Marathon: Freedom or Death

5

Well, I wasn’t dead. Does that surprise you?

Idomeneus and Philocrates hauled me up the side. I’d been hit on the head by an oar, and when I awoke I had a rip on my scalp and a bruise on my side as if I’d been hit with an axe.

We lost sixteen men — heavy casualties from the sixty or so raiders who’d started the night together. Later I learned that six of them turned back from the swim and remained in Miletus. The rest were killed. Two of them were marines, men who had been with me for years.

On the other hand, we were free. In those days, we seldom stopped to mourn the dead, although it was a humiliation to me to have left their bones behind. Greeks pride themselves on retrieving their dead — even on a raid. The sun was well up in the sky before I could think, but my first thoughts were full of joy — joy at the cleanliness of the sea and the blueness of the sky. Sieges are ugly.

The sea is never ugly, even when he means to kill you.

We made our way north, up the Samian channel, and we took our time because we had three crews packed into two ships, with a dozen Milesian archers thrown in for good measure. They were good men. Teucer was their leader — when a father names his son after the greatest archer in the Iliad, he must expect the boy to grow to pull a bow, eh? Teucer and Philocrates were friends almost before he had his sandals off, and they could be seen throwing knucklebones by the helmsman’s station all through the day, as neither had a station except in combat.

We stopped for meals and we set good lookouts, but the sea remained empty until we were off Ephesus.

There, out in the roadstead, we caught a pair of Aegyptian ships with a pair of Cilicians for escort, or so we thought. Now, the Cilicians were great pirates — they preyed on everyone, but as the Ionian Revolt grew, they took service with the Great King because preying on the Ionians and the Carians promised the richest pickings.

Cilicians seldom use triremes. They are poor men, and they prefer smaller, lighter ships, like the hemiolia, a bireme with a heavy sailing rig and a third half-deck in the stern. The two Cilicians in the distance were hemioliai. Their raked masts marked them for what they were.

My head hurt as if a horse had stepped on it, and I had to sit on the bench by the helmsman and watch as Idomeneus and Stephanos planned our attack on the little convoy.

Closer up, we could see that the two Cilicians were not guarding the Aegyptians. They were taking them. One of the low merchant ships had already been grappled and there was blood in the water.

Naturally, the Cilicians thought we were Phoenicians. Not that they cared. Cilicians are against every race.

They ran — north.

We let them go and took the Aegyptians for ourselves. One of their ships had already been taken and abandoned, and he was empty of life, decks red with sticky blood and already breeding flies, but the cargo was mostly intact — raw hides and ivory.

The second ship ran, and Stephanos showed me how fast the former slave ship really was. The sun was not yet at its height when Stephanos caught the Aegyptian over against the Asian coast and brought him back to where we were grappled to the first capture, the oarsmen blessing the gods for the luck of a cargo of ivory and praying that the other ship was as rich. It was, laden with ceramic bottles of perfume and bales of ostrich plumes, an absurdly rich cargo that made us all laugh for sheer joy.

We landed on the beach at Chios with the two prizes in tow and the Aegyptian captain still cursing his poor luck at being attacked twice in a single afternoon. I loaded all the valuables into one ship, gave the hides to the Chians as payment for their hospitality and let the Aegyptian crew take the empty ship south for home, unharmed — my thank-offering to Apollo, twenty-six sailors alive who I’d usually have killed. The Chian fishermen told us that their lord, Pelagius, and his nephews had visited, and that the whole fleet of the rebellion was gathering at Mytilene. Then we were away, up the coast of Chios, across the deep blue to Lesbos.

We made Mytilene under a tower of cloud, and the beaches were lined with ships.

At last, we’d found the rebel fleet.

Miltiades had done the work. He’d gone from island to island, rallying the rebels to make a stand. He’d assumed I was dead, until he heard of my first load of grain going into Miletus.

We were sitting in the great hall, the Boule of Mytilene, and men toasted me like a hero, and it went to my head like neat wine.

‘You saved the rebellion,’ Miltiades said, in front of a hundred captains. Epaphroditos was there, grinning from ear to ear. Paramanos shook his head and raised his cup to me, and Cimon stood at my shoulder and pounded me on the back, which made my head hurt.

