Marathon Page 20

  Philocrates. His satire was briliant and so funny that I can’t

  remember a word of it, except that I threw up from too much

  wine and laughing so hard.

  Phrynichus drank when he wasn’t using his head, and he and

  Philocrates and Idomeneus formed a drinking club whose

  members had to swear to be drunk every day as an offering to

  Dionysus. I tried to make fun of Philocrates for this display of

  piety, but he refused to be mocked – saying that Dionysus was

  the one god whose effects were palpable.

  Just after the local feast of Hera, our navarch bestirred himself

  from his tent and ordered us to sea, to seize the island of Lade

  before the Persian fleet arrived. By now we received daily

  before the Persian fleet arrived. By now we received daily

  reports from merchant ships and outlying galeys – and the

  Lesbians had a dozen fast biremes and a pair of light sailing

  hemioliai on hand, and they did what scouting got done.

  So on the morning after the feast of Hera, we rose, manned

  our ships – a scene of complete chaos, let me tel you – and

  sailed in a surprisingly orderly manner down the coast of Samos

  to Lade – the enemy squadron, led by Archilogos, slipping away

  ahead of us. We had so many ships that we filed the island. The

  Samians landed first, and they took al the good ground, so that

  by the time the Lesbians and Chians had landed, we, the extreme

  right of the line and the last in sailing order, were left with the

  rocks near the fort and nowhere else to camp.

  I was leading Miltiades’ ships and Nearchos’s squadron, and

  I directed them to folow me to the beach opposite the island –

  the beach from which I’d launched my raid a year before. We

  were not sorry to be separated by half a stade of water from the

  excesses of Dionysius and the growing tensions of the camp.

  Later, Aristides was listening to Phrynichus recite the Iliad,

  which always delighted him, and when he reached the scene

  where Diomedes takes the army forward and routs the Trojans,

  he turned to me and frowned.

  ‘We need to get to grips with the Medes before the fleet

  colapses,’ he said. ‘The Samians have refused to train any more.

  They’ve mutinied, and the Lesbians are just as bad.’

  That night, Epaphroditos and a few of his warriors swam

  over to us, drank wine and complained of how mad our navarch

  over to us, drank wine and complained of how mad our navarch

  had become.

  ‘We’re not pirates,’ Epaphroditos said. ‘The man’s notions

  of training are insane.’

  Secretly, I suspected that al the Ionians could have used

  harder hands and stronger backs. But they were brave, and as

  far as I could see, this was one fight that would be settled

  through courage, not tactics.

  ‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘I hear the Persians are on the way.

  We need a rest.’

  I talked with him half the night, and Phrynichus listened to

  every word he said as if he were Hector returned.

  Dionysius declared that we should have games to propitiate the

  gods in preparation for the contest against the Persians. It was

  the most popular decision he’d made since he ordered us to

  Lade. Men were bored, restless and yet listless. I felt that the

  Ionians were dangerously lazy. We were on the edge of victory,

  and they wanted to behave like men who had already won.

  The prospect of games didn’t excite me the way it had when

  I was younger. It makes me laugh now, to think that at twenty-

  three or twenty-four I imagined myself a hardened old man.

  I had already triumphed in a set of military games, you’l

  recal, back on Chios when the revolt was young. Five years

  before. So I decided not to compete in every event, or to strive

  to win the whole competition. But events decided otherwise.

  Next morning, Phrynichus said that he wanted to see Miletus

  Next morning, Phrynichus said that he wanted to see Miletus

  before we fought. I had business there, so I colected a heavy

  bag and a letter for Teucer and we walked across the mudflats

  into the city, slipping past the Persian archers in the last gloom of

  morning to have a cup of wine with Istes. He depressed me by

  showing me the siege mound, now al but level with the height of

  the wal. ‘Twenty days,’ he said.

  ‘Care to come with us?’ I asked, and Istes shook his head.

  ‘My place is here, with my brother,’ he said. ‘We wil die

  here.’

  ‘Cheer up!’ I insisted. ‘Apolo wil not let us fail.’ I could see

  the future so clearly that I was surprised other men worried so

  much. ‘We wil destroy their fleet, and then we wil liberate al of

  Asia.’

  Istes had lines around his eyes that were not there a year ago,

  and pouches from sleepless nights. He looked twenty years older

  than me. And he drank constantly.

  I glanced at Phrynichus. ‘This is the greatest swordsman in

  the Greek world,’ I said.

  Istes grinned. ‘Someday, perhaps we can measure each

  other,’ he said. I agreed – it would be good to face such a gifted

  man. That is the admiration by competition that makes Greece

  great. ‘But I would rather stand beside you as we smite the

  Persians.’

  ‘Flattery wil get you anywhere, Plataean,’ he said. ‘You

  think we’l win this naval battle?’

  ‘I do,’ I said. We would win, I would take Briseis as my war

  bride and that would be that. My spear-won wealth would make

  bride and that would be that. My spear-won wealth would make

  a palace for her on my farm. That’s what I had decided – to

  have her and punish her as wel.

