Out in the harbor our ships are burning and going down. Along the shore the enemy infantry waits. Where I am, on the palisade, the foe keeps coming. Ram and back water, ram and back water. These sons of whores are good. Even after ten hours, their blades bite in unison. I am flung rearward into the backwash. The surface is choked with arrowshafts, marine javelins, and shivered oars. My strength fails. A ship passes over. I’m going down for good when I wake in terror.
It has been my experience that in certain instances of battle or other moments of extreme peril, reality as it is normally experienced becomes supplanted by a dreamlike state in which events seem to unfold with a stately deliberateness, a retardation almost leisurely, and we ourselves stand apart as if observers of our own peril. A sense of wonder pervades all; one becomes vividly, preternaturally aware, not alone of danger but of beauty as well. He sees, and keenly appreciates, such subtleties as the play of light upon water, even such surface incarnadined with the blood of comrades dearly loved, or his own. One is able to observe to himself, “I am going to die now,” and absorb this with equanimity.
My brother was fascinated by this phenomenon of dislocation. Its stem, he maintained, was fear. Fear so overpowering that it drives the animating spirit from the flesh, as in death. In those moments, Lion believed, we actually were dead. The element of soul had fled; it must find its vessel of flesh and reinhabit it. Sometimes, Lion professed, the soul did not wish to. It was happier whereto it had vacated. This was battle madness, mania maches; the lost soul, the “thousand-yard stare.”
Lion believed that ambition, too, could drive the soul from the body, as could passionate love, greed, or possession by wine and drugs. He warranted that certain forms of government, or misgovernment, could deprive entire populations of their soul. But I drift apart from our tale.
You must bear with me, my friend, if recollection of those days passes before the inward eye as flotsam and marine debris, untethered to the moorings of time. This is how Sicily stands, or drifts, within my recall—as neither dream nor reality but some third state, recaptured only in snatches, as a battle glimpsed through smoke upon the water.
I remember the eve of Alcibiades’ recall. This was at Catana in Sicily, three months gone from Athens. Lion and I had embarked in posts not directly under our commander, but he had ordered us and others of long-standing acquaintance seconded to his party. He wanted men he trusted. And he wished to present the most concerted corps of companions when he opened negotiations with the Sicilian cities.
Naxos came over at once; Catana after a little knuckle-busting. Messana lacked only a nudge. He took a deputation of four ships to Camarina, which, though Dorian, had been Athens’ ally in the past and which, our commander’s agents now claimed, was ripe to fall. She sealed her gates, however, refusing even to let us land. Alcibiades ordered the tiny flotilla back to Catana. When it got there, the state galley Salaminia was waiting, with the orders revoking his command.
I was in Alcibiades’ party when Salaminia’s master approached, accompanied by two summoners of the Assembly. These were both men of Scambonidae, Alcibiades’ home district, known to him, so as not to provoke his defiance. All were unarmed. The officers presented their papers and commanded him to accompany them to Athens, to stand trial for impiety, profanation, and treason. All expressed regret at the unfortunate nature of their errand. If Alcibiades wished, he need not return a prisoner aboard Salaminia but follow in his own ship. However, he must embark at once, no later than morning.
That night one spoke of nothing but the prospect of a coup. Nicias and Lamachus called out the marines, myself and Lion among them; we were posted eight to a vessel and by companies at arms up and down the strand.
Years later I served aboard Calliope with the younger Pericles. Alcibiades’ executive officer Antiochus had been his mentor in naval warfare. Antiochus had told him, Pericles recounted, that Alcibiades, anticipating his recall for trial, had for months been orchestrating a campaign via post and through allies at home whose object was to have the charges against him reframed and the indictment of profanation, the only one he truly feared because of the passionate outrage it evoked among the people, dropped. This goal, letters received two days previous confirmed, had been effected. Such was the news Alcibiades had been hoping for. Against these reduced charges he was certain he could prevail, defending himself in person before the Assembly. Now on the strand at Catana, however, the summoners informed him, apparently in ignorance of the consequences, that the profanation charges had in fact not been dropped. Alcibiades had been double-crossed, and with brilliance, too late in the game to reply with a counter.
