Antigone's Wake Read online

  “I confess, I haven’t.”

  Iophon laid a hand on the great composite bow, his face suffused with wonderment.

  “We’ll make short work of the Samians with this,” he declared.

  *

  Pericles’ Athenians were not the first mainland Greeks to invade Samos. In the days of Polycrates, another army sailed into the straits, and invested the place for forty days. It was the greatest danger the tyrant ever faced to his rule. But like the episode of the discarded ring, what started out as a calamity ended in vindication, and Polycrates’ reputation of bottomless good fortune became not just a curious rumor, but legendary.

  The war began when the tyrant attempted to strengthen his position by expelling from the city anyone with any wealth, ability, or fortune. Putting the outcasts and their families on ships, he sent them to the Great King, inviting him to do what he wished with them. What he had not counted on, though, was his victims’ resourcefulness: the exiles, perfectly able to see what fate was in store for them, attacked their captors and took over the ships. They then sailed to the city they thought most able to help them take their revenge.

  The Spartans received them with the hospitality they usually reserved for strangers — that is, begrudgingly. There was at that time a heightened fear of revolt by their Greek-speaking slaves, the Messenian helots. The Samian exiles — all aristocrats — were not seen as natural allies of the Messenians, to be sure. But the rulers of Lacedaemon were always nervous when foreigners were on hand to see their inherent weakness.

  Bound by honor to hear the appeal of those seeking refuge with them, the ephors sat through three hours of eloquent testimony by the most honey-tongued of the exiles. The Spartans replied, “That was a long speech. The first half we have forgotten, and the second makes no sense to us.” This was an answer the Samians should have expected, for the Lacedaemonians were always suspicious of the ornate speech of Asian Greeks. Trying again, the emissaries reduced their story to three sentences. When this, too, met only with incomprehension, the emissary had a bow and arrows brought before the magistrates, pointed at them, and said, “Our quiver needs arrows.”

  Conferring, the ephors seemed to come to some agreement.

  “If you had said, ‘Need arrows,’ it would have been enough,” they said. “But we will help you.”

  Unlike the cautious, casualty-adverse Spartans of Dexion’s time, these were bonafide, old-time Lacedaemonians, as eager to excel in battle as most other men would be to tuck into a fine meal. Once delivered to Samos by their Corinthian allies, the army of the Spartan king Anaxandrides attacked Polycrates’ walls with reckless valor, climbing the battlements where they could, hoisting siege ladders where they couldn’t. Their helot retainers were put to chipping away the limestone with hunks of diorite fetched from Egypt; both master and slave died by the hundreds under Samian arrows.

  At last the Spartans gained control of one of the towers. There they stood, meeting the Samian counterattacks with those murderous short swords, breathing the names of their forebears into the faces of the defenders as they pulled them into their deadly embrace. The Samians began to despair. Protected on their island, there was nothing in their experience of war to prepare them for this stubborn, unreasoning savagery. They attacked the Spartans with spears. They attacked with swords and clubs. They resorted to throwing stones and flaming logs, knowing full well that if they let the Spartans hold the tower, their city would fall. Through it all, the Lacedaemonians beat them to every extremity, until it seemed that it was their territory they were defending, and not just one of thirty-one identical towers in a city wall they had never even seen before. It was an education the Samians never forgot.

  The Spartans were finally beaten not so much by force of arms as by spectacle. Polycrates, who had saved himself for an instance like this, appeared on the walls in a panoply of shining silver, his helmet topped with falcon plumes, his shoulders draped, like Herakles’, in a lion’s skin. He also chose this occasion to don the Girdle of Amasis — a corselet of the whitest linen, adorned with fantastical beasts embroidered in gold and threads of that priceless rarity, Indian cotton. It was called the Girdle of Amasis because it was a gift of the Pharoah to the Lacedaemonians — until the Samians seized it at sea and dedicated it to Great Hera. That Polycrates would display this theft so brazenly, before the very people from whom he had stolen it, stunned the Spartans. And while they were stunned, they stopped fighting.

