The Glory That Was

Chapter Eighteen

Kleon's porter said, "I will call the master."

After a wait, the door opened. A big voice rumbled. "Come in, you two. What is this great news you have for me?"

The torchlight showed a man as tall as Knut Bulnes, stout and potbellied, with a great mop of curly hair, a scanty beard, a snub nose, and small close-set eyes. The man, Bulnes judged, must be some years younger than himself. As he looked more closely, he realized that the man was holding a short Greek sword.

"It is this, O Kleon ..." began Flin, but subsided when Bulnes trod on his toes.

Bulnes, sizing up the man, said, "Excuse the intrusion at such an unseemly hour, good Kleon, but the news is indeed momentous, especially for you. First, know that we are but two traveling philosophers from far Tartessos, who ..."

"Get on with it," said Kleon. "Is the Perikles dead, or what?"

"Not exactly."

"How mean you, not exactly?"

"The news is almost that important. But hear me. We, having through no fault of our own fallen foul of Perikles, seek sanctuary — for, as unregistered foreigners, we have little protection. In return for our news we look to you to provide it."

Kleon thought, then said, "If you do not mind living with my slaves and if your news be as important as you say, very well. Now let us have it."

"Perikles has just murdered Aspasia."

"What? Impossible!"

"True nevertheless. And before all the philosophers of Athens, so you can easily confirm my story."

"Tell me quickly! No, first come in and shut that door. We would not have all the world from Caria to Carthage hear."

Bulnes told the tale of the symposium, omitting his own knowledge of the causes of the outbreaks of seeming dementia and the true identity of Perikles.

"By the twelve postures of Kyrene!" shouted Kleon, slapping his thigh. "This is indeed the world's wonder!"

He began pacing back and forth in the andronitis.

"This will finish that compromiser, that seducer of the people! Now they shall come into their own. No more appeasement of Sparta. No more pampering the subject cities. Athens shall be mistress of an empire like that of the Great King. Every Athenian citizen a king! And I will show the rotten rich, too. Kleon the Tanner they call me, the perfumed weaklings, because I make my living by honest slave-driving instead of letting some slimy metic manage my affairs. Well, I will tan their hides so they shall long remember it. I will grind them underfoot as I will grind our rebellious and ungrateful allies. But how to topple old Long-Pate from his pedestal? Ha?"

He glared at Bulnes, teeth bared in a mirthless grin.

Bulnes said, "Not being too familiar with Athenian law, I do not know, but could not he be arrested for murder?"

"Who should arrest him? Action against a murderer must be brought before the King by the next of kin of the victim. Aspasia was a Milesian with no relatives in Athens, save her son by Perikles, who is only a boy."

Flin squeaked, "Could not her patron take action?"

"Yes, save that her patron is this same Perikles. Would you have him accuse himself?"

"Well then, could not the Polemarchos, as legal guardian of all metics, do it?"

"You raise a nice point of law which, so far as I know, has never been settled. It might work — we Athenians have no patience with legal subtleties that defeat justice. First, however, I think I had better go to the Tholos and take up the matter with the President of the Council. The Presidency will call a special assembly tomorrow to remove Perikles from office for unfit conduct. You two wait here until I return! Boy, my shoes and himation."

As the front door closed behind Kleon's bulky form, Flin said, "That's a dangerous man, Knut."

"So I gathered. What did the real one do?"

"I believe when he got power he persuaded the Assembly to have the whole population of some city massacred or enslaved because they wouldn't join the Delian League — no, that was another time. He did carry such a motion, but then somebody else persuaded 'em to cancel the order — in the nick of time."

"We shall have to watch ourselves. You know, comrade, I can't help feeling I've seen Kleon somewhere before, too."

"I wonder who he could be in everyday life?"

"I don't know. It's just a feeling. At least some things are becoming clearer."

"Such as?" said Flin.

"Vasil's general pattern. What happened to the original Athens at this point?"

"The Peloponnesian War broke out, you know."

"Yes, but in detail?"

"Oh, good heavens, it was a long and complicated war ..."

"The Athenians lost?"

"In the long run, yes."

"And that war, you say, ruined Classical Greece?"

"More or less," said Flin.

"Why did Athens lose?"

"As. I recall, several reasons. One was that Perikles died of a plague at the outset and the Assembly went off its rails without him to guide it. They elected people like Kleon and Alkibiades to be their leaders, and did irresponsible things — like executing all their generals because, when they won a naval battle, they failed to recover all the bodies of their dead."

"What a crazy thing to do! Why?"

"Oh, they were superstitious about burial. Next day, when the generals were dead, they changed their minds and executed the men who'd made the original motion."

"Temperamental, no?"

"Also, they'd been exploiting the subject states of their empire until the latter hated them and were glad to break away."

"But I thought they were the great ancient democracy?"

"They were. You're used to modern history, in which aristocrats and authoritarians are the imperialists. In Athens the common people were imperialists and militarists, while the rich and the aristocrats were for peace and moderation."

"Why was that?"

"Because the rich were mostly landowners whose property would be occupied by the enemy in a Spartan war, while the polloi got their living from overseas trade and hence favored expansion of the empire."

"I begin to see," said Bulnes. "Vasil thinks Periklean Athens was a high point in civilization. If Perikles — that is, himself in an earlier incarnation — hadn't made some errors of judgment and hadn't died at a critical time, it would have gone on getting better and better. So, he thinks, why not re-create it by means of the conditioning machine his scientists have developed, and run the picture over with himself playing Perikles? This time, however, he'll profit by the experience of the real Perikles. He'll stave off the war with Sparta. He'll conciliate the allies, offering them union on equal terms as a modern statesman would do. Then, when he's reestablished the ideal civilization on a stable basis, he'll build a superconditioner and put the entire world under its influence."

"How could he, since the Emperor has no political power?"

"How could he get this far? Lenz let him, either to keep him out of his hair or, more likely, because Lenz hopes to use the conditioner himself on the world. If Vasil weren't fundamentally a fool, as Aspasia said, he'd have seen that. What a way to keep everybody under control! And you could justify it by saying that they were all as happy as possible, even if they weren't in their right minds."

Flin said, "I see their point of view, though they'd have had to modify their scheme for different climates. You couldn't live through a Russian winter in a chiton and himation."

"Oh, it's a cracked idea of course. There's nothing about keeping the slaves — a third of the population — happy, and I suspect these high points in history are inherently unstable."

"Why?"

"Some professor has a theory that they come up only when a society is changing from a basis of status and tradition to one of contract and reason, and the same forces that make the society flower also make it go to seed."

"I say!" said Flin. "We ought to let Diksen know."

"He'll find out about the murder, if that's what you mean. Everybody in Athens will hear of it, even without newspapers."

"I meant where we are."

"We shall have to see what Kleon does first."

Kleon returned to his house some time later, grinning.

"I fixed them!" he roared. "The Perikleans among the Prytaneis tried to delay things, but I showed them. The trumpeters have already gone out to sound a special assembly for tomorrow morning. It is too bad that you two cannot witness my triumph. We were going to attack Perikles through some of his friends, but this is quicker. To your pallets, and do not try to leave. I may need you as witnesses if there is a trial."