The fox, p.22
The Fox, page 22
There is a touch of sadness in the merriment of the winners’ banquet. The next day the tents will be struck, friends say farewell and go back to their own cities, as Olympia returns to its four-year sleep, peopled only by priests and their servants. These days the sad note dominates the merry song, for most of the friends will be going to war against one another when the truce of Zeus ends, but Hellas was at peace with itself then, and it was only the sadness of farewell. Of something past and passing.
The distinguished men’s dining couches were apart from those of the winners; food and wine the same, but ours tasted of undying fame. We knew that all eyes were upon us, because we were the best in Hellas. We spoke of the Games and of valiant rivals. When I protested that there were many boxers in Sparta as good as I, a Thessalian laughed and told me to keep them there.
Someone on the other side of the room dropped a wine-cup with a loud clatter. I looked in its direction, and saw what I hoped not to see. Euagoras shared the couch of a foreign poet, the pentathlete forsaken. I glanced across the room to Doreius, but he was talking to the tall, fair Athenian called Tolmaios. Tolmaios was the nephew of Meleas’s guest-friend, a brown-bearded man named Kallistratos. No doubt he owed his presence at the banquet to his uncle. It was his friend Theokles who sat with us and wore an olive crown.
The meal ended. Guests and winners mingled. Doreius came over, perched on the end of my couch, and presented me to Tolmaios. His Corinthian friend Alkimenes was not present.
A lyre sounded. A familiar chord. Surely Euagoras would not have had the effrontery to sing before crowned poets.
I looked hard at him, trying to convey, “I shall thrash you when we are back in Sparta.” If he saw me, he took no heed. His poem was about the death of Hyakinthos. The melody was not unlike The Beautiful Goddess. Happily, Theokles’s voice drowned the singer’s in an oration about poor men.
“You never spoke to a poor man unless he carried your torch,” Tolmiaos laughed.
“I dress to the left,” Theokles protested.
“The poor man enjoys your handsome right shoulder.” Tolmaios took the cup from his friend’s hands and drank. “The left would please him equally.”
He made way for his uncle, who approached with Meleas and some other men. Doreius and I rose for our elders. Perhaps I should not have been noticed, had the foreigners not remained seated. Perhaps it was inevitable.
Theokles appealed to Doreius. “In your city, all citizens have a vote. This oligarch would deny it to poor men.”
“In our city all men are poor,” Doreius replied.
“You know I am no oligarch, Theokles.” Tolmaios drank and returned the wine-cup. “I would not limit the Assembly to landed men, but to Athenians of good qualities and learning.”
“The rich and tutored.” Theokles turned to the older men. All but Meleas had given their attention to Euagoras. “I say, let us have an equality of citizens.”
Meleas smiled. “Equality is the journey, not its end.”
“And the end?” Theokles demanded.
“Excellence.”
Tolmaios raised his hands in imprecation. “Meleas, have done!” You will have him Lakonizing. Remain a demagogue, Theokles. Better a bare right shoulder than bare feet.”
The song ended. Kallistratos wiped his eyes. “That boy is a fine poet.”
Some noise at the entrance caused a welcome distraction.
“The revellers are here,” Tolmaios sighed.
A group of men carrying wine-cups came in, laughing loudly, led by an unsteady Axiochos. He leaned upon a flute-girl and looked to trip over his trailing cloak. Some Eleians barred his way. His voice rose in slurred protest. It was nothing to me, now that I wore an olive crown and was equal to the best man in Sparta.
The Athenian uncle and nephew glanced scornfully at their compatriot. Kallistratos started to turn back to Meleas. His eyes stopped at my face. Not long, but long enough for me to see the naked curiosity, before a veil of polite disinterest fell over that look.
Everything went hollow. Whatever I achieved, I was what I was. Bare to the thousand eyes that bored through to my bones. No number of olive crowns could equal me to the best in Sparta. I was what I was. And what I was shamed Sparta. Shamed my father. Shamed Doreius.
