Tides of War, a Novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War

XXXVI

Alcibiades spurned Critias' summons, as you know, citing the poet's admonishment that

Tyranny is a splendid roost but there is no step down from it and when report of this self-regulation reached the people, his popularity soared to yet more unprecedented heights.

Nor did his enemies wait long to find means to exploit this. It was a sight of pungent irony to observe such miscegenated bedfellows as Cleophon, Anytus, Cephisophon, and Myrtilus, the zealots of the oligarchs, leaping into wedlock with the radical democrats, not only stepping forth in concert but advocating those policies most likely to find favor in Alcibiades' quarter; in other words, to become his most ardent and obeisant toadies, their strategy being, as the comic poets later elucidated, to

“over-Alcibiadize” the people until he lodged in their craw and they spat him out.

No one perceived this peril more keenly than Alcibiades himself.

He drew about him now those companions of youth and war-Euryptolemus and Adeimantus, Aristocrates, Diotimus, and Mantitheus-whom he felt loved him for himself and did not perceive him, in the phrase of the poet Agathon, through the disrefracting glass of their own hope and terror. I as well found myself drawn more closely into his confidence.

He entrusted me with assignments of increasing import and subtlety. I was sent to address groups of the bereaved of Sicily, to serve on the committee seeking a site for the memorial. I officiated at sacrifices, represented the fleet marine force at official occasions, entertained prospective allies, and attempted to suborn or intimidate potential foes. I found these chores excruciating and begged to be released. He wished to know my objection.

“They acclaim me not for myself, but for some imagined

'Polemides,' and address themselves to me as if I were he.”

He laughed. “Now you're a politician.”

Until that time I had managed to keep clear of political connivance. This now became impossible. Life was politics. A man encountered may not be greeted as mate or fellow, but must be assessed as partisan or adversary and dealt with by this criterion alone: what can he do for our side, this day, not later, while he simultaneously took our measure, and in the same coin. One no longer talked but negotiated, spoke not but represented. The deal was everything; one breathed only to close. Yet such proved elusive as smoke. For many could say no but only one yes, and without yes you had nothing. The worth of each man rose or fell as a ram in the livestock market, according to that currency which is neither coin nor khous but influence. I never smiled so much or meant it less, nor met such friends to whom I was nothing. In all things, perception superseded substance. One may not demand accountability of others, or give his own pledge to any undertaking, however trivial, but always options must be kept open till the last instant, at which point all bets were off and if you'd given your word to a friend, you now broke it at the orders of another friend and leapt as fast as you could upon the main chance. At dawn I stood garlanded, sacrificing to the gods; by night I cut deals with stooges and back-stabbers. This was not my style. I detested it.

Compounding all were the tremendous stakes of these affairs, so that one must think, and indeed did, not only how our party may outpolitick those opposed but in the crunch how may we put them by. I missed not only my bride but her brothers and father and the straightforward landsman's ways of these who had become to me, I realized now apart from them, my hearth and family.

Now I myself became ensnared in politics' web.

I had taken residence with my aunt at Melite. To her I confided my plans to secure exemption or retirement from service and with my wife and child remake to Road's Turn. It was my ardent wish that my aunt make her home with us. I would build her a cottage; she may play the matriarch and lord it over all. She said she had always fancied a cottage. I took her hands in mine. It seemed happiness lay beyond one final bar of shoal.

I went to the Registrar to record my intent to build on our land at Acharnae. To my shock the clerk informed me that a claim had been placed against it. What was this, a joke? The recorder displayed the documents. One Axiomenes of Colonus, of whom I had never heard, had filed a petition of decedent estate, citing my death overseas, and the demise of my brother and father prior, and laying claim to the property. He had even deposited the parakatabole, equal to a tenth of the estate's value.

Dawn found me before the archon's clerk, scheduling a diamartyria, that hearing at which witnesses known to the court would testify that I was indeed my father's son and legitimate heir.

That should put a period to this nonsense, I thought. But when I rode out to the farm at noon, I discovered labor gangs at work upon the site. The sons of the aforementioned Axiomenes chanced to arrive at this juncture, three in number, and, comporting themselves with insufferable arrogance, displayed their papers and proceeded to order me off my own land. I was in military kit, it chanced, with a ceremonial sword at my hip. Perhaps an evil daimon took hold of me. My hand flew to the weapon's hilt, and though self-command reasserted before I could bare its blade, the act itself and the fury behind it sent my antagonists backpedaling in fright and outrage. They withdrew with oaths and pledges to eviscerate me in court. “And do not run to your patron, Alcibiades,” the eldest squealed. “For not even he stands above the law.”

A man of politics would have grasped at once the covert design understationing this ruse. I did not. My distress was such that I took counsel with a number of friends, including my commander, the younger Pericles, who, guileless as myself, accompanied me to address this Axiomenes at his home. I begged the fellow's pardon and, maintaining a tenor of temperance, restated my position which was unassailable; I had not been slain in war; the farm was mine; let us put this affray behind us. I would make restitution, I promised, for my unfortunate outburst.

