The King Must Die: A Novel

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THE WITCH AND HER sons were never found, though we searched the Palace from roof to pillar-crypt, and right down into the House Snake’s sacred cave. Every crack in the rock, and even the well, was sounded. People said the Dark Mother had sent a winged serpent to fly away with her. To that I said nothing. It was in my mind that she might have put on the gate guard the spell that she put on me.

Next day my father summoned the people. From the Palace window we watched them climb the long ramps back and forth, and spread out over the rock. He said, “Today they walk lightly, without their bundles and their children stooping their shoulders. Yes, they know their way to the Citadel. We shall see smoke again upon Hymettos, when the Pallantids get this news. You have just come from a war; are you ready for another?”

“Father,” I said, “that is what I came for.” He looked like a man who has forgotten how to rest. “You are the only one,” I said, “who did not lie to me. From the rest I got children’s tales; but you left me a sword.”

“What did they tell you?” he asked. I told him, trying to make him laugh; but he looked long at me, and I feared he was still grieving over last night. I said, “You did well by me, to put me in Poseidon’s keeping. He has never forsaken me. When I have called on him, he has always spoken.”

He looked at me quickly, and said, “How?” I had never talked of it, and the words came slowly, but I said at last, “He speaks like the sea.”

“Yes,” he said. “That is the Erechthid token. It came when I was begetting you.” I waited, but he did not tell me of the other times; so I said, “How are we called, then, at the end?”

“He calls us to a high place,” my father said, “and we leap down to him. We go of ourselves.”

When he said it, it seemed I had always known it. “That is better,” I said, “than the Earthlings’ way. One should go like a man, not like an ox.”

The people were now packed tight below us; their voices hummed like bees when you fell their tree, and the smell of their bodies rose to meet us. My father said, “We had better go out to them.”

Now it was time, my hands stuck to my chair-arms. I thought of all those eyes, while my father spoke. I like to do, not to be done to. “Father,” I said, “what if they don’t believe I am your son? We might have made a bargain for all they know; my sword against the Pallantids, to be heir of Athens. What if they think that?”

He came up with his spare smile, and put his arm on my shoulders. “Three out of five will think so. Shall I tell you what they will say? ‘That old serpent Aigeus, he never wastes a chance. Here is this young King of Eleusis, a Hellene, who doesn’t want to go the way of the rest. Just the lad for him; one who will be his debtor for the life-breath sure enough whoever his father was. Well, he looks like a fighter. Who’s to say a god didn’t send him? Good luck to him, and no questions asked.’”

I felt simple and young beside him. He went on, “My brother Pallas has ten sons in marriage, all of grown years, and about the same number by women of the house. And most of them have sons themselves. Once they were in, they would rend Attica among them like wolves on a dead horse. You have a great virtue, my son, which will carry all before you. You are one, and not fifty.”

He grasped my arm, and led me out. I found he was right; whatever they thought, they made me welcome. When we had gone in, he smiled and said, “A good beginning. Only give them time; they will see Erechthid written all over you.”

We were getting to feel a little acquainted. I daresay if he had brought me up as a boy, we should mostly have been at odds; yet we felt liking now, and a kind of gentleness. It was as if the poisoned cup had drawn us together.

He gave orders for a feast that night, and a great sacrifice to Poseidon. When the priests had gone, I said, “Don’t forget Apollo, sir. I’ve not been blood-cleansed yet.”

“That will wait,” he said. “Tomorrow will do.”

“Well, sir,” I answered, “there’s not much time, if you are expecting war. I should ride to Eleusis tomorrow, and put things in order.”

“To Eleusis!” He looked dumfounded. “The Pallantids must be settled first. They will be on us. How can I spare the men?” I could not follow this at all. “Men?” I asked. “Why, the two I brought can do all I need. I don’t care to be much waited on.”

“But,” he said, “can you not see? The news will be there before you.”

