Of Merchants & Heros (45 page)

He must have guessed what I would ask next, for when I said, ‘But Menexenos is competing,’ he answered straight away. ‘Yes, yes, I know he is. And Menexenos sees it more than any of us. Who do you think I got all this from? Sometimes I think that, but for him, I should not love excellence at all.’

He paused, and glanced at me, as if considering whether to tell me a private confidence. ‘You know, I only became a pankratiast because of Menexenos. At school they thought I was no good; but he saw something in me, and made me feel it, and gave me a goal to strive for.’

He sat forward frowning, his chin in the ball of his hand, gazing out across the track. I believe he was even blushing a little.

‘Then why does he compete at all?’ I said. ‘Why did he not tell the gymnasiarch no? He has reason enough.’

He shrugged. ‘Because of his father? His brother? He does not talk of these things. Or maybe,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘because, even now, there is still some honour in it, if you can win without sacrificing those things which make one a man.’

I did not mention this conversation to Menexenos. Some god signalled against it. Or perhaps it was that I knew, with a knowledge that is beyond mere words, that whatever drew him to compete was something buried deep in his being, something from the same well of goodness that caused him to fight for the city, and to honour the gods, and to love me.

There are, after all is said, certain doors one does not seek to open, and certain things that love does not question.

That winter, Titus’s friend Villius called at Athens on his way south.

Titus, he said, was having difficulties with the commissioners from Rome; and with the Aitolians.

The commissioners were opposing the withdrawal of Roman forces from Greece, arguing that, with the question of Antiochos in Asia not settled, and the disturbing news that Hannibal was at large, neither the security of Greece nor the safety of Rome would be achieved by such a move, irrespective of what had been promised before.

‘And what does Titus say?’ I asked him.

‘He says he has given his word, and must keep it. The Greeks will not settle for less. But in the end, Marcus, the decision is with the commissioners, and the Senate, not with Titus . . . And then,’ he added, with an exasperated gesture, ‘there are the Aitolians.’

Each time, he said, we thought a question was settled, the Aitolians came forward and reopened it, making unexpected claims to territory to which they had no right. ‘Everyone is tired of them.

Their only aim is to snatch as much as they can.’

He was on his way to Korinth, he said, where the final negotiations would be completed. It was Titus’s hope that he could announce a final agreement at the Isthmian games. ‘Provided that rogue Phaineas doesn’t poison the water first. He is putting it about that we intended all along to keep the Fetters for ourselves.’

Spring came. In the courtyard pink buds showed on the climbing jasmine, and in the temple precincts the almonds and narcissus bloomed.

On a blowy April morning, I went down with Menexenos to Piraeus, and from the waterfront I cheered with the rest as the state galley, decorated with garlands and bunting, pulled out beyond the sea-wall, and raised its owl-painted sail, bearing him and the other athletes to Isthmia.

Then, when the ship was lost in the morning haze, and the crowds began to disperse, I turned my mind to my own journey.

Villius had said a Roman quinquereme would be sailing there in time for the games. But in the end I decided to make my own way, by the land route, past Eleusis and Megara.

It seemed all Greece was travelling to the games that year: a steady stream of men and women, mules and horses, carts and traps and litters.

To begin with I walked alone, enjoying the solitude; but near Megara I fell in with a rugged-faced, middle-aged farmer from Phokis, leading a pack-mule loaded with empty baskets, which, he said, he intended to fill with the kind of well-priced luxuries that could be got in the markets at Korinth.

By now my Greek was polished enough that, if I wished, I could pass for a Greek anywhere, and so when he assumed I was from Athens, I did not tell him otherwise.

He told me as we walked that he farmed a few acres of land not far from Elateia, and, since there was peace at last, he was going to the games to watch the boxing, which he liked best of all. He raised his fist and contorted his face, parodying the stance of a boxer. He was that sort of man. Later he confided, with a knowing leer, that after the games he planned to spend some time visiting the backstreets of Korinth, enjoying its particular pleasures.

He was a man who liked to talk about himself, and as we made our way along the road I heard about his farm, his livestock, the condition of his fields, and his wife – who was an unfortunate put- upon drab, judging from how he described her.

At one point, when he fell momentarily silent, I commented that it must be a relief to him that his city was free at last, after having been under the rule of the Macedonians for so long.