Among Alcibiades’ counselors, Mantitheus, Antiochus, and his cousin also named Alcibiades lobbied most vehemently for a coup, dissent voiced by Euryptolemus and Adeimantus. Those who championed this supreme stroke urged Alcibiades to seize command of the expedition here and now, imprisoning or if necessary putting to death all who refused to take his side. Nor did these radicals quit there. They proposed abandoning the Sicilian campaign where it stood and setting sail with the entire fleet for Athens, where Alcibiades, backed by army and navy, would declare himself master of the state.
It was Alcibiades himself who repudiated this. “I would not take Athens as a mistress,” he asserted, “but a bride.”
Many have derided this quip as facile and disingenuous, contending that Alcibiades only acceded to the summoners’ decree because he believed he had in place at Athens sufficient cohorts to carry his case; or that his agents had already suborned ample in authority to effect his exoneration. I don’t believe this. I think he meant exactly what he said. I allege this not in defense of the man, to characterize him as chivalrous or honor-compassed (though he was both), for consider: such a statement bespeaks an arrogance both supreme and breathtaking.
That was how he felt, I believe. Athens was in his view not nation to be served, but consort to be won; to gain her by means other than her own freely offered affection would be to dishonor her and himself. He craved not love nor power but both, each fed by and founded upon the other.
I had conjured none of this then, as the deputies served their summons beside the beached Artemisia. All, I account, however, comprised Alcibiades’ reflection. I regarded him. His expression was informed neither by rage nor vindictiveness, though he came subsequently to act with both in abundance. What I perceived was sorrow. I believe he stood in that instant apart from himself and his fate, as a man at the peak of peril will be lifted and granted vision of the full field. Like a master gamesman, Alcibiades perceived move and countermove four and five turns ahead, all boding evil, yet could discern no masterstroke by which he or his city could escape this end.
“What will you do?” Euryptolemus asked his cousin.
Alcibiades stared gravely, straight ahead.
“Not sail home to be murdered, that much is certain.”
XIX
A CHRONICLER OF STRIFE
Alcibiades fled at Thurii. To Argos first, men said, then Elis when that became too hot, one jump ahead of the state agents and fee hunters. My brother was among the military posse, led by the crew of the Salaminia, that chased him around Italy’s boot.
…these vaunted elite of the state galley are a pretty confection, brother. Though of the cult of Ajax and thus kinsmen of their prey, they hunt him as he were a rabid dog. At Padras he was rumored to be fled to an inn; our search party torched the site in darkness, nearly incinerating a dozen innocents, nor tarried to proffer reparation, but another rumor of our quarry’s whereabouts drove us on a further wild-goose chase. These buggers play for keeps, Pommo. They put one poor lad to the cheese grater, though the boy was no older than twelve. Next up was a sprat fisher. These heirs of Eurysaces took him two miles out and, heaving first one of his sons, then the other into the drink to drown, at last chucked the skipper himself. Such stunts these agents of the state perform with a dry eye and a wisecrack.
Clearly they fear the consequences of retu
rning home without their charge; yet it is more than this, Pommo. Why do they hate him so? His own kinsmen! They own a zealotry more void of pity than the partisans we used to see in the islands. This very note must be smuggled out. If these birds cadge a peek at it, they will stretch my hide, and yours, upon the nearest door.
Alcibiades was not the only commander ordered home for trial. Mantitheus, too, was indicted, trierarch of the Penelope, as was Antiochus, the ablest pilot in Greece, Adeimantus, and Alcibiades’ cousin also named Alcibiades. Six other officers were summoned as well.
From my cousin Simon at Athens:
…Salaminia returned. No Alcibiades. He legged it in Italy, on hearing the Assembly had condemned him to death in absentia, though you probably have this news already. “I will let Athens know,” he is said to have pronounced, “that I am very much alive.”