“This girl, Father,” I said, “that I brought along; can you get your women to look after her? I would have left her in Eleusis; I’m not so tied to her skirts that I must have her everywhere; but the Queen had taken against her, and might have done her some harm. She’s a good girl, useful and well-spoken; you won’t find her troublesome, and I shan’t be long gone.”

He raked his hand through his hair, a way of his when harassed. “Are you out of your mind? From today on, your life’s not worth a pressed grapeskin in Eleusis. When we have quieted the Pallantids, you can have the army to claim your rights.”

I looked at him surprised. But I saw he was anxious for me, in the way of fathers. It touched me, never having come my way before.

“They would cut you down,” he said, “at the frontier gatehouse. Has the witch cursed you with madness?” He struck his thigh like a man distracted. Because he was wise and forward-looking, it put him in a taking not to see his way. I was sorry to be a trouble to him so soon.

“But, Father,” I said, “the young men saved me in battle. They shed their blood, and one of them died. How could I come on them like a robber, with spears behind me? Their Goddess chose me, I don’t know why. They are my people.”

He paced the room, and began to speak, and paced again. He was wise, and could see ten things where I could see only one. “But,” I thought, “I must needs keep hold of the thing I know, and do what I can with that. I shall do worse with the others; wisdom is only from the gods.”

“I shall have to go, Father,” I said. “Send me with your blessing”

“In the name of the god,” he said, “may your life-thread be stronger than the curse.”

I was cleansed that day in the Cave of Apollo, in the cliffside below the Citadel. In its low shadow, where the sacred spring runs down the rocks, they filled the pitcher to wash me from Xanthos’ blood. Then in the bright sunlight we sacrificed a goat on the altar before the cave. At night there was a splendid feast, with harpers and jugglers. My father had everything tasted before we ate it. He did not keep a slave for this; the man who had cooked it brought it in, and my father himself pointed to his portion; a custom I thought both prudent and just.

Next morning I was up early. My father and I stood on the terrace cool with dew, while the rock cast its long blue shadow over the morning fields. He looked as if he had slept badly, and begged me to change my mind.

“If I could for anyone, sir,” I said, “I would for you. But I have taken these Minyans into my hand. It would hurt my standing to run away from them.” I felt sorry for him; I could see he would have liked to forbid me. It was hard on him, I thought, to have his only son come to him already a king. But that was a thing past remedy.

“One thing more, Father,” I said, “before I go. If ever we can join these kingdoms, I won’t have their children’s children say of me that I led them into bondage. They must come as kindred, or not at all. Give me your word on it.”

He looked at me hard; then he said, “Are you bargaining with me?”

I said, “No, sir,” out of civility. Then I said, “Yes; it seems that I am. But my honor is in it.”

He was silent so long that I asked if he was vexed with me. “No,” he said. “You have done as you ought.” And he took his oath then and there before me. Then he said, “I see your grandfather in you. Yes, you are more Pittheus’ child than mine. I daresay you are the better for it.”

My horse was waiting. I told my servants to follow later in the day. I had a feeling there was luck in going alone.

At the border watchtower, they returned my salutation and let me through at once. This seemed too smooth, till I heard one of them say behind me, “So much for that tale. All Athenians are liars.”

Presently, rounding a bend, I saw the next hilltop crested with spears.

I was in bowshot already, so I rode on at leisure. Soon a man showed forth against the sky. Then I knew them, and waved my hand. He beckoned those behind him, and began climbing down. I drew rein, and waited, and said, “Greeting, Bias.”

“Welcome home, Theseus.” Then he shouted over his shoulder, “I told you so. Now what have you to say?”

The Companions scrambled down, quarrelling and cursing one another as they came. “I never believed it; it was Skopas’ story.” “What? We all heard you.” “Take that lie in your teeth.” Then daggers were out. It was just like old times. I had to dismount, and pull them apart like fighting dogs.

“An up-country welcome,” I said. “Have you all turned plow-boys in three days? Or what? Sit down, and let me look at you.”