At this he snorted derisively. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘all we have done is swap one slave-master for another.’

I looked at him surprised. ‘Oh, sir? Yet Titus promised. Soon you will have your freedom once again, to do with as you please.’

He laughed at me. ‘Mark my words. What the Romans have taken, they will keep. That is how men are. Rome has unshackled the feet of Greece, only to bind her at the neck.’

I said no more. It was clear he had already made his mind up.

For a while after this we walked without speaking, and I thought to myself that the Aitolians had done their work well, if men who had so recently been freed from tyranny thought as this man did.

But presently, as if the silence irked him, he said to me, ‘So what do
you
suppose the Romans will do?’

I shrugged. ‘I have heard it said that Titus is determined to leave Greece free. Everything he has promised, he has done. Why doubt him now?’

‘Because,’ said the farmer, ‘I have seen what men are.’

‘I too,’ I said. ‘And I have seen good as well as bad.’

He cast me an amused look, as if someone my age could not have seen anything in life. Then he cleared his throat and spat in the grass. ‘Let me tell you, youth, there is nothing in the world but cruelty and baseness and self-seeking; and if a man is wise, he will snatch what he can, like a jackal at a carcass, before some other man takes it.’

He smiled to himself, seemingly satisfied with his words. But after a moment he cursed for no reason, and gave the mule a vicious yank on its tether. The mule gave a resentful grunt, but otherwise took no notice.

He turned, muttering; then looked ahead, narrowing his eyes irritably against the light, and said, ‘Ha! See there!’

I followed his gaze. Half a mile ahead, a bright-painted carriage stood pulled up at the side of the road. Two mules stood by, chewing at the grass, and beside them a man was staring blankly at the wheel.

The farmer laughed. ‘Some rich aristocrat broken down,’ he said.

‘Serves him right; that will teach him to travel in style; let him go on foot like the rest of us.’

As we drew nearer the man noticed us and began casting forlorn entreating looks.

‘Fool,’ muttered the farmer, chuckling to himself. But I said, ‘I’m going to help.’

‘Are you? Do as you please; but you’ll be stuck here half the day, and I want to reach Isthmia before dark.’

I told him he must go on ahead then. And bidding him goodbye I turned off into the short grass.

I saw, as I drew close, that the man beside the carriage was a slave. He watched me approach with a sullen face. I wondered where his master was.

I was about to ask, when from the far side a woman’s voice called out, ‘Well come along, don’t just stand there. It won’t fix itself. Here, take this strap and bind it round the axle as I told you; or must I do it all myself?’

I crouched down on my haunches and peered under the carriage.

Then, seeing who was there, I laughed.

‘Pasithea! What are you doing?’

Her elaborate chestnut hair darted from behind the wheel.

‘Marcus? Here, take this.’ She passed me a broad leather binding- strap.

I crawled under the vehicle and took the strap, and called the slave to help me.

When, presently, the repairs were done I stood dusting off my hands and looked at her.

‘Never in my life,’ I said, ‘have I met a woman like you.’

She sat down on a towel on the grass, and eased her feet into a pair of dainty calfskin slippers. ‘In that case,’ she said, giving me a wink, ‘you should meet more women. Besides, I have learnt that if something matters to you, then teach yourself; otherwise a time will come when you’ll wish you had.’

She told the slave to re-hitch the mules. Then she noticed the farmer, who had paused in the road to stare.

‘Who is he?’ she said, returning his look, upon which he quickly turned away. ‘Has he never seen a women mend an axle before?’

‘I doubt it,’ I said, grinning. ‘Where are you going? The games?’

‘Where else? I would not miss them for anything.’

‘Well, everyone wants to find out what Titus is going to say.’

‘Oh, I’m not going for
that
,’ she said, in a tone that told me she too had heard enough of the rumours and gossip. ‘No, it’s time I reopened my house in Korinth . . . and what better time than now, so that I shall have somewhere to entertain the beautiful Menexenos, when he takes the victor’s crown in the foot-race?’

I laughed, then made a sign in the air against ill-luck.

‘First,’ I said, ‘he must win it . . . and everyone seems to think he has a hard task on his hands, not having been bred to it from birth.’

