The Marathon Conspiracy (31 page)

“Yes,” he said, without stopping the movement of his brush across the papyrus.

I’d seen plays at the theater, but this was the first time I’d seen one written down.

“I write military adventure,” Aeschylus said as he scribbled. “
The Persians. Seven Against Thebes
. They’re all war stories. That, and family drama like this trilogy I’m doing now. Dysfunctional families slaughtering one another. You know the sort of thing.” Aeschylus shrugged. “It’s what people like.”

“You never thought about doing serious work?” I asked. “Like Pindar does? I met him at Olympia.” Pindar was the foremost poet of the Hellenes and deeply revered.

“People say they admire Pindar, but in the contests what they vote for is my stuff.” Aeschylus paused. “Did you say you know Pindar?”

“Yes.”

“A decent writer, if a little stuck-up.”

I was beginning to wonder if that was a common trait among writers.

“What’s this one about?” I asked.

“It’s called
Agamemnon
,” he said. “I’m writing this for the next contest.”

He hadn’t stopped scribbling all the time we’d been talking. I peered over his shoulder to read the words.

“You just misspelled
KATAKAPΦOMENHΣ
.”

“I’m not surprised,” he said calmly. “There’re a lot of letters in it.”

But he didn’t go back to correct his error. Aeschylus continued to scribble new words.

“Aren’t you going to fix it?” I prodded after a moment.

“I’ll catch it in the edits,” he said, and ignored my helpful correction.

I got the impression Aeschylus wanted to be left alone, so I resolved to remain silent. I watched over his shoulder while he wrote a few more words.

“You just used the wrong declension of
ΔYNATON
.” I leaned across him to point out the mistake. Unfortunately my finger slipped and I smudged the line.

Aeschylus threw down his brush. “Perhaps I’ll write later,” he said. “I’m not concentrating well at the moment.”

“Oh, don’t mind me!”

“Not at all.”

Aeschylus called to the innkeeper for his best wine, in the forlorn hope that it might be drinkable.

“So what happens in your play?” I asked as we drank.

“It’s in three parts. In the first, Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon, murders her husband with an axe. That’s in revenge for him using their daughter as a human sacrifice before going off to the Trojan War for ten years. Also, she’s very angry about a slave girl that he brings back with him.”

“Yes, I’ve had that problem too,” I murmured, half to myself.

“Your wife took an axe to you?” Aeschylus asked solicitously.

“No. Diotima and I aren’t married yet. The bit about the slave girl.” I explained that Diotima had once been very displeased to find me in the company of a beautiful slave by the name of Asia. It had all been entirely innocent, but convincing Diotima of that had been tricky.

Aeschylus shrugged. “Wives can be irrational about such things.”

“What happens next in the play?”

“In part two, Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, slaughters his mother in revenge for her taking an axe to his father. He also offs his mother’s lover.”

“Fair enough.”

“Then in part three, the Furies attack Orestes as a kin-slayer. He’s saved at the last moment by the goddess Athena. The gods hold a trial over the whole affair. Orestes gets off on a hung jury. Athena invites the Furies to live in Athens forever by way of compensation, since they’re not allowed to tear Orestes into little bits. The play closes with women and children singing the praises of the gods and the mysterious workings of destiny.”

“Seems a bit flat on the climax,” I said.

“What’s wrong with it?” Aeschylus said. For some reason he seemed defensive.

“After all that murder and mayhem, it ends with a not-guilty? Your fans will never go for it, Aeschylus. Also, it’s obvious Orestes did it. I have an idea to fix the plot—”

“If you can do better, young man, I look forward to seeing you at the next contest. Come with your own play, then we’ll see who’s got the plot.”

“I might do that,” I said. Now that I’d seen how Aeschylus did it, the writing seemed very simple, and I knew I could spell better.

T
HE PLAN WAS
for Aeschylus to stand where he’d stood all those years ago, when he saw the flashing signal. We would try to reflect light using his shield, from the direction in which he said the signal had come. At the end, we would know whether it was a soldier or someone else who had talked to the enemy. The answer would narrow our field of suspects.