“Indeed you shall,” this villain responded. He had filed an impeachment against me before the Council.

On what charge?

“Treason.”

He had done his diligence, this rogue, and unearthed the particulars of my deliverance from the quarries at Syracuse. I was, the denunciation of eisangelia professed, an “agent and instrument of Sparta.” My schooling in Lacedaemon was cited, my repatriation to that country after Sicily, my service with Alcibiades in Asia “in league with the enemies of Athens,” and even the derivation of my own and my father's names, along with diverse other perjuries, slanders, and falsehoods.

This was serious business; not only did the charge carry the penalty of death, but the object of such a motion was liable to apagoge, summary arrest. I may not close my eyes without fear of enemies snatching me at swordpoint.

I resolved to settle this without plaguing Alcibiades. But he heard of it on his own and called me to him. This was at his horse property at Erchiae, where he rode early for exercise and to clear his head. “This action,” he declared at once, “is not aimed at you, my friend, but me. It is not the only one.”

Some forty lawsuits, he reported, had been filed over the prior eleven days, all targeting colleagues and sharing the same theme: converse with the enemy. The cumulative effect, his opponents hoped, would be to enlarge mistrust of Alcibiades and portray him as in secret complicity with Sparta. My case was small potatoes.

This Axiomenes, Alcibiades imparted, was a flunky of Euthydemus of Cydathenaeus, an uncle of Antiphon and member of the cult of Heracles of that district, an ultra-oligarchic political club, allied with scores of others in their hatred of Alcibiades and resolve to bring him down. “I'm sorry your affairs have gotten mixed up with mine, Pommo. But our enemies may have unwittingly handed us a stroke in a greater game. Do you trust me, old friend?”

He could put me to use, if I would consent.

He would interdict the petition of vacancy by bringing a dike pseudomartyriou, a suit for false witness; after which he would contrive to have the farm placed in provisional stewardship of any kinsman I wished, to be held over for me until I returned.

“Returned? From where?”

“Meanwhile, Pommo, you must not contest the other charge, the impeachment for treason, but act in fact as if it were true. You must flee.”

I could think only of my bride and aunt. How would I explain this to them? How care for our child? If I absconded under indictment, Aurore and the babe could not come to Athens. As for me, would I not be confirming my guilt by flight and risking banishment forever?

“Have I ever failed to shield you, Pommo?” Alcibiades assured me that so long as he ruled, no action of man or law would work harm to me or my family. He would set all to right, and with interest.

“Our foes wish to paint you a partisan of Sparta. Very well.

We'll let them.”

He wished me to go over to the enemy. Make my way to Ephesus, the Spartan bastion of the Aegean, now under Lysander, newly elevated to fleet admiral. Lysander's prior acquaintance of me, supplemented by these credentials of the charges lodged against me, would open doors to his person. At large I was to represent myself as a private individual only but apart, when summoned by Lysander for interrogation, which summons was certain, disclose my charge as envoy from Alcibiades. I was to attest the good faith of his overtures of alliance with the Spartan and stand by as courier for such communications as Lysander wished to rejoin.

As for any sentence passed against me at Athens, Alcibiades would simply issue a pardon in his capacity as strategos autokrator, supreme commander.

“Then do that for me now,” I demanded.

My commander drew up. His eyes met mine, neither cold nor malign, yet intractable.

“These are great affairs, Pommo.”

“Your great affairs.”

“I am as constrained by them as you.”

He had an additional wrinkle to my defection. Some ten days previous, several companies of war prisoners had been brought in from Chalcidice. Among them was my old mate Telamon. I had got him released; he was in hospital now, recovering from wounds.

I had not informed Alcibiades or any of my superiors, deeming it beneath their notice. Of course he knew. “Prize your man out of the sawbones' shack. Make your easting together, as if to advertise your availability as assassins. This will further enlarge your credibility with Lysander; he may even seek to employ you as such against me.”

I would go. What else could I do?

“I take no joy in exploiting your predicament, Pommo. But desperate straits require desperate measures. You care nothing for such sentiments, I know, but this chore, if it succeeds, will alter the fate not alone of Greece but of the world.”

“You're right,” I said. “I care nothing.”

Euryptolemus and Mantitheus chanced to return at that moment from their own rides in the hills. My predicament was remarked, and the ordination of our commander's coercion. By all means, Euryptolemus attested, I must bolt this charge of treason; I must not let myself be packed off behind bars. Months could pass before trial; who could predict the demos's disposition then? It would be madness to tempt fortune before an Athenian jury, particularly since those who would be my defenders must, like myself, depart to war again, and soon.

“Cheer up, Pommo, this rounds out your resume.” Our commander's cousin laughed and placed a hand upon my shoulder.

“Don't you know, one may not account himself a true son of Athens until he has been exiled and condemned to death!”