There were other captains and lords I knew well enough — Pelagius of Chios, a few Cretans and a dozen Samian captains. But there were men I’d never seen before. One was a tough-looking bastard called Dionysius, who carried a kalyx krater on his shield and claimed descent from the god of wine. Miltiades took me around the hall and introduced me to all the leaders.

It was like a whole new rebellion. And Miltiades had done it, for all the praise he lavished on me, taking his ship from inlet to inlet all through the autumn, wheedling, cajoling and threatening the Ionians and the Cretans and the Samians until they put together a fleet.

‘We drove the Medes from the Chersonese in a week,’ Miltiades bragged. ‘And you kept Miletus alive at our backs. In a few days, we’ll run down the coast and flush out their squadron, and then we’ll fill Miletus with grain.’

Everyone smiled. It was a turning point in the rebellion, we all agreed.

Next day, I sold my ivory, my ostrich plumes and my fine Aegyptian glass to the same merchants who had sold me grain. I’d brought two sacks of gold darics from Miletus, and now I added a quantity of lapis, a stack of gold bars and a pile of silver to my hoard.

With Idomeneus and Philocrates and Stephanos and Galas and Mal and Teucer to help, I carried it all across to Miltiades’ great ship Ajax. I laid it out on the sand and divided it in half.

‘Choose, lord,’ I said.

He shook his head. ‘You are the best of my captains,’ he said.

‘He says that to all the girls,’ Cimon added. ‘Thank the gods you earned some gold. We earned nothing but abuse, sailing about like busy mice. I took a good prize over by Cyprus, but it turned out to be the property of one of our “allies”, and we had to return it.’ Cimon glowered at his father, who shrugged.

‘May all the gods bless you, Arimnestos,’ Miltiades said.

Then, my debts cleared, I paid my oarsmen. By common consent, we included our Milesian archers in the payout. Most men received a pair of gold darics and some change. I’d seldom managed such a rich payout, and Stephanos and I watched with unconcealed glee as our boys went up the beach, roaring like fools, determined to spend it all in a haze of wine and fornication.

Then I paid the officers. Galas and Mal counted as officers now, and they were unable to believe their good fortune, and young Teucer, a mere archer, looked at his wool hat full of silver and shook his head. Stephanos the fisherman was doing the same. ‘Never had so much money in my life,’ he said.

‘Save it, brother,’ I said, putting my arms around him. ‘You’re a captain now. You’ll need to keep treasure against a rainy day — when I take an arrow, or when you go your own way.’

He might have protested, but instead he gave me a serious nod and went off. He sent almost all his money home to his sister in a fishing boat commanded by his brother.

Teucer gambled. When he was poor, it wasn’t an affliction, as he and Philocrates played for stones from the beach and shells, but once he had money, he was a terror — the more so as he won. Constantly.

I put a waxed-linen wallet full of lapis and gold and a fine, gold-worked bottle of rose scent into my leather bag, and shook my head. It is easy to be rich, if you take other men’s wealth. I had the value of my father’s farm and forge in my bag — ten times over. Those Aegyptian merchants had a year of the value of my crops in every pair of ivories. But even as I grinned at my wealth, I saw the lawless men on the mountain at Cithaeron — the bandit gang I’d broken — and I knew that I was no different. It was a sobering thought. And one I dismissed as quickly as I could.

That afternoon, we had a council of all the rebel captains and lords at Boule. The seams in the rebellion showed a lot faster when there wasn’t any wine to drink. The Samians felt that Miltiades had wasted them, taking them north to the Chersonese. The Cretans wanted a battle, and cared nothing for the odds. The Lesbians and the Chians seemed to me to be the only men who actually cared about the rebellion — they were the one contingent that thought in terms of the good of all. Perhaps it was because they were between the northern Chersonese and the southern Cretans — the men in the middle. Everyone argued about the loot that had been taken.

Demetrios of Samos rose in late afternoon and pointed at me. ‘This boy took two ships full of ivory, but he has not shared with the rest of us,’ he said.

I hadn’t expected it. To be honest, I’m always surprised by the foolish greed of men, and their envy. I thought I was a hero. I expected everyone to love me.

So I just looked at the fellow.

‘See something you like, boy?’ he sneered. ‘Let’s have a share of your precious ivory. Or did your lover Miltiades take it all for himself?’

