Still with me?
In Athens, the Persian ambassadors behaved with astounding arrogance. It was the talk of my wedding. I’ll add that it is very un-Persian, and I suspect that someone in Susa or Sardis sent the wrong men. At any rate, there was a rape — and Persians were killed. I have heard a dozen self-justifications from men who were present. The murder of ambassadors is always a crime against the gods, no matter how you tell the story.
I’ve heard Miltiades suggest, in his cups, that it was done for the same reason that the Spartans did it — to make it impossible for Athens to do anything but fight.
Be that as it may be — it was the winter before the first coming of Datis and the Medes, and the men of Aegina were threatening to allow the Persians to use their harbours to conquer Athens. Cleomenes of Sparta forbade them to do so, and took hostages from the leading men of Aegina. Demaratus, his fellow king, felt that he had acted with hubris, and above the law.
Just to be a barracks lawyer, he was right, and any Spartan worth his salt will admit it. Cleomenes had a clear vision — right or wrong — of how Greece should be, and he was determined to resist Persia, and once set on that course, he was like a runaway chariot.
When the dust settled, Demaratus — the rightful King of Sparta — had been framed in a case that claimed he was illegitimate and not the King of Sparta. It was all a put-up job — a scandal at the time — but he was exiled. He ran to Persia, where he sat at the right hand of the throne of the Great King. More than a few Spartans left with him. There was an enormous split.
His younger brother was Leonidas. Leonidas was installed overnight, and after immense political manoeuvring, married off to a woman about a third his age — Gorgo, the wry-faced daughter of overbearing, hubris-filled Cleomenes.
Follow that? It’s like a particularly juicy play about the gods at their worst. That’s everyday life in Sparta. Murder, scandal, back-stabbing, all with lots of pious sentiment and high moral tone and some ruthless athletics.
I’m not a fan. Mostly, their kings don’t die in bed — or on the battlefield. They die in exile.
Like Athenian aristocrats, come to think of it.
Greeks. Power-mad fools.
The Spartans brushed past us and went off into the firelit darkness, and I was left pondering. . well, everything I just said.
Hector appeared. He bowed, and Cimon paused, so I paused too.
Cimon smiled at the boy. He was good — like his father, he was never too great to charm someone rather than merely command them. ‘Speak, boy. What was all that about?’
Hector looked at me for approval. It was the oddest thing — we were on the steps of the great temple of Zeus, with all the judges of the games standing just above us in the lamp-lit interior of the great stone building, looking like supernatural judges themselves. Cimon decided to keep them waiting.
Cimon was far more an aristocrat than I.
I nodded to Hector.
‘The King of Sparta,’ Hector said carefully. He paused. ‘Actually, the king’s friend. But the king-’
‘One of the kings,’ Cimon said. ‘Sparta is blessed with two.’
Hector nodded and bobbed his head. ‘Yes, sir. One of the kings, and his wife, wanted to enter their friend’s chariot. Late. Apparently they did not want to train their horses here, but chose to exercise them in Lacedaemon. To be truthful, sirs, I had trouble following the argument.’ He shrugged, as boys will, even when being polite. ‘The king claimed he had permission, and the judges refused him, and his friend.’
‘Because he is late?’ Cimon asked.
Hector bowed his head. ‘That’s what I understood.’
Cimon frowned. ‘Arimnestos, why do these things happen to you? Now this is a matter of state. Not just about a few men pushing their athletes. You understand?’
I understood. Turning Polymarchos and his athlete down — that might be a small matter. Cimon and I had been prepared to put pressure on the judges. That made it a larger matter, but still small enough.
The King of Sparta?
That was a very big matter.
And bureaucrats hate to back down.
We climbed the rest of the steps. Young Astylos stood, disconsolate, by the end table. There were twelve judges, and they stood at their tables — some had scrolls, two had tablets of wood, and the archon stood alone.
A herald recognised Cimon. He’d clearly already spoken to Hector, so he raised his rod and announced us formally.
The judge-archon nodded. ‘What matter brings you to the tribunal of Elis?’ he snapped.
Polymarchos bowed. ‘Sir, these are my witnesses to the power of the storm that shipwrecked us on Sicily. This is Arimnestos of Plataea, who rescued us, and this is Cimon, son of Miltiades, victor of Marathon-’
‘I know who they are,’ spat the judge. He looked like a man who had had a long, difficult day. He glanced at me.
‘Sir,’ I said. ‘It was one of the worst storms it has been my ill-luck to encounter. I was blown all the way to the coast of Africa. Sir, I have sailed outside the Pillars of Herakles, my ancestor.’ That’s me, laying it on thick. ‘This was as bad a storm as I have seen.’
Cimon nodded. ‘I concur with everything he said. On the one hand, a heavy storm, and on the other, the coast of Sicily would have been a worse place from which to be blown than our position in the Illyrian Sea.’ He smiled at his little rhetorical flourish — his one hand, other hand construction.
The judge narrowed his eyes. ‘It seems to me that if Poseidon sends such a powerful storm, it is because he doesn’t want an athlete to be at the games.’
Cimon nodded. ‘The gods may have such disagreements. But Zeus is the god of judges as Poseidon is the god of the sea, and it is in the hands of Zeus-’
‘Are you telling me the will of Zeus? Or my duty as a judge?’ the man spat.
I had a brief flash, by all the gods, of the edge of my sword carving the man’s neck. Why is it that small men, given a little power, will behave like petty tyrants? For a few days, this elder of Elis, a tiny city, had power over men like Leonidas of Sparta and Cimon of Athens. Instead of being honest and humble. .
Pah. I could see what he’d look like as his head fell off my blade. He made me that angry.
I thought Polymarchos was going to burst into tears. All that training, wasted — because of a storm, some rapacious Sicilians, and a dozen fools in the Peloponnesus.
Astylos had given up. I know how it is — when the fates are against you, and you know that you cannot win. He managed a smile.
I decided to brazen it out. ‘I can name a dozen athletes who have been allowed to enter late — even this late,’ I said. To be honest, I couldn’t name one, but I was willing to bet that Cimon could. ‘Unless you have some personal interest, sir, I think you need to explain yourself in detail.’ I snapped that at him in my storm-at-sea voice.
Cimon raised an eyebrow, but he let me play my dice.
‘Personal interest?’ The old man’s saliva actually struck my shoulder, he was sputtering so hard. ‘Are you accusing me of. . acting against the will of the gods?’ He shook his head. ‘I am the archon of the games. I do not need to explain myself to you.’ He waved his hand.
‘Yes, you do,’ I said. ‘Or I’ll come back with Themistocles.’ It was an odd threat — but I knew he’d invited many famous men — to discuss the Persians — and I suspected he’d have more power with these men than Cimon.