1
SO GELON SAYS to me, “Let’s go down and feed the Athenians. The weather’s perfect for feeding Athenians.”
Gelon speaks the truth. ’Cause the sun is blazing all white and tiny in the sky, and you can feel a burn from the stones as you walk. Even the lizards are hiding, poking their heads out from under rocks and trees as if to say, Apollo, are you fucking joking? I picture the Athenians all crammed in, their eyes darting about for a bit of shade, and their tongues all dry and gasping.
“Gelon, you speak the truth.”
Gelon nods. We set out with six skins: four of water and two of wine, a pot of olives, and two blocks of that smelly cheese Ma makes. Ah, it’s a beautiful island we have, and sometimes I think the factory closing is my chance to shake things up. That I might just leave Syracuse and find myself a little place by the sea, no more dark rooms, clay, and red hands, but the sea and the sky, and when I come home with a fresh catch slung over my shoulder, she’ll be there, whoever she may be, waiting for me and laughing. That laugh, I hear it now, and it sounds to me a soft and delicate thing.
“Why, Gelon, I feel so good today!”
Gelon looks at me. He’s handsome, with eyes the colour of shallow sea when the sun shines through it. Not shit brown like mine. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes. He’s often down, Gelon—sees the world as if it’s filtered through smoke, no brightness to anything. We walk on. Even though the Athenians are crushed, their ships firewood, and their unburied dead food for our dogs, there are still hoplites on patrol. Just in case. Diocles gave a speech not yesterday about how you can never tell with these Athenians; a fresh batch could arrive any day. Maybe he’s right. Most of the Spartans have left. Word is they’re heading for Athens itself, all set to siege it up right and proper. End this war. But there are still a few about. Homesick and useless. In fact, four of them walk ahead of us now, their red cloaks trailing behind them like wounds.
“Morning!”
They look back. Only one of them salutes. Arrogant, these Spartans, but I’m feeling good.
“Down with Athens!”
Two of them salute now, but there’s no life behind it. They look tired and sad, like Gelon.
“I say Pericles is a prick!”
“Pericles is dead, Lampo.”
“Aye, sure, Gelon, I know that. I say Pericles is a dead prick!”
This time two of the Spartans laugh, and all four salute. Ah, I feel so happy today. I can’t explain it, but it’s some feeling. Those are the best ones. The ones you can’t explain, and we haven’t even fed the Athenians.
“Which quarry shall it be today, Gelon?”
We stand at a fork in the road, and a decision must be made. Gelon hesitates.
“Laurium?” says Gelon, at last.
“Laurium?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Laurium!”
We go left. Laurium is what the main quarry goes by these days. Someone thought it would be a laugh to call it after that silver mine in Attica that the Athenians used to fund this trip. The name stuck. It’s a massive pit surrounded by a milky rock face of limestone so high there’s only need for a fence in one or two spots. At one of those is the gateway in, where a couple of guards are sitting on their arses playing dice. Gelon hands them a wineskin, and they wave us on. The path down is a windy ankle breaker. A coiling brown serpent is what Gelon calls it when the muse is upon him. We can smell the Athenians before we see them. The way being all twisted blocks a full view, but the smell is something awful: thick and rotten, the air almost misty with stench. I have to stop for a moment as my eyes are watering.
“It seems worse than usual.”
“That will be the heat.”
“Aye.”
I pinch my nose, and we walk on. There are fewer than last time. At this rate, they’ll be all gone by winter. Gets me thinking of the evening they surrendered. The debate went on for hours. Diocles pacing back and forth, roaring, “Where do we put seven thousand of these bastards?” Silence. So he asks again. This time that Hermocrates prick mumbles about a treaty. Treaty, my arse, thinks I, and then Diocles says it. Not in those words, but he means the same. He says, “Do you make a treaty with a corpse?” Laughter spreads, fingers wag, and Hermocrates sits down and shuts his beak. And through it all, Diocles keeps pacing, asking us what to do. Silence. Although now it’s a throbbing silence. Ready to burst. Then he stops pacing, says he has something. Something new and strange. Something that will show the rest of Greece that we mean business. That we’re Syracuse and here to stay. Do we want to hear about it? “We do, Diocles!” But he shakes his head. Actually, it’s too much. Too strange. Someone else should speak. But the time for that is long past. For we’re Syracuse and here to stay, and we tell him as much. So he leans forward and whispers. No sound. Only his lips moving. “We can’t hear you, Diocles!” So he says it. Still low but loud enough for us to hear. “Put them in the quarries.” Then he shouts it: “The quarries!” And soon, nearly the whole of Syracuse is shivering with those two words: the quarries.
Aye, and that’s exactly what we did.
* * *
FROM a distance, they look like so many red ants swarming on the rocks, though these Athenians hardly swarm. They just lie about or crouch or crawl about, looking for a bit of shade. Still, to be fair, my eyesight’s not the best, and some of those most stationary may, in fact, be dead.
“Morning!”
