I had expected Attica to be somewhat like Macedonia, a wide fertile plain ringed with wooded mountains. But instead the mountains marched right to the edge of the sea, and they were mostly starkly bare rock.
“The Athenians cut down their forests over the generations to make ships for their incessant wars,” Aristotle told me. “Now the country is fit for nothing but bees.”
Alexandros rode up between us. “You can see why the Athenians took to the sea,” he said excitedly. “There isn’t enough farmland here to feed a village, let alone a great city.”
“That’s why they depend on the grain from beyond the Bosporus,” I guessed.
“That’s why they want to hold onto the port towns. We can strangle them by taking all their ports away,” said Alexandros. Suddenly his eyes lit up. “When I make war against the Persians, the first thing I will do is to take all their port cities. That will make their fleet useless!”
And he galloped off to tell his friends of his sudden strategic insight.
Philip’s command was that Alexandros and his Companions—he had brought four of them—should remain incognito while in Athens. They were to be nothing more than part of the guard for the revered teacher and philosopher, Aristotle. I knew it would be difficult to keep these high-born Macedonians from shining through any disguise; especially Alexandros, who wanted to see everything and be everywhere. He would never follow my orders. Any Athenian with half an eye would see that this was the golden-haired son of Philip who was already becoming something of a legend throughout the land.
We entered Athens without fanfare, stopping at the city gates only long enough to tell the guards on duty that this was Aristotle of Stagyra come to visit his old friend Aeschines, the lawyer. As we rode through the narrow, winding, noisy streets I saw the great white cliff of the Acropolis rising before us and, gleaming atop it, splendid marble temples and an immense statue of Athena, the city’s protectress.
My heart leaped in my chest: Of course! This is her city! This is the place where I will find her.
As if he could read my thoughts, Alexandros said to Hephaistion, riding beside him. “We must go up there and see the Parthenon.”
His young friend, tall and lean and dark where Alexandros was short and solid and blond, shook his head. “I don’t think they allow visitors up there. It’s sacred ground.”
“It’s where they keep their treasury,” Ptolemaios said, laughing. “That’s why they don’t allow visitors.”
“But I’m not merely a visitor,” Alexandros snapped. “I am the son of a king.”
“Not on this trip,” said Ptolemaios, like a big brother. “We’re just escorts for the old man.”
Alexandros tried to stare Ptolemaios down, found he could not, then turned to stare at me. I looked the other way. Yes, I said to myself, it’s going to be very difficult to keep him under control.
The house of Aeschines, the lawyer, was more magnificent than Philip’s palace. It was smaller, of course, but not by much. Its portico was all marble, its walls decorated with colorful friezes of nymphs and satyrs. Statues crowded the garden like a marble forest: grave men in solemn robes and nubile young women in various stages of undress.
Aeschines himself was not at home when we arrived, his major domo told Aristotle. He spoke Attic Greek, not the Macedonian dialect, but I could understand him just as well. The lawyer was pleading a case before the Assembly and would probably not return until nightfall. We had several hours to unpack and settle into the spacious guest wing of the house.
“Is it true?” I asked Aristotle as we watched the slaves unload his specimens and cart them off into the room that had been given him for his studies. “Are all Athenians lawyers?”
The old man laughed softly. “No, not all Athenians are lawyers. Some are women. Many are slaves.”
I took an especially heavy crate from a staggering, frail older slave and started off toward the philosopher’s work room with it on my shoulder. Aristotle walked beside me as we entered the house.
“They say this city is a democracy,” I said, “where all the citizens are equal. Yet they have slaves.”
“Slaves are not citizens, Orion. Nor are women.”
“Then how can it be a democracy if only a portion of the population has political power?”
He countered with another question. “How can the city manage without slaves? Will the looms run by themselves? Will crates carry themselves from place to place? You might as well ask that we give up horses and mules and oxen as give up slaves. They are necessary.”
I fell silent. But once I had gently deposited the crate on the floor of his workroom, Aristotle carried his lesson a step farther.
“You have hit upon a sensitive point, Orion. Democracy is to be preferred over tyranny—the rule of one man—but democracy itself is far from perfect.”
Deciding to play the student, I asked, “In what way?”
There were no chairs in the workroom as yet. Nothing but the crates that the slaves were bringing in. Aristotle peered at one, decided it was not too fragile to sit upon, and planted himself on it. I remained standing.
“When all political decisions are to be made by a vote of the citizens, then the man who can sway the citizens most easily is the man who makes the real decisions. Do you see the sense of that?”
“Yes. A demagogue can control the citizenry.”
“You say ‘demagogue’ with scorn in your voice. The word merely means ‘leader of the people.’ ”
“The Athenians have turned the word into something else, haven’t they?”
He blinked at me. “How do you know so much, when you have no memory?”
“I am learning quickly,” I said.
He did not look entirely satisfied. Still, he went on. “Yes, it’s quite true that orators like Demosthenes can sway the Assembly on tides of passion and rhetoric. It is Demosthenes who has goaded the Athenians into making war against Philip. It is his demagoguery that I must counter.”
“Are you an orator, also?”
He shook his head wearily. “No. Orators can be hired, Orion. They are merely lawyers who work for a fee.”
“Then who does Demosthenes work for?”
The old man gave me a puzzled look. “He has clients, of course. Civil suits, damage claims, inheritances. That is what buys his bread.”
“But who pays him to speak against Philip?”
“No one. At least he claims to do it as a free Athenian citizen.”
“Do you believe that?”
Aristotle stroked his beard. “Now that I think on it, no, I do not.”
“Then who pays him?”
He thought a moment longer, then replied, “Logically, it must be the Persians.”
Aeschines arrived home shortly after sunset, full of apologies for being late and warm greetings for his old friend. He was a smallish man with a pot belly, a red face and bulging frog’s eyes. Apparently he had been a student of Aristotle’s when the philosopher had taught at Plato’s school in the Academy district of the city some years earlier.
“Demades speaks to the Assembly tomorrow,” he told us, as his servants scurried to bring wine and goat cheese. His face went grim. “And then Demosthenes.”
“I must hear them,” said Aristotle.
Aeschines nodded.
Supper was served in a sumptuous room with an intricate tile mosaic for a floor and a meager fire crackling and spitting in the fireplace—just enough to ward off the autumnal night chill. Philip had ordered that Alexandros remain incognito, even to his host, so he and his beardless Companions were introduced merely as young noblemen. Alexandros was such a common name among the Macedonians that there was no need to give the Little King an alias. Most Macedonian nobles had at least a passing knowledge of Attic Greek, especially the younger ones. Philip had seen to that.
Aeschines gave Alexandros a crafty look when Aristotle introduced him, but said nothing more than he said to all the others, including me, when names were exchanged.
The talk around the supper table was all of Demosthenes.
“He is whipping up the people to a war frenzy,” Aeschines told us unhappily. “They go to listen to him as if they were going to the theater, and he gives them a good performance. By the time he’s finished speaking they’re ready to arm themselves and march against Philip.”
Aristotle shook his head, brow furrowed with worry.
“But Athens is already at war with us,” Alexandros said.
Aeschines replied, “Technically, yes. But until now the Athenians have been content to let others do the fighting for them. They have sent silver against Philip, not Athenian troops.”
I recalled that I was one of the mercenaries that Athenian silver had bought.
“And ships,” added Ptolemaios. “Athens uses its navy against us.”
“To little avail,” Alexandros boasted. “Soon they won’t have a port to put into north of Attica.”