Antigone's Wake Read online

  More applause, again in a manner that seemed intended for no one but Dexion. This time even the nobles dropped their reserve. Pericles, meeting his eyes, gave him a wink. Sophocles looked down at Aspasia. Though her eyes were concealed by the shadow of her hood, her lips were curled into a smile of almost maternal satisfaction.

  With that, Pericles had given him what he only half-understood he wanted for himself. Aeschylus had charged the Persian line at Marathon and attained a lifelong honor to match his achievements on the stage. Yet he was only one soldier among many others in the battle. For his role in the siege of Samos, a war for the security of everything built since, Sophocles of Colonus had been singled out for praise in front of his entire city.

  It was the kind of coup that would make any gods-fearing man anxious. Yet between the tremors in his gut, Dexion could not help but think, Let that pipsqueak Euripides match that! The thought shamed him even as it hatched in his brain, but there it was, as irreducibly Athenian as nuisance litigation and red-figure pots.

  “As for the women of the fallen — let their role be as it always has been. For if even the finest words cannot redeem their loss, they cannot begin to encompass the importance of their example, both as widows and mothers. Therefore let silence attend the women of Athens. Indeed, let the fact that they provide no cause for praise or blame be their monument.

  “The law demands a few words be spoken today in honor of the dead,” Pericles rounded up. “The responsibility has fallen upon me, and I have done it as well as I am able. It is now up to you, the survivors, to answer in deeds what the departed have achieved by theirs. Remember their names, fend to their graves. Rear your sons, so that they may answer the valor of their fathers. To that end, the state will shoulder the cost of their education — an Athenian education, for which these men have foregone all to assure to their posterity.

  “And so our observances are done. Now that you have lamented the dead, rest in the knowledge of that you have discharged all requisite custom, and go your separate ways.”

  With the end of the speech there went up a brief cheer — sounding more like a shout — that seemed to acknowledge Pericles’ pro forma dismissal. As the crowd resumed its distractions, and the vendors and the souvenir-smiths converged from the margins, Pericles turned as if he wanted to say something to Dexion. But before he could open his mouth, he was distracted by a lone figure that approached him on the dais.

  Sophocles was slow to recognize that it was Photia who stepped forward. Dressed in her best chiton and gold rings and earrings that once belonged to Nais, she had never appeared so grown-up to him, so much the confident and beautiful matron of Athens. With one arm she crowded little Iophon to her breast, and with the other she summoned the Olympian down from his perch. Bemused, Pericles bent to receive her.

  “And how may I serve you, my dear child?” he said, smiling.

  “Yes, you deserve some kind of glory, noble Pericles,” she declared in a loud and steady voice. “You have presented us with many dead citizens today. Not to celebrate the defeat of barbarians, we see, but all to subdue an allied and kindred city. Thank you, great general. Thank you.”

  Photia turned away, leaving a chasm of silence behind her as the crowd gaped, and the smile died on Pericles’ face.

  *

  If it was the virtue of woman not to be spoken of, then a seventeen year-old virgin had become the least virtuous woman in Athens. For the next few days little else but Photia’s remark was discussed in the marketplace. To the vast majority, that she dared indulge her sarcasm on such a solemn occasion represented not just an insult to Pericles, but an affront to every citizen. One did not impugn the war when the ashes of its victims were not yet warm in the ground. It went without saying that political speech from the mouth of such a person, a minor who had not yet even borne a child for the city, was especially intolerable. A rumor went around that it was Dexion who had put his daughter up to the act — for how else would such a notion enter the head of a mere girl?

  Those who hated Pericles or abhorred any war to maintain the Empire welcomed her message. But its timing, and the shape of the messenger, put them in a quandary, for such obvious disrespect would only seem to discredit them. The least risky defense, therefore, was to deny Sophocles was behind his daughter’s misdeed. The debate in the stoa came to hinge on this question of Dexion’s involvement. The actual substance of her remark, on the very nature of what the war really achieved, was conveniently forgotten.

  “I can only guess what possessed you to make such a spectacle of yourself,” Sophocles told her. She was standing in front of him in the husband’s quarters, hands crossed in front of her like a bound prisoner. Afraid that his anger would get the better of him, he had waited until two days after the incident to speak of it.

  “Father, I — ”

  “No, I don’t want to hear your voice,” he commanded. “Don’t compound your error. It is bad enough that you would shame your family in front of the whole city. That you would now presume to contradict your father is more than I can bear.”