I sat on a bit of rock, and ran my eye over them. “A man is missing. It is Hypsenor. Where is he? Has someone killed him?” A voice said, “No, Theseus. He has gone to tell the army.” There was a pause. Bias said, “To say you are alone.” I raised my brows. “When I want the army turned out to meet me, I will say so myself. Who does Hypsenor think he is?” Bias coughed and shifted. “Well, but they were out already; they are just over the hill there. We are the vanguard.”

“Vanguard?” I said. “Yes, I should hope so. But whom were you expecting to fight?”

They all looked at Bias, who looked back at them in anger. “Come,” I said, “spit it out.” He swallowed, and said at last, “Well, Theseus, a tale came last night from Athens. None of us believed it. But the Queen thought it was true.” He stopped again; then, “They were saying you had offered Eleusis to King Aigeus, in exchange for making you his heir.”

My heart chilled and sickened. Now I saw why my father had called me mad. The last thing I had thought of, which should have been the first.

I looked from one to another, and they found their tongues. “They said you had been proclaimed on the Citadel.” “We all gave them the lie.” “We were angry.” “We all swore that if it were true, we would kill you on the border or die ourselves.” “Because we had trusted you.” “Not that we believed it, Theseus. But if it were true.”

All this gave me time. As they talked, I had felt my spirit lighten a little. It was nothing one can put a name to. The truth is, I have seldom needed a soothsayer to tell me my lucky day. I can feel it; I felt it then.

“This much is true,” I said. “I have struck a bargain with King Aigeus.” There was a silence as if they had all died. “I have got his oath that he will never wrong the men of Eleusis, but treat them as hearth-friends and kindred. What kind of bargain do you think a father makes with his son?”

They all stared in a deep hush. I did not wait till they began to look at each other instead of at me.

“I told you all,” I said, “on the day the King died, that I was journeying to Athens. I did not tell my father’s name, because I had sworn an oath to my mother, who is a priestess, not to tell it on the way. Which of you would have broken that? She gave me my father’s sword to show him; does it look like a common man’s? Look at it. Look at the device.” They passed it round among them. It left me weaponless; but in any case, I was one among thirty.

I said, “I am the son of the myrtle grove, who the oracle foretold would change the custom. Don’t you think the Goddess saw me on the way? While my father passed through Troizen to take ship for Athens, my mother hung her girdle up for Mother Dia, and so I was conceived. Do you think the Gift-Bringer forgot? She has a thousand thousand children, but she knows each one of us. She knew I come from a king and from a king’s daughter of the Hellenes, who are ruled by men. She knew I am one to put my hand to what I find about me. Yet she called me to Eleusis, and gave the King into my hand. She knows best, who made us and calls us home. The mother changes to her sons as they grow to manhood. Everything has its term, except the gods who live for ever.”

They were all quiet, as if they heard the harper. I could not have done it by myself. Something hung in the air between us, and out of that I spoke. A bard will tell you it is the presence of the god.

I said, “I came to you a stranger. There are many men who wander the world for spoil, burning towns and driving off the cattle, throwing the men from the walls and taking the women. So they live; and if one of them had bargained as you thought, it would be good dealing for him. But I was bred in a house of kings, where the heir is called Shepherd of the People, because he stands between wolf and flock. We come when the god calls us; and when he is angry, we are the sacrifice. We go consenting, because the gods are moved by a willing gift. So I will go for you, if I am called to it. But I will only take my summons from the god; I will only answer for you to him, and not to any mortal man. Even my own father knows that, and consents to it. That was the bargain I made in Athens. Take me as I am. I cannot be other. You have heard me; if I am not a king to you, I am alone, and you have my sword. Do what you think good, and answer to heaven.”

I waited. There was a long silence. Then Bias got up, and went over to the man who had the sword, and took it from his hands and put it in mine. On this the wild lad Amyntor shouted out, “Theseus is King!” and then they all shouted.

But Bias had grown quiet. When they had done, he jumped up beside me, and said to the rest, “Yes, you can shout now, but which of you will face the curse? Think now; don’t bring him back to Eleusis and then leave him to die alone.”

