Gary Corby: The Pericles Commission

“Why you?”

“I found the body, sir, and questioned the slaves working on the Rock of the Areopagus.”

“Is that where he was killed?”

“I was hoping you could help me with that, sir. I understand you were there this morning.”

“I was there, to meet with Ephialtes, in fact.”

“What did you discuss, sir?”

He glared at me. “Did my son hire a simpleton? We talked politics, and matters of state. That’s what one does at the Areopagus. Ephialtes was determined to destroy the Council. I was determined Athens should retain the good counsel of her elder statesmen. We met to see if there was some compromise that might avoid a damaging fight at the next meeting of the Ecclesia. There wasn’t. I left him after our discussion.” He paused. “Alive.”

“How are you with a bow and arrow, sir?”

His face tightened in anger and he said, “If you’ve come here to insult me, then you can leave immediately. I’m a hoplite citizen, young man! I fight in the phalanx with my spear and shield. I have no use for bows, like some auxiliary from a weak city, nor am I a mercenary.”

I nodded gloomily, all too aware that he was telling the truth. There is a hierarchy in the world of arms, and this man was at the top of it: a soldier-citizen who could afford the large, round hoplon shield, armor, and spear necessary in a phalanx. Archers were light troops who couldn’t afford better weaponry, and they mostly hired themselves out. Even if I put a bow in his hands, Xanthippus probably couldn’t aim it.

“I apologize, sir, but I had to ask. Was there anyone else there as you left?”

Xanthippus needed a moment to calm down before he said, “No one, not even the slaves. I sent them off before Ephialtes arrived. I had to find them to tell them to return to work. They were lounging about atop the Acropolis, enjoying the view and avoiding their duties, as usual.”

“How did Ephialtes know where to meet you?”

“I sent him a message, of course. Is this your idea of incisive questioning? I will send a note to my son suggesting he replace you with someone with at least a modicum of intelligence. You are looking in the wrong place, young man.”

“I am?”

“I suggest things are not all rosy among the democrats. Ephialtes told me so himself. You could hardly expect otherwise when a rabble thinks it can run a city. Now if you wanted to know who would like to see Ephialtes gone, you might start with Archestratus.”

“Archestratus?” One of the men with Pericles had named him future leader.

Xanthippus smiled. “He’s Ephialtes’ little dog. He likes to nip but he can’t hurt you. The man holds delusions of grandeur way beyond his ability. He wants to lead the democrats after Ephialtes, and he’s made no secret of his ambition.”

“And that might happen now,” I said.

Xanthippus became grim. “Archestratus is nothing more than a legal technician. He drafted the laws that emasculated the Areopagus.”

“Oh? Then whose idea was it, Ephialtes’ or Archestratus’?”

“To give total power to the Ecclesia? That was Ephialtes. Archestratus hasn’t the imagination. But these new laws leave the Areopagus as the court for homicide and treason. That, I suspect, was a little whimsy on the part of Archestratus. If it were up to Ephialtes, the Areopagus would have been dissolved altogether. Allowing us some function means we are left to squirm in public. That sort of humiliation is the type of thing Archestratus would enjoy.

“Ephialtes was competent, I’ll grant him that. If Archestratus gets his hands on the government, Athens will collapse within months.”

I left Xanthippus’ home more confused than I’d arrived. He didn’t sound like a murderer to me, he sounded like a grumpy old man. Of course there were plenty of other members of the Areopagus who might have cheerfully killed Ephialtes, but Xanthippus had been the man on the spot.

I noticed a young man as I departed, loitering on the other side of the street. Normally I would not have given him a second glance, but I was preternaturally alert to anything that seemed out of the ordinary, and I felt the fellow’s eyes on me the moment I stepped through Xanthippus’ doorway. I returned his gaze, wondering if I knew him, but he turned and walked away. I decided that my newfound job was already making me overly suspicious, and I told myself firmly not to go chasing shadows.

Some of those shadows were falling across the city and the narrow streets between the crowded homes were already dark. The men of Athens were making their way home to eat with their families, or to the homes of their friends to attend a symposium, with a slave or two in tow to help them stagger back to their beds in the middle of the night. To continue daily business after dusk is not quite a crime, but it is close enough that no sensible man would take the risk. So I did what any sensible young man does when he is hungry, but which I had been putting off for as long as possible. I went home.

I lived with my parents, as most young men do until they marry. Only the sons of the richest men can afford their own place. Like most Athenian houses, the street front of our home was a blank wall with only a door and no windows on the bottom floor. Athens is a crowded city, so the citizens build upward, where a country estate would build out.

I stepped inside to the entrance hall and checked the public rooms to the left and right, which are reserved for the men. Both were empty. Upstairs to the left were my father’s private rooms, his study and bedroom; to the right, the women’s quarters, which in our household meant only my mother Phaenarete. I had not been up there since I was twelve. I stepped through into the courtyard beyond the entrance hall. This was the main living area of the house, and the place where the men sit if the weather is good. Our family altar to Zeus Herkeios stood in the middle, as it does in every proper household, and I smelled the lovely aroma of a fresh garland that had been placed upon it. The dining hall lay behind the courtyard, also my bedroom and my brother’s. I could hear my father’s voice.

“Where have you been?” Sophroniscus demanded as I walked into the dining hall. The first things people notice about him are his hands. His right hand is larger than his left, his right arm better muscled. The left hand was damaged where he had struck it with a mallet in his early days, but is still good for doing the most delicate finishing work. The skin of both hands is calloused and scarred, and the rest of his skin seems almost permanently layered with marble dust; even after he’s washed, it still seems to cling to him. His face is round, like Socrates’, his hair thinning but not balding. He likes to smile. He claims in his youth to have been as thin as I am now, but I have never known him to be anything other than comfortably padded. Our family is not rich or powerful, but it has always been well enough to put food on the table, and not every family in Athens can say the same.

Father was reclining on a dining couch, next to his close friend Lysimachus. Lysimachus was slightly younger than Sophroniscus, I think, but in better condition, barely gray, and certainly better dressed. I never quite worked out why they were friends, because their personalities were as different as the mountains and the sea. Sophroniscus was a practical man with an obsession for stone. Lysimachus thrives on knowing people, and conversation. With those qualities he is a valued dinner guest in many of the best homes in the city.

I heard the quiet laughter of women and the clatter of utensils and crockery in the small domestic area beyond the dining hall, which is reserved for the women and slaves, and is where the kitchen lies and the slaves sleep. Before us, two slave boys were already mixing the water and wine in the krater, to be drunk after the meal. Another slave was bringing out the first courses.