I should have refused.
First, Aristides was confused to find me at his elbow. He smiled at me. I had to look at him for a long time to see the cool swordsman – my toughest opponent from the beach. 'So,' he gave his slight smile, 'you have come to take your place among the captains?'
I grinned, and walked off to pour wine for Archi, and then I caught the Athenian's look, and it was one of anger. None of the men at the party knew how to talk to me – was I a cup-bearer or a champion? It made them uneasy. Which, in turn, made me uneasy.
Then there was Briseis. She moved among them, dressed in a Doric chiton of pure new linen, shining white, and transparent, and they watched her the way dogs watch the slave with the food.
I had to watch the interplay among the captains, and I didn't like it. Aristides was not the chief of the Athenians – that was Melanthius, an older man, and an astute politician, but not, I think, much of a fighter. Melanthius shared a couch with Aristagoras and they drank together like friends, but I could see that Aristides thought little of either of them. Aristagoras was belligerent and fawning by turns, a depressing sight. Diomedes' father, Agasides, was there and Briseis treated him as if he were made of dung, which he reciprocated. And yet, Hipponax supported him as the war leader of the Ephesians.
There was a captain named Eualcidas from Eretria in Euboea, a famous athlete who had been praised by Simonides the poet, and another Eretrian, Dikaios, who made clear that he loathed all the Athenians more than he hated the Persians. I stared at them, for every one must have been at the fight by the bridge where my father died and I was made a slave.
The Eretrians had come with five ships because of their ancient alliance with the men of Miletus, of which Aristagoras was once again ruler, although he disdained the title of tyrant now that he had returned to them, and claimed that he would liberate all the Greeks of Asia and give them democracies.
The Milesians and Eretrians had sailed up the river together, fifty ships or more, and landed their men in the precinct of Koressos. Aristagoras was now the accepted commander of the war, and the whole purpose of the war had changed, because all the Greek cities had declared. Now it was the Trojan War. Now all the Greeks were going to make war on Persia. They planned to seize Sardis, expel the satrap Artaphernes and then perhaps march on Persepolis. And that night was the first I had heard of any of these things.
None of them noticed me, but they bickered among themselves aplenty, thugater. If I had been half the veteran I thought myself, I'd have smelled the trouble the way Aristides did.
Aristides watched them with contempt, and Archi worried and fidgeted. Hipponax watched them looking at his daughter, and Briseis rode the wave of their lust like a skilled helmsman.
It was not a pretty party, and I should not have been there. They drank, and quarrelled, and each of them thought he was Agamemnon or Achilles. On the sixth bowl of wine, Dikaios the Eretrian raised the cup.
'Your daughter moves like a dancer – can her lips do what flute girls do?' he asked.
Men hooted – and then fell silent. Hipponax rose from his kline and he looked ready to kill.
'Leave my house,' he said.
Dikaios laughed. 'You dress her like a whore and put her at a party, and then you're offended when I speak what every man thinks? You easterners are soft, and your women are whores.' He drank the wine.
The cup rang like a gong when it hit the floor, and his head hit only a moment later. It rang hollow, like a gourd. He was out.
I had put him in that condition, and now I lifted him – I was strong, then – and carried him to the courtyard, then threw him into the street, in the dung. Oh, it is easy to make enemies!
Darkar stopped me from going back to the party. So I went to my bed, and later I went to Briseis, and she embraced me with a vigour that frightened me.
'I loved how you hurt him,' she said. 'What do flute girls do?'
I explained, with some blushes, what they do. She laughed. 'Not enough in it for me,' she said. 'What pleasure does the girl get?' and we laughed together. The next morning, I ran six stades with Archi and he beat all of us. We threw javelins and fought with spears. After we had clashed shields and bruised each other for an hour, Agasides came and ordered us down to the beach. Heralds were crying in the agora and on the steps of all the temples, and the whole army was assembling for the first time.
The beach was a vision of Chaos. We stood together in a mob, perhaps seven thousand men, and Aristagoras placed his contingents in the phalanx. He put the Athenians on the right of the line, in the place of honour. The Ephesians were in the centre, towards the left.
When Agasides had his place in the battle line, he chose men for the front rank. He chose Hipponax, but he did not choose me or Archi. Few men of Ephesus knew me, and despite my excellent armour and my victory in games, the Ephesians didn't see me as a citizen (which I was not). Agasides, of course, knew me – as one of the men who had injured his son, and as a former slave.
So Archilogos and I were placed together – in the fifth rank. We were, without a doubt, the two best athletes in the city, and probably the best men-at-arms, but Ephesus had known three generations of peace, and Agasides placed men according to his likes and dislikes and with no eye towards the phalanx as a fighting machine. Hipponax had fought pirates several times, and despite his reputation as a soft poet, was a good choice. But all the other front-rankers were Agasides' drinking companions, business partners and political allies.
We were one of the last contingents to form, and we looked bad. Other contingent commanders came and stared at us while we grumbled and switched places endlessly. A man would make his claim to the front rank – always couched in political terms – and Agasides would stand indecisively, balancing one interest against another.
When, at last, we were in our places, Aristagoras came and addressed us, and for all his faults he had lungs of brass. We were told that the army would march up-country to Sardis over the passes in the mountains, and that all the hoplites and their slaves should assemble in two days, after the feast of Heracles – that is the feast that they celebrate in Ephesus, nothing like our Boeotian feasts. Two days, and we would march.
It was the first time most men had heard that we'd be marching up-country, and there was much grumbling.
I talked to the men around me and realized that none of them had ever stood in a shield wall or fought with bronze or iron. They were like a pack of virgins going to do the work of flute girls. I was a mere seventeen, but I had seen three pitched battles and I had killed.
Archi took me aside after the muster. 'You've got to stop talking so much,' he said. 'You'll take the spirit out of us! Sometimes I regret that you are free. You cannot speak to the first men of the city as if they were simpletons.'
I shrugged. 'Archi, they are fools, and men are going to die. I have fought in a phalanx. None of these men have. I should be in the front rank.'
Aristides had his helmet perched on his brow. He was leaning on his spears, listening to us, and then he came over. He glanced at Agasides and spat. 'You were there when your father stopped the Spartans?' he asked.
I nodded. 'I was there,' I said. I didn't mention that I had been a psilos throwing rocks.
He nodded. 'You should be in command, then. These children,' and he nodded to Archi, 'will die like sacrificed goats if we face the Medes.'