There was muttering, and I said, “What curse is this?”

Bias said, “The Queen put the cold curse on any man who let you pass.”

“I don’t know the cold curse,” I said to them. “Tell it me.” I thought I should feel better knowing what it was, than not knowing. They took it for boldness.

Bias said, “Cold loins and a cold hearth, cold in battle, and a cold death.”

For a moment a chill ran down my neck. Then I thought, and remembered this and that. Then I started to laugh.

“While I was in Athens,” I said, “the Queen tried to have me poisoned. It was then I learned that Xanthos too worked with her warrant. Once, for that matter, she tried with her own hand; you can see the wound. Why go to all that trouble, if her cold curse would stick? Or perhaps it did? Perhaps you have seen it working?”

They had listened solemnly; but now someone at the back yelled out a bawdy joke. I had heard it before, but not to my face. They all shouted with laughter; and then they cheered.

Presently a dark youth, he who had not liked the killing of Phaia, said, “All the same, she cursed a man two years back. He cried aloud, and fell down as stiff as a board; then when he got up, he turned his face to the wall, and did not eat or drink until he died.”

“Why not?” I said. “Perhaps he deserved it, and no god protected him. But I am a servant of Poseidon. This time, maybe, the Mother listened to her husband first. In goddess or woman, no bad thing.”

This pleased them more than anything; especially those who were courting girls their mothers did not care for. They all began to cheer again; this time they were won. And in due course, I may say here, they made these marriages their hearts were set on. The outcome was that about half got good wives and half bad, just as under the old custom. However, they could manage the bad ones better.

It must have been a god’s favor that set the Companions first in my way. They were men I knew; I could feel my way with them, and see what answered best. That was my prentice piece. When I rode on to meet the army, I learned a thing one never forgets after: how much easier it is to move the many than the few.

They were drawn up at the seaside, where the foothills dip to the shore. That is the neck of the Athens road, where it had been held time out of mind. They had made a rough wall there, with stakes and boulders, and all who could scramble up it were standing on the top. I had no trouble to get a hearing; they were men of Eleusis, and eaten up with curiosity to hear what I would say.

So I called an Assembly, standing on the sands by the calm water of the strait, while gulls flashed silver in the blue air, and the breeze from Salamis fluttered the plumes of the warriors. I called to mind all I had learned of these people, and spoke. Since the times of their forefathers, they had had Hellene kingdoms hard by them. They had seen the customs of lands that are ruled by men; and I knew well enough that most of them felt a hankering.

When I had done, I saw which side they wanted to choose. But they were still afraid. “What is it?” I said to them. “Do you think it is heaven’s will that women rule you for ever? Listen to me, and I will tell you how it began.” Then they hushed and waited; for they loved a tale.

“Long ago,” I said, “in the time of the first earth men who made swords of stone, all men were ignorant, and lived like beasts upon wild berries. They were so stupid that they thought women conceived by their own magic, without help of men. No wonder a woman seemed so full of power to them! If she told a man no, who but he would be the loser? She by her art could conceive from the winds and streams, she owed him nothing. So all men came to her crawling on their faces, till a certain day.” And I told them the tale of the man who first learned the truth. Every Hellene knows it; but it was new to the Eleusinians, and made them laugh.

“Well,” I said, “that was long ago; we all know better now. But no one would think so, to look at some of you. You cling to your fear as if it were ordained by heaven.” Again I began to feel that something joined us, like a birth-cord filled with common blood. But the minstrels say it is Apollo; that if you invoke him rightly, he will bind the hearers with a golden thread, and put the end in your hand.

I said, “There is a measure in all things. I didn’t come here to slight the Goddess; we are all her children. Just as it takes man and woman to make a child, so it needed gods and goddesses to make the world. The Mother brings forth the corn. But it is the seed of the undying god that quickens her, not a mortal man doomed to perish. Wouldn’t that be the greatest of all shows, to make them a wedding? Why not? The god to come from Athens to her home with the bridal torches—for she is great, and it is the custom here—and to be brought to her in the sacred cave, while both the cities feast and sing together?”