  In that instant the Samians pressed their attack. Polycrates himself rushed to the forefront, his sword flashing, as the Spartans hesitated over whether they should risk damaging the Girdle by fighting back. In the end there were just two Spartans left in the tower: Archias and Lycopas. These two made a hopeless stand with a joy that could only be described as incandescent. As they held off twenty times their number, to fight them was to be in the presence of divinity, and to strike them down, a sacrament.

  The Lacedaemonians abandoned their siege. In Sparta, the war was not forgotten (for the Spartans never forget anything), but never spoken of. In Samos, to his credit, Polycrates foreswore his right to erect a victory trophy, choosing instead to bury Archias and Lycopas as heroes of the state. The Athenians, for their part, derived their own lessons from the failure of Sparta’s human waves to break the walls of Samos.

  *

  As an actor, Sophocles had never felt comfortable in costume. Though in principle it was no different from other sartorial contrivances, such as the soothsayer’s hood or the horsehair crest of the military officer, the actor’s costume had one big disadvantage: it was meant to be worn only once, for the staging of the play for which it was made. If it had its quirks — if it draped awkwardly over the shoulder, or impeded dancing on this foot or that — the actor simply had to adjust to them on the fly. In his career, Sophocles had seen his share of balky chitons, belts that refused to cinch, masks that drooped no matter how tightly clasped. These had caused him so much trouble over the years that he fantasized about having his actors perform naked, like athletes in the Games.

  And so he was surprised in this, his first honest job, to become so at ease in his cloak and panoply. Indeed, he found them changing the way he carried himself. He came to enjoy the swirl of the cape, punctuating his orders as he turned on his heel; the weight of the helmet on his head and the greaves on his shins made him feel not only invulnerable, but somehow more substantial. Though he wore these things because he was a general, in a real sense he was a general because he wore the panoply. A costume could be an asset, he discovered, if the actor had occasion to learn its care and advantages and thus, over time, to let the clothes remake the man.

  Comfortable at last in the role of general, he permitted himself military opinions. The first of these was that he hated Artemon’s Shieldbreaker.

  The engine was completed a few days after it was delivered. About the height of a man and somewhat more in length, it was composed of an oblong wooden frame with a pair of massive bow arms mounted at the front. Sinew bow-cables ran from the ends of the arms to a rear-mounted winch. The bolt was loaded in a groove in the frame, and the mechanism cocked by cranking back the bow-arms; when triggered, the bolt was snapped forward by the sinew cables, much like an arrow from the strings of a conventional bow.

  It was like a bow, that is, except that it shot a six-foot, iron-tipped bolt more than two hundred yards. Testing it, the Shieldbreaker’s crew put a shot into the Samian walls that buried itself a foot deep in the limestone. Aiming high, they shot another so far over the walls they could not hear it land. Such a weapon would not be stopped by the roof or walls of a typical Greek house; civilians in any room or floor would be vulnerable as the monstrosity’ ripped through joist, reed, furniture, or flesh. Dexion heard one of the engineers boast that, during the wars in Sicily, he saw a “lucky shot” pierce the belly of a pregnant woman and propel her fetus fifty yards, impaling it in a wall.

  That was a lucky shot indeed, for the Shieldbreaker’s power was m
atched only by its inaccuracy. This, Artemon explained, had something to do with the mounting of the bow arms, which vibrated as the machine was discharged. For this reason the engine was useless as a tactical weapon — it could not be used to pick defenders off a wall, or to deliver a flame to a particular roof. Its only purpose as far as Dexion could see was to deliver sudden, random death.

  “I would not call it perfected,” mused the genius from his cart, “but a thing only in its infancy. But what a force it will be when a leader comes who will invest the proper resources!”

  Dexion had further questions about the weapon, but Artemon preferred to talk about poetry.

  “You are the true prodigy in this camp, but there are those of us who flatter ourselves that we have some talent.”

