The Three Sons of Euphorion Chapter 6

On the hill top overlooking the temple and Euphorion's estate, a gathering of old men, women and children huddled together. Sometimes the children played. Sometimes the women lamented old hymns and beat their breasts. But as the evening shadows lengthened over Attica and a cold wind blew eerily. the people became quiet and clutched each other.

Euphorion cast his hand over his grizzled beard and scanned the horizon to distant Athens. Little Euphorion, his grandson and son of the tragic poet Aeschylos, saw his grandfather's anguish. He came over and slipped his hand into his grandfather's. Euphorion loved his grandson with a passion. Already he was teaching him the arts of the hoplite.

My father and my two uncles will all come back alive and victorious won't they?
said little Euphorion, peering earnestly into his grandfather's eyes.

Of course, said Euphorion.
The wicked King of Persia and his slave soldiers will be made into mince by my brave and beautiful sons.

People always laugh at my father because he acts like he is drunk even when he is sober – but he is as brave as my uncles,
said little Eurphorion. The boy broke out into loud sobs.

Euphorion hushed him.
You must be a brave soldier for Athens too. You don't want to frighten the slaves and women. If they see you frightened, they will panic.

Little Euphorion choked and swallowed his sobs.
Why did the King of Persia come here?

Euphorion smiled.
The appetite of the Great King knows no limits. That is why Athens has no King. Your father writes beautiful verses for Dionysios. The Gods will protect a poet for that when all else is lost.

Euphorion was thinking about the time when his third son Aminias stood as high as little Euphorion. Then also the soil of Eleusis and the spirits of the people trembled to the marching feet of invading soldiers. Then the invaders were Spartans and they welcomed them as liberators. The Spartans had expelled from the Acropolis the Athenian tyrant Hippias. Now the tyrant was a pensioner in the court of the Persian King in far away Susa in Asia.

Euphorion had heard – although he did not believe it – that Hippias was guiding the Persians into Marathon. It crossed Euphorion's mind for the first time that the Spartan invasion had been completely forgotten by the Athenians. When he thought about it, so also had been forgotten the invasion of Eleusis by the Spartans and their allies several years later. He had shamefully accidentally locked himself and his two elder sons in the arsenal storeroom. Only the pious actions of the law‑giver Cleisthenes had saved his estate and all his people from the holocaust of the vengeful Athenians.

He now thought it was remarkable also that the great law maker had also been forgotten. He was grateful to Cleisthenes the way a rescued bear cub is grateful to a hunter. He could still growl at the Eleusinian peasants. He could wag his tail when Cleisthenes and his lackeys patted him. They fed him the honey and milk of Eleusis and expected instant loyalty and gratitude. When the old law‑maker died, no one decreed a public mourning. Only his family buried him in a private funeral. It seemed no Athenian wanted to be reminded of the evil days when the Spartans marched through Attica at the invitation of her aristocrats. The evil days when Athenian fought Athenian and called each other dogs and wolves.

Soon after Cleisthenes' death, the Athenian assembly did decree public statues to the liberators of Athens. They had been the first statues erected in the city to men who were not Gods or legendary heroes. He now thought it strange indeed that the statues were Harmodios and Aristogeiton. These young men had murdered Hipparchos, the co‑tyrant and younger brother of Hippias, four years before Hippias had been expelled by the Spartans. At the time of the murder, few Athenians outside Hippias' court had taken much interest. It had been no more than a squalid homosexual quarrel.

Yet immediately after Cleisthenes' death, Harmodios and Aristogeiton came to epitomise the new Athenian. That was – 

‘A young man, beautiful in body and thoughts; a poet of the horse, the hoplite armour, and lyrical verse.’

He, Euphorion, had been too old to be a new Athenian. His three sons, now fighting for their lives and for Athens' survival, were each worthy of one of the three aspects of the new Athenian.

The city statues of these homosexual lovers had unsettled the older generation of Athenians. They had turned men who lived among them only a few years ago into God‑like heroes who moved and breathed in a city they secretly knew could not ever exist. The new forms of art did that. They turned aristocratic men into Gods. Each of his sons in his own way was striving for this. Now they might be dead – killed by this dream. At this moment the Athenian young men might be in desperate flight from the Great King's warrior slave hoards.

All Athenians knew the fate of the enemies of the Great King. The lucky ones would be the dead ones. The dispirited rest would flee to the mountains. Their property would be burnt and looted. Their women molested and sent as sex slaves to the harems in Asia. The satrap in Sardis in Lydia would be the master of the Athenian wretched remnants. Euphorion cursed his fate that only a year past his sixtieth year denied him the right to fight the Great King. What should he do next if his scanning eyes saw a flight of the crested helmeted Athenians and a triumphant invasion of turbaned barbarians?

Before he had kissed his three sons and uttered a short prayer, he had said to his soldiers,

If the Gods are against us, my eldest surviving son or my most senior surviving hoplite will lead the deme into the mountains. When there is peace, return to Eleusis. We who are alive and spared will be waiting for you. I have heard the Great King of the Persians is merciful to suppliants.

Only now did he recall that in the fever of their departure, he had called Aminias his second son. Poor stumbling, stupid Aeschylos. He knew that mistake would secretly anger him. The Gods had taken away so much of him by that cursed fall at the Dionysian festival. The hierophant at the temple of Demeter had promised him Dionysios would make amends by giving him the tongue of tragic poetry.

He wasn't sure about the prophecy. His son's verses were too difficult. After Aeschylos had come third at the Dionysian festival, Phrynichos had told him his son had shown promise. He had never dared tell that to his two other sons. Phrynichos was a curse on their lips. His opera, The Capture of Miletos had libelled them and their fellow hoplites who had so bravely fought in Asia for the liberation of the Greek cities from the Great King.