There was nothing to distinguish Marathon from any other Hellenic fishing village. The people lived on the coast, beside a spring where a stream of fresh water flowed. Their homes were small and designed for shelter from the wind more than comfort. They didn’t bother with a jetty. Each morning the fishermen hauled their craft off the sands and straight into the sea.

We ate a simple breakfast of figs and bread and watered wine, before Aeschylus led us out of the town, through a grove of olive trees that grew behind the houses, and onto the open field. It was a short walk. Aeschylus stopped at the edge.

The plain of Marathon didn’t look like a battlefield. It looked like a good place for a camping holiday.

“This is the first time I’ve been back,” Aeschylus said to us as he surveyed the scene for long moments. “It’s been thirty years.”

We could only imagine what Aeschylus must be feeling.

“Has it changed much since you saw it last?” Diotima asked.

“There are fewer Persians,” Aeschylus said shortly. “It’s a distinct improvement.”

He stepped forward and we followed behind, not wishing to disturb his memories with our talk.

I’d always thought of Marathon as being a small place, but it wasn’t. The open land before us was roughly rectangular in outline, some two thousand paces across the short side, and perhaps three times that in length, stretching along the coast to the northeast. From where we stood, the village lay in the bottom right-hand corner of the field of battle.

Before us, two hundred paces away, was an enormous mound of dirt, upon which grew grasses. It was easy to see that the dirt had been shoveled there by men, because it was perfectly round at the base and rose evenly on all sides. A monument of marble stood at the top. That mound was in the perfect location for a good view.

Aeschylus strode toward it. The soil underfoot was rich and soft and covered with fennel plants that grew to knee height. It was like wading through a sea of yellow and green.

I thought that, like me, Aeschylus wanted to climb it for the view, but instead he stopped short, careful not to tread upon its slope. He held out an arm, to prevent our passage.

“My brother lies in there,” he said, simply.

“Your brother, sir?” Socrates asked.

“You see before you the burial mound of the heroes of Marathon.”

I canceled my plan to enjoy the view from the top.

Aeschylus said, “The memorial stone displays one hundred and ninety-two names.” He pointed to the far end of the field. “And in that direction you will find the trench where we buried the Persian dead. All six thousand four hundred of them.”

I already knew those incredible numbers; that facing an army almost ten times their own size, the Athenians had killed
thirty-two
enemies for every one of their own who had fallen. But seeing now the sheer scale of it, my mind boggled.

The plain of Marathon was ringed by mountains to landward. Aeschylus pointed to the southernmost of these and said, “That’s where we camped, on the slopes.”

Then he pointed to the mound of the dead. “And this … this is where we began our attack. We thought the dead would wish to lie where their victory began.”

Socrates spoke up. “Our father fought here.”

I knew what Socrates was thinking. My brother and I had always considered our father to be the mildest of men. Yet he had stood upon this plain with his spear and shield, and he had hewn down enemies with the best of them. I wondered how many of those Persian dead were my father’s work. I knew, because he had told me, that he hadn’t expected to survive that day.

Diotima, Socrates, and I pressed on, leaving Aeschylus alone for a few moments with the funeral mound. We walked in silence, absorbing the atmosphere of the place. I wondered how the villagers felt about living so close to what was practically holy ground.

Aeschylus called to us when we were about halfway across the plain. We waited for him to catch us up. He was barely out of breath after the long walk.

“This is where we began our charge,” he said. “Up to this point, we’d marched in close formation.”

“Where were the Persians, sir?” I asked.

Aeschylus pointed to a location about eight
stadia
distant. He said, “They formed a line over there, at the far end.”

“They didn’t come out at you?” I asked.

“No. They had archers waiting for us to come within range. Their soldiers were still getting into line. It was at this point we saw the first of their cavalry arrive. We’d moved at first light, you see, before their side was ready, and their horses were still out to paddock. It took them until we were halfway across the field to get mounted.”

We moved on.

“Ouch!” I hopped on my left foot while I held my right and swore. “There’s something sharp in the sand.”

Socrates thrust his hand into the dirt where I’d stepped. His hand emerged with a small bronze object with a pointy end.

