Aeschines finished exactly as the last drop of water ran through the clock. This impressed sophisticated jurors as much as anything he said, for it was difficult to accomplish this feat without making one’s speech detectibly stretched or truncated. Turning to look at his colleagues, Swallow could see in their eyes that the verdict on Aeschines was already in: his was a most impressive return.
“The clock is set for a quarter-hour recess!” the clerk announced.
The jurymen used a latrine reserved for them in the alley behind the courthouse. This was a blind wall with a stone-cut channel flushed by running water. As he took his place in the line, Swallow always found himself contemplating the nook and chinks knocked into the masonry, wondering at the generations of jurors who had thus pissed their way to a kind of immortality. The deeper the impressions, he gathered, the more long-winded the advocates. For his part, Swallow preferred style to power, attempting to write his name on the wall as he listened to the reviews of the trial so far.
“I’d hate to be that Machon right now, poor bastard!” someone said.
“Serves him right with that haircut!”
“But he stayed quiet for most of it…that’s more than I would have stood for!”
“Aeschines handed him acquittal with that crap. There was not a bit of substance to it!”
“Are you out of your mind…?”
“…was there a style to that speech…?”
“It was pure Attic!”
“No, it wasn’t! But it wasn’t Ionic either!”
“That’s what makes it so good-it was delivered for the courtroom, not the schoolroom!”
“This is more about politics than the law.”
“What’s the distinction?”
“That was more about that prick Alexander than anything else.”
“Don’t you understand anything?”
“…an overuse of enthymemes…”
“There were no enthymemes…it was all on the surface!”
“Enthymemes? Listen to these two!”
“I’ve never seen them so liberal with the clock.”
“Somebody wants this guy dead.”
“If his speech takes more than two hours I’ll want him dead!”
“I give top honors to the lamb!”
HAR HAR HAR HAR…!
Deuteros was standing at Swallow’s elbow as he wrapped himself, sucking his lower lip. “I guess I don’t see any reason to change our vote,” he said.
“Why would we?” replied Swallow. “The defense hasn’t spoken yet.”
“Do you think it’ll matter?”
“It will to me. Gimme that bread.”
“So what does Swallow say about the trial?” someone asked. Others seconded the question, until every face was turned toward Swallow. As one of the most experienced jurymen, he was presumed to have seen and heard it all since the dictatorship of the Thirty. Swallow knew this was an exaggeration-he wasn’t that old-but didn’t exactly discourage their esteem either.
“I am surprised at nothing from Aeschines,” he said. “Except perhaps the timing of his prosecution. Why does he bring the charges now, so soon after Machon has come back? Why did he not wait until more witnesses returned from the east, so he could present live testimony? I am never comfortable with indicting a man on the basis of something in a letter.”
The jurors stood pensively at their trough. Swallow continued, “I think that what we were expected to understand was not in the speech at all. And the winner, if the verdict is guilty, will not be Aeschines.”
The silence lasted a bit longer as his fellow citizens took his meaning, or realized they never would. The argument then resumed as to which school of rhetorical style Aeschines’ speech was best classified.
When they returned to their seats the man who brought the lamb was still unconscious on the floor. He had missed the entire prosecution, and looked comfortable enough lying there to miss the defense too. There was a certain fairness in this, it seemed.
Aeschines was sitting now with a plate of figs and myrtle berries. He ate with his eyes glued to Machon, who likewise had not moved, but sat staring narrowly at this feet, as if refusing to gratify his opponent by glaring back. As the clerk gaveled the courtroom to order the defendant finally looked up, his eyes sweeping over the mob that would decide his fate. Though Swallow believed Aeschines’ case was a tissue of presumption and innuendo, he’d said one thing that was clearly true: Machon had his work cut out for him.
“Having considered the case for the indictment,” said Polycleitus, “the court will now hear the defense. Does the defendant wish to speak?”
“I claim that privilege,” said Machon, rising. He turned out to be short-so short, in fact, many of the jurors in the back of the room would not see him at all. His voice also had a much higher pitch than one would imagine from his martial appearance.
“Very well. You have the usual measure of time.”
For a moment Machon did not speak, but just stood there with his palms turned upward, as if to beseech heaven, or to express his wonderment at the mess Aeschines had placed before them all. There were a few titters from the left side of the room, toward which Machon, in a clever gesture of confidence, actually winked. Swallow glanced at the Macedonians in the spectator’s box: they were scowling. All this suddenly filled Swallow with anticipation-he leaned over to Deuteros.
“This might be something,” he whispered.
V.
Alexander dead? Impossible! His corpse would fill the world with its stink.
– -Demades, Athenian orator
Well then, what a performance! This prosecution was well worth the wait for Aeschines’ return from abroad. I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m excited to vote. Let’s convict this Machon! Let’s grab the lout and string him up!
Machon paused as the jury gave him a good laugh. As much as Swallow enjoyed routine trials, he enjoyed innovative defenses even more. For the speaker was treading dangerous ground with this flip tone-if he misstepped, if he alienated enough jurymen, it could cost him dear. The last person to take such a risk was Socrates when, upon his conviction, he suggested the “penalty” of receiving free dinners from the state for the rest of his life. This piece of wit, such as it was, so irked his jury that it earned him a lopsided vote for death. This was not a promising legal precedent for Machon. Whether or not he could pull it off, no one could deny his tack was most entertaining, like an acrobat working without a net.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I can help you find Aeschines’ Machon, because I don’t know him. That Machon is a scheming scoundrel. This Machon is nothing more than a simple soldier who, like many of the men in this room-but not you, Aeschines!-fought for his country at Chaeronea. Aeschines describes a man full of hubris. This Machon lives as modestly as his weakness may allow, pays his taxes, and contributes to the governance of his city, like all of you. Aeschines invents someone who is hip-deep in political faction. This Machon belongs to no faction at all. He has no ambition to matter more than he does. True, he rarely takes the myrtle wreath in the Assembly, and only when speaking on military affairs. But it is only because this Machon restricts his public statements to things he knows something about-unlike, apparently, the celebrated Aeschines! Indeed, the orator left out what may be considered the defendant’s proudest achievement in politics: a decree of the Assembly, passed by unanimous voice vote, that all used equipment from broken-up naval vessels should be offered first to the public contractors, before it is claimed by fishermen and other private interests. This motion has saved the taxpayers thousands of drachmae in replacement costs. So while Aeschines may demand to know where my father’s money is, I remind him that I have helped keep the public’s money where it belongs!