He had told me to wear the Polydoros ring. But he had not known. How could he? I never spoke of it to him. It was not in his nature to think me less open than himself. The talk went on around me. I did not hear it. I would go from Lakedaimon. Found a city in Sicily. I must seek out Anaxilas. Ask a likely place.
Doreius laid a hand on my arm. “Let us walk in the Victors’ Road while it is still light. We can come back later.”
The summer sun had dried the grass of the grounds, but there were still small flowers growing about the trunks of the row of poplar trees that shaded the statues of Games winners. I bent and picked one. It had the shape of an unturned vase.
Doreius said this or that. I replied this or that. We fell into silence.
“What Euagoras did was a small thing...I brought more shame...I wanted to be king because it is my right...had I known, I would not have gone to Herea – I do not think I would...” My words spoke themselves.
“Leotychides, there are times when you have made more sense. Sicily? Euagoras? Herea?”
“It is true.” I burst out, as we passed the statue of Demaretos the Hereian shield runner. “I have it from my own mother. It is true. I told no one what was said between my father and myself in Herea. I wanted to tell you, but no great things were said...”
“Have you been drinking too much wine?”
“You know better.” I had barely touched my wine. “I still do not know why my father gave me the kingdom.”
“The same reason I gave you a patrol. You were the best.”
“You loved me. He did not.”
“Knowing that love can confound judgement, I would have passed you over, had another boy been as worthy.” He pointed to a statue. “Look...Charmidas...”
I dutifully studied the famous boy boxer. I had crossed my own forbidden boundary of inner privacy. Doreius had pushed me back within it. I should have preferred...What?
“My father was not unfond of Agisilaos.”
“He knew him.”
“Teleutias knows him.”
“Teleutias is not a king.” He examined a very old statue of a man whose name could be made out as Eurymos. It was not very interesting. The features had disappeared into time. But once that man had walked in a winners’ procession, and placed an olive crown upon his head. And asked, “Is that all?”
“This is fine work.” Doreius called my attention to yet another statue. Rather, he ordered it, for he spoke in his patrol leader’s voice; his commander’s voice. He drew back, to leave me alone facing Apollo in a charioteer’s robe. His hair was still bright. His eyes cleverly made of pieces of sapphire, so that they seemed to be looking at you however you turned. He held the reins of four spirited bronze horses; lightly, yet masterfully. It was not Apollo, of course. The god’s face is serene gravity. A charming whimsical smile, tending to one side, played on the lips of this mortal charioteer. “The world is mine,” it seemed to say. “And if it knows it not, then its folly shall amuse me.” His features were familiar to me, having seen them often enough in my own reflection. Considering the years separating a man of thirty-two and a youth of sixteen, the resemblance was remarkable. It did not need the letters carved in marble to tell me that Alkibiades, the son of Kleinias, had won that race.
“When we were in Asia,” Doreius spoke quietly, “Agisilaos had a friend on his staff. A friend of his youth. The man came down with a fever. One of those Asian fevers that strike suddenly and fiercely. Men often recover, but whilst the fever rages they are helpless. A scout rode in and warned that the enemy was near. Agisilaos gave the order to break camp. As he mounted his horse, his friend called out to him. Stretched out his hand, asking not to be left behind. Some of us went to him. Others started making a litter. Agisilaos ordered us to desist. There was no time, he told us. One officer protested, but Agisilaos snapped, ‘Obey your orders. One cannot always be kind and practical too.’ And he left his friend to the barbarians. At least he might have finished him off. That is the man your father passed over for you.”
“You knew. You always knew. That man Axiochos is–”
“A fool,” he finished for me. “Leotychides...” The voice was a commander’s “When did you see that bull stretching over Taygetos to drink from the Eurotas?”
I allowed that such a bull could not possibly exist, and turned my back on the statue of Alkibiades.
Doreius was smiling, his arms outstretched. “Then come here and stop talking nonsense.”
