Bright Foundation of Liberty
By John P. Nordin

Chapter III

            If the Assembly brought freedom, what twice brought the united energies of the vast Persian empire to send a host against us, intent on destroying our city, its assembly and aborting all the great deeds our people had not yet brought to birth? 

            It was a question that was debated often in the years after war’s necessity had retreated and there was time for leisured inquiry.  I most clearly remember the time it was debated at a symposium held at dinner at the house of Euphorion.  It was three years after the play that I wrote of earlier.  It was also shortly after Themistocles had been cruelly ostracized, and during a time when I was a young man dependent on the favors of others.  Euphorion, that worthy son of his famous father, Aeschylus, was in the flower of early manhood and had gathered some friends of his who shared his affection for Themistocles.

            We had assembled in the windowless men’s room where such dinners were held, ushered to our couches by our host’s unnecessary apologies for the poverty of the food, the roughness of the couches and other imaginary defects.  He had not held many of these dinner parties.

            After we ate the tables were cleared away, we were entertained by four flute girls and the first libation poured, as is custom.  The girls had sung for us and recited poetry.  The room held only seven couches, and there were but simple mosaics on the floor and two walls were bare of adornment.  Euphorion’s father was well known, but writers of drama do not become wealthy.                        Euphorion saw to the mixing of the wine in the great krator, announcing that he had mixed it one part wine to three parts water.  He also proposed that we venture to consume four krator of wine this evening, one more than the number thought to be properly sober, yet well under the number that would, it was assumed, lead to riot.  We were mostly, but not entirely, younger and exuberant men that reclined around the room that evening, but we were also desirous of respectability. 

            There was some discussion of this plan, and some congratulation of our host for choosing to make the mixture a little weaker than thought best but consume a little more than thought best.  A proper balance, all thought.  Continuing to be master of ceremonies, he announced that out of respect for Themistocles there would be no games this evening.  I was relieved to hear this, for I found the game of flicking wine at each other or at targets to be tiresome.  I was also pleased that he had selected the flute girls for their accomplishments in the muses of music and poetry and that they appeared to be here willingly.

Euphorion turned to the oldest guest and invited him to propose a topic for discussion.  This guest was Pardocas, a man not counted old among all in the city, but nonetheless, the eldest among us. 

 “I propose,” he said, “that, as word has just come to us of the death of King Xerxes of Persia, that we should discuss what the cause was of the enmity between our two peoples.”

There was a murmur of agreement which I did not participate in.  This was a topic of the past, and not reflective of my current grief over the forced departure of Themistocles.  There was, however, no way Euphorion could refuse this proposal.

Pardocas adjusted his position on the couch, cleared his throat and began. “I believe it was inherent in the nature of the Persian people and the nature of their king, who embodied that character most intently as befits a ruler who is considered the very embodiment of the state. I speak, of course, of their pride: in their desire to conquer the whole world they overreached what the gods have deemed appropriate.”

He spoke without pause or hesitation.  I wondered if someone had written this for him to recite.  He continued, his voice rising a bit.

“This pride is itself only a sign of their unconstrained passions, their inability to limit themselves to what is proper.  They are barbarians and as such lusted after the refinement of Athens.”  He paused to take a sip of wine.

“No, my dear friend, I cannot agree,” our host shook his head.  “For the Persians showed themselves brave in battle many times.  They showed honor and gave hospitality to guests and were respectful of our dead no less than of their own.  And don’t forget the dishonor on our side: remember the treachery of the tyrants of Naxos – and there was the cowardly behavior of those of Samos who abandoned the Ionians at the time of struggle.  And some who speak our language even fought for the Persians at Salamis! I fear that all can suffer pride and wish to take whatever power they can.” 

“Your opinion does credit to you in that you echo your worthy father,” Pardocas replied, referring to how Aeschylus had presented the Persians in his play.  Despite the passage of three years, there were many in Athens still upset at the play and its author.