  Feel free to laugh.

  ‘I have to say that I’ve now fought the Persians every fucking

  day for a year,’ Istes said. ‘If you destroy every ship in their fleet

  – kil Datis, drown their navarchs – this war stil won’t be over.

  They’re much, much tougher than that.’ He yawned. ‘But if you

  lose, Miletus fals – and the revolt is fucked.’

  ‘You are tired,’ I said.

  ‘You know how it feels after a fight?’ he asked me, one kiler

  to another.

  ‘Of course,’ I alowed.

  ‘Imagine fighting every day,’ he said. ‘Every fucking day. I’ve

  been at it a year, and I’m starting to go mad. My brother is

  worse – he was never the fighter I am, and fear is getting into his

  gut.’

  Of course, you are familiar with the character of Istes in the

  play. Phrynichus knew his business. He was a great man, and he

  knew greatness when he saw it.

  I left him to study his new hero, and I went out on the wals

  and found Teucer. He was at the top of a tower – a rickety thing

  of hides and wood and stone fil, just completed behind a section

  of wal that had been mined from beneath. The stonework of

  Miletus was so old and so good that the wal simply subsided

  without breaking. That’s why we didn’t use mortar in those days

  – mortar adds strength, but when a mortared wal is undermined,


  it colapses. Not so heavy stones fitted by master masons. Often,

  it colapses. Not so heavy stones fitted by master masons. Often,

  the old way is the better way – something for you children to

  remember.

  They’d built a tower behind the subsided wal, and I had to

  climb a dreadful ladder to reach him, far above the battle. He

  had a big Persian bow, and he shot carefuly at the slaves who

  were working to clear the rubble in the not-quite breach. He

  seldom missed, and very little work was happening. He had

  another man spotting for him, too, and they passed comments on

  individuals as they shot them.

  ‘See red-scarf? He’s got a death wish – oops! Wish come

  true.’

  ‘White-belt? He’s getting ready to step out to get that fascine

  – here he comes. You missed left. Now he’s going to come

  around the other side of the wicker shield – ooh, nice. Dropped

  like a sack of barley.’

  ‘Teucer?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh!’ He put his bow down and embraced me. ‘A pleasure

  to see you, my lord.’

  I sat on my haunches after an enemy arrow ruffled my

  chlamys. ‘Hot work here.’

  Teucer laughed. ‘This is my life, these days.’

  ‘Care to ship out for the battle?’ I asked as casualy as I

  could manage.

  He glanced at me, shot another arrow and exchanged a long

  look with his spotter. ‘We can’t,’ he said, after a delay so long I

  thought I’d offended him.

  The spotter was Kreusis, a younger archer who’d also

  served aboard my ship. His face was marked with soot and I

  hadn’t recognized him at first. ‘Sorry, lord. Histiaeus would cut

  our ears off. We’re to hold the Windy Tower while you sailors

  fight their fleet. Our lord is afraid of an escalade during the sea-

  fight.’

  I couldn’t argue with that. It was the sort of thing I’d have

  tried myself.

  I handed Teucer a bag of things from his friends on the Storm

  Cutter – a skin of wine, a sack of dried Athenian sausage and

  other delicacies – for a city under siege. He and Kreusis ate

  bread and sausage as I watched.

  I also had a letter from his wife, who had wintered in

  Kalipolis and who I’d sent to Plataea when the weather broke

  with a pouch of money and a long letter.

  He wept a little as he read it, then folded it away.

  Finaly, I gave him the fine Persian bow I’d bought for him at

  Sardis. He took it without acknowledgement. It was just a tool

  to him – a sign of how far gone he was in his head.

  ‘We’re going to die here,’ he said. ‘But I know now – thanks

  to you – that my wife and son wil live. Means a lot to me. Wish

  I could sail with you – sail away.’

  I told him to stop talking nonsense – that the Persians were as

  good as beaten. But I could tel he was beyond such things. I’ve

  been there: when the horizon is no longer the next week, or the

  next day even – it is merely the next instant. When you are there,

  you cannot see out.

  you cannot see out.

  We embraced again and I climbed down the tower, thinking

  dark thoughts.

  Phrynichus was stil talking to Istes. I hugged the swordsman.

  ‘We’l win,’ I said.

  ‘You’d better,’ he answered.

  As Phrynichus and I walked back from the harbour, a couple

  of Persian archers had a go at us, racing along the rocks above

  us. That’s terror – being shot at from long range with no chance

  of reply. We had to wade to get around the end of their lines and

  we couldn’t move fast, and I cursed my arrogance in going by

  day. And not bringing a shield.

  One of the Persians gave a great scream and plummeted from

  his rock into the sea. I walked over and retrieved his bow and

  arrows – soaked, but not ruined.

  I saw Teucer waving from the wal. He’d shot the man at

  some incredible distance – Phrynichus has that shot in the play,

  of course.

  Phrynichus shrugged – he was a cool man in the rage of Ares.

