The Isle of Stone

2.

Isidas surrendered the myrtle to the herald. With that, he and his companions were escorted out by the fur-trimmed Scythian bailiffs. Emissaries of enemy powers were not permitted to hear Assembly debates in such dangerous times.

The herald looked out over the mob, waiting a few moments as waves of unease rolled through it. The Lacedaemonian’s speech was refreshingly brief, palate-cleansing in its clarity, perhaps even persuasive. If pressed, some listeners would confess that they preferred its taste to the cloying bonbons to which Attic rhetoric had lately descended. Fortunately for the hawks, the old menu would soon be served again in the form of Cleon.

But not before Nicias came up to say his piece. Donning the wreath, he turned his rheumy eyes on the people, whose reactions ranged from applause to polite silence. His services to the city had already been too great to permit undisguised hostility. Still, there were anonymous whistles from the vicinity of the Acharnians, who mistrusted the depth of his zeal.

“Gentlemen, I leave it to you to decide this day on the question of war or peace,” Nicias began. “I have my view, as you all know, but in our democracy that opinion does not-should not-count for anything more than that of any of you, my fellow citizens. By the same token, of course, we should expect the opinions of those who may disagree with us to weigh no more and no less in these deliberations. Under this white banner, we stand equal in our obligation to serve the city.

“Rather than persuasion, my aim today is simply to confirm certain facts of which we should all be aware…” The general paused as he withdrew a small wax tablet from a fold in his tunic. He didn’t look at it yet, but its appearance in his hand now compelled the attention of forty thousand eyes.

“According to the accepted figures, which were confirmed for me last night by the treasurers, when the war began the Athenians had six thousand talents of coined silver stored in the sacred precinct. The city has use of additional incomes, in the amount of one thousand talents per year from the mines at Mount Laurion, about six hundred talents per year in dues from our partners in the Aegean commonwealth, two hundred talents from the war tax, and five hundred more from exceptional sources. An additional forty talents may be obtained, in desperate circumstances, by stripping the temples of their gold. These monies, you will agree, represent the bulk of the wealth of the state, notwithstanding the mandate of additional liturgies, which in my view seems unlikely given the existing burden.

“It also cannot be denied that some of this revenue will not be realized as income from year to year. The presence of the enemy in Attica has had a disrupting effect on operations at Laurion. The stream of money or ships from certain of our partners can be broken by the vicissitudes of war, such as we saw in the late, almost tragic case of Mytilene. It must be acknowledged, then, that the figures I have listed represent our assets in the best of circumstances, and do not take account of anything our adversaries might do to affect them.

“Now let us consider the other side of the ledger. Without going into the details, the navy costs no less than 500 talents per month, assuming we man and supply a fleet of two hundred ships-a figure you will agree to be conservative in these times. This estimate takes no account of special circumstances, such as the cost of maintaining what sieges may be necessary, or for chartering supply ships for Demosthenes at Pylos. It also does not account for replacement costs for vessels lost due to weather, mishap, or enemy action. Admittedly, not all ships are deployed at all times during the campaign season, though most are for at least several months each year. For the sake of illustration, then, we may stipulate that the annual maintenance of our navy costs the treasury some 1,000 to 2,000 talents. Please note, then, that this expense alone consumes all our income from the Laurion mines, dues from allies, and the war tax.

“As for the army, the arithmetic is no less inescapable. To field a levy of thirteen thousand hoplites, compensated at two drachmas a day, costs more than 4 talents per day, 30 talents per week, or more than 120 talents per month. The pattern of future deployments cannot be predicted for certain, but we may assume that we will be looking after our interests in the Megarid, in Chalcidice, Euboea, Acarnania, Leucas, Magna Grecia, Corcyra, Cythera, the Hellespont, and certain other places. Over the last seven years, maintenance of the army has cost-” he glanced at the tablet-“in excess of 600 talents a year. This is, again, more than the total of what our allies pay to the treasury toward their defense.

“I pass now to the expenses associated with the maintenance of our passive defenses, such as the Long Walls, the harbor, as well as those necessary for the normal operations of the government, which on no account may be called discretionary…”

Nicias spoke like this for almost an hour, deliberately setting out the figures that drove home his bleak prediction: despite the vastness of her resources, despite all her victories and the fact that, the plague notwithstanding, Pericles’ strategy had more or less worked, the city must soon be finally, inevitably, and utterly broke. When he was finished, the Assembly neither applauded nor jeered; his facts were not new, and his conclusion not very controversial. The lack of response was, in the end, bound up with the strangeness of thinking in terms of thousands and tens of thousands-figures that bore very little relevance to the Athenians in their daily lives. The argument struck the assemblymen as some thing more than hypothetical, but less than real.

“Anyone else?” asked the herald. He looked to Cleon as he said this, but the latter only stood there with arms crossed, making no move toward the rostrum. The air of ambivalence that followed Nicias began to crackle with energy; assemblymen turned to each other with the same question on their lips, until the questions merged into an indistinct buzz of anticipation. The all-important issue had abruptly changed: it was no longer “Should Athens accept the Spartan peace offer?” but “Will Cleon accept the wreath?”

Moments like this are living things, maturing and dying in their time. Exploiting them required a knack for knowing when such opportunities were about to reach their prime. Just as the uncertainty verged on the discordant, Cleon uncrossed his arms.