A few glance up, but none return my greeting. Now, as time goes by, some in the city feel we’ve made a mistake. That keeping them here in the pits is too much, that it goes beyond war. They say we should just kill them, make them slaves, or send them home, but, ah, I like the pits. It reminds us that all things must change. I recall the Athenians as they were a year ago: their armour flashing like waves when the moon is upon them, their war cries that kept you up at night and set the dogs howling, and those ships, hundreds of ships gliding around our island, magnificent sharks ready to feast. The pits show us that nothing is permanent. That’s what Diocles says. They show us that glory and power are shadows on a wall. Ah, and I like the way they smell. It’s awful, but it’s wonderful awful. They smell like victory and more. Every Syracusan feels it when they get that smell. Even the slaves feel it. Rich or poor, free or not, you get a whiff of those pits, and your life seems somehow richer than it did before, your blankets warmer, your food tastier. You’re on the right track or at the very least a better track than those Athenians.
“Morning!”
A poor bastard sees my club and raises his arms. A stream of words follows, most of which I can’t understand, his voice being a faint croak, but I pick out “Zeus,” “please,” and “children.”
“Fear not,” says I. “We come not to punish, though you Athenian dogs deserve punishment. Gelon and I are merciful. We come—”
“Shut up.”
“What, Gelon? I speak the truth.”
“Just be quiet.”
I chuckle. “Ah, you’re in one of those moods, I see.”
He’s already kneeling by the poor bastard, giving him water.
“Any Euripides?” says Gelon.
The man is sucking at the goatskin like it’s Aphrodite’s nipple, some of the water trickling down his beard. He’s pink. Actually pink. Almost all of them are pink, though some are even red.
“Euripides, man, do you know any?”
The man nods and sucks some more. Other Athenians are coming forward now. Feet clanking with chains. There are more than I thought, though still fewer than last time.
“Water and cheese,” says Gelon, “for anyone who knows lines of Euripides and can recite them! If it’s from Medea or Telephus you’ll get olives too.”
“What about Sophocles?” asks a tiny creature with no teeth. “Oedipus Rex?”
“Fuck Sophocles! Did Gelon mention Sophocles? You—”
“Shut up.”
“Ah, Gelon. I’m only saying.”
Gelon starts with the terms.
“No Sophocles, nor Aeschylus, nor any other Athenian poet. You can recite them if it pleases you, but water and cheese are only for Euripides. Now, my man. What have you got?”
The man who was drinking clears his throat and goes to straighten up. It’s a sorry sight. Try as he might, he can’t do it. His neck flops, the head swaying from side to side, loose fruit blown by a gentle wind. He says:
“‘Eh, but we must learn to understand, King Priam…’”
He stops.
“Is that all?”
“Sorry, I knew more, but I can’t seem to … My head, it’s broken, see, I forget faces, and I can’t remember my … I swear I knew more.”
The man puts his head in his hands. Gelon pats him on the shoulder and gives him one last sip. I think the Athenian’s crying, but he still sucks away at the skin. Water pouring into him even as it pours out.
“Can anyone do better than that? A mouthful of olives for some Medea?”
Gelon’s mad for Euripides. It’s the main reason he comes. I think he would’ve been almost happy for the Athenians to have won if it meant Euripides would’ve popped over and put on some plays. He once spent a month’s wages to pay an old actor to come to our factory and recite scenes while we shaped pots. The foreman said it was reducing productivity, and he threw the actor out. Gelon didn’t give up, though. He had the actor shout the lines from across the street. You’d hear snatches of poetry through the blaze of the kiln, and though I think we made fewer pots that week, they were stranger, more beautiful. This was all before the war, and the actor’s dead, the factory gone. I look over at Gelon now. His blue eyes wide and nervous. A block of cheese held over his head, shouting about olives. Gelon’s just mad. Never mind Euripides.
Many volunteer, but when it comes to it, most fumble and pause and complain about headaches and thirst, or just collapse on the ground so that we only get a line at a time. Two if we’re lucky. One bluffer starts doing a scene where Medea is being wooed by Achilles, which even I know is a load of bollix. Medea was way before Achilles. She was with Jason.
“But swift-footed Achilles it can never be! O Hellas, my father will never allow it. Achilles, what can—”
Gelon raises his club, and the bluffer slinks away. Another takes his place. This one at least mentions Jason, but it’s a bit Gelon already knows. Still, he gets a few olives for his troubles.
The day goes on in this way. The sun gets fatter, yolkier and its heat less fierce. Pinks and reds bleed into the blue. I leave Gelon to it and take a stroll around the pits. Officially I’m scouting for actors. Gelon’s taken a bold step and offered to return with a bag of grain if he can get five Athenians to do a scene from Medea. But he wants them to properly act it out. Like, perform it. He’ll be lucky if he finds one. These poor bastards are just waiting to die. I imagine the worst spots of Hades are something similar. Hairy skeletons with a hint of skin. Apart from the hair, the only bit of variety to be found is in the eyes. Glassy gems made brighter by dying. Massive browns and blues peer out at me. I haven’t found a leading man yet, but I’m looking.
Copyright © 2024 by Ferdia Lennon