“I thank you,” said Euphorion, “but that it is the opinion of my father does not make it less my opinion nor less true for that.”

Did I hear a sharp tone to those words?  His father had been criticized strongly for his play for it spoke well of the Persians, and shown sympathy for their suffering.

“Well, you know that I have experienced the Persians first hand,” Pardocas said.  Yes, I thought, and he reminds us of that often.

“Indeed,” another quickly interjected, I had forgotten his name.  “You are a man of Marathon, and no one here would question your courage.  But did not the Persians also display courage as well?”

“I cannot see that,” Pardocas replied, his face firmly set.  “Their army faced death if they did not fight and only fought because of that.  Our army was fighting for the freedom of all and did so willingly.”
            “My father also was a man of Marathon, Pardocas, as you know,” Euphorion said, “and he told me many times that courage and honor are not qualities owned by Athens.”

“No general of Athens brought great wealth with them to the field of battle, as did Xerxes and Darius.  They came with riches of all kinds, servants, slave girls - they even had some girls that they were related to!”

“That they may have committed incest, I cannot refute,” Euphorion said, “but that was the king and his court and people like that place no limits on their actions.  I cannot think it just to accuse all of the Persians of this behavior.”

“And did not our army face death from slavery if they did not fight?” I added, venturing into this argument for the first time.

“Why anyone of our city would wish to defend those who attack and threatened to enslave us, I cannot understand,” said Pardocas, fixing our host and me each in turn with a firm stare, “but to each his own, I will not be inhospitable to our generous host by pressing what I believe to be the truth.”  Pardocas raised his cup to Euphorion and I wondered if our host would take this to be a gracious comment or a veiled insult.  Pardocas is admitting defeat, I thought, but was wise enough not to say.  Euphorion stirred himself to reply, but I saw his neighbor at the next couch, place a hand gently upon him and he said nothing.

“Have some wine, this argument makes me thirsty,” that person said, and for a time we busied ourselves with draining the krator.

“We could discuss Themistocles,” I said and only then realized that I had been rude to try to change the topic.

“We all know your personal affection for Themistocles,” Pardocus said, emphasizing personal.

“Oh, I’ve always wanted to ask you,” a voice at the far end said, “what was it like to be buggered by that man, a hero and all that, but not very attractive.”

“I was never that to him!” I said loudly.

“Well, the rumors are out there,” the voice said.

“And it would have been no dishonor,” our host said gently, “you were a beardless youth at the time, indeed, it would be a mark of favor.  No one would think less of you.”

“It didn’t happen.”  I felt tears coming close to my eyes.  It hadn’t happened, but everyone thought it did.  It wouldn’t have been a dishonor, but I valued the honor of his conversation and friendship even more – but no one wanted to hear of that.

Aganus spoke up.  He was sitting on a middle couch, but was in fact the second oldest of those present. “I believe we cannot just consider the actions of Darius and Xerxes.  After all, the truth is that we have been fighting the Persians for many long years.  Think how it was the theft of a woman which began this whole affair many weary years ago at Troy.” 

I had to admit in justice that he was right to this extent: the theft by Paris, son of Priam, of the lady Helen, did lead to war at Troy between the cities of Hellas and the mainland of the East, a war so far back in time that little can be recalled that occurred before it, a war whose stories have come down to us through the immortal Homer and form the education of every child. 

“Yes,” Pardocas said, “that we should consider women to be the source of this evil is not an unworthy idea.  Such our myths teach in the story of Pandora.  Perhaps this enmity between Persia and ourselves is but one more example of how the gods have punished us by sending us women to snare us.”

“If Helen was complied against her will to go to Troy by a man, how is that the fault of Helen or of women?” I said.  I was conscious that three flute-girls were sitting in the door to the room at this time and were undoubtedly listening to our words.

“You will not command the respect of women, dear young Philodemos, by surrendering to them,” a guest said from the far corner.

I did not like the use of the word ‘young’ addressed to me for I took it as an insult and a rebuke.