I stood there, angry as Orpheus in Hades, gulping like a fish. I wanted to gut him on the spot, but I couldn’t think of a thing to say. Miltiades glared at me. He didn’t want to step in — that’s what the Samian wanted, to show that Miltiades was my master.

Finally, my head began to work. ‘I’m sorry, my lord,’ I said, my voice low, to force men to be quiet. I bowed my head in mock contrition.

‘You are?’ he said.

‘If I had understood that we were to share prizes taken before we joined the fleet,’ I said, ‘I owe a great deal more than just two ships’ worth of ivory. And painful as I will find it to hand over my gains, I’ll comfort myself that at least I contribute something besides hot air!’

He leaped to his feet. ‘What the fuck are you saying?’ he snarled. ‘That I can’t earn my keep? Is that it?’

I shrugged. ‘I gather you’ve never actually taken an enemy ship,’ I said in my softest voice. ‘As you seem to need to pay your crews from my profits.’

Dionysius’s great belly laugh carried through the hall. ‘Sit down, Demetrios! No man needs to share what he took before he came to the fleet, as our young Plataean knows full well. Don’t be an arse. What we need to decide is a strategy.’

Voices came up from every part of the hall. ‘Miletus!’ some shouted. ‘Cyprus!’ called others. Not a few insisted that the fleet should make for Ephesus.

Miltiades’ son Cimon appeared at my elbow. ‘My pater wants to see you tonight,’ he said. ‘To plan for the future.’

I nodded.

Cimon slapped my back and went out, apparently uninterested in the fate of the rebellion.

A cynic would say that Miltiades had spent the summer and autumn rallying rebels so that he could use them to reconquer his holdings in the Chersonese. And a cynic would be correct. Miltiades needed the power base that the rebellion offered him. He needed the rebellion to continue, so that when he dealt with Athens, he could appear as a great man on the front lines of the conflict.

What Miltiades didn’t need was for the rebels to defeat Persia. If the rebellion was victorious, he would suddenly be nothing but the tyrant of the Chersonese. Athens wouldn’t need him, and neither would the rebels. Further, his greatest rival among the Ionian tyrants was Histiaeus. Aristagoras had been his greatest rival — but I’d killed him in Thrace. Aristagoras had been Histiaeus’s lieutenant, and Miltiades had no reason to want Miletus to be free of siege and powerful in the east. At one level, Miltiades wanted control for himself. At another level, he was an Athenian, and Athens wanted Miletus humbled — Miletus and Ephesus and all the Ionian cities that rivalled Athens for supremacy at sea.

I won’t tell you that I really understood all this, that dark autumn and winter, with the rain lashing the shutters and the fires sputtering and smoking, and a hundred bored and angry Greeks fighting like dogs for the leadership of the rebellion. But I understood that all was not as it seemed. And it slowly dawned on me that whatever men said aloud, Samos and Lesbos and Rhodos and Miletus all hated each other, and Athens more than most of them hated Persia.

So you children can see that it’s a miracle we ever got a fleet together at all.

Cimon left, but Miltiades and I both stayed, and over the course of hours of debate, it was decided to relieve Miletus for the winter, fill the city with supplies and go back to our homes. We were to rally in the spring on the beaches of Mytilene, find the Persian fleet and crush it. With the main Persian fleet finished, we’d have the initiative, and then we could act against the Persian land forces as we saw fit.

It was a good plan. Dionysius and Miltiades hammered it out, even against their own interests. Miltiades had no love for Miletus, as I have said, and Dionysius had every reason to favour a long war of commerce, as he was a pirate by profession. But the two of them joined together in something like alliance, and the Lesbians and Chians backed them. It is odd — a thing I’ve seen many times — that men will rise to nobility out of squalor and greed, especially when there is competition and worthy fellowship. On their own, Miltiades and Dionysius were greedy pirates. Together, they competed against one another to be the saviours of Greece.

Their plan left a lot unsaid. There was nothing about rescuing the cities of the Asian coast. Rather, it was the strategy of all those Greeks who had water between them and the hooves of the Persian cavalry. It left the mainlanders as slaves.

It was also the first realistic plan the rebels had ever made.

Dionysius offended everyone by insisting that most of the ships were ill-trained and that we should spend our first months when we rallied together in spring training our rowers and marines. I agreed with him, but his manner of stating this obvious truth was arrogant.