I had not planned this. It came to me while I was speaking. I knew they loved a portent, and to see moira working among mortal men. Perhaps that put it in my mind. But a god goes with one on one’s lucky day, and I think he sent it. The time had come for a change, and I was there to his hand. For, afterwards, I really made this rite for them. Or, rather, I sent for the bard who had come to Troizen, because he seemed fitter than anyone else I knew. He talked with the oldest priestesses, and prayed to the Mother, and took counsel with Apollo; and he made it so beautiful that no one has ever wanted it changed. He said himself that it was the best work he had done in all his life, and he would not complain if it should be the last.

He was a priest of Paian Apollo, and perhaps he had foreknowledge. The old religion is dear to the Daughters of Night; and whoever else is glad, they do not like to see it changed. Their hand fell on him, as it fell on me.

In Thrace, where he was killed, they keep the old custom for all his trying. Even in Eleusis, it dies very hard and its shadows linger. At any summer’s end there, you will see the people of town and village gathered on the hill-slopes, sitting to watch the herdboys mime their old tales of the deaths of kings.

But that was after. Meanwhile, the men of the army tossed up their helmets and waved their spears, and begged me to lead them to the city. So I mounted my horse again, with the Guard about me; the Eleusinians followed after, singing paeans, and shouting, “Theseus is King!”

I did not ride straight up to the Palace. I took the lower road, that leads to the cave and to the wrestling ground.

All the women had run out chattering, and questioning the men; the slopes began to be full of people, just as on the day when first I came. I called two of the chief men and said to them, “Command the Queen to come down to me. Let her come of herself if she will do it; if not, bring her by force.”

They went up. At the top of the steps, some of the priestesses stopped them; I should have known, if I had been older, that two men were not enough. I sent four more, to keep up each other’s courage. They shouldered through, and went in. Then I waited. And I knew why I had chosen this place of meeting; to see her come down the steps as Kerkyon had come down to me, and the King before to him: every year for years uncounted a man in his flower of youth, charmed from his strength like the bird by the dancing serpent, to wrestle and to die.

Soon I saw the men returning; but they were alone. I was angry at this; if I had to go up myself, the people would lose their show. But when the men came near, I saw them pale. And the chief of them said to me, “Theseus, she is dying. Are we to bring her as she is, or not?”

I heard all about me voices passing the word along; it was like the sound of benches being dragged about in an empty hall. “Dying?” I said. “Is she sick? Or has someone harmed her? Or did she lay hands upon herself?”

They all shook their heads; but they did not all speak at once. Eleusinians love strong events, and know how to display them. They turned to the eldest, who had a good carrying voice. He said, “None of these, Theseus. When the word came to her that we were bringing you home as High King from the border, she tore her hair and clothes, and went down to the Goddess, and cried to her for a sign. What sign she wanted they did not know, but she cried three times, beating her hands upon the earth. Then rising up at last, she had milk brought and set it down for the House Snake; but he would not come for it. So she called a flute-player to make the music snakes dance to, and at last he came. When he was listening to the music, and had begun to dance, she cried out again to the Goddess, and took him into her hand. And he struck his teeth into her arm, and ran back into his hole as quick as water poured into a jar. In a little she fell down, and now she is dying.”

There was quiet all around. You could have heard a whisper.

I said, “Bring her here. If I go to her within walls, it will be put about that I killed her. The people must be witnesses.” I felt in their deep silence that they approved. “Put her on a litter, and do not hurt her. Let two of her women come, in case she needs anything; but keep the others back.”

So I and the people waited again; but Eleusinians are patient, when there is a sight to see. At last I saw the Utter coming on the terrace above; four men bearing it, two women walking beside; and behind, kept back by warriors with crossed spears, the priestesses all in black, with bleeding faces and dishevelled hair, wailing aloud. The steps of the stair were not too steep for the litter. Every year, since time out of mind, a dead king had been carried down them, lying on his bier.