“Because, my friend,” Pardocas said, looking at me, “Helen used her beauty to entrap men and bend them to her will, giving free reign to the unrestrained lusts which are characteristic of her gender.  Contrast her to the chaste Penelope who resisted all attempts on her virtue, patiently waiting -- as a good wife should, until Odysseus should return home.”

We had consumed some quantity of wine by this time, and I could feel my face getting hot.  I looked out of the corner of my eye at one of the flute girls, one I had been drawn to.  Her hair was glistening, her laugh fresh and delightful as were the glimpses of the lines of her form that would occasionally be revealed against her gown as she would move.  Was my feeling of desire her fault for being so created, her fault for being here, her fault for how she dressed and moved?  Or was the desire mine, or the wine’s?   Perhaps it was due to the wine, but was it my fault for consuming so much of it?  The girl, did she choose to be here?  If she didn’t choose to be here, is it her fault for dressing provocatively?  Or is the provocation in my mind alone?  I just knew that my eyes kept returning to her.

In any case, Penelope had to actively fight to retain her virtue, scheming to trick a rude band of suitors who had camped at her doorstep and helped themselves to her food.  If she had succumbed to weariness after years of resistance, whose fault would it be?  I wanted to insult Pardocas by observing that Odysseus killed the suitors and their fate was richly deserved.  But I was young; I kept silent.

I returned to awareness of the conversation to hear Pittheus speak.  “I cannot agree to this.  It can’t be the cause of the strife.  This incident of women-stealing is a small thing.  A small thing should not lead to a large fight!  Now Helen was said to have been remarkable!  I admit that, everyone says so, a remarkable women.”  He’d sat up on the couch, both hands fluttering in front of him.

“But, even so, a petty theft for such a mean reason – that’s not fitting for the beginning.  Not a beginning of a great clash between great nations.  And it wouldn’t explain why we prevailed.”

Some of those laughed when Pittheus said, “remarkable quality,” and one had murmured, “remarkable beauty.”

This argument in favor of the theft of Helen would be the argument Herodotus, who justly earned the title father of history, would some thirty years later proclaim as the true cause of the enmity.  Though I salute Herodotus as the one who blazed the path I would follow less well in this history, and I would come to count him a friend, I cannot agree that this is the reason.

Slightly stung by the comments about Helen, Pittheus interrupted the chatter.  “Things done well are in proper proportion.  The have a balance.  A theft of a woman does not make a fit balance.  Not for the greatness our city has already achieved.  And as we become greater, this reason will get smaller.  It is not fitting.”

“I will admit,” Pardocas replied, sounding as if he was a judge pronouncing a decision in a difficult case, “that such a great thing such as this great clash, should have a great beginning, but it is also true that some stories of great events come from small beginnings.  This is my judgment.”

So things either have a great beginning, or they do not?  I wondered how many years it had taken for him to come to that judgment.

Euphorion put his cup down with such force that the wine spilled.  “The theft was a fiction!  It was a cloak to preserve the honor of a woman who had done a dishonorable thing by casting aside ties of family, love and country to pursue the passion that can make fools of us all.”  Pardocas admitted that this was a point some weight and Pittheus seized on it as well, saying that this was further proof that the reason could not be the correct one.

I was not taken with this line of discourse, there was something about it that did not seem fit, but I could not name it.  That uncertainty and my youth and my reclining on the couch that had the lowest status led me to put my question most hesitantly.

 “May I ask you a question,” I began, “I know that all of you have studied this matter for some time.”  Pittheus and Pardocas nodded their acknowledgment of the compliment and I saw Pittheus reach for the large bowl to refill his cup before taking another drink of wine to refresh his voice.

“By all means speak, Philodemos,” our host cried out with heartiness, “it is not right that one of the guests speak less than the others!”

I blushed that my quietness had been noticed.  I spoke to Pardocas.  “If you would agree that the theft of Helen caused the enmity which caused the war, then, what caused the theft?”

