“Er … no,” I said.
“I knew if it happened, I’d never see my sire again. My father’s fear was palpable, even when he sat in his own courtyard.”
“I wonder that anyone supported the tyrant.”
The Basileus snorted. “It’s very simple. In that situation, if you want to survive, then you do what you’re told. Especially if you’re not overwhelmingly interested in concepts such as freedom. Enough men acted to save themselves, and it swept along the rest, until only those bent on suicide dared resist.”
“Did your father resist, sir?”
“My father was one of those who valued his life. He saved himself by giving the tyrant mild support. Father held a few minor administrative posts under Hippias, and that’s one of the reasons I’m here today. I’m not proud of it, but it’s what happened. He was never actively involved in the killings, mind you! I want to emphasize that.”
The Basileus stood there and waited for me to comment. I considered my words.
“I see,” I said, slowly. “I suppose you might argue that the city has to be administered, even when the government’s bad.”
“Precisely. If you want the ones who freed us, then you need to speak to the Alcmaeonid clan.”
“The Alcmaeonids?”
“You know them well. They’re the family of Pericles on his mother’s side. It was they who fomented the second plot against Hippias, the one that finally succeeded. You young men admire Pericles for his voice, but we older men tolerate him because he has the finest pedigree of any man alive.”
I said, “Pericles’s parents and grandparents are all dead.”
“So they are. If you want to know about those times, the only man alive that you could ask is Callias.”
“Callias!” I repeated, shocked. I knew him.
“Yes. The family of Pericles instigated the rebellion, but it was Callias who funded it. He was in thick with the whole plot.”
That afternoon, I took the road out of the Dipylon Gates, turned right, and walked to the family estate of Pericles. It was only a short distance, because the property had been there since time immemorial; the oldest families had the estates closest to Athens, and the family of Pericles was of the oldest, stretching back to the time of King Theseus and beyond.
Come to that, my own family was ancient too. Father claimed descent from Daedalus, the genius inventor who created the Labyrinth in far-off Crete, and who after the fall of King Minos had fled to Athens to begin a new life. The difference was, genius inventors don’t make money.
The road I walked followed Pericles’s land before reaching his farmhouse. I looked at the olive trees with interest, the sheep and the corn planted in the fertile soil, and I felt a glow of satisfaction that something like this would soon be mine. There was a shepherd boy trailing the sheep (of course, otherwise they would have wandered off), and I waved at him happily; he stared back as if no one ever waved at shepherd boys.
The farmhouse, when I came to it, lay off the road behind a stone fence and a wooden gate. The house surprised me in its small size, but then I reflected that Pericles spent all his time in the city, as indeed had his father before him, and the farmhouse probably hadn’t been updated for two generations. But the house and the barn beside it were well kept and spoke of proper care.
Pericles stood out the front, in conversation with an older man who was dressed in farm clothes, which is to say a loincloth and a broad-brimmed hat of straw. His skin was as burnt as my cooking.
As I walked up to them, Pericles said, without preamble, “Ah, good day to you, Nicolaos. This is Simaristos. He runs the estate for me. He’ll be coming with us.”
The older man nodded and said, “Call me Sim. Everyone does.”
No one had to tell me that Simaristos was a slave. No free man would willingly work for another, and Simaristos-Sim-had that air of hard-won competence that comes with a man who knows his business.
Pericles excused himself to see to other matters before we set off. Sim and I waited outside.
“Do you know anything about farming?” he asked, in a voice that implied he already knew the answer.
“I’m eager to learn,” I told him. After all, how hard could it be? Put seeds in the ground, watch them grow. If an uneducated farmer could do it, so could I.
Sim frowned. “Well, I hope you have more sense than my master.”
I blinked. “Pericles doesn’t have sense?”
“The man’s insane,” Sim said, and threw his arms up in disgust. “We lose money hand over fist. You want to know why? Because Pericles couldn’t be bothered with his own estate. This place is the source of his wealth, and he couldn’t give a rat’s ass. If it weren’t for me, he’d be broke.”
This was interesting stuff. I’d never before heard Pericles criticized, and certainly not by a slave. But this was no ordinary slave; Sim was entrusted with the good running of one of the most important estates in Athens.
“What does he do that’s so wrong?” I said. “I ask so I won’t make the same mistakes with my own land.”
“He insists we sell all our produce, at wholesale rates, mind you, and then buy what we need in the agora at retail prices. Can you believe it? May Zeus strike me dead if I lie. Dear Gods, I know of at least three occasions when my master has bought produce that he grew himself.”
Pericles walked up beside us as Sim finished his tirade. I wondered if he’d explode at hearing himself criticized by his own slave, but Pericles merely shrugged and said, “Running an estate this size is a full-time job. I have more important things to worry about.”
Sim said, “Master, I’ve told you before. You lose money every time you sell a basket of corn at wholesale rates and then buy another basket at retail. At least let me sort out what your family and the farm needs and set that aside.”
“No,” said Pericles. “Then I’d have to approve your choices, and I don’t have the time.”
This was a side to Pericles I’d never seen before: a man so engrossed in the running of Athens that he neglected his own business.
Pericles walked toward the fields. Sim and I followed.
I asked, “Where are we going?”
Pericles said, “I haven’t explained how I intend to do this, have I? Naturally I don’t have a spare farm in my purse, but this is a large estate, as you’ve seen. My plan is to apportion a part to you.”
Which meant I would become neighbor to Pericles.
We walked across the fields, through lush fields of barley. Presently I noticed a change in the land. It became harder, a trifle stonier, the vegetation more sparse.
We stopped at the foot of a large, barren hill.
“Here we are!” Pericles said in a jovial tone.
“This is it?”
We stood on stony, dry ground, with few bushes, but with straggly olive trees dotted about, so gnarled they looked ancient and ready to die. Among the trees was a small hut, so ill kept you could see through it where the wooden planks had rotted and fallen off.
This had to be the worst farmland in Attica. Pericles had tricked me.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” said Sim. He knew what I was thinking. “There are only the olive trees, no other plants, because we put lime here.”
“Lime?”
“Like from building sites. We get it cheaply and cart it in. Lime’s good for olives. Other plants don’t like it, though, so they don’t grow much.”
“You said you carted in lime,” I said to Sim.
“Yes.”
“How did you get it here?”
“How about … on a cart?” he suggested.
I didn’t own a cart. I’d have to get one. That would cost money. Of course, for the moment we had Blossom and the cart he came with, but Blossom was only a rental; we’d have to give him back.
“That stony hill’s no problem, either.”
I looked at him blankly.
“All these stones on the ground around us rolled down from the hill,” Sim explained patiently. “It don’t mean nothing about what the soil’s like, though I’ll grant you”-he gave Pericles a hard look-“I’ll grant you it would stand a little hoeing. Also, the hill’s to the north.”