When the games were over, the two noble Elians who were that year’s judges decreed that Kimon should be given a public funeral, and a tomb at the city’s cost by the Valley Road. Thus they honored his triple victory, appeased his ghost, and denounced his murderers, whoever they might be.
The big crowds had left by then; those who stayed for the funeral were mostly Elians, living near, and friends or clansmen of the dead. The Archons and their party had left for Athens the day before, which was wise; and Anakreon went too, saying he’d had enough of mourning. However, I was known by now for a man who would go off on his own affairs; and I stayed, from respect for quality. Kimon was to have a funeral offering in the grand, heroic style. His whole chariot team was to be sacrificed at his tomb, and have its own monument, facing his across the highway.
He was lowered into his grave, handsomely robed and wearing his wreath of victory. Precious offerings, some of them from the Elian treasury, were laid beside him. The slab was closed and the earth thrown over, and incense was burned upon the altar before the sacrifice.
The four mares had stood good as gold, decked in their garlands, tossing their graceful heads now and again, or flicking their tails against the flies. The lean dark charioteer was with them, patting their necks or stroking their noses if they began to fidget. His face was drawn, but grave looks become a burial.
When the libations had been poured, and the sacrificer came for the first of them, she stepped up prettily to the altar, taking him no doubt for a new groom. As the cleaver swung home into the throat, I saw the amazement in the creature’s eyes before she drowned in her blood and foundered.
The other three still stood. The charioteer had turned them sideways from the altar. They had raced three times at Olympia; they did not take fright at the smell of blood or the screams of wounded horses. When the second was led away, the two that were left grew restive; but he gentled them, and they calmed under his hand. The man in the grave was nothing to them; this was their master, who had steered them through the race-track’s clash and fury, always safe to the goal. When the third was fetched, she backed a little, but did not rear. An Olympic charioteer, though he never drugged a horse in his life before, still knows how it is done.
Now only one mare was left; and, drugged or not, she knew that she had smelled death. When they came to her she dragged and reared, and gave a shrill frightened neigh. He pulled down her forelegs, and laid his face a moment against her neck; and I could see the sacrificer asking him to help lead her to the altar; but he shook his head. She knew herself betrayed, and there was nothing he could say to her. He handed over her bridle and turned away, the mare looking after him with terror-whitened eyes; and when the killing was over, he was not to be seen.
Priests, judges, mourners and onlookers departed for the city. It was a fine day, not too hot, and I walked the other way by the murmuring water, following the Valley Road.
The dust lay thick on it and my feet fell quietly. A few stades along, I heard the sound of weeping, fierce and desolate, and saw lying out from a clump of bushes a yellow fold. He had worn his racing colors for the ceremony. I paused; but there was nothing mortal man could do for such grief as that. When Priam was lamenting his fallen sons, if Homer himself had come and promised they should live on in the Iliad, I don’t suppose their father would even have lifted his head. So I did not stay to ask the names of his lost children. For that matter, I have never learned his own.
By the time I came back, people were strolling to take the air by the green waterside. A tall man greeted me; it was the handsome Proxenos, the Attic lord who had given me breakfast after the Old Archon’s death-watch. We were friendly, courteous and careful with one another, found empty and pious things to say of Kimon, and agreed it was sad to see the immolation of so fine a team, but they would soon have been past their best.
There was a rustle in the myrtle grove, and out came his young son, with a green branch in his hand. He had been pretty before, but now seemed almost radiant. If he kept those looks after his bones took form, I thought, he would set the city by the ears; already he would have inspired Anakreon’s lyre.
He ran up and grasped his father’s hand. It seemed he had come to join our conversation. Turning to me, he said, “He won the crown three times.”
“First say, ‘Good evening, sir,’” his father told him. “Where have your manners gone?”
“Good evening, sir. He won the crown three times, and so did the horses.”
“They were brave beasts,” I said. “Let’s hope they have had brave children.”
He planted his beautiful brown feet in the yellow dust, and frowned. His brows were like gilded bronze, and his eyes summer-sea blue. He said, “Those bad men killed him.”
There was no quarreling with such true words. But his father said quickly, “That is enough, Harmodios. You are interrupting your elders. Go back now to your play.”
The boy gave him a quick look; he was used, I could see, to picking up a warning. Watched by his father—partly from love and partly not to meet my eyes—he went off into the myrtle grove.
THE SACRED WAY
1
THE YEARS SAILED ON, swiftly with fair winds; the wine-dark sea lapped softly on the reef ahead, as if on a raft of spindrift, which the prow will cleave easily upon its way.
The sons of Pisistratos still kept the goodwill their father won. Sometimes it seemed he had devided himself in two, Hippias having his public gravity, Hipparchos his private wit. They were not emulous; each was content to be valued for what he was. Hippias was praised for keeping up his father’s traveling court of justice. There were long memories of the days when all causes had to go to the local lord. If good, he was excellent, from knowing all parties well. If not so good, he might have taken you in dislike or your enemy in favor; or your case might be against him, himself, which was as good as no case, before Solon made the laws and Pisistratos got them obeyed.
No peasant or small farmer wanted to see those days again; nor did the city craftsmen and merchants; nor, even, did most of the lesser gentry. But the great lords and their factions still felt the anger of the dispossessed; and not all of them were in exile.
With all this we lived by custom, as one lives with weather. I had my own concerns. I was singing well and often; I was in my prime of vigor, wiry and strong; long journeys were pastime to me, not fatigue. I went to all the festivals, at Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, Corinth, Delos, and sang at their victors’ feasts; at Athens, there were the sacred rites of the gods, and the great festivals of Athene and Dionysos. With all this, I still found time to visit my kin on Keos; and it was there that I found my son.
I found him and he found me. I took him in peace, doing no wrong to anyone. Each time I saw him again, he had become more mine, and everyone knew it, he himself most of all.
Philomache’s third boy had fulfilled his infant promise. Solid and strong, he looked a pankratiast already; if old Bacchylides did not live to see him crowned, at least he could die assured of it. But my boy favored me; it was as if some friendly god had thought better of my face, and made it over to what it should have looked like. He was small like me; like me, dark-haired and dark-eyed; but his features were neat as a girl’s, though with much more firmness. His eyebrows were already thick, and joined in the middle; in that we are still alike.