—
The setbacks at Delium and Amphipolis disarmed the war party in Athens, and the general mood favored a settlement. As for the Spartans, they were desperate to see an end to the war and would agree to almost anything to get their men back from the island.
Discussions went on during the winter of 422. Nicias, now the chief man in the state following the death of Cleon, headed the negotiations and sought a durable peace. A final agreement valid for five decades was announced after the Great Dionysia the following year.
The basis of the treaty was the status quo ante. Each side was to return its gains made during the war. There were some awkward exceptions to the rule that were quietly glossed over. But Sparta would give back Amphipolis, the biggest prize, and a number of rebellious poleis in the north. The Boeotians would hand over a frontier fortress. Megara would have to put up with Athens its old enemy retaining the port of Nisaea. Corinth lost some northwestern possessions, now in the hands of Athens. For its part Nicias agreed to give up Pylos, Sphacteria, and its other footholds along the Peloponnesian coastline. All prisoners of war would be exchanged.
The treaty satisfied Sparta’s needs very well, but it enraged its allies. They cried foul and refused to accept it. The Spartans knew better; they trusted Athens not to meddle and were convinced that in time the likes of Corinth and Megara would understand that they had nowhere else to go for support but to Sparta. Sooner or later they would stop complaining and form up behind them.
If Pericles in the Elysian Fields learned of the entente, he will have been justifiably pleased. He would have opposed the aggressive policies of Cleon and his like, but they had produced the result he had wanted. The enemy had lost the will to carry on.
Athens was the winner, on points.
18
The Man Who Knew Nothing
Life and leisure in the city carried on despite the effects of war and the plague. The great annual festivals came and went, affluent citizens entertained one another at home, and shoppers haggled in the agora. Peace brought a welcome dividend, trade flourished, and tourists flocked to the city of light from all corners of the Eastern Mediterranean. Time passed agreeably.
One afternoon in January of the year 416, the young Athenian playwright Agathon held a dinner party followed by drinks. He had won the prize at the Lenaea or Country Dionysia drama festival with his first tragedy and wanted to celebrate the achievement. The previous day he had thrown a boozy function for the cast, but now, although he was hungover, he invited a few intimates to join him at his house.
Agathon was sensationally good-looking and “the lovely Agathon” became something of a catchphrase. Always well dressed, he cut a distinctive figure. He lived with his partner, Pausanias, and they seem to have constituted that rare thing in ancient Athens, an adult gay couple (later in life he is said to have been the partner of the aged tragedian Euripides). Nothing of his has survived, except for the stray quotation.
His guests included the comic playwright Aristophanes and one of the butts of the comic stage, Socrates. The events of the evening and the conversation that unfolded were described in a slim volume entitled The Symposium (taken from the Greek for “a drinking-together”), by Plato, a disciple of Socrates and an even greater philosopher than he.
Plato was said (perhaps mistakenly, but it is hard to be sure) to have written an erotic epigram about Agathon.
Kissing Agathon, my soul was on my lips.
It tried, stupid thing, to cross over into him.
The Symposium was written no earlier than 385 and is a masterpiece of world literature. It is a work of fiction, but Plato tricks out his account with all kinds of plausible detail, and perhaps faction is the better word. The playwright’s victory is historical and it is more likely than not that he marked it with a party. The guest list may have been different, but Plato’s description of upper-class hospitality in the fifth century is true to life. Those attending were, for the most part, well-known personalities and we may suppose that the opinions their literary avatars express echo those of the real-life personages.
There were no pubs or bars in ancient Athens, so far as we can tell. Apart from at public festivals, alcoholic refreshment was provided in private. In the houses of the well born and well-to-do, there was a men’s room (or andrōn). Here, at a symposium, writers, politicians, thinkers, and attractive young men could eat, drink wine, and talk; it was an opportunity for the sharing of traditional values and for homosexual bonding.
Those taking part wore garlands and reclined on couches, one or two apiece and leaning on their left elbow. Made of wood or stone, there were at least four couches—or room for the host and seven or more guests (women seldom attended and if they did sat on upright chairs). In front of each of them stood a three-legged table where drinking cups were placed and food served.
Food in ancient Athens was plain and simple. Olives, onions, and garlic were popular. Greeks ate a lot of bread with honey, cheese, and olive oil; it was usually made from barley, which was more plentiful than wheat; white wheat bread was the preserve of the wealthy. Milk was used in cooking, but seldom drunk. Fruits and nuts were readily available.
Produce familiar to us had not yet been discovered and exploited—potatoes, rice, oranges and lemons (although Jews are recorded as pelting a high priest with lemons in the first century B.C.), bananas, and tomatoes.
Plato does not give us Agathon’s dinner menu, but it might have included eels from Lake Copais in Boeotia. There were other possibilities. Dried or salted tuna, mackerel, and sturgeon were imported from the Black Sea and baked in olive oil with herbs. Anchovies and sardines were fished close to the Attic shore. Simple casseroles of poultry and game were often served, but for roast meat the Athenian had to await a religious sacrifice and so it was rarely on the menu at home. Everyone who attended a sacrifice received a portion of meat (the less edible parts of an animal were reserved for the gods, who seemed not to mind).
A gastronomic writer from Sicily, Archestratus, in the fourth century, approved of pork and roast birds. He observed:
As you sip your wine, let these delicacies be brought to you, pig’s belly and sow’s uterus, spiced with cumin and vinegar and silphium [probably a variety of fennel and used as a contraceptive as well as a seasoning], together with the tender species of roast birds, as each is in season.
Drinking wine was a serious, even a religious, business for the responsible Athenian. It was almost always mixed with water and could be artificially sweetened (sugar being unknown, its place was taken by honey or dried figs). A symposium was not an informal gathering at which everyone set out to get drunk; rather, it was governed by strict ritual.
Each stage of the proceedings was marked by an acknowledgment of the power of the gods. After everyone had eaten and the food had been cleared away, and before the wine was mixed with water, those present drank a few drops in honor of the agathos daimon, a kindly supernatural power or Good Spirit. They prayed to the daimon that they might do nothing indecent and not drink too much. They then poured three libations of wine—to Zeus of Olympus and the other Olympian gods, to the heroes (exceptional human beings who were regarded as divine), and to Zeus Soter, or Savior and Deliverer from Harm. This was followed by a hymn to Hygieia, the goddess or personification of health, cleanliness, and hygiene. “I pray that you be a gracious inmate of my house.”