Chapter 8
There is a place where a number of laurel trees stand. The shower of their silver-grey leaves creates a roof over a soft, even grassy, place, where a stream takes a wilful way from the river. Nearby, the Bridge Road separates into two paths: one leading back to the heights of Sellasia, where my flock was encamped; the other to the barracks quarters, where all young warriors between twenty and thirty live, each in a plain but pleasant room.
The trees were our private meeting-place.
“I forgot to thank the Cretan,” I caught a long, pointed leaf before the stream carried it away. “The one who warned me of Aristeas.”
“He will be in the next Olympiade.”
“I shall not. I am not going to box again.” I would always be good, but the rage that made me great had gone out of me. “Well, only in Lakedaimon,” I amended. “So I won’t be in the Games again until I enter a four-horse chariot.”
“The chariot race!” Doreius tossed his head back, clearing his brow of the wave that always fell forward. His grey eyes sparked with amusement. “Are you not somewhat young?”
“Not until I am old. Twenty-five or thirty.”
He glanced towards the low sun. “We must go.”
“It is not late.”
“Have you thrashed Euagoras?” He took the leaf from me and turned it in his hands.
“I ordered Anaxandros to.” The Magpie laid the branch on lightly. Lenience had been misplaced. “Euagoras grows insolent. I think all that praise at the banquet went to his head. But his poems are exceptionally fine.”
“Praise the poetry and punish the insolence.” The sun sank below Taygetos. Again Doreius looked vast. “Leotychides...”
“I am posing for my statue. Am I to blame if I am kept overlong?” Meleas had commissioned it. Doreius, Sphodrias, Kallias, Apollodoros and other young warriors also contributed to the cost. My contemporaries could only offer enthusiasm, as eirens have nothing of their own, but many more donations flowed in from citizens who wished to honour a Spartan Games winner. “Doreius, a few of Lysander’s friends have given payment towards it.”
“They have not forgiven Agisilaos.” The blue prelude set in. Doreius rose, and brushed leaves and twigs from his short-sleeved tunic. “Come. Even games winners can be thrashed, and warriors made to stand guard with shield for disobedience.” We walked to the shrine of Hermes, where the paths separate.
“Antalkidas once said that Lysander’s friends would turn to me. I think he believed I should court their favour.”
“Will you?”
“You know better. Let Lysander seek another client-king.” Even Agisilaos was sufficiently Royal Heraklid to baulk at that.
We parted. I ran back to the flock faster than I had run any race, in order to be amongst those coming out of the river when the commander counted heads.
It was in the sculptor’s workshop that I first heard the name of Timokrates. Hellas had forgotten it now. His deeds will be cursed by our sons’ sons.
Agisilaos and his gifted commanders were winning victory upon victory in Asia. The satrap Tissaphernes fell into disfavour with the Great King, who appointed a man called Tithraustes in his place. Tithraustes beheaded his predecessor, and pledged to protect the Greek cities in his satrapy; a promise exacted by the presence of the Hellenic army, and one which he had no intention of keeping if that army could be got out of Asia. Persian arms had failed. He sought another method. The Great King was becoming short of patience with his underlings, as Hellenic warriors penetrated deeper into the Median Empire.
In appreciation of Agisilaos’s victories, the ephors gave him command of the fleet as well as the army. It was another break with the Law of Lykourgos. My uncle used his new powers to appoint that dimmest of men, Peisander, grand admiral – giving him command of Sparta’s one hundred and twenty triremes, as carelessly as he had given him one-half my inheritance.
Sphodrias sat on the ground – legs propped on a tool-box – giving out on these matters, as the sculptor added details to the wax-covered clay model of my statue. It was his opinion that our armies would reach the Great King’s royal city of Susa by the Karneia; barbarians were notoriously poor seamen, no threat even to an admiral as witless as Peisander, and so on.
Meleas arrived to see the statue, before it was covered with the outer layer of clay, to ready it for the kiln.
