SCENE 17
It seems to be a rule that every important official in Athens must have a long queue of men outside his office door. I had never been to see an archon who wasn’t overwhelmingly busy. The Polemarch was no exception. The difference was, the men outside the Polemarch’s door spoke with foreign, non-Athenian accents.
The Polemarch’s office was an ancient building called the Epilyceum. It stood just beyond the official bounds of the agora. The Epilyceum showed several centuries of maintenance. The original wooden beams, so old that they’d turned deep black, poked out between the newer stone facade of later renovations.
It was a measure of how long you had to wait to see the Polemarch that supplicants had scratched game boards into the stone of the street outside. Even the game board scratchings were well worn from years of game pieces moving across them. Men were hunched over these boards. Others silently watched the traffic pass by, and many talked amongst themselves.
I listened carefully to the words of the other men, to place their accents. It isn’t always possible, but you can take a guess at a man’s home because most cities have slight differences in the way they say their words. At Diotima’s suggestion I had recently begun to pay attention to such differences.
A handful of accents were northern, from Thebes perhaps. The people of the north spoke with an accent that approached barbaric, and sometimes used words common to the barbarian tribes to the north of Hellas.
The great majority spoke the Ionian dialect of the Aegean Islands. It was the same dialect that was spoken in Athens. There are a hundred of these islands. Common among them was the distinctive Ionian as it was spoken on the mainland and on the other side of the sea, in the region that is called Anatolia.
Listening to their conversation, I realized many of the men who waited with me had come to apply for permission to live in Athens.
So many men. Was it like this every day?
“Is there a Nicolaos, the son of Sophroniscus?” A voice called from the Polemarch’s door. Not the Polemarch, but his assistant. He held a wax tablet and frowned.
“That’s me,” I said.
The Polemarch sat at a writing desk, on a chair of curved timber and a comfortable rounded back. The table and chair were both expensive pieces whose legs were shaped to resemble the legs and feet of a lion. I guessed they were both from the same carpenter, and that they were the personal property of the Polemarch, the more so because the wood was polished elm, which is very heavy and hard and far beyond the budget of the state. The Polemarch was a rich man to own such things.
“You’re the man I received a note about,” the Polemarch said as soon as I entered. His voice was a deep bass. “From Pericles. Something about a total disaster at the theater? He seems to blame you.”
“A murder, sir.”
“That sounds bad. Why did you do it?”
“I think you might misunderstand, sir. I’m the detective.”
“Ah, I see. And there’s a meeting this afternoon?”
“Yes, sir. At the home of Pericles.”
“Well I have a lot of work to get through before then. What can I do for you?” he asked.
I said, “I hoped, sir, that before the meeting you could tell me something about metics. They must come to you, mustn’t they, to live in Athens?”
“Yes. That’s what that long line is outside. Any man from another city who wants to live in Athens must register with my office. As long as he pays his registration fee and names his patron, he’s in.”
“Are there any restrictions on the metics?”
“They may not own land. That is reserved for citizens. Metics pay slightly higher taxes, though the difference is nominal. I assume you know that a trial for the murder of a metic is heard in a lesser court than that for a citizen.”
“No sir, I didn’t.”
“Well you do now. If one metic kills another, we’re as likely to exile the murderer as execute him. It’s so much less messy that way.”
“What if a citizen murders a metic?” I asked.
“That’s why these cases are always heard in a lower court. The citizen would be exiled for a period of years, or face a massive fine. If metic murders were heard in the highest court, it would mean a citizen could face death for killing a non-citizen. That wouldn’t do at all.”
“I see.”
The Polemarch said, “I must warn you that it’s very hard to obtain justice for a metic. Juries are not generally sympathetic.”
I said, “Do you know who was the patron of a man named Romanos?”
The Polemarch asked, “Why do you care about this Romanos?”
“Because he’s the dead man.”
“That sounds like a good reason. Everything you want to know will be in the records.” To my blank look he added, “We record the patron of every metic. If the metic does anything wrong, it will reflect on the patron.”
“I see.”
The Polemarch banged on his desk, which wobbled under the pounding despite its sturdiness. The Polemarch was a strong man. The door behind me opened. An assistant poked his head in.
“Yes sir?”
“A metic named Romanos,” the Polemarch said. “Who’s his patron?”
“It’ll be in the records,” the assistant said promptly.
“Yes, that’s why I’m asking you,” said the Polemarch. “Is there anything else?” the Polemarch asked me.
“No sir. Thank you for your time.”
“Then go with Andros here. He’ll give you everything we have on this Romanos.”
Andros was a short, wiry man who liked to talk. He led me out of the building, out of the agora, and down the road. He talked every step of the way, about his job (tiring), about the price of poultry (too high), about the weather (too hot), about his children (unruly). It was a relief when we finally came to a nondescript building, a small warehouse on the main road in the unfashionable southern deme of Coele.
“This is where we keep the records,” Andros said.
A slave stood guard outside, but otherwise there was nothing to indicate this was a government building.
“I’ve lived all my life in Athens,” I said. “But I never knew this place was here.”
“No reason why you should,” Andros replied. “It’s just a storehouse. The only people who come here are assistants to the Polemarch.”
“Do the other archons have a store like this?”
“I suppose,” Andros shrugged.
The slave opened the door for us.
The building was dark within. As my eyes adjusted I saw the reason why. Every wall had been covered in shelves of thin pinewood. The shelves covered every window. Upon them were heaped scrolls, some in cases, some lying loose, but most in pottery jars that lay sideways to offer the scrolls within. The horizontal shelving visibly strained under the weight.
I took one step inside, and almost fell over. My foot had kicked something.
There were more jars on the dirt floor. These were upright, but for the ones that had been knocked over. Like the scroll jars on the shelves, there poked out of them more papyrus than I’d ever seen in my life. To get from one end of the room to the other would be like climbing over a field of rocks.
There was a distinct musky odor. One that I knew all too well. A cowardly part of my anatomy shrank inward at the memory.
Something scuttled out of the jar I’d knocked over. More than one something. In the dark of the floor I couldn’t see what it was.
Andros said, “Don’t mind them. That’s just the mice.”
“Terrific.”
“They seem to eat the old paper.”
But for the scrolls, the jars, the shelves, and the mice, the room was empty. No one worked here. In the close, dusty air that made me want to sneeze, the lack of light, and the mice, I wouldn’t want to work in here either. I’d be happy to get my scroll and get out.
“Thanks, Andros,” I said. “Which jar has the Romanos scroll?”
“How should I know?” he said.