Gary Corby: Sacred Games

Each Judge in his turn repeated the actions of the Chief until all ten had made their oaths and reinforced them with the blood and meat of the sacrifice.

Next it was the turn of the athletes. They stepped forward, one by one, and made their oath-a different one than that of the judges-to obey the rules, to neither cheat nor bribe, and in addition they swore they had trained for at least ten months. To the men who would compete in the boxing and the pankration, after each made his oath, the Chief Judge added, “Mighty Zeus absolves you, athlete, from the charge of murder if you kill your opponent in the contest.” Each athlete to whom the Chief Judge said this thanked him and stepped away.

The trainers and the fathers, brothers, and uncles of the athletes, too, were required to make their oaths, but without the need to affirm they had trained. For them, the oath was required merely to ensure they did not cheat in favor of their relative.

As they waited their turn in line, I saw the Spartan turn once more to Timodemus and say something. It must have been an insult, because Timo scowled and started forward. As one, Timo’s father and uncle grabbed Timodemus by the shoulders and dragged him back. The Spartan laughed and turned his back on them.

Timo’s father spoke to Timo, and even at a distance I could see they were harsh words. He’d probably ordered Timo not to let the man provoke him. What was going on? It was an act of utmost arrogance for the Spartan to insult a man and then expose his back.

I nudged the man next to me. “The big man to the side over there, the one among the Spartans. Do you know who he is?”

He looked where I pointed and nodded. “That’s Arakos. He fights for the Spartans in the pankration. They say to face him is like fighting a rock.”

The pankration was Timo’s own event.

Dear Gods, Timo would have to fight that monster? Timo was a dead man.

Arakos the Spartan stepped forward to take his turn at the altar, along with his trainer but no father or family. Arakos made his oath, and the Chief Judge absolved him of murder in the coming contest.

Then it was Timo’s turn to take the oath, to promise not to cheat, and to sacrifice a thin slice of the boar.

Arakos of Sparta spoke once more as Timodemus came down the steps. Timodemus froze, then snarled in rage. Every man present heard that snarl. Every head snapped in their direction. My friend Timodemus, in full view of the judges and the crowd, launched himself off the steps, hands stretching to strangle the Spartan.

The first event of the Olympics is always the competition for the heralds. It begins straight after the opening ceremony. Each contestant in turn stands in the Colonnade of the Echoes-a narrow passage lined with columns-where he makes a practice announcement that echoes back and forth seven times. The judges decide which hopefuls have the loudest, clearest voices, and they become the Heralds of the Games, their job to start each event and announce the winners.

I didn’t need to hear a lot of men shout at the tops of their voices. If I wanted to be shouted at, all I had to do was find my father; he was with his friends somewhere in this crowd.

This was my first Olympics. Father had always refused to take us when I was a child. He had no interest in sport, only in sculpture. Yet all of a sudden, he’d taken an interest in the Games. I wondered why but not enough to risk the question. It seemed every time Sophroniscus and I spoke these days, it turned into an argument.

So instead I went in search of my friend Timodemus, who’d been dragged off the Spartan and led away by his trainer and his father in utmost disgrace. They might have taken him to the temple to sacrifice and pray to Zeus-for surely Timo had breached his oath the moment he’d spoken it, when he attacked another competitor-or perhaps they’d taken him to the river to throw him in to cool down, or back to the Athenian camp where he’d be safe from angry Spartan fans, or to the temporary gymnasium reserved for the athletes.

He wasn’t at the temple, which surprised me a little. If I were in his position, I’d have been praying as hard as I could, because Zeus is not a forgiving God, and the thunderbolts in his hands are hard to forget. Instead I found Timo, with his father and uncle and trainer, at the second place I looked: the gymnasium. When I walked in and saw them there, I was taken aback for a moment. Some men might have thought it a trifle callous, or at least arrogant, to repair to the revered place of athletes straight after such an unsportsmanlike incident.

But I should not have been surprised. Sport is the one true god for the men of the genos Timonidae. Timo’s family had a long tradition of pankration. His father, Timonous One-Eye, and his uncle Festianos and his grandfather had all been experts. Among them, they claimed four victories at the Pythian Games, eight at the Isthmian Games, and seven at the Nemean Games, one of which Timo had collected himself. It was an extraordinary tally for any family, but none of them had ever claimed the greatest prize on earth: an olive wreath at the Sacred Games in Olympia. Timo’s father was desperate to see his son crowned a victor.

I watched unnoticed from the doorway. Timodemus paced back and forth, swinging his arms and jumping about on the training patch.

The gymnasium at Olympia was a temporary affair made of new-painted wood. There’s no point in a permanent structure when it’ll only be used once every four years. Instead, they use rough planks that are strong enough to last the few days that it will see use and don’t bother with the finishing touches, such as decorative woodwork and frescoes, that you’d see in a city gym.

The design was the same as you’d find at any gym in any city in Hellas: four walls enclosing a square. The square on the inside formed four porticoes, well-roofed to keep off the sun, with alcoves set aside for masseur tables and places to sit where a friend might rub down an athlete with olive oil. I noticed there were even spaces built into the walls to hold the oil flasks, and hung from hooks were bronze strigils with which to scrape away old oil and dead, dirty skin from the sweaty athletes. Like all gyms, the center was open to the sky, and it was in the sunny middle that Timo paced. The middle ground was dotted with nine training patches of sand, each the right size for an Olympic contest, where the boxers, wrestlers, and pankratists could practice their martial skills. I wondered how the athletes could stand the new-paint smell of red ocher and lime. The builders must have finished mere days before the Games began.

Timo’s trainer and uncle sat to the side on a bench and watched him pace off his agitation. His father, One-Eye, stood beside the practice ground. The grim expression on his face said it all, but if I needed any confirmation there were his words, repeated in an endless stream. “Idiot. Moron. What were you thinking? No, you weren’t thinking, were you? Idiot. Moron …”

One-Eye stopped when he saw me at the entrance. This was the father of my oldest friend. He’d seen Timo and me play together when we were children.

“Nicolaos,” he said. “We haven’t seen you in months.”

“Hello, sir. You and Timo have been busy with training for the Games, and I’ve been busy, too. I came to see how Timo was.”

“As you see. As stupid as ever. We will keep him here until this matter is resolved. I leave you now. I must plead with the judges not to disqualify my idiot son.”

“Could that happen?” I asked in alarm. Timodemus had spent his life preparing for these Games. More than his life: he was born to be here. To be excluded now would be worse than disaster.

One-Eye turned his single, searing eye on me. It was like facing an angry Cyclops. “What do you think? Timodemus broke the Sacred Oath where thousands of men could see him. I’ll beg, but even so, to dissuade them would probably require the honeyed tongue of Apollo …” He trailed off and stared at me. “Here now, you know this man Pericles, don’t you?”