“Love, passion or revenge would be the cause of most such thefts,” Pardocas said.
            “Then, wouldn’t you agree that if the theft caused the enmity, and that passion caused the theft, that in fact passion caused the enmity?”

“I suppose you could say that,” Pardocas said, with no real agreement.

“Then, if passion caused the theft that caused the enmity that caused the war, what would you say caused the passion?”

            “I don’t know,” Pittheus interjected, “some would say the gods.”

            “Then would you say,” I said, “that the gods caused the Persians to come to Marathon?”

            “How is saying the gods did it saying anything different than saying that we don’t know?” Euphorion said.  Everyone was quiet but I saw some stir and look at each other.

            “Perhaps the cause is the nature of people,” I said.

            “How is that different from saying ‘we don’t know’” someone else asked.  Euphorion nodded at him and some laughed, this time at me.

            “I don’t know.  But it seems to me that something in the nature of being a king and being a free city led to this clash.”

            “Battle is constant, all cities fight with each other, this is known to all,” said Euphorion.

            “Indeed,” I said, “war seems as common as the desire between two people, but not all such desire produces great consequences.”

            “I congratulate you, my young friend,” Pardocas said, “that was a well formed proverb.  And all the more evidence that my position is correct.  The nature of Persia led to this.”

I had been complimented, but I found myself irritated that one I had come not to respect agreed with me, more proof, were any needed, that the gods enjoy the tangled affairs of humans.  But as to the reason for the enmity, now, with time to reflect I think I can say more clearly what I should have said at the symposium.

I do not think there was any specific cause to this enmity.  Rather, it was inevitable, given the nature of humans.  Wise we are who speak Hellenic in one thing, for in having always a multiplicity of gods, we see the divisions within each person, for each of us is Dionysus and Apollo, Ares and Aphrodite.  We war, and weary of it, we lust and laugh at the foolishness of it, we seek our freedom and we find it lonely.  This is the fate of humans: to do things we do not want to do, to seek things that are not good for us, to want more than we need and then not to admit that these things happen.

            And so, there was a king (as there have always been kings) and kings have pride in measure to their kingdoms.  And there was a revolt (as there have always been revolts against kings), and the revolt pricked the pride of this king, as had his lordship over the cities pricked the pride of the cities.  This is no different than what had occurred from the beginning of time, just another wave coming ashore, like all the waves that had come across the ocean of fate, each full of its own energy, yet like all the waves before. 

            But all I said was “It doesn’t matter why this happened, only why it was different.”

            “Different how?”

            “He just wants to talk about Themistocles.”

            There was laughter and I took another drink of wine.

            I wanted to talk about why this set of battles was more important than the ones Homer sang about and we all learned.  Why did that war bring only death and songs of heroes but this war bring freedom?  We do have to examine these circumstances.  Look at the ground and shape of the world that led one people to settle here, another there, that led one people to send out colonies and another to resent them, that led one people enclosed in narrow hills to develop cities and a spirit of independence and another on a broad plain to be shaped into a large mass. 

The causes were the sea, the hills, the crops and the divisions of people.  And these eternal causes were then set loose to work their will in this land, fertile and warm surrounded by the sea, wine-dark, compelling and deadly, illuminated by the light that shines on all.  There was the Hellespont, and Salamis, the plain of Marathon, and narrow Thermopylae, triremes and spears, breastplate and pontoons, and Artemisium, place of my own deep grief.  But none of this would be a reason for you to care about it.  However, this particular wave, this one special ebb and flow of human fortune, flowed into the lives of a city with an Assembly so that pride and the desire to be free now led and directed us to all that the gods have given humans to be capable of.  Or so I want to prove.

            But I did not know how to say that at this dinner gathering. 

And so the conversation went on and we drunk more and our room seemed to dip and roll like a ship on the wine-dark sea, carrying us deeper into reflection on this as we chased reasons and causes as elusive as a clever enemy.  The third krator was emptied and our host saw to the fourth being presented to us to fill our cups.