‘Then I shall say no more.’ She fluttered her heavy lashes at me, then glanced over my shoulder towards the road. ‘Is your friend not waiting?’

The farmer was finally moving off.

I told her he was no more than a road-acquaintance. In truth I was glad to have left him.

‘Then good,’ she said. ‘In that case, we shall travel together.’

We set off, with the slave sitting in the back. On the way she told me she had spent the winter with friends in Megara. ‘A dull, dull place, full of merchants. Have you been? You wouldn’t like it . . .

How is Caecilius, by the way? I heard he was still in Athens.’

‘He was, until a few days ago.’ I told her about his new venture in Asia.

‘I hope,’ she said, ‘that he knows what he’s doing.’

‘I doubt it. I tried to warn him, but he would not listen.’

‘No,’ she said, unsurprised.

She told me she had sent her young black slave, Niko, ahead to the house in Korinth. ‘He likes it there. He will be glad to be back home at last . . . Now
he
would have known how to fix an axle.’

She intended, she said, to pay a visit to the grave of La s, to whom she owed an offering.

‘La s?’ I said.

‘Why, Marcus. Have you not heard of her? In her time she was the most famous courtesan in all Greece.’

‘Did you know her?’

She smiled and tapped my knee. ‘Oh no, my dear. Not even I am that old: she has been dead three generations at least. And yet, in a way, she has been my greatest friend. La s was beautiful, successful, graceful, loved by everyone. Even we courtesans need someone to look up to, you know, though many men would not pause to think it.

And when I was a girl, and the pinch-faced wives of Abydos looked down their noses at me, I remembered La s and smiled back at them.’

And thus we rode on, chatting as we went.

Towards evening we came out into the broad coastal plain, and ahead lay Isthmia, with the red roof of Poseidon’s temple showing among the pines; and, beside it, the marble-faced stadium, shining mellow gold in the late sunlight.

Presently we halted. The visitors’ tents and makeshift awnings extended in all directions over the slopes. The cooking-fires were being kindled. Dogs barked and squabbled. Men sat around in groups, exchanging news. The air smelled of woodsmoke, and animals, and humankind.

Pasithea, casting a cool eye over the crowd, said, ‘I fear I have grown too used to my comforts for all this. Are you sure you don’t want to come on to Korinth with me, and sleep on silk sheets, with a servant to take care of you?’

‘Don’t worry, Pasithea,’ I said laughing. ‘Anyway, I’m meeting Menexenos here in the morning.’ He would be barracked with the other athletes.

‘Well send him my love,’ she said, leaning across and kissing me on the cheek.

At this an old man passing in the crowd tutted up in disapproval; assuming, I suppose, I had begun early to indulge myself in the pleasures for which Korinth is renowned. From her high seat on the carriage Pasithea gave him a sweet smile. He hurried off grumbling.

We laughed. Then, with promises to meet soon, we parted.

I met Menexenos at the place we had arranged, at the plinth of the bronze Poseidon, in front of the temple.

People paused and stared, as they do at an athlete at the games.

He was tanned from days of running on the practice-track; in his short white tunic his arms and thighs showed golden-bronze. Little wonder, I thought, that everyone’s eyes were upon him.

He was too well bred to wear his emotions on his sleeve, but I knew him well enough by now to read his mood. Presently he frowned at the little crowd that had gathered and said, ‘Let’s go somewhere else.’

We left the temple sanctuary and passed along the street between the long colonnades. All about, traders had set up their stalls: sellers of fine Egyptian linen, glittering Koan silks, Persian tapestries, Indian pearls, trinkets to hang around the neck or wrist, crude carved votaries to offer at the temples, and charms for luck. As we walked I caught the conversation of those we passed, and each time I heard the same thing: Titus’s name, the Aitolians, and the freedom of Greece.

Soon, however, we left the crowds behind us, and came to a garden on a slope, shady with pines and olive orchards. ‘It will be quieter here,’ said Menexenos. ‘The grove is sacred to Demeter.’

We found a grassy bank and sat. Here and there people were walking along the paths between the trees. Further off, near the road, the stadium with its banners and garlands shone brilliant white under the noon sun. We talked of my journey, and Pasithea, and such things; and then I asked him what he made of the competitors from the other cities.