Winter came. With Alcibiades and his companions gone, the fleet had lost not only its boldest and most enterprising officers but those most passionately devoted to the expedition. Nicias and Lamachus now shared command. At once all initiative fled. Instead of advancing with vigor against the cities of Sicily, cutting Syracuse off from her natural allies, Nicias made one halfhearted pass at cowing her directly, then ordered the fleet to retire for winter to Catana. I languished there two months before Pandora was dispatched, mercifully, to Iapygia, seeking horses for the cavalry. Lion was there too, with Medusa.
Iapygia, as you know, is the heel of Italy’s boot. It blows like hell up there, wild gales the non-Greek natives call nocapelli, bald heads. You get all the news, though; every vessel puts in at Caras, and the crews, flush with gossip, are glad of a toasty hearth to spill it in. Lion and I learned of our absconded commander from the master of a Tyrrhenian coaster who had it from a boatswain of Corinth who had run Conon’s blockade of the gulf. This Corinthian had accompanied his captain to Sparta; he had passed two evenings in the Hyacinthieum and even been permitted upon the porticoes of the apella, the Assembly, where foreigners are occasionally licensed to attend upon the debate within.
Alcibiades had fled neither to Italy nor to the moon, imparted our informant. He was at Sparta. “And not on the gibbet either. But free and in his glory, the cynosure of all Lacedaemon!”
This intelligence was greeted with hooting disbelief by the mariners who packed the public room.
“This same perfumed coxcomb,” our captain continued, unperturbed, “who in the Assembly of Athens swathed himself in purple and trailed his robe astern in the dust, this same profligate and libertine, I say, in short this consummate Athenian, now in Sparta has recast himself and hatched a new Alcibiades, unrecognizable to all who knew him hitherto.
“This new Alcibiades garments himself in plain Spartan scarlet, tramps about with soles unshod, curls cascading to his shoulders in the Lacedaemonian style. He takes his meals in the common mess, bathes in the frigid Eurotas, and lays himself down each night upon a bed of reeds. He dines on black broth and takes wine only in moderation. Of speech he is as parsimonious as if words were gold and he a miser. At break of day one may discover him afield and asweat, training upon the running course. Forenoon finds him in the gymnasium or upon the athletic grounds, into whose games he plunges with a passion exceeding even that of his most ardent and accomplished hosts. In short the man has become more spartan than the Spartans, and they idolize him for it. Boys trail him about, Peers compete to call him comrade, and women…well, the laws of Lycurgus promote polyandry, as you know, so that even men’s wives may dote openly upon this paragon of whom all declare,
…here is not a second Achilles,
but the man, the very man himself.”
The seamen responded with an anthem of knuckle raps on the benchtops. Later Lion and I interrogated the Tyrrhenian aside in a more sober vein. What had his friend reported of Alcibiades’ intentions? Clearly our erstwhile commander had not decamped to Sparta to play at ball or train on the track.
“That square of sail I trimmed from my fable, mates. I doubted it would prompt a smile.”
“Spill it now, friend.”
“He works against you, brothers, and with all his bowels. That avidity with which he in past paid court to Athens, with matching gall he now plots her ruin. You know what stay-at-homes the Lacedaemonians are and how tardy to act. Well, Alcibiades gave them an earful of Athenian fire, enough to rouse even those boneheads from their slumber.
“The Spartans had held the fate of Sicily as not affecting their interests. Alcibiades apprised them otherwise. Who, he inquired, would know better the expedition’s object than himself, its author? This he declared to be neither Sicily, Italy, nor Carthage, but these, conquered, to serve as stepping-stones to an assault upon the Peloponnese, whose ultimate aim was the conquest of Sparta herself. In terms most passionate he exhorted his hosts to dispatch at once to Syracuse all aid they could spare and proffered diverse other counsels to bring evil upon his countrymen.”
We returned to Catana with the spring. The place was gloomier, even, than I remembered. Curfew had been instituted. Wages came late, and in chits not coin; there were brawls every payday. Simon reports Alcibiades’ odor at home:
…the Assembly has gone so far as to enact a motion of imprecation; the Eumolpid priests have placed a curse upon him. How Homeric! So many turned out, it sparked a riot. This is no joke, Pommo. Alcibiades will doubtless seek to bring the Spartan army against you, or at least have them dispatch a crack general. Win fast, cousin. Or better, get home.
