. It’s hard enough, when all the enemy ships are black, and all about the same size and far away.

  We bore down on them. We’d been crawling west by south under oars, but now that morning was coming, a land breeze rose off Attica, a breeze full of ash. We rowed into it, but all six of us had our main sails laid along on our decks or half-decks.

  No one seemed to be stirring on shore.

  We rowed in. I found the promontory at Munychia, just south of Athens itself, and aimed at it, to come up the windward side of the enemy fleet, which filled every beach from the rocky tumble at the sea edge by Munychia all the way over to Phaleron herself, a good nine stades. They filled those beaches, west to east, as solidly as tuna fill the Bosporus in the spring.

  By my estimate, if every ship beached at two oars’ lengths from the next, the minimum safe distance to get a fleet off the beach, then there could be about one hundred ships to every stade, or nine hundred enemy ships. They were not all triremes, either; they had more pentekonters and small fry than we did, but there were also some enormous ships among them, including a great trireme of Phoenician make, high-sided and as big as any two of our ships, which sat right in the centre of the great curving beach.

  It was an awe-inspiring sight; a larger fleet than the enemy had at Artemisium. It was both more, and less, impressive than their fleet at sea. It was certainly better ordered than their anchorages and landing beaches had been in Thessaly.