‘You aristocrats are like children when you go to sea,’ he said. ‘My boys do nothing but row. They don’t go to sea with their heads full of the Iliad. They go to sea to win — to take enemy ships and turn them into silver and gold. Have you seen the Phoenicians manoeuvre? Have you seen how hard they train their crews? Ever face a Cilician in narrow waters? Can your oarsmen row you into a diekplous? Turn on an obol and ram an enemy under the stern? No. Hardly one of you. When we come to the day — the moment of truth — there’s not twenty ships here that can be trusted in a close action. Let me train your crews. A little sweat now, and liberty is the prize.’

If he’d stuck to that as a theme, he might have won them over, but every one of them fancied himself the greatest captain of the ages, fit to be trierarch on the Argo. It is a Greek failing.

So with nothing decided on save action, we loaded grain and root vegetables and ships full of pigs and goats, and we sailed for Miletus in midwinter, which was thought to be daring in those days. Not like now, when we make war in every season. We were so powerful that we went through the Samian channel, caring nothing whether the Persians knew we were coming.

The enemy squadron at Lade had had word of us, and their sails were just notches on the horizon by the time we sailed down the bay, and their camp was a field of burning embers. They hadn’t even left a garrison. We took the island and landed the stores in Miletus.

The populace of the lower town hailed us as heroes and we all feasted together, but I noticed that whole families wanted to be taken away when we sailed. Histiaeus frowned, but he didn’t forbid any of the lower-class families to leave.

I drank wine with Istes — wine I’d brought myself. We sat on folding stools in the agora, and drank from a kylix his slave boy carried, Athenian work with two heroes fighting.

‘Ever think of leaving?’ I asked.

He watched my ship for a long time, drank his wine and shook his head. ‘No. But yes.’ He laughed. ‘You’re a hero. You know the rules. I can’t leave. I’ll die here — this year or next.’

A stick-figure girl came by with a heavy pot on her head — carrying water. She glanced admiringly at the two of us — fine, well-muscled men, and killers too.

‘What’s her glance worth?’ Istes said. ‘What would it be like for you to awaken one day to find that she spits on your shadow?’

I understood all too well. ‘But if we take too many of your people away. .’ I began.

Istes shook his head. ‘Don’t say it, my friend,’ he whispered. ‘My brother. . does not feel as I do.’

‘How do you feel?’ I asked.

‘I think we should go to Sicily and start again, far from the Persians, the Medes, the Lydians and the fucking Athenians.’ He shrugged. ‘I am filled with joy at every citizen family that gets away, to remember what Miletus was.’

I must have looked startled at the force of his expression, because he leaned back and drank more wine. ‘You asked. I answered. But my brother — he is determined that we will meet our ends here. All of us. Sail before he makes a law against emigration.’ His deep brown eyes locked with mine. ‘Take all the families of those archers.’

I looked around. ‘Why?’

Istes shrugged. ‘He is mad,’ he said, and then would say no more.

We sailed that afternoon, as the first of the great winter storms brewed to the east. We were the last to be allowed to take citizen refugees out of Miletus. The city had new heart, and food for the winter.

But the siege mound was not any smaller, and Datis did not decamp, as the Persian army had in other winters. He stayed, and his men built a proper wall around their camp, so that the raids had to stop. And the mound grew higher.

I took sixteen citizen families to Lesbos. Most of them had money, and they offered us — me and Stephanos — a good rate to take them all the way across the deep blue to Sicily.

Miltiades convinced them to come and settle in the Chersonese instead, and before the second Heracleion, we landed them at Kallipolis and settled in for the winter. My red-haired Thracian had found another man, but there were more fish like her in the sea, and I caught one quickly enough with a necklace of gold beads — a delicate blonde with a heart-shaped face and no other heart at all. She spoke Lydian and Greek and another language, too, close enough to what the Iberians spoke to make each other laugh.

It might have been a good winter for me, except that there was a long letter from Penelope about the farm, and it wasn’t good — Epictetus the elder was dead, some of our stock had died in a pest and she needed me to come home so that she could be wed — but not a word of whom she might marry.

And enclosed in her letter was another slip of white vellum, written in the same hand.

Some say a phalanx of infantry is the most beautiful thing, but I still insist it is you who is the most beautiful. Come and be rich.

I held the parchment close to an oil lamp, and more words came through on the surface — written in acid, and now burned into the hide.

Come soon.