problems, however, they began to get seriously worried, for it was obvious that as soon as the Athenian Empire was strong enough, it would use every ounce of its new strength to stamp Sparta flat, liberate the subject races, and remove the one serious obstacle to Athenian supremacy in Greece. So, with a degree of hypocrisy remarkable even for them, the Spartans set themselves up as the champions of the oppressed and enslaved and demanded that we stop extorting tribute from our allies and disband the fleet.
And that is how Athens came to be at war with Sparta, eleven years after I was born. One of the first Athenians to be killed was my father, who went with the expeditionary force to Potidaea. By that stage, Themistocles had proved beyond question that he was the wisest and cleverest man in the whole of Athens, and had paid the inevitable penalty. As I recall, he escaped with his life and immediately went to the court of the Great King of Persia, who gave him a city to govern, and if he had managed to conceal his cleverness a little better he might have lived to be an old man. But he contrived to avoid being killed, for he took his own life by drinking bull’s blood, stylish to the very end. A number of marginally less clever Athenians took his place in turn, in particular the glorious but profoundly stupid Cimon, who actually believed that the purpose of the League was to fight the Persians, until the celebrated Pericles came to power, just as the Spartan situation was beginning to come to a head.
In fact, it was this same Pericles who gave me my first set of armour. You see, in those days it was the law that when a man’s father was killed on active service, the State provided his son with a suit of armour absolutely free, which is a very generous gesture in view of the price of bronze, if not exactly tactful. There is a touching little ceremony, and the General for the year makes a speech before handing each bewildered infant his breastplate, shield and helmet. Now in those days the General was elected, and Pericles’ power depended on his being elected General every year — it was the one great office of State that still retained even vestiges of actual power — so it was natural enough that he should make as much as possible of this great speech of his, in front of the whole population of the City. Since I was already a budding dramatist I was extremely excited about the coming performance and looked forward to it with the greatest possible anticipation. For I would be placed right up close to the Great Man, in an ideal position to make mental notes of all his mannerisms and personal peculiarities, all of which I would lovingly reproduce in dramatic form.
You remember I told you about that little general who wrote that incredibly dull and pompous history of the war, the one who thought he’d had the plague? Well, I came across a copy of the first part of his book the other day; I had bought some cheese and someone had used the immortal work to wrap it in, which shows the degree of aesthetic judgement our Attic cheesemongers have.
Before putting it on the fire I looked up a few things in it, and to my amazement I found that the little general had included the speech Pericles made that day. In fact, he had made a great fuss of it, using it as a convenient place to stuff in all the things he thought Pericles would have said if he had been half as clever as the little general, and by the time he’d finished with it the speech bore no relation at all to what I remembered Pericles saying; and I think I ought to know, since I was actually there, in the front row, studying the whole thing with the greatest possible care for the reasons I have just given you. But then again, my memory is not what it was. Still, I feel I ought to put down just a little bit of what I remember Pericles saying, just to set the record straight; and then if anyone else who was actually there reads it, he can either confirm that I am right or
And that is how Athens came to be at war with Sparta, eleven years after I was born. One of the first Athenians to be killed was my father, who went with the expeditionary force to Potidaea. By that stage, Themistocles had proved beyond question that he was the wisest and cleverest man in the whole of Athens, and had paid the inevitable penalty. As I recall, he escaped with his life and immediately went to the court of the Great King of Persia, who gave him a city to govern, and if he had managed to conceal his cleverness a little better he might have lived to be an old man. But he contrived to avoid being killed, for he took his own life by drinking bull’s blood, stylish to the very end. A number of marginally less clever Athenians took his place in turn, in particular the glorious but profoundly stupid Cimon, who actually believed that the purpose of the League was to fight the Persians, until the celebrated Pericles came to power, just as the Spartan situation was beginning to come to a head.
In fact, it was this same Pericles who gave me my first set of armour. You see, in those days it was the law that when a man’s father was killed on active service, the State provided his son with a suit of armour absolutely free, which is a very generous gesture in view of the price of bronze, if not exactly tactful. There is a touching little ceremony, and the General for the year makes a speech before handing each bewildered infant his breastplate, shield and helmet. Now in those days the General was elected, and Pericles’ power depended on his being elected General every year — it was the one great office of State that still retained even vestiges of actual power — so it was natural enough that he should make as much as possible of this great speech of his, in front of the whole population of the City. Since I was already a budding dramatist I was extremely excited about the coming performance and looked forward to it with the greatest possible anticipation. For I would be placed right up close to the Great Man, in an ideal position to make mental notes of all his mannerisms and personal peculiarities, all of which I would lovingly reproduce in dramatic form.
You remember I told you about that little general who wrote that incredibly dull and pompous history of the war, the one who thought he’d had the plague? Well, I came across a copy of the first part of his book the other day; I had bought some cheese and someone had used the immortal work to wrap it in, which shows the degree of aesthetic judgement our Attic cheesemongers have.
Before putting it on the fire I looked up a few things in it, and to my amazement I found that the little general had included the speech Pericles made that day. In fact, he had made a great fuss of it, using it as a convenient place to stuff in all the things he thought Pericles would have said if he had been half as clever as the little general, and by the time he’d finished with it the speech bore no relation at all to what I remembered Pericles saying; and I think I ought to know, since I was actually there, in the front row, studying the whole thing with the greatest possible care for the reasons I have just given you. But then again, my memory is not what it was. Still, I feel I ought to put down just a little bit of what I remember Pericles saying, just to set the record straight; and then if anyone else who was actually there reads it, he can either confirm that I am right or
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