They came down, and brought her before me, and stood the feet of the litter on the ground. It was made of gilded cornel-wood, with lapis set in.

She was tossing, and breathing fast; her hair fell down over the gilded litter and swept the ground. Her face was white as new ivory, with a smudge of green under the eyes, and her mouth looked blue. There was a cold sweat upon her, and the woman beside her wiped her brow with a cloth stained with the paint from her lips and eyes. I would not have known her, but for her hair. She looked old enough to be my mother.

She had meant me greater harm than men I had given to kites upon the field, and gladly stripped of their spoil. Yet her ruin smote me, more than when the torch is set to some great hall of kings, with pictured walls and painted columns and hangings woven on the loom, and the flames rise up to the colored rafters, and the roof falls in with a roar. I remembered the morning sky in the high window, her laughter by the midnight lamp, and her proud walking under the fringed sunshade.

I said to her, “We are in the hand of moira, from the day we are born. You did as you must, and so did I.”

She tossed upon the litter, and felt her throat. Then she said hoarsely, but loud enough to be heard (for she was an Eleusinian), “My curse failed. You came with the omens. Yet I am guardian of the Mystery. What could I do?”

I said, “A hard choice was laid on you.”

She said, “I chose wrong. She has turned her face away.”

“Truly,” I said, “her ways are dark. But it was ill done to set my father’s hand to my death.”

She half rose on one arm, and cried, “A father is nothing! A man is nothing! It was to punish your pride.” Then she fell back, and one of the women held a wine-flask to her mouth.

She drank, and closed her eyes, and rested; I set my hand on hers, and found it damp and cold. She said, “I felt a new thing at the gates. Kerkyon before you presumed too much. Even my brother … Then a Hellene came. The myrtle grove shall hatch the cuckoo’s chick. … Are you even nineteen, as you said you were?”

I answered, “No. But I was bred in a house of kings.”

She said, “I crossed her will, and she treads me in the dust.”

“It is time and change,” I said. “Only the happy gods are free of them.”

She turned upon the litter, for because of the poison she could not be quiet. The eldest of her children, a dark girl of eight or nine years, slipped through the guard and ran to her weeping, and taking hold of her asked if it was true she was going to die. She made herself still and stroked the child and said she would soon be better, and made the women take her away. Then she said, “Put me on a fast ship with my children, and let me go to Corinth. I have kindred there to care for them. I want to die on the Sacred Mountain, if I can get so far.”

I gave her leave. Then I said to her, “Though I shall change the sacrifice, I will never root out the Mother’s worship here. We are all her children.”

She had closed her eyes, but now she opened them. “Children and men want everything for nothing. Life will have death, and you will not change it.”

They picked the litter up, and began to bear it away, but I put my hand out to stay them. Bending down, I said, “Tell me before you go: are you with child to me?” She turned her head and answered, “I took the medicine. He was only a finger long, but you could see he was a man. So I did right. There is a curse upon your son.”

I signed to the bearers, and they carried her toward the ships. To the women behind I said, “Take her her jewels, and anything else she asks for.” They began to run about all in confusion, in their black robes, their solemn mourning forgotten; it was like an ants’ nest when the spade cuts it through, for there was no precedent. On the slopes around, the women of the city were talking like starlings. It is the custom of the Shore People for all the girls and women to be in love with the King, who is for ever young since when one goes there is another. So now they did not know what to think.

I was looking after the litter, when a tall gray-haired woman with a big gold necklace walked up to me, freely as Minyan women do to men, and said, “She has fooled you, boy. She will not die. If you want her life, you had better go after her.” I did not ask why she hated the Queen, but only said, “Death was in her face, if I ever saw it.” The woman said, “Oh, I daresay she is sick. But she took broth of snakeshead in her youth, and was bitten by young serpents, to make her venom-proof. It is the custom of the sanctuary. She will be in pain a few hours more; then she will sit up and laugh at you.” I shook my head. “We had best leave that to the Goddess; it’s ill meddling between mistress and handmaid.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “You will need a new Priestess. My daughter is of the Kin, and a girl to please any man. Look, there she is.”

