Now that I think of it, in those districts closest to the river they had most of the good farmland, and I suspect their sons didn’t need to go to sea to win a few silver coins. Ours did, over by the mountain.
There were good young men from those districts. Bellerophon, son of Epistocles, who lived as close to Thebes as a man could and not be a Theban, was a fine young man with full armour who had been to every deer hunt from the first, got spear-fighting lessons from Lysius and also spent all his spare hours with Idomeneus. He was from the Asopus district. But he was seventeen years old, and no bearded man would take an order from him.
‘Try his pater,’ Myron said, when I asked his advice. ‘He’s a wealthy man, and a decent one. If the son’s such a good warrior, the pater won’t be a sluggard,’ he added.
Hmm. Well, you’ll see how that worked out.
The northern district was the hardest. The men over there were almost Thespian, and they had their own ways, and a few of them complained that in the event of a fight, they’d march with Thespiae and not Plataea. Before the great wars came, men were freer with their citizenship.
But that very freedom saved me in the end. My brother-in-law, Antigonus, owned farms in Plataea. His free men were liable for service as psiloi or peltastai, and it occurred to me that, if Myron would accept it, he would make a first-rate strategos.
So he was granted citizenship. In fact, Myron discovered that his family had always been allowed to be citizens — a very convenient discovery, let me tell you — and I appointed him as strategos. This proved to be a fortuitous choice. Antigonus brought us another fifty hoplites of his own — all men of Thespiae, but people didn’t care so much then, as I say — and he had riches which he used to improve the armour of his district, and of course he had most of that armour made at my forge.
My forge grew that spring. Tiraeus and I shared the same shed, of course, and Bion had, since my pater’s time, had his own anvils and his own fire just up the hill, by his house. But when the money came over the mountain that spring — money from Athens, I mean, for worked bronze we’d sent in the autumn — and when Antigonus placed a huge order for armour and helmets, then Tiraeus wanted to build his own shed.
‘I need a pair of slaves,’ he said. ‘So do you. We do too much of the donkey work. And we need some boys — fee boys, who want to grow to be smiths. We could triple our output.’
I already had Styges, who had gradually made himself into my apprentice. But I found two more for me, and Hermogenes found a couple for his father, and suddenly my forge was crowded.
We put up a shed for Tiraeus, and as soon as it was done, Empedocles came out from Thebes and blessed his fire. We had a sacrifice and Empedocles initiated all of our new boys, slaves and free together, because the god cares nothing for such stuff.
‘You know the Medes are coming, eh?’ he asked me. It was easy to forget that he was a Theban, but sometimes it came back.
‘Even in little Plataea, the news has come,’ I answered.
‘Don’t get your back up. The godless Athenians are in for it. Thebes is safe — we’re not fools.’ He sat back and drank wine.
‘We are.’ I handed him an altar plate I’d made as my sacrifice to the god. On the face, Cleon and I had engraved a scene of the smith god returning to Olympus after being cast forth, led by Dionysus.
‘When did you learn to do such fine work?’ he asked.
‘The older man you raised to the first degree?’ I said. ‘He’s an engraver.’
Empedocles whistled. ‘You have quite an operation here,’ he said. ‘Why not put it all in one building? Like the potters in Corinth? You have water, charcoal, three master-smiths and an engraver. And a reputation, at least as far away as Thebes. They may spit when they mention you, but they’ll all hurry to buy your bronze.’
‘I have never sent a shipment of my bronze to Thebes,’ I said.
‘Men sell it from Athens,’ he said. ‘You are quite well known in Thebes, my boy. Simon son of Simon keeps your name in the ears of many men — although not to your favour. And. .’ He paused, drank from his cup, and looked up at me. ‘And there are men in Thebes who plan to kill you.’
I shrugged. ‘Let them come, then.’
‘Don’t be a fool, boy. Someone — someone with a great deal of money — has hired a whole band of cut-throats.’ He shivered.
‘If they come from Thebes to here, it would be war,’ I said. ‘I don’t think Thebes wants war with Athens.’
Empedocles shook his head. ‘Simon is loud in proclaiming that Athens would not care if you were killed,’ he said.
Now it was my turn to shake my head. ‘Old news, priest. I am the polemarch of Plataea, and my death would burn Thebes the way a hot forge burns charcoal.’
‘They made you polemarch?’ the priest said. ‘You have come far, my boy.’
‘I have, too,’ I agreed. ‘If you find Simon, tell him to go away and never come back — and I, for my part, will not hunt him down and kill him. Let the bad blood be over. But tell your archon — for me, and for my archon — that if men of Thebes come here, or even hired men, coming from Thebes, then we will fight, and Athens will stand with us.’
‘Not if Athens has been destroyed,’ the old priest said. ‘I’m sorry, lad, but what they plan is to get you this summer, while Athens can do nothing to help you. Even now, the Athenians debate in their assembly — they debate sending Miltiades and Aristides away as exiles, and making submission. Perhaps you should join them in exile — just for a while.’
I told Myron everything Empedocles told me, and he dismissed it all with a wave of his hand. ‘I’m sure Simon would like to kill you,’ he said. ‘But Thebes is in an awkward place right now, and they do not need a war with Athens.’
‘Empedocles makes a good point, though,’ I allowed. ‘Once the Persians are at sea — and by all accounts, they are — Athens can hardly send their hoplites over the passes into Boeotia to help us.’
‘The Thebans would be fools to trade short-term advantage for the punishment Athens will dish out later,’ Myron said.
‘Not if they can count on the Medes to defeat Athens,’ I said. ‘Look, they have a workable strategy, or so it appears to me. And I see other hands in this, Myron. If we’re tied up here — why, then there are no hoplites to march to the aid of Athens.’
‘I think you have delusions of grandeur, young man,’ Myron said. ‘I agree — it’s more of a threat than I saw when first I heard of it, but this is not the way cities behave. We are not children in the agora. I will send a messenger to Athens, and another to Thebes. But that will be the end of it.’
I thought he might be right. I only knew pirates and easterners. Here, in sober, steady Boeotia, even the Thebans were probably better men.
‘Perhaps I should muster all our men, just so that the Thebans can see how ready we are.’ I was hesitant to ask this, as a general muster cost our city a little money — and the foundations of the new towers were just going down. But the seed was in the ground, and most farmers had a holiday — or as much holiday as a man can get between ploughing his fallow ground, shoring his grapes and watching the pests eat his olives.
‘That is a fine idea,’ Myron said. ‘One week from today. The Theban heralds will be here by then.’
I don’t remember a thing about that week apart from the glow of the forge and the rush to finish as many bits of harness and armour as I could manage. I had thirty repairs sitting around my house — helmets, breastplates, spearheads. I worked night and day, and so did Tiraeus and Bion. And across the stream, in the city, my compatriot, Heron the Smith, worked iron and steel as fast as I worked bronze.