Worlds That Weren't

And the Macedonians cheered more enthusiastically still, pounding one another and their neighbors on the back. Seeing that made Alkibiades smile. For one thing, the Macedonians had also yielded to the Persians. For another, he had no intention of using them to any great degree in his campaign against Persia. Their King, Perdikkas son of Alexandros, was a hill bandit who squabbled with other hill bandits nearby. Macedonia had always been like that. It always would be. Expecting it to amount to anything was a waste of time, a waste of hope.

Alkibiades stepped back and waved King Agis forward. The Spartan said, “Alkibiades has spoken well. We owe our forefathers revenge against Persia. We can win it. We should win it. We will win it. So long as we stand together, no one can stop us. Let us go on, then, on to victory!”

He stepped back. More cheers rang out. In his plain way, he had spoken well. An Athenian would have been laughed off the platform for such a bare-bones speech, but standards were different for the Spartans. Poor fellows, Alkibiades thought. They can’t help being dull.

He eyed Agis. Just how dull was the Spartan King? So long as we stand together, no one can stop us. That was true. Alkibiades was sure of it. But how long would the Hellenes stand together? Long enough to beat Great King Dareios? Fighting a common foe would help.

How long after beating the Persians would the Hellenes stand together? Till we start quarreling over who will rule the lands we’ve won. Alkibiades eyed Agis again. Did he see that, too, or did he think they would go on sharing? He might. Spartans could be slow on the uptake.

I am alone at the top of Athens now, Alkibiades thought. Soon I will be alone at the top of the civilized world, from Sicily all the way to India. This must be what Sokrates’ daimon saw. This must be why it sent him to Sicily with me, to smooth my way to standing here at the pinnacle. Sure enough, it knew what it was doing, whether he thought so or not. Alkibiades smiled at Agis. Agis, fool that he was, smiled back.

THE REAL HISTORY BEHIND “THE DAIMON ”

In the real world, Sokrates did not accompany the Athenians’ expedition to Sicily in 415 B. C. E. As told in the story, Alkibiades’ political foes in Athens did arrange his recall. In real history, he left the expedition but fled on the way to Athens. He eventually wound up in Sparta, the Athenians’ bitter foe in the Peloponnesian War, and advised the Spartans to aid Syracuse and to continue the war against Athens. (He also, incidentally, fathered a bastard on King Agis’ wife, whose bed Agis was avoiding due to religious scruples.)

The Athenian expedition, despite substantial reinforcements in 413 B. C. E., was a disastrous failure. It did not take Syracuse, and few of the approximately 50,000 hoplites and sailors sent west ever saw Athens again. Nikias, who headed the force after Alkibiades’ recall, was executed by the Syracusans. Alkibiades returned to the Athenian side, then abandoned Athens’ cause after further political strife and was murdered in 404 B. C. E. In that same year, the Spartans decisively defeated the Athenians and, at a crushing cost, won the Peloponnesian War.

In the aftermath of the war, Sokrates’ pupil Kritias became the head of the Thirty Tyrants, and was killed during the civil war leading to the restoration of Athenian democracy in 403 B. C. E. Sokrates himself, convicted on a charge of bringing new gods to Athens, drank hemlock in 399 B. C. E., refusing to flee, though many might have wished he would have gone into exile instead. His pupil Aristokles-far more often known as Platon because of his broad shoulders-survived for more than half a century; it is through the writings of Platon, Xenophon, and Aristophanes that we know Sokrates, who himself left nothing in writing.

In real history, the assault on Persia waited until the reign of Alexander the Great (336–323 B. C. E.), and occurred under Macedonian domination, not that of the Hellenic poleis.

Harry Turtledove was born in Los Angeles in 1949. After flunking out of Caltech, he earned a Ph. D. in Byzantine history from UCLA. He has taught ancient and medieval history at UCLA, Cal State Fullerton, and Cal State L.A., and has published a translation of a ninth-century Byzantine chronicle and several scholarly articles. He is, however, primarily a full-time science fiction and fantasy writer; much of his work involves either alternate histories or historically based fantasy.

Among his science fiction are the alternate history novel The Guns of the South; and Worldwar series (an alternate history involving alien invasion during World War II); How Few Remain, a Nebula finalist; and Ruled Britannia, set largely in the theaters of Shakespeare’s London in a world where the Spanish Armada was successful.