“Apelleas, are you certain all this is not a distraction?” he asked the sculptor, as he took in Sphodrias expounding, Hekataios, who intently watched the apprentice at work, and Pityas and the Magpie wandering about the large yellow clay figures, which stood in iron frames, as yet uncovered with wax. I had been standing an eternity looking into the distance, as the artisan posed me placing an imaginary olive crown on my head.
The sculptor was the same man who made the Dionysos. He gave me no sign of recognition. As soon as he finished a work, he lost interest in it. When it came out of the kiln – the outer layer of clay picked off, the bronze burnished – he would examine it, and then turn away, as though it no longer had anything to do with him. Did he ask “Is that all?”
Sphodrias sprang to his feet. “I just stopped in passing, to invite these youths to my son’s naming feast.”
Meleas examined the features and form of the waxen likeness of me. “It will be a fine bronze. Have you entirely given up working in marble?”
Apelleas motioned towards a number of smooth-faced, god-sized, mortal-sized and smaller wax-covered forms – awaiting his hand to give them features, sex and stance. “I could do one marble in the time it takes to do these.” He called for a chair for Meleas.
“Perhaps one of your sons will love marble as you once did.”
“My sons! One dreams of commanding a fleet. The other has an inclination to sophistry, and longs to travel. I blame that tutor I bought them. I have apprenticed my nephew. He has the hand and the eye.”
Hekataios ran up. “The heat melts the wax between the core and the outer layer,” he said “That is how they get the hollow, where they pour the bronze–” He saw Meleas. “Excuse me, Sir. Leo’, come look. Sorry, you’ve got to stand there, haven’t you?” He ran off again.
Apelleas called for wine. “But I am to make a marble in Corinth. Artemis Huntress.”
“An offer from Corinth is a sculptor’s olive crown,” Meleas said. “Corinthians are born knowing what is best.”
“And Rhodians know what is biggest.”
“Did you encounter a certain Timokrates when you were in Rhodes?” Meleas asked.
“The merchant?”
“The same. Is he a man of immoderate wealth?”
“For Lakonia, yes. By Rhodian standards, middling.”
Artists measure the purse-depth of their patrons surpassingly well. He shouted at a young apprentice, who picked the remaining bits of clay from a fired statue. The nephew?
“Does his trading take him abroad often?”
Apelleas laid down his tools, and took up his cup of wine. “Meleas, you are looking for facts about this man. All I know is that he trades mainly with the barbarians of western Asia. His affairs prosper, and he is ambitious. His competitors say he would sell his mother if the price were right, but they are competitors.” He took up a large blue stone – translucent, and both dark and bright – held it up to the light of the sun, and then rested it at the corner of my eye.
“Good match,” he said to Meleas. “I can do the iris in one piece. This youth has good lashes. I shall make them separately, with bronze wire. That cannot be done in marble.” He regarded me again. “He has a familiar look.” He turned back to Meleas. “Now, what do you want me to learn about Timokrates?” Sudden awareness struck him. “I know who the boy resembles. A portrait I made once. A young Dionysos.”
I put him in mind of his portrait!
At one time I had not savoured the thought of giving over my patrol to another boy, when I passed out of the flock. Now I envied Pityas his freedom to ride and hunt with Apollodoros. I had spent much of the day with Doreius when I was posing for the statue. The work was completed, and our time now restricted to stolen meetings, or walking back together from a dining-club where he chanced to guest, and I sat apart with the eirens.
Sometimes Meleas gave us an opportunity to meet, by inviting us to the Menelaos House to share the midday meal with himself and Thermon, who had at last forgiven me for forsaking all but Lakedaimonian boxing. Poor Thermon. He deserved a pupil as dedicated to the discipline as Nikomedes. Had Nikomedes been Spartan rather than Corinthian...but this idle speculation is pointless. And painful.
On one of the days when we were invited to the Menelaos House, our host had quite forgotten us. Those swift, unobtrusive servants quietly introduced the extra dining-couch, and certainly Meleas revealed nothing, but the other guests were men of thirty and more, full citizens. It was not a gathering for a youth and a young warrior just twenty-two.