            When we had begun this final vessel Euphorion voiced words we’d been afraid to say earlier without the encouragement of the wine.  “Is this clash so significant?  Or do we think it significant because we think ourselves significant?  After all, how can a city be great that expels someone like Themistocles?  I know this dark thought has brought me to despair.”  His language was elegant, but his tone had been off, extending his words, slurring syllables.  Either the wine had affected his tongue or my ears.

            “It is sig – significant because Athens is the greatest city in the world!”  The man at the far end held his cup in air.  “Or at least that is what I’ve been told.” And he threw it down on the floor, spilling wine everywhere.  He burped, others laughed.

            Well, there was that, make fun of everything.  I myself was torn by Euphorion’s comment for it mirrored my own confusion and distress over my future and the future of our city.  We reclined in that pleasant room, some eleven years after Salamis and yet felt no confidence that the fate the gods had in store for our city would be a prosperous one. 

The symposia showed signs of coming to an end.  I had little awaiting me at home and not the standing among our guests to be one that the hired flute girls would favor with their attentions.  Our host had been hospitable to invite me, but he had not yet the wealth to provide girls for all the guests.  It would be wise for me to leave before my lack of rank on this matter would become exposed to the other guests, or to the flute girls.

We who were left had all drunk deeply from four krators and were filled with its particular forms of ignorance and wisdom that Dionysius imparts when we worship him by consuming several times his special libation.  I stared at the surface of the dark wine in my cup, watching it move, savoring the texture still on my tongue.  I felt I could lean forward, fall into the cup and swim in the infinite truths contained there.

This feeling gave me boldness to venture a question to one I was more fearful of a rejection from then even Pardocas.  I noticed that one of the flute girls, the one I had been watching, was still huddled in the corner.  “And so,” I said, calling out to her, “what do you think was the reason that King Darius tried to conquer us?”

Those men remaining began to snigger, for they supposed that I was making fun of the girl by asking her to comment.  But why not ask?  She attended as many symposia as any of the men, and had listened to the wise speak their views as often as anyone else.  And it was clear that when the girls had entertained us with song and the declaiming of poetry that she had been the leader and the one who had taught the other girls.  So why should not this laborer in Aphrodite’s guild have an opinion on the passions that motivated men, even the passions of a theft of a woman?

She stirred; I imagined that her pride had been pricked by the laughter.  “It is in the nature of men to want to conquer,” she said.

“And it is in the nature of flute girls to sing!” one of the younger guests said, as he got up to stagger over to this girl and attempt to embrace her. 

“But why was it different?  That is the real question.” I said this, but no one heard me above the giggles of the girl and the slurred speech of the guests as she made a feeble attempt to evade the attentions of the man.  I thought she looked at me, but I may have imagined it.

I got up, somewhat unsteadily, to take my leave, and gave my complements to the host for his hospitality, as that was all I had to give, not being as yet able to reciprocate with hospitality of my own.  But I left with a desire to think of this topic more and to speak to this girl again.

Outside the air was cold and it hit my face, stinging me to alertness.  Why was this time different?  To understand why it would be necessary to study what had happened in those twenty years.  Ten years leading to Darius at Marathon and ten more years after Marathon leading to Xerxes at Salamis.  Begin with Marathon.  The hosts of Persia had come before, but always turned away before they had come so close, there had been battles between those desiring freedom and the empire that desired they not have it, but it had never been our battle, people had given their lives in defense of their homes, but it had never changed the shape of the world before.  How did Darius and his men and animals and ships and weapons and supplies and baggage and baggage carriers came to rest upon the plain of Marathon no more than a long day’s march north of Athens, and his army, so much larger than ours with the weight of an empire behind it bore down upon the tiny cities of Athens and Plataea with a force that no one could imagine would be resisted.  And what had happened in those events to plant the seed of freedom?

To answer that it would be necessary to understand the many events that had transpired in the ten years before Marathon.