  And so she remained silent as he rebuked her, rarely lifting her eyes above the floor. Her gaze met his only once, when he described how, thanks to her, Iophon’s sacrifice was forever tarnished, as it would never again be recalled without also raising the distasteful memory of his sister’s arrogance. At this, she shivered.

  “You would have done well to listen to Pericles before you opened your mouth,” he concluded. “Did you think you mattered enough to dare criticize your betters? Did you think anyone would listen? If you did, then I am ashamed to have raised such a stupid daughter. Come now — answer me! Account for yourself!”

  When she looked up this time there were tears standing in her eyes. Opening her mouth, her voice failed. She swallowed, tried again.

  “Father — I can only say that you give me too much credit, for I did not think at all. I only said what came into my head. Now it is as you say — I have discredited us all. If I could go out into the town and tell everyone that I only spoke for myself, I would. If that is what you wish, command it. If you want me to pack my things and leave this house forever, I will. Only do not think I meant to harm my family. That would be the end of me.”

  He stared at her, waiting to hear more. In the past, she had produced longer, circuitous soliloquies on the question of whether to go to the springhouse in the morning or the late afternoon. That she stood before him now, manifesting Laconic virtue, only made him more exasperated.

  For if he was ashamed now, it was not only because of her disgrace, but because of his own conduct. What a hypocrite he had become! With what gross self-satisfaction he had sat on that dais, celebrating himself with the likes of Cleon, while only a few months earlier he had voiced similar doubts. The army had indeed brought back the remains of every fallen soldier from Samos. All of them, that is, except for a piece of the celebrated Sophocles of Colonus, lost along the way.

  “I don’t want you to leave this house,” he said in a soft voice. “Your brother needs you. But I think you’ll understand why I withdraw my offer to teach you your letters. Perhaps in the future you will think about the consequences, should more thoughts enter your head.”

  Her jaw tightening, she nodded. On her face there was suffering, yes, but also resignation, as if the prospect of learning to read, now gone, had never seemed quite real to her.

  “You may go,” he said. “And send Bulos in after you.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  When Bulos appeared, the poet commanded, “Bring me the scrolls of Polyneices and Antigone, and the scraper.”

  “Do you mean to erase something?” asked the slave.

  “Just do it.”

  In a few moments they were settled again in a familiar position — Sophocles on his bench under the plane tree, Bulos seated on a stump with his papyrus scrolls and all the other attributes of composition. It seemed to him all too easy to imagine that they had never left that yard, never sailed across th
e sea to confront what happened at Samos. But that, of course, was a child’s way of thinking; they had indeed left, and stayed away for longer than he ever thought they would. And what happened, did.

  “Scrape all the pages,” he commanded.

  “Master — are you sure?”

  Was he? The question was moot, because these were not issues that turned on proof or certainty. What he knew was that the conceit implicit in Polyneices and Antigone, that the princess’ resistance to the will of the State could be reduced to the consequences of an illicit love-affair, now seemed absurd. It repulsed him, and not only because it was a piece of psychology that might come from the stylus of Euripides. With Photia grown, with a strong back and handsome face and womanly hips, and taking up the responsibilities of a wife in his house, the timing felt wrong for a play that contemplated the temptations of incest. The wages of such abomination, certainly — but not the temptations. On that subject he had another idea to pursue.

  “And when you’re done scraping,” he said, “I have another title for you to put at the beginning.”

  Bulos took up the wax tablet and his pen. “Yes? What is it?”

  “Let it be called Oedipus the Tyrant.”

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  AUTHOR’S AFTERWORD

  The war with Samos is discussed in some detail by Thucydides (History, 1.115-117) and Plutarch (Life of Pericles). Although it has received relatively scant attention by modern scholars, it was no mere footnote in Athenian military history. Samos in the fifth century BC was a wealthy and powerful military power in her own right, one of the few states capable of challenging Athenian naval supremacy in the eastern Aegean. The process of subduing her was a nine-month, see-saw affair that required a series of naval battles and a bitter siege of her capital, led by Pericles himself. Contemporaries compared the hard-won Athenian victory favorably to the conquest of Troy. More ominous, perhaps, is the ruthlessness and savagely exhibited by both sides, which sadly foreshadowed the opening of the Peloponnesian War a decade later.