On the second of Munychion the army moved out for Syracuse. Lion brought his new woman Berenice. We held all in common, including correspondence. When I finished reading aloud cousin Simon’s letter, Berenice asked if she might have it. “For Lion’s historia.”
My brother was compiling a chronicle of the war.
“Why the hell shouldn’t I? I know my alphas and betas as well as the next moron. Besides, here is a tale worth telling, one whose publication cannot fail to produce fortune and renown and relieve its author ever after of squandering his hours with such as yourself.”
I declared this a noble ambition.
“Attend my logic, Pommo. These verses of Homer:
…into the manslaughter advanced Peleus’
peerless son, god-born Achilles, and in their
ranks he broke the enemy before him…
“Or this:
…these he left in numbers upon the field,
a feast for dogs and crows…
“Now I put this to you, brother. Who would you and I be, upon that thousand-years-gone field? Not Achilles, that’s certain! We’d be the luckless bastards mowed down beneath his blade. And our obituary? One louse-ridden line, lumped with fifty other nameless ciphers. Yet these are the men, don’t you see, whose story cries out most to be told. Our story! By the gods, we are heroes too. And is not the paying public comprised precisely of such as we? Other gentlemen of the armored infantry. They will eat up my narrative, which I will recite to unceasing citation within the salons and auditoria of our nation. I may even set it to music and accompany myself on the lyre.”
A number of mates had clustered with their women. And who, our comrade Chowder inquired, will play Achilles to your Homer?
Why, Alcibiades of course!
“The Iliad,” Lion reedified his adherents, “narrates the tale of the wrath of Achilles
and the destruction in its train which wreaked havoc upon the Achaeans, hurling in their hosts to hell stout souls of heroes…
“Consider, friends. Wronged by his king and commander, Achilles sheathes his blade and retires to his tent. This prayer he makes: that his countrymen discover, by the sufferings they must now endure, how far the best of them he is, and bemoan bitterly that they have let him be so ignobly used.
“Is not Alcibiades’ equation identical, my friends, excepting only this: our modern Achilles has gone his counterpart one better. Not only had he retired from contending at our side, depriving us of his skills and counsel, but now he yokes hi
mself to the cause of our enemy, applying his full rage and resourcefulness in their interest, against us.”
Lion’s listeners began to squirm.
“It gets worse, brothers. For this enemy, Sparta, has never wanted in valor or skill in warfare. All she lacks is that which our contemporary Achilles may provide her: vision and audacity. Alcibiades will rouse this enemy to initiatives she would never have undertaken absent his urgings and provide her with masterstrokes of strategy she could never have advanced upon her own.”
“Enough, Lion!” Chowder elevated his palms.
“Ah, friends, you fail yet to perceive the genius of my construct. For my epic, unlike Homer’s, discovers its significance not among divinely spawned champions and their destinies, but here in the dirt with us sons of mortals who must endure them. Upon us, the grimy heroes of my tale, falls the necessity to gift it with significance. Alcibiades will serve our story, not we his. This is how modern war differs from mythic.”
To my cousin, that summer:
…we are in action at last, if you can call building a wall action. The army took the heights, called Epipolae, overlooking the city. A few hundred killed, mostly theirs. This is what it is like. We start our wall. The Syracusans commence a counterwall at right angles to cut ours off. They march out in mass and erect a stockade. Behind this they bring the counterwall out, then build another stockade and continue. They are scared pissless and work feverishly.
Several days later:
…the picked companies attacked their wall at noon, when the sun’s heat renders all insensate. Tore it down. They built a second, across the marsh called Feverside adjacent the harbor. Our marines were called up in support of about two thousand heavy infantry. We marched into the swamp carrying doors and boards to lay over the muck. At one point our lads were planting their own bodies, upon which we trod and fought from. At the height of this nastiness, the fleet, which had been held back up north, sailed into the harbor. That did it. The Syracusans ran for cover. Lamachus was killed, however. Now Nicias holds sole command.