I raised my brows at her. I could have laughed aloud, seeing the pale biddable girl, and the mother all ready to rule Eleusis. I turned from her toward the Queen’s women, still running and scolding up and down the stairs. But one, less busy, stood by the rock-cleft, taking a last look at it. It was she who had lain there on the wedding night, weeping the dead King.

I went up and took her wrist and led her out, while she hung back in fear, remembering, I suppose, how she had hated me, and had let me see it. “Here is your Priestess,” I said to the people. “One who does not rejoice in slain men’s blood. I shall not lie with her; only a god’s seed can quicken the corn. But she shall offer sacrifice, and take omens, and be nearest to the Goddess.” And I said to her, “Do you agree?” She stared at me confused; then said like a child, because surprise had made her simple, “Yes. But I will never curse anyone; even you.” It made me smile. Yet, ever since it has been the custom.

Later that day I appointed my chief men, from those who had been resolute in defying the women. Some of these would have had me put down women from every office in the land. Though I tended myself to extremes as young men do, yet I did not like this; it would bring them all together to work women’s magic in the dark. One or two, who had pleased my eye, I should have been glad to see about me. Only I had not forgotten Medea, who had fooled a man as wise as my father was. And there were the old grandmothers, who had run a household for fifty years, and had more sense than many a warrior with his mind only on his standing; but besides their magic, they had too many kindred, and would have managed the men. So I thought again about what I had seen in Eleusis of women’s rule, and chose from those sour ones who took their pleasure in putting the others down. And these did more than the men to keep their sisters from rising up again. A few years later, the women of Eleusis came begging me to appoint men in their stead. Thus I was able to make a favor of it.

On the second night after I took the kingdom, I gave a great feast to the chief men of Eleusis, in the royal Hall. The meat I provided from my booty of the war; and there was plenty too to drink. The men rejoiced at having snatched their freedom, and toasted the good days ahead. As for me, victory is sweet on the tongue, and to lead men, and be no one’s dog. And yet, the feast lacked something; without the women it seemed a rough, up-country thing. Men drank themselves stupid, and threw bones about, and made fools of themselves boasting of what they could do in bed, as they would never have dared if the women had been there to laugh at them. It was more like being on campaign than feasting in a king’s hall, which is why I have never made a custom of it. But that night it served my turn.

I called for the harper; and he sang, of course, of the Isthmus war. He had had time to work it up, and made a rousing thing of it. They were full already of themselves and of good wine; by the time they were full of the song too, they were spoiling for battle. So then I told them of the Pallantids.

“I have news,” I said, “that they are planning war. Once let them hold the Citadel of Athens, and no one will be safe between there and the Isthmus. They will rend the Attic plain like wolves on a dead horse; and those who are left hungry will look to us. That horde, if it gets through to Eleusis, will not leave an ear standing, a sheep running, a jar unbroken, or a girl unravished. Lucky for us if we can fight them across the Attic fields, and not our own. They have great spoil in their house on Sounion Head, and I will go surety you get fair shares. Then, after the victory, you will hear men say in Athens, ‘These Eleusinians are warriors. We were fools if we ever thought of them lightly. If we can get men like that for hearth-friends and kindred, it will be the best piece of work we ever did.’”

Next morning, at the Assembly, I spoke better. But no one will ever be found to say so. They were so drunk, and so big-headed with having mastered the women, that they could not have been more pleased with this speech if Apollo and Ares Enyalios had made it up between them.

So, when two days later my father sent word that there was smoke upon Hymettos, I sent for the Palace scribe, and made him write, and sealed it with the royal ring. The letter said, “Aigeus son of Pandion, from Theseus at Eleusis. Honored Father, the gods all bless you with long life. I am coming to the war, and bringing my people. We shall be a thousand men.”