The Three Sons of Euphorion Chapter 3

Under the sharp critical eye of Cynegiros, under the shimmering or burning sun in the fields, Aeschylos gained the arts of the hoplite. Aeschylos in his new hoplite armour – consisting of a shield, metal reinforced corset, helmet, greaves, short iron sword, and a thrusting spear as big as himself – thrust and parried to the shouts and admonitions of his brother.

Later when his martial skills made him an expert, Aeachylos timed his body blows and his gasps of air to the rhythmic song of Cynegiros:

Hold his shield fast making his own life his enemy,
And the black spirits of death as dear to him as the rays of the sun.

Aeschylos knew the song. The Spartan soldiers had sung and danced it around their camp fires when they had invaded Eleusis last Summer. The heavy metal armour weighed down and exhausted him. But he was happy as it drove away his unwelcome thoughts. What was the fate of his old tutor? Was he still alive? He secretly relished the knowledge that Aminias furiously envied him. While Aeschylos trained up his body and mind to be a warrior, Aminias discontentedly struggled with his dry scroll in his bedroom under the impatient tutelage of Euphorion.

Later Cynegiros put on his own hoplite armour and engaged the boy in close formation. He let the boy exhaust himself in heavy blows, then in a swift attack with his shield and thrusting spear he knocked him to the ground. Aeschylos sat up winded and badly bruised and looked hostilely at his brother.

That's the hoplite spirit,
said Cynegiros above him with his spear pointing at his throat.
If I were not your kinsman, you would now do anything to kill me. Remember Diomedes when he thrust his spear into Ares' belly even though he is the War God? Remember how old ass' ears waggled and his nose dripped when he recited that Homeric passage?

That was the first time Cynegiros had spoken of his tutor with any sign other than undying contempt and hatred. Aeschylos understood for the first time that moment when all men on the same side in war feel love towards each other. He pulled himself to his feet and Cynegiros put his arm around him.
Your movements are too slow to make you a renowned warrior. In the battle field you will join the iron wall of Attica.

Aeschylus was frustrated that he would have to wait two more years until he was eighteen and could join the city guard on the battlements of Eleusis. He would have to wait another two years after that to join the hoplites on the battle field.

In Eleusis the high hopes of the aristocrats after the Spartan invasion had not been fulfilled. All the Eleusinian aristocrats did not doubt that their champion Isogoras was the greatest Athenian since Solon. He had just been elected the Chief Archon of Athens. He had visited Eleusis and Aeschylos had seen a short stocky man with a face and neck that reminded him of a bull.

One night in the men's dining chamber he was surprised to discover that not every Athenian thought so of Isogoras. Euphorion had taken the time to educate his three sons about Athenian affairs.

The Athenian polloi are the most ungrateful scum in all Hellas. We the best families have given them the most just and best living in Hellas. Does a single one step aside when we are in Athens? They bump into us and block our path as if we are little better than mules and slaves.

Our Eleusinian peasants are the only good stock in Attica. They crouch down and murmur recognition to their overlords when a shadow of us passes by. Ten Eleusinians of every class could trounce a hundred Athenian scum. Now those dogs have formed an illegal assembly and listened to that accursed foreigner Cleisthenes.

In one foul motion they have upset the constitution of Solon and imposed the rule of the people. Have you heard of anything more ridiculous? The Athenian people couldn't run a menagerie.

As if to release the bile inside him, Euphorion burst into loud guffaws.

Aeschylos and Aminias were nonplussed. Cleisthenes was the heir of the Alcmaeonid family. Almost since the time of Theseos, they had been prominent in every glorious moment of Athenian history. After the invasion of the Spartans, Cleisthenes had returned from exile. Everyone had thought he had retired from public life after forty years of fighting the Pisistratidae. Aeschyls glanced at Cynegiros. He was tearing with his teeth a crust of bread and olives.

You can always tell the demagogues as Homer said about Thersites at Troy. Bandy legged, round shoulders, egg shaped heads. Tongues like vipers leading on the people against us. Rotten eggs in war time.

Cynegiros bit again into his crust.

Aeschylos was strangely reminded of Euphorion's dog guiltily growling and chewing at a bone under the banquet table. Something mysterious made him uneasy. Euphorion was right of course. The Athenian mob was a byword for the loathsome for all Eleusinians. Aeschylos wondered if a malignant God had seized Cleisthenes' senses.

The Moirai, the three fates who spin, apportion and cut out each man's and woman's destiny, had not yet bestowed upon Athens internal harmony. Isagoras and his party's honour had been demeaned by the Athenian assembly. Isagoras left Athens to Sparta. His appeal to King Cleomenes of Sparta not to be undone by the mob of Athens was heart felt. The Spartan King and the minor Athenian aristocrat found they had much in common when speaking of an insurgent mob. King Cleomenes' brow darkened when Isagoras whinged that the new Athenian constitution banished the age old loyalty to kinship.

