Worlds That Weren't

What Alkibiades did say was, “We’ve spent enough time-too much time-fighting among ourselves. If Athens and Sparta agree, if the rest of Hellas-and even Macedonia-follows…”

“Yes,” Agis said again. This time, he added, “That is why I have come. This job is worth doing, and Sparta cannot do it alone. Neither can Athens.”

Getting a bit of your own back? Alkibiades wondered. It wasn’t as if Agis were wrong. Alkibiades gestured to a herald who stood on the platform with him and the Spartan. The man stepped up and called in a great voice, “People of Hellas, hear the words of Alkibiades, leader of Hellas, and of Agis, King of Sparta.”

Leader sounded ever so much better than tyrant, even if they amounted to the same thing. Alkibiades took a step forward. He loved having thousands of pairs of eyes on him, where Agis seemed uncomfortable under that scrutiny. Agis, of course, was King because of his bloodline. Alkibiades had had to earn all the attention he’d got. He’d had to, and he’d done it.

Now he said, “People of Hellas, you see before you Athenian and Spartan, with neither one quarreling over who should lead us Hellenes in his direction.” Of course we’re not quarreling, he thought. I’ve won. He wondered how well Agis understood that. Such worries, though, would have to wait for another time. He went on, “For too long, Hellenes have fought other Hellenes. And while we fought among ourselves, while we spent our own treasure and our own blood, who benefited? Who smiled? Who, by the gods, laughed?”

A few of the men in the audience-the more clever, more alert ones-stirred, catching his drift. The rest stood there, waiting for him to explain. Sokrates would have understood. The gouge on Alkibiades’ forehead was only a pink scar now. Sokrates would have said I’m pointing the Athenians in a new direction so they don’t look my way. He would have been right, too. But now he’s dead, and not too many miss him. He wasn’t a nuisance only to me.

Such musing swallowed no more than a couple of heartbeats. Aloud, Alkibiades continued, “In our grandfathers’ day, the Great Kings of Persia tried to conquer Hellas with soldiers, and found they could not. We have men in Athens still alive who fought at Marathon and Salamis and Plataia.”

A handful of those ancient veterans stood in the crowd, white-bearded and bent and leaning on sticks like the last part of the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx. Some of them cupped a hand behind an ear to follow him better. What they’d seen in their long lives!

“Since then, though, Hellenes have battled other Hellenes and forgotten the common foe,” Alkibiades said. “Indeed, with all his gold Great King Dareios II has sought to buy mastery of Hellas, and has come closer to gaining it than Kyros and Xerxes did with their great swarms of men. For enmities among us suit Persia well. She gains from our disunion what she could not with spears and arrows.

“A lifetime ago, Great King Xerxes took Athens and burnt it. We have made it a finer polis, a grander polis, since, but our ashes are yet unavenged. Only when we Hellenes have burnt Persepolis to the ground can we say we are, at last, even with the Persians.”

Some fellow from Halikarnassos had written a great long book about the struggles between Hellenes and Persians. The burning of Athens was the least of it; he’d traced the conflict back even before the days of the Trojan War. What was his name? Alkibiades couldn’t recall. It didn’t matter. People knew Athens had gone up in flames. The rest? Long ago and far away.

Almost everyone in the Pnyx saw where he was going now. A low, excited murmur ran through the crowd. He continued, “We’ve shown one thing, and shown it plainly. Only Hellenes can beat other Hellenes. The Great King knows as much. That’s why he hires mercenaries from Hellas. But if all our poleis pull together, if all our poleis send hoplites and rowers and ships against Persia, not even those traitors can hope to hold us back.

“Persia and the wealth of Persia will be ours. We will have new lands to rule, new lands to settle. We won’t have to expose unwanted infants anymore. They will have places where they can live. The Great King’s treasury will fall into our hands. Now we starve for silver. Once we beat the Persians, we’ll have our fill of gold.”

No more low, excited murmur. Now the people in the Pnyx burst into cheers. Alkibiades watched the Spartans. They were shouting as loud as the Athenians. The idea of a war against Persia made them forget their usual reserve. The Thebans cheered, too, as did the men from the towns of Thessaly. During Xerxes’ invasion, they’d given the Persians earth and water in token of submission.