Ivan Yefremov - Thais of Athens

Egesikhora entered briskly as usual, then stopped, blinded by the transition from light to the dusk of the bedroom. Without a moment’s hesitation, she dropped her light chiton and sat at the feet of her friend, who sprawled nude on the bed. Judging from Egesikhora’s fluttering nostrils and heaving breasts, Thais surmised that the Spartan was angry.

“What is wrong?” she asked lazily.

“I don’t know. I’m mad at everything. I am sick of our Athenians. They are loud, talkative, and too willing to gossip. Are they really those great builders, artists, scholars and warriors of whom so much was written in the times of Pericles? Or has everything changed since then?”

“I don’t understand,” Thais replied. “What’s come over you? Did you get food poisoning at yesterday’s symposium? The wine did taste a bit sour …”

“Maybe it was just the wine for you, but my entire life feels sour to me. Athens is getting more and more crowded. People are snappy from being cooped up, from being deafened by the noise, the shouting, the constant lack of water and food. In this heat everyone sees everyone else as if they were an enemy. And the gineconomes are mad for no good reason. Before long, an attractive woman won’t be able to show up at Agora or at the Acropolis in the evenings.”

Thais nodded thoughtfully. “I agree with you on that subject. Athens is getting tight, as is the entire Attica. They say five hundred thousand people now live in Attica.”

“Holy mother Demeter! There aren’t more than a hundred and fifty thousand in all of Sparta. In such multitudes, people can only interfere with each other and get angry. They see luxury and beauty and become jealous, saturating the air with vapors of black bitterness.”

“It’s not just a lack of space, Egesikhora. There are also consequences to the recent war, especially last year’s. Our handsome prince is now the king of Macedonia and essentially the ruler of Hellas. And he is not afraid to bare his wolfish teeth, glory be to the Lykean Apollo. To this day, Theban men are sold for a mere hundred drachmas at the market, and women for a hundred and fifty. The city itself has been wiped off the face of Gaea. The entire Hellas was horrified.”

“Except Sparta.”

“Will Sparta hold out on its own? Your king, Agis, is doing badly. He wanted to stand alone when joining forces with the Greeks would have resulted in victory. Now he is left to stand alone against a mighty enemy.”

Egesikhora sighed. “Only two years have passed since the Macedonian boys came to us,” she said.

“Only the Macedonian? And what about Crete?”

The Lacedemonian flushed, then continued. “Philip was murdered, Alexander became king and the main warlord of Hellas destroyed Thebes. Now …”

Thais nodded. “Now he is headed for Persia, continuing his father’s mission.”

“Have you heard from Ptolemy? Has it been long?”

“I have heard from him,” Thais said, closing her eyes. “It was during one of the dog days of Hekatombeon. There has been nothing since then. He does send me one letter a year.” She sighed. “In the beginning he used to send five.”

“When did he send you this?” the Spartan asked, touching the third star that glittered against her friend’s coppery skin.

Thais looked away, then spoke again after a pause. “Ptolemy writes that Alexander truly possesses a divine gift. Like Themistocles, he can instantly come up with a new maneuver, make a different decision if the first one isn’t working. But Themistocles was drawn to the west, whereas Alexander is going east.”

“Which one is right?”

“How would I know? The east is filled with legendary treasures, countless peoples, and limitless space. In the west there are fewer people, and Themistocles even dreamed of moving Athenians to Entoria, beyond the Ionic Sea. But he died in exile in the mountains of Thessaly. His tomb is on the western side of the Pyrean hill where he liked to sit, gazing upon the sea. I have been there. It is a secluded spot of both serenity and sadness.”

“Why sadness?”

“I don’t know. Can you say why deep grief, even terror overcomes people in the ruins of Mycenae? It is a menacing, forbidden place, rejected by gods. On Crete they take visitors to see Pasiphae’s [8] Pasiphae was one of the daughters of the Sun, given in marriage to King Minos of Crete. Poseidon cursed her with lust for any male, and sent her a white bull. After mating with the bull, Pasiphae gave birth to Minotaur — the terrible half-man, half-bull, who dwelled in the Cretan labyrinth and killed many young men and women, until he himself was slain by Theseus. Pasiphae became a symbol of untamed bestial lust. tomb. It, too, fills travelers with fear, as if the shadow of the queen with a glorious name and terrible fame stands near them.”

“You ought to be called Pantodae, my dear,” Egesikhora said, then kissed her friend in delight. “Let’s go to Themistocles’ tomb and be melancholy together. I feel a kind of rage against this life. I need consolation but cannot find it.”

“You yourself are telktera, a consoling sorceress, as the poets say,” Thais objected. “It is just that we are becoming older and see life differently even as our expectations become greater.”

“What do you expect then?”

Thais shrugged. “I don’t know. A change, a voyage perhaps.”

“What about love? What about Ptolemy?”

“Ptolemy does not belong to me. He is a telictratus, a conqueror of women. I will not live with him like a hidden away Athenian or Macedonian wife. And I don’t wish to be called a rafanide in case of an affair. I could have gone with him far, far away but I did not.” She took a deep breath, then changed topic. “Let’s go to the Pyrean hill today. I’ll send Clonaria with a note to Olorus and Xenophilos. They are good young men, courageous and strong. Xenophilos performed at the last Olympic games in youth wrestling. They will accompany us. We’ll sail in the evening, when the heat diminishes, and spend a moonlit night there.”

“With two men?”

“Those two are so fond of each other they only need us as friends.”

Thais returned home before the sun’s rage befell the white streets of Athens. Strange musings came to her there, at the hill slope above Themistocleyon. She and Egesikhora sat together while their two companions sprawled out near the boat and discussed the upcoming trip to Parnea for the wild boar hunt.

When they were settled quietly, Egesikhora could hold her tongue no longer, and told her friend a secret. She said that Eositeus, the younger cousin of Agis, king of Sparta, was sailing to Egypt with a large detachment of soldiers, hired by the Egyptian pharaoh Hababash as his bodyguards. He was probably planning to oust the Persian envoy. Six ships were about to depart together and the leader of Lacedemonians was calling Egesikhora to come with him, promising the beautiful daughter of Sparta great glory in the country of poets and ancient art.

Egesikhora held Thais tightly against her and tried to talk her into coming with her to the legendary Egypt. She’d be able to visit Crete, and with such reliable guards she needn’t fear pirates or thieves.

Thais reminded her friend of what Nearchus had told them both about the demise of the ancient beauty of Crete, the disappearance of the original population, the squalor that presently reigned on the island, decimated by uncontrolled attacks and wars of various tribes. As a result of fires and earthquakes, the palaces of Knossos and Festus had turned into piles of rubble, the natives had left and no one could read the inscriptions in the forgotten language.

However, the giant stone horns could still be seen here and there in the hills, as if the bulls of Poseidon the Earth Keeper were rising from under the ground, and broad staircases still descended to the platforms designated for sacred games. Sometimes people ran into the shards of heavy amphorae as tall as two human heights, with snakes curling around their sides. Water still splashed in clean sparkling basins, still ran down the water pipes …