Now the Athenian citizen would fight for his city shoulder to shoulder not with his aristocratic distant cousin but with his neighbours. They needed no words between them to know out of such neighbourliness would spring forth even a worse revolution. The egg headed Theristes of ignoble birth trembled upon both their lips. Having stoked the King's fire, Isagoras slyly threw in his biggest trump. The accursed Alcmaenonid family under the instigation of their ringleader Cleisthenes had bribed the priestess at Delphi to give false oracles to the Spartans to expel the Pisistratidae.

Every Athenian knew the conspiracy from someone but had kept the secret. The Spartan King silently cursed all Ionians as tricksters and all Achaeans as dull fools.

Isagoras then artfully played his strategy over the King like a soothing tune on a lyre. The King had thought the Alcmaeonid were called accursed by Isagoras for their present day demagogy. But now he heard the appellation stretched back into Athenian ancient history. The Alcmaeonid had once murdered suppliants at the feet of the statue of Athena on the Athenian Acropolis.

Isagoras carefully omitted the rest of the history that the Alcameaonid were trying to reserve the ancient Athenian constitution from a demagogue. He assured the King that the Isagoras family had no blood tie to the Alcmaeonid.

The King was also secretly relishing memories of the sweet wine tasting body of Isagoras' wife. During the siege of the Pisitratidae he had billeted at the house of Isagoras and over the nights he had slipped away into her quarters. Isagoras' wife was gladly following her husband's order.

Isagoras had argued to himself, as Cleisthenes had tricked the King over Delphi, he could trick him over his wife. He and his trusty wife alone knew he had not been cuckold and they would never let that slip to any living soul.

The King promptly sent an order to Athens.

The accursed must leave Athens at once.

The King obligingly gave his herald a long list of the accursed. At the top was Cleisthenes, the rest were his seven hundred closest allies named by Isagoras.

When the Spartan herald read out the order at the new Athenian assembly, Cleisthenes without a word left the assembly. The ‘accursed’ Cleisthenes departed Athens the next day. When his appellate was named publicly, he had no choice. The other ‘accursed’ named in the royal list refused to go, and no riot erupted in the assembly to expel them much to the King's pious chagrin.

The King with a regiment set out hurriedly for Athens. The aristocratic young watchmen did not report their invasion to the Council and opened the gates to them. The seven hundred Athenians on the royal list fled in panic with their families before the marching Spartan boots in the dusty streets of Athens. The Athenian non aristocrats kept a sullen silence and bided their time.

In Eleusis, Euphorion, his three sons and his household slaves sacrificed a heifer in thanks giving to Zeos. The Eleusinains had cheered and festooned with flowers the tired march of the royal regiment and their King. Euphorion's two younger sons had gazed with awe on the Spartan King who was the descendant of Perseos the slayer of the Gorgon, and therefore of Zeos himself. The King was drunk on untreated wine he took in the Scythian fashion.

Billeted in the house of Isagoras, having besotted himself on his host's wife, King Cleomenes summoned the Council. He read them a short speech that he the Spartan King had taken the Athenians into his protection. Their services to Athens were no longer required. Henceforth Athens would be ruled by Isagoras and a council of three hundred Athenians loyal to their ancient constitutuim. The Council noted at once all three hundred names were supporters of Isaogoras.

In the presence of the King and his armoured regiment, they in a body refused to resign. The Spartans and their Athenian supporters marched out of the Council House and occupied the Acropolis. The polloi seized their chance. They grabbed their weapons and sealed off the Acropolis. After three days of standoff, the Spartans capitulated. All the Spartans were allowed to leave Athens. All the Athenian traitors were put in prison and executed. As Isagoras had been Chief Archon and an aristocratic patriot, he was tacitly allowed to leave with the Spartans.

In a special meeting of the Athenian assembly, Cleisthenes and the seven hundred Athenian families were recalled. Everyone knew their insult to the Spartan King must be punished and so war with Sparta and all her allies was imminent.

In Eleusis, Euphorion on hearing the news from Athens fainted in rage. When he recovered all avoided him for several days. Whereupon he seemed normally ebullient again. Aeschylos secretly prayed the Spartans would delay their invasion until he turned eighteen and would be old enough to guard the rampart of Eleusis. When the Spartans and their allies arrived, the Eleusinian watchmen would of course open the gates to them.

After two Summers, armies came to Eleusis from every part of the Peloponnese. The gates of Eleusis were opened to them. In his hoplite armour, Aeschylos stood by the gate of Eleusis, and watched them enter. He shared with his fellow guards a secret shame and saw in the eyes of the invaders and the Eleusinians a profound contempt. They were marched out by the Spartans back to their estates and farms.