Already, though, not all our travels through Ionia were in search of wealth or fame. Sometimes it was for safety we took the road. These were the days of Kyros, King of the Persians.
Years before, he had risen against his overlord the Median King, whose people hated him, and soon handed him over. Kyros spared his life, the man being his kinsman; treated the Medes as their King rather than as their conqueror, and soon won their goodwill. By the time I came to Asia, Persians and Medes were almost like one people, and fought as such.
Later, I’ve heard Darius called The Great. But to my mind, the barbarians never had a king equal to Kyros. His glory filled the world, when I was young. If he had been a Hellene, what a praise song I could have made him. I have some lines in my head, though they have never passed my tongue.
I wish I had seen him, if only once. But he had gone east to prepare for war with Babylon, leaving his generals to gather the Ionian cities in. Men who did see him, I have talked with: he was one of the fair Persians, with that fine gem-carved face you find among them. He had a great horse, and sat it as if he’d grown there; was distant and godlike to Greeks, but much beloved by soldiers; had his hair and beard curled close and short with the irons; wore embroidered trousers, and a corselet of plaited linen from Egypt, stronger than mail, and dyed with Tyrian purple. He was seen to rebuke one of his lords for spitting in public. That is all I heard first-hand.
When Lydia fell to him, the Greek cities should have read the omens and allied for war. Together, they could have given his generals trouble enough. As it was, they did much brave fighting, here and there; but never all at once, nor all together. Persians and Medes might like to be Kyros’ men; Greeks like to be their own. From time to time at some sacred festival Ionians would meet and talk about their dangers; before long, someone proposed they should choose one general to lead them all; which each city agreed to, provided it should supply him. Then they all went home.
One by one the cities fell; some by storm, some by siege, some just abandoned by the people, if they had a port and ships. Kyros’ chief general was a Mede, called Harpagos, who had joined him because the Median King had killed his son. He was very loyal to his new master, as the Ionians learned to their cost.
After a while, some towns surrendered as soon as his slaves began to dig his siege-mounds; others, as soon as they saw him coming; and some sent envoys to make terms before he came at all. All these were spared, by Kyros’ orders, and given one of their own lords as governor; the fate of the citizens depended on how oppressive these lords already were. Cities that had fought were put under Persian satraps.
When we heard in Ephesos that the Medes were coming, Kleobis offered to send me home; he would pay my passage from Miletos, which had made terms already. He would stay in his own city; but I was a Kean and owed Ephesos nothing. To that I answered that Ephesos had given me the greatest gift of my life. We embraced, and I went off to train with the other young men at spear-fighting and throwing javelins. By then I was nearly eighteen.
On the training-ground I found two or three faces no handsomer than my own, and a good many arms less strong. I had kept my lean shepherd’s muscle, and my eye was straight. My comrades thought well of me for not having run home. Making new friends, I almost forgot I might die before I’d made one song fit to be handed down from bard to bard.
After some days, the barbarian army was descried coming down the Silenos river-plain. On this the priests of Artemis took counsel with the lords, and decreed that a pharmakos be chosen, to purge the city.
The young men I trained with said it was twenty years since a scapegoat had been needed, in time of plague; so none of them remembered it. But they knew all about it; and those who were old enough went to the great square before the city, to take part in the choosing. The younger ones, and foreigners like me, watched from the rooftops.
Artemis of Ephesos is not like Artemis of Athens. She is no virgin; farmers and women pray to her for increase, and she is hung all over with breasts. All her priests are eunuchs, by their own choice; some do it themselves in the frenzy of the rites. Soon they appeared on the terrace before the temple porch, winding out through the many columns that surround the mighty sanctuary, as if they threaded a marble forest. They carried their wands tipped with the sacred crescent; their young boys clashed ringing cymbals, to order silence. They had brought their victim with them.
He was a mean shambling fellow, led by a rope—his hands were tied behind him—and scared out of his life. The people shouted and catcalled, as if they thought him well chosen. In a voice cracked with fear, he shouted out that if he had defrauded any citizen, anyone at all, he vowed by the goddess he would make it good to him. Being fairly near, I could see he was cross-eyed and patched with scrofula. There was jeering; then someone shouted out, “Not him! Choose Hipponax!” And there was applause.
I peered down from my roof, to see if I could find Kleobis in the crowd, but it was too thick. I saw Hipponax, however. Everyone knew him, especially the servants of Apollo. He was a poet; and he was so well known because he never left the city. When first I knew of him, I pitied him and felt moved to take his part, for he was much uglier than I was. There is not much wrong with my body, except that I have no height; but he limped in one leg, which he had broken as a child, so that it was shorter than the other. The foot turned in, and his rocking gait had twisted his whole body, making his shoulders tilted. I thought it no wonder he should be bitter, for princes would not want to see him about their courts, where even I had been made welcome. Knowing he was poor, I asked Kleobis if we might not offer him supper. He looked startled for a moment; then thought, and said, “Ask him, my son. He is a man you ought to meet.”
I did my errand respectfully. (I was then only fifteen.) Hipponax replied that Kleobis was suddenly very civil, and he hoped our house would not need to be purified, after a Poet of the Agora had passed the threshold.
That his clothes were dirty, I put down to his having no wife; but I thought that in a city not short of water, he could have washed himself. He ate noisily, and was helped twice; leaving off only to say that men were fortunate who had the art of pleasing princes, “but Truth has Want for a steward.” Poor old Metriche, who had been cooking half the day to honor a guest—we lived plainly enough ourselves—was not out of hearing before he mocked at her fat buttocks. This started him on women, his favorite theme. He treated us, unasked, to one of his songs against a hetaira who had said him nay, and whose trade he was trying to ruin in revenge. Not that one had to offend him, for him to cut one up; he only needed to hear anyone praised. Before supper was over, he had accused the city’s best sculptor of stealing bronze; the least greedy of the nobles, of being too cowardly to risk a quarrel; and a gentle old priest, gifted with prophecy, of vices I’d never heard of till that night. Such was my first meeting with Hipponax; and Kleobis was right, it had done me good. It showed me that the face of envy is uglier than a birthmark on the cheek.
So, when his name was shouted in the crowd, I wondered what Kleobis was thinking. On the one hand, the man was detestable; on the other, he was one of us. That he had sung against the lords showed courage, which one should honor, even though his spleen was like one of those burning mountains which cannot contain their fires. They were doused now, however. He grinned with terror like a Gorgon mask on a shield. The wretched swindler chosen by the priests (he had cheated even the temple) stood up in his bonds, refreshed with hope.