  The engineer produced a scroll from the loose folds of his sackcloth. His intention, it seemed, was for Sophocles to read it, though he never put his desire into words.

  “You must excuse the scribblings of someone with other matters on his mind,” Artemon said, fidgeting like half a schoolboy. “I only wish I had the time to apply myself as I know you would — ”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Sophocles saw that Iophon had come out to stare at Artemon. On his face was the same wondering gaze he had worn when he first beheld the Shieldbreaker. That his son saw Artemon now, with the hero soliciting Dexion’s opinion of his poetry, was the kind of good timing a father couldn’t buy. Sophocles took the scroll.

  Under the circumstances, with the engineer exposing himself in this way, Sophocles felt a pity for him as strong as the disgust he had for the man’s handiwork. He glanced down. Alas, the verses were standard-issue doggerel — an ode to Hephaestus, gummed with self-pity; an elegy to lost love in limping trochees. It was the kind of thing produced by a thousand amateur poetasters in every fishstall and warehouse in Athens.

  “It shows talent,” he said, handing the scroll back.

  “Really? You patronize me,” replied Artemon, the unkempt length of his eyebrows giving his face a sudden, unwonted femininity. Sophocles kept his mask steady on his face.

  “No, I’m not. I think you should apply yourself more to it, and perhaps not so much to this.” With a tilt of his head, he indicated the Shieldbreaker.

  Artemon laughed. “Perhaps. But I don’t think I’d be happy striving always to live up to the likes of you. In this other art, I am the master!”

  After a month, it still seemed as if they were besieging a city only in theory. The Samians had withdrawn their extramural population inside the walls before the Athenians had arrived; aside from the guards in the towers, and the occasional baying of an unseen goat, Dexion might have believed that he had invaded an empty country. But when Pericles sent troops or surveyors anywhere near the walls, ranks of archers would spring up, driving the intruders back.

  A dozen shieldbreakers were erected in a ring around the city. The crews were instructed to shoot into the town at all times of day, with the timing of their attacks kept patternless to maximize their terror. When the machines were triggered, the bolts soared over the walls, arced downward, and fell unseen into whatever lay below. Most of the time the Athenians heard nothing more; on occasion, there was the faint echo of screams or yells. They never heard a missile strike anything solid.

  Soon after, someone hit on the idea of shooting into the town at night. This kind of attack was impossible to anticipate or avoid. The engines made little noise when they were sprung — just a snap and a whoosh — and the bolts flew in complete silence. The Samians only learned of them after they struck, perhaps landing harmlessly in the street, or penetrating roofs and perforating civilians in their beds.

  Now Sophocles was in no way naive. He knew his Homer and the other poets of battle; he understood that the craft of war called forth repellent acts from men. As a poet, though, he was cursed by Loxias with certain compulsions. One of these was to make up the stories that lay behind those faint screams at the far end of the bolt’s arc. He was cursed to give a name to the pregnant woman in Sicily, forced before she died to watch her baby murdered before he was born. He could not avoid seeing a young man much like himself, full of fright and boyhood bluster, excited to help defend his city at last, pinned like some soulless insect to the ground. He would imagine Iophon as a small boy, split in half in his cradle by assailants who would never see the consequences of their acts.

  In the tent he shared with his son, he made the mistake of sharing his doubts, Iophon stared at him with pity’ in his eyes.

  “Father, you brought me here to see the face of war. I think maybe you thought I would run away from it, like a child. But I see it is you who needs the education!”

  “So this looks like war to you, this cowardly slaughter from a distance? Is this why we still read of divine Achilles, and Hector breaker-of-horses, who had the courage to face those who would kill them?”

  “I remember Hector running in fear from Achilles,” the boy replied. “And I think anyone who carries a shield for Samos deserves to die, until we say they don’t. The fault for their deaths lies with those who decided to make war on the Athenians in the first place.”

  “Spoken like Menippus himself! You seem almost grown up, boy, but you have not yet learned to use your own judgment.”