“Arrowhead,” said Aeschylus. “This is where they hit us with the arrows as we charged in.”

“Didn’t anyone clean up afterward?” I said, rubbing my foot.

“Young man, when the archers let loose, there were thousands of those things in the air raining down on us. I remember them bouncing off my shield. Every time one landed, it was like someone had hit me with a hammer. The arrows ricocheted all over the place. The villagers were bound to miss a few when they picked up.”

“Where were you, Aeschylus, in the line?” I asked.

“Right flank. Not far from Kallimachos, who was the Polemarch that year, our war leader. He was a good fellow, old Kallimachos. The Persians stuck him so full of spears that his body didn’t even fall over. We found what was left of him after the battle, still upright.” Aeschylus sighed. “Ah well. There were plenty of dead at his feet. He took enough of the bastards with him.”

Aeschylus pointed to the far left corner.

“The first few mounted Persians were over there, only a handful, but as soon as we saw them, we knew the time had come. We had to get to close quarters before there were enough cavalry on the field to make a difference.”

“What did you do, sir?” Socrates asked, enthralled.

“We ran at the enemy, lad. We
ran
.”

There is a race at the Olympics—it’s the last event—in which the competitors run two lengths of the stadium—two stadia—in soldiers’ kit. The men of Marathon had run four times that distance, knowing that at the end they would have to fight for their lives against an enemy almost ten times more numerous.

“It was mad, but it worked,” Aeschylus said. “We’d known what it would be like before we attacked. We’d all shed our loads
down to the minimum. I myself fought in sandals, with only shield and helmet. I gave my body armor to a poor farmer who hadn’t even a spear to fight with. He’d come to fight for Athens with a broken plowshare. Later on I saw him crushing Persian skulls with it.

“The Persians were so surprised when we rushed them that they gave us time to reform our lines right in front of them, and then the fighting began. Man for man, their infantry were no match for us. The problem was that there were so damned many of them.”

Aeschylus walked on another five hundred paces. He stopped at a single pillar of fine marble that rose from the field. I didn’t have to ask what that was. It could only be the trophy set up to commemorate the victory.

“This is where we won,” Aeschylus said.

“We deliberately thinned the center of our line and moved extra men to the flanks. Our men in the middle didn’t have to survive,” he said, coldly pragmatic. “They merely had to live long enough to give those of us on the flanks time to defeat the enemy.”

I knew my father had served in the middle of the line. I resolved at that moment to listen to my sire more, and argue with him less.

“As it turned out, our center fought a brilliant fighting retreat,” Aeschylus said. “They gave up ground only when they were forced, a step or two at a time. The Persian center pressed forward. We’d hoped to win on one flank or the other, but we won on both, at almost the same time! We pushed them back on both sides until our left and right flanks met in the middle, at the enemy’s rear. The Persians were caught in a circle ringed by our men. It was like slaughtering sheep,” Aeschylus said with quiet satisfaction.

“Then they ran,” I said.

“They broke and ran,” Aeschylus agreed. “This way.”

He walked to the northeastern end of the beach, out onto the sand. The waves washed about our feet.

“The Persian fleet anchored here,” Aeschylus told us. “About six hundred ships. The cavalry had ridden onto the boats when they saw how the battle must go. The infantry of theirs that had evaded us followed, and soon the Persian boats would escape.”

Aeschylus choked back his emotion.

“My brother Cynegirus grabbed my arm. We had fought as a pair, you see. We had always been close. Now Cynegirus pointed to a particular Persian boat. There was Hippias, leaning over the side, watching the battle from safety.

“Cynegirus yelled, ‘Come on!’ He chased after the boat, and I chased after him. We had to wade to reach it; the sea was up to our hips.

“We were maddened by the bloodlust of the battle. I don’t know how we were supposed to fight a whole shipload of men, but that was our plan. Cynegirus reached his arm to the gunwale to haul himself up. A Persian ran from the stern, carrying an axe. He brought it down and chopped off my brother’s hand at the wrist, clean through. Cynegirus yelled and fell back into the water. Hippias recoiled, but not before I’d thrust my spear. I tore his throat and he staggered back, clutching the wound.”