When Euphorion had farewelled Cynegeros and Aminias at their departure to Asia, he had never thought they might not come back. Even when the battle fields were littered with corpses, few hoplites died in battle. They came back cut and bruised, revelling in their bravery and strength. The dead soldiers most knew about were the heroes at Troy. This time they were fighting alone the might of the Great King and there was no place left to escape. A champion runner had been sent to Sparta. but there was no sign of them.

You could never trust the Spartans. The last time they were in Attica they had burnt the Demeter temple. Their King Cleomenes had suffered the just punishment of the Gods. The Gods had driven him insane. The Spartans had tied him to a stake. The King had taken a knife from an helot and sliced himself to pieces.

Euphorion looked back at the temple. The Athenians had shown their piety by their complete restoration. Out of the corner of one eye, Euphorion had watched his slaves on the hill top. Hadn't he always been merciful to them? Always mindful that they had souls and once a God had loved them or their ancestors. Therefore hadn't he always treated them as less than a horse but always better than a dog?

But ingratitude and jealousy rules a man favoured or unfavoured by the Gods. Hadn't the Athenians and Eleusians driven out the Pisistradidae even though everyone now admits they were better off under those tyrants? His father Cynegiros had none of the modern weaknesses. When a slave lost his teeth, straight to the slave market, as an old dog went straight to the well. Of course his grandfather Euphorion sold half his peasant debtors all over Hellas and Asia.

Euphorion smiled ruefully. Until his grandfather's hard bargains, the family did not possess the title of aristocrats. His grandfather had cleared out the peasants in the neighbourhood and turned their meagre holdings into his prosperous estate. Before that as far as the eye could see this land had been full of Eleusiian peasants. Then that Athenian demagogue Solon had actually made the natural property rights illegal! Free‑born feckless debtors could amass debts on his father's estate and he and his slaves could not lay a hand on them.

Euphorion cast his eyes to the ground. At his feet were the graves and the shrines of his ancestors. His daughters‑in‑law had this morning laid wreaths at the family tombs. His sons only knew of their great‑grandfather's name. It would not suit family pride that they should ever know his commercial talents had given them their aristocratic title and their sprawling estate. Even worse in the temper of the times, his versifier second son might start pitying the cast‑out peasants and calling their great‑grandfather a tyrant and a thief.

Euphorion felt the ghosts of his grandfather and father at his elbows.
Were they ashamed of him? They had fought in the hoplite ranks for Athena! His sons were fighting now and may already be dead. Fate had designed that he should never know the thrill of battle. If a barbarian soldier appeared at this moment, he would have to fall and kiss his feet and plead for mercy. Euphorion wondered if that cursed fortune had made him weak.

He had first noticed it twenty years ago. He had taken his boys' tutor to the slave market. The old slave's head had become full of Ionian nonsense about the Gods and had been filling his sons' heads with it. He should have done it years ago but he didn't know until the words of his first born. It was blessed of the Gods that only Aeschylos had been contaminated. But Aeschylos was a poet – and their heads are full of nonsense in the best of times. He had made a good exchange with a hunting dog. No God had been offended.

Yet, ever since, a mischievous night‑spirit had sent him unearthly dreams. He had been merciful to the old tutor. He had only whipped him once for a crime his father and grandfather would have cut his hands off and left him till his miserable soul had reached Charon at the river Lethe.

But then there came those nightly visitations. It was always much the same dream. The old tutor was driving the peasants and his slaves on to break down the doors of his house. They were carrying fire‑brands and sharp agricultural implements, and were yelling curses at his family. He, Euphorion, was on his hands and knees, sobbing and pleading for forgiveness. There were so many assailants at the doors that Euphorion, when awake, wondered if there were among them the ghosts of the peasants sold by his grandfather.

Sometimes he dreamt he and his sons were hiding behind the door of the storehouse while they heard outside the sacking of his house and his estate. The night‑spirit played a cruel trick on him. When the demagogue Cleisthenes and his rabble army invaded his land, they seemed to repeat the dream.

Then out of his reverie Euphorion felt a small hand tugging his arm.
A childish voice whispered beneath his ear,

Look yonder, grandfather. There is an Athenian Ephebos running towards us.

Euphorion's heart stopped for a moment. He gasped for the rush of night air and gripped the little hand. His grandson spoke truly. A fire‑brand with the pale image of a light‑armed soldier beneath it was moving rapidly through the gloom. No‑one else had seen it. At the moment they saw it the old men would start sobbing and praying, and the women would start screaming.

Euphorion whispered – 
Be brave and silent little one. Help me down the hill to the messenger.

Euphorion and the boy Euphorion slipped away. Closer and closer the dancing, flaming image moved towards them. Still no‑one in the gathering on the hill noticed the scene beneath them.

Then Euphorion placed his hand over his grandson's mouth and in a terrible voice cried – 

What is the news?

He now could recognise the messenger as the young son of his steward Empedocles. Last year he had freed Empedocles and his family and given them a peasant holding. The messenger took one gasp of breath and cried.

Sirs, the Athenians have defeated the Great King at Marathon. Your first born Cynegiros has died a hero's death. Your two other sons are unharmed. Many of Eleusis are dead. My father too is dead.

The boy began to cry. Euphorion whispered,

Praise to our Gods and our manhood.

Then they heard the screams from the hill top. Euphorion shouted up the hill,

Athens is saved. Many are dead. Cynegiros and Empedocles are dead.

Then Euphorion stumbled, and wept on the shoulders of the young man. Down the hill through the gloom the people rushed. Each one interrogated the young man with only one question.

What was the fate of those they loved?

As the young man answered each one, the people shouted out,

Praise to the Gods – or cried, and tore their hair.