  In a way that was surprisingly apt for a thespian’s son, Iophon struck his brow in mock bewilderment. “Could this be the same father who told me not to question those who know better?”

  When Sophocles didn’t answer, the boy rose and presented himself with arms open, like Haemon beseeching his father to spare Antigone. Had he seen the play after all?

  “Father, I can see that we agree on very little anymore. You indulged me when I asked to come and watch you fight the war, and for that I thank you. But why should we allow ourselves to cause each other pain with these ceaseless arguments? I think we both know there’s a better way.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Menippus says I am welcome to join his staff. I can collect my things right now and go to him.”

  Sophocles considered the prospect. He obviously would not allow it, but putting his reasons in rational order would have been a challenge. All he had were images and feelings associated with them — Nais and the fear of failing in his responsibility to her; a boy within the city, much like Iophon, getting the Shieldbreaker treatment; Menippus’ cocky face and his revulsion therein.

  “The answer is no,” he said.

  “Father, you seem set in your decision, so I won’t try to convince you. But please promise me that you will reconsider it once the logic of my request becomes evident?”

  The boy had clearly spent too much time disputing in the stoa.

  “I will make that promise — if you agree to show me the respect a son owes his father.”

  “Of course.”

  Dexion rose to leave, but ended up with his feet tangled in the hem of his general’s cloak. Struggling in a half-crouch to free himself, with Iophon watching half amused and half embarrassed, the poet finally tore the cloak from his shoulders, hurled it to the ground, and stomped away.

  *

  Dexion proceeded directly to Pericles. The Supreme Commander had a tent not much larger than any of his colleagues, but set up in a central place in the hills above the city. There he established a presence like the one he had in Athens: he was available at all times for official business, meeting with anyone irrespective of rank, but otherwise standing aloof, never joining the other generals for drinking parties or hunting.

  When Sophocles called out, he was admitted by the voice of the Supreme Commander himself. Splitting the flap, Dexion saw the bookkeeper, Evangelus, scribbling at a desk in the anteroom. The slave glanced up, showing not a flicker of recognition except a slight arching of his brow.

  Pericles greeted him in a plain linen shift, his arms extended, a smile on his face. “Dexion, I’m glad you’ve come!” he declared. “We’ve had some excellent news: forty more ships stand tonight on Tragia, and w
ill join us tomorrow. That shall double our force! That will make an impression on the Samians, I’d think.”

  Distracted by what he wanted to say, Sophocles agreed without really hearing him. Glancing around the tent, he got a rare look at the Olympian in repose — his bed turned into a daycouch, covered with open scrolls; a stingy meal of figs and white cheese, half-eaten on a tray; his armor arranged neatly on a stand. There was also a little folding desk beside the couch, and on it a small painted portrait of a woman. He didn’t need to look closely to recognize the face of Aspasia.

  A flush of guilt slowed his tongue again. Pericles, regarding him, kept up the air of bonhomie.

  “So I hope you are finding the time to compose your next work. It was Antigone and Polyneices, was it not?”

  “Polyneices and Antigone. And I’m sorry to say I haven’t had much time for writing.”

  “A pity! Do I need to remind you, old friend, that what you do in the theater is as important to Athens as what we accomplish on this island? For that reason alone, for detaining the great Dexion, the Samians commit a crime against all the Greeks! Is there anything we can do to restore your inspiration? Would you like some of your duties reassigned?”

  “No.”

  There was a brief pause, in which Sophocles could hear the scratch of Evangelus’ stylus next door. Pericles bowed his head as he belted his shift — the sight of that naked pate, so rarely liberated from a cap or helmet in public, was perversely fascinating, like a glimpse of the breast of another man’s wife. As it was, it wasn’t so unusual after all — high-crowned to be sure, and smooth. What was most strange about it was that it was polished to a high sheen, like the floor of a temple.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something else — those engines of Artemon’s.”

  Pericles’ eyes lit up.