Christian Cameron: Killer of Men

'This is the party?' he said. He had a grim, deep voice.

'No party here,' Pater said. He was making a cauldron, a deep one, and the anvil sang with every stroke as he bent the bronze to his will. 'Just a bunch of loafers avoiding their work!'

There were twenty men around the forge yard, and they all laughed. It was mid-afternoon, and there wasn't a lazy man there. They had a skin of last year's wine, the good purple stuff that our grapes make at home, dark as Tyrian dye.

Epictetus got off his wagon and his hired men climbed down. It was a high wagon – Draco's best work, the kind that would carry five farms' worth of grain. He had a grown son – Epictetus son of Epictetus – who was a shadow beside his hard-working father.

'Bring our wine, son,' the father said, and then he walked into the yard.

It was quite the event, because Epictetus never came to loaf in the forge yard. He said that a man had but one life, and any time he wasted counted against him with the gods. He was the only farmer in Boeotia who owned four ploughs. He only needed two, but he built the other two – just in case. He was that sort of man.

So he came into the yard and Pater sent me for a stool from the kitchen. It was like one lord visiting another. I fetched a stool, and Epictetus – the son – poured wine from a heavy amphora for every man in the yard. I had a taste of Pater's. It was not cheap.

Epictetus looked around. 'I've picked the right day,' he said. He nodded. 'I have a thought in my head and I can't get it out. I wanted to talk to the men – the real men – without giving myself away to the Theban bastards in town.'

Pater handed Bion the new cauldron. 'Punch her for rivets,' he said. 'Did you pour me a new plate?'

Bion nodded. He was better at casting bronze even than Pater. 'Smooth as a baby,' he said.

'He'll be a rival to you when you free him,' Draco said.

'No,' Pater said. He pulled his leather apron off and tossed it to another slave. Then he poured some water over his head, wiped his face with a rag and walked back. 'It is good to see you in my yard, and a guest is always a blessing,' Pater said, and poured a libation. 'I always have time to listen to you, Epictetus.'

Epictetus bowed. He rose, as if speaking in the assembly. And in a way he was, for in the yard were the leaders of what might have been called the 'middling' sort – the men who supported the temples and shrines, who served in war. There were some aristocrats, and two very rich men, but the men in our yard were – well, they were the voice of the farmers, if you like.

'Men,' he said. How imposing he was! Tall, strong and burned so dark that he looked like mahogany. Even at fifty, he was someone to be reckoned with. 'Men of Plataea,' he began again, and suddenly I knew that he was nervous. That made me nervous, too. Such a strong man? And rich?

'Last year I went to Athens,' he said. 'You know that Athens has overthrown the tyrants. They are gone – fled to the Great King in Persia, or dead.' He paused and smiled a little. 'But you know all this, eh? I'm a windbag. Listen. Athens has money – their silver owls are the best coin in Hellas. And they have an army – they muster ten thousand hoplites when they go to war.' He looked around, took a sip of wine. 'They have so many mouths to feed in their city that they need our grain. Aye – they import grain all the way from Propontis and the Euxine!'

Men shifted restlessly.

'I'm no hand at this. So here's what I'm trying to say. We cannot fight Thebes alone. We need a friend. Athens should be that friend. They need our grain.' He shrugged. 'I talked to some men in Athens. They talk to farmers as if they were men of substance, in Athens. Not like some bastards I've known, eh? And the men I talked to were very interested. Interested in being friends.'

He looked around.

I remember that I found the idea so exciting that I thought I might burst. Athens – glorious Athens, as an ally?

Which goes to show what you know when you're seven years old. The rest of them shuffled their feet and looked at the ground.

Draco shrugged. 'Listen, Epictetus. Your idea has merit – and it's time we started to talk about these things. No man here will deny that we need a friend. But Athens is so far. Over the mountains. Five hundred stades as the raven flies – more for a man and a cart.'

Myron, another farmer, leaned forward on his heavy staff. 'Athens would never send their phalanx over the mountains to protect us,' he said. He had a scar on his thigh from the same fight where Pater had been made lame. 'We need a friend with five thousand hoplites who will stand their ground beside us, not a friend who will come and avenge our corpses.'

Epictetus nodded to Myron – they had each other's measure, those two. 'It might be true,' he said. 'But we need a friend far enough away that he won't force us to be more than just an ally.' He looked around. 'Like Thebes and the so-called federation.'

All the men spat at the mention of Thebes.

Myron nodded. 'That's sense. How about Corinth?'

Evaristos, the handsomest of the men, shook his head. 'Corinth is too close and has too many ships and too few hoplites. And no need for our grain. And loves Thebes too well.'

Draco held out his cup to one of our slaves. 'A splash more, darling,' he said. 'What of Sparta? They've an army worth something, or so I hear.'

'Ten times the distance as Athens,' Epictetus said.

'I know,' Draco said. 'I made my pilgrimage last year to Olympia-'

'We know!' many of the men called, tired of Draco's endless travel tales.

'Listen, you oafs!' Draco shouted. They jeered him with humour, but then they were silent. He went on, 'Sparta is not like us. Their citizens – all they do is train for war.'

'And fuck little boys,' Hilarion put in. If the least rich of the farmers, he was the most cheerful and the best with a crowd. And the least respectful of authority. He shrugged. 'Hey – I've been to Sparta. Women there are lonely.'

Draco glared at Hilarion. 'Whatever their personal foibles, gentlemen, they're the best soldiers in Greece. And they don't farm, or make pots, or work metal. They fight. They can march here, if they have a mind to. Their farms will be tilled whether they march or not.'

'Their wives are lonely whether they march or not,' Hilarion added. 'Maybe while they march to save us, I'll just slip over the isthmus and visit a few of them.'

Pater spoke for the first time. 'Hilarion,' he said softly. He met the younger man's eyes, and Hilarion dropped his.

'Sorry,' he said.

Pater walked into the middle of them. 'My sense of what you say,' he began, 'is that you all support the idea of finding ourselves a foreign friend.'

They looked at each other. Then Epictetus stood and emptied his cup. 'That's the right of it,' he said.

'But none of us knows what will suit us – Athens or Sparta or Corinth – or perhaps Megara.' Pater shrugged. 'We're a bunch of Boeotian farmers. Epictetus here has at least been to Attica, and Draco's been to the Peloponnese.' He looked around. 'Who would want to be our friend?'

Epictetus winced, but said nothing.

'If we trained harder, our men could beat the Thebans!' said Myron's son, a fire-breather called Dionysius. 'And then we'd have no need of these foreigners.'

Myron put a hand on his son's shoulder. The boy was only just old enough to take his stand, and hadn't been there for the defeat. 'Boy, when they bring five thousand against our one thousand,' he said, 'there's no amount of training that will help us. No man here cares a tinker's damn how many we kill – only that we win.'

The older men nodded agreement. The Iliad was a fine story for children, but Boeotian farmers know just what war brings – burned crops, raped daughters and death. The glory is fleeting, the expense immense and the effect permanent.