  ‘It’s a little like living in the Iliad,’ he said.

  ‘Imagine what a jumpy bunch they were, after ten years at

  Troy,’ I said, and the poet nodded.

  ‘I was thinking of Istes,’ he said.

  ‘Exactly,’ I said.

  Idomeneus claimed my new bow as soon as I reached the ship –

  dried it, restrung it and shot at everything that he could. He was

  an excelent bowman, as I’ve said before, and he’d decided that

  an excelent bowman, as I’ve said before, and he’d decided that

  he needed a bow in the coming sea-fight, which was fine with

  me. After al, Archilogos’s archers had unsettled me in the fight

  by the harbour.

  He told us that the Persians were coming. ‘They’re camped

  just down the coast,’ he said. ‘Epaphroditos has seen them.’

  Later that afternoon, Leagus, Dionysius’s helmsman, came

  across in a skiff and went to Miltiades for permission to hold the

  games on our beach. We were delighted, and Miltiades and

  Aristides competed to build fires, lay out courses and prepare an

  altar and sacrifices.

  The next day dawned grey, with weather threatening from the

  west. But the athletes came across in boats, and more than a few

  swam the half-stade in their exuberance, arrogance or poverty.

  Miltiades acted as host, and he and Dionysius sat together in

  apparent camaraderie, made sacrifices with the priests and

  watched the competitions as if they were brothers. Al of us were

  delighted by this display of propriety. We were further delighted

  when the men of Miletus sent a contingent to compete, led by

  Histiaeus and his brother Istes. They, too, sat under the great red

  awning that Miltiades had set up, and watched.

  The competitions were, in order, the one-stade run, the two-

  stade run, the javelin throw for distance, the throw for accuracy,

  the discus, archery for accuracy, the run in armour – the

  hoplitodromos, the pankration, the fight in armour. I had

  intended to enter only the fight in armour, but as I lay on my

  bearskin by the awning where the judges watched, young

  Sophanes of Athens came up, naked and glistening with oil, and

  Sophanes of Athens came up, naked and glistening with oil, and

  squatted next to me.

  ‘You are the most famous man – as a fighter – in this host,’

  he said. He gave me a shy smile. We had not been friends since I

  kiled the thug in Athens. ‘I want to compete against you. These

  Ionians – most of them are hardly fit.’

  ‘Wait until you run against my friend Epaphroditos,’ I said.

  But his desire was genuine.

  ‘I . . .’ He paused and looked around. ‘I think that I blamed

  you – that I had kiled a man. It made me feel . . .’ He stopped,

  blushed and looked at the ground between his feet.

  I nodded. ‘It made you feel greater and less than a man

  yourself, eh?’

  ‘You slaughtered that thief like a lamb. And made me look

  like a boy.’ He shrugged. ‘I am
a boy. But I want to win today,

  and I want to win against the best. The noblest. And I came to

  say that I wronged you over the kiling. I didn’t like what I had

  done – I made that part of you.’

  ‘Nicely put,’ I said. Goodness, he was earnest and polite and

  handsome and probably brave and moraly good, to boot. He

  made me feel old at twenty-three. ‘But I have spent a year

  coming to terms with kiling. What I did that day was il done. I

  don’t regret the man I kiled in the fight. But the man in the celar

  – what Aristides says is true. That was murder. I have spent a

  year atoning to Lord Apolo, and al the gods, for my hubris.’

  Sophanes grinned. ‘Then you should run, lord. Competition is

  a sacrifice to the gods.’

  What could I do? He was right. Besides, he made me feel

  like a slacker. So I puled my chlamys over my head, and

  Idomeneus came up with my arybalos, oiled me and smacked

  me on the back.

  ‘About time you got off your arse,’ he growled. He was very

  tender of my reputation, which in a way was his, as wel.

  A word about exercise – though I normaly try not to drone

  on about how much time I spent on my body every day – stil

  do. When we were at sea, I rowed at least an hour a day with

  the oarsmen. The Pyrrhiche of Plataea included a set of exercises

  with an aspis, and I did that portion of the dance every day,

  lifting the shield over my head, and moving it back and forth

  across my body. On a ful exercise day I would run eighteen to

  twenty stades and lift heavy stones in the way that Calchas taught

  me at the tomb of Leitos. In addition, I would practise against

  one of my marines with a wooden sword – some days, against

  al of them. My favourite sparring partner had become

  Philocrates. He was by no means the best of them, but he fought

  hard, and had long arms and was a dangerous opponent – with

  surprising inventiveness.

  At any rate, I tel you this so that you won’t think that I went

  soft between bouts of combat. None of us could afford to be

  soft in those days, when freedom from slavery depended on your

  ability to cut a rival down.

  I made the final heat in the one-stade run, and again in the

  two-stade run, where I finished second, to my own delight.

  Sophanes won the one-stade, and finished behind me in the two-

  Sophanes won the one-stade, and finished behind me in the two-

  stade, which Epaphroditos won. I was surprised, and pleased, to