  It seems inconceivable to us that a poet like Sophocles would be given responsibility for an army. A modern analogy might be for some eminence of US letters, such as John Updike, being given a division-level command of American forces invading Iraq in 2003. The analogy fails because it doesn’t take into account the much different role of the military in Athenian civic life. Unlike in early 21st century America, every free-born, able-bodied male in ancient Athens received military training. Generalship itself was more of an ad hoc occupation than we can imagine today, with our military academies and officer corps staffed with career professionals. In antiquity, to be a citizen was virtually tantamount to being a soldier, and to lead men in battle was the prerogative of nobility. This is perhaps still true in a reverse sense: while we currently do not pluck our generals out of the ranks of CEOs and politicians, it is perfectly acceptable now for a general to become a CEO or political leader.

  The comparison with modern America is apt in other ways. After the defeat of the invading Persians in 479 BC, Athens enjoyed a post-war boom. Moving out from under the nominal leadership of Sparta, she became the biggest, richest, and most powerful state the Greek world had ever seen, dominating her world in ways prefiguring America’s traditional mixture of commercial power and military muscle. The alliance she forged to defend the Greek world from further Persian aggression, the Delian Teague, encompassed the Aegean. Under the leadership of Pericles, the alliance came more and more to resemble an Athenian empire, with its “partners for peace” resigned to paying tribute instead of ships and troops for their defense. (Samos was an exception, providing ships instead of money.) Rebellions against Athenian authority came to be met with ruthless intervention, which were often justified as restorations of democracy. (Pericles would have well appreciated the rhetorical force of today’s military euphemisms, such as “Operation Enduring Freedom” and “Operation Restore Democracy.”) While modern neo-cons mull clever-sounding comparisons between the USA and ancient Rome, students of ancient history know better: America’s global hegemony more closely resembles Periclean Athens than the Roman Empire.

  The novel presents a brief sketch of Aspasia, paramour of Pericles, tutor of Socrates in rhetoric (if Plato’s Menexenus is taken literally) and perhaps the most famous woman of classical Athens. But who was Aspasia, really? I am indebted to Madeleine Henry’s monograph Prisoner of History for my perspective on Aspasia scholarship, such as it is. Alas, I could not follow Henry in inferring that she was a plain, hapless, chaste and all-around unremarkable war refugee. It strains credulity (or at least mine) that such an ordinary soul found her way into the beds and hearts of some of the most powerful men of her time without at least some talents to recommend her. Considering the low status of women in ancient Athens, and the specifics of her personality aside, it is perhaps Aspasia’s greatest achievement that she appears in history at all. We may forgive her a little unscrupulousness in getting there.

  The ancient sources provide few details about how the siege of Samos ended. The implication is that the war was one of attrition — the defenders were simply worn down by Pericles’ patient, casualty-averse “anaconda” strategy. That treachery also played a role in Samos’ fall, as I portray here, is unattested, but plausible given the state of siege technology in the mid-5th century BC. (The conveniently unlocked door is borrowed from a real incidence many centuries later — according to some accounts, during the 1453 siege of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks, the Kerkoporta Gate was not breached by force, but deliberately left open.) In fact, treachery and starvation were almost the only ways to subdue a well-fortified city in antiquity. It was not until the ascendancy of Macedon in the later 4th century that the advantage at last began to swing toward the offense.

  Historical literalists will object to my giving the Athenian army siege catapults (here, translated literally from the Greek as “shieldbreakers”) in 440 BC. I’m aware that the advent of such devices, beginning with flexion-based artillery, is only attested by the early 4th century BC — two generations after the siege of Samos — and credited to the tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse, not the Athenians. On the other hand, Diodorus Siculus (Library, 12.28) and Plutarch (Life of Pericles) report that Pericles deployed “siege-engines” at Samos, “out of admiration for their novelty.” These accounts are generally understood to refer to battering rams, not catapults. Yet given Pericles’ aversion to Athenian casualties, and his interest in shortening the duration (and cost) of sieges, it is at least plausible that he would have been interested in long-range artillery. It is also likely that if the Athenians had anticipated Dionysius, their innovations would have gone unrecorded. Unlike in later Hellenistic and Roman times, there was not much specialist technical literature in classical Greece, and much disdain in the literate classes for the putterings of mere mechanics.

  Finally, I want to thank my agent, Jeff Gerecke, for his tireless efforts to find this project a home, and Rod Hunter of Bella Rosa Books for believing in it. Ed also like to thank my wife, Maryanne Newton, and Professor David Hollander of Iowa State University for examining the manuscript. Any errors that remain are entirely the author’s responsibility.