The Athenian Women

A Novel

Alessandro Barbero, Antony Shugaar

• Publisher: Europa Editions
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781609454197
• eBook ISBN: 9781609454203
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

"A raw and compelling portrait of 411 BC Greece in which women must fight for justice and democracy" by the Strega Prize–winning Italian novelist ( La Stampa ). Athens, 411 BC. As the Peloponnesian War draws to a close, a political coup begins to take shape in Athens. Veterans of the infamous battle of Mantinea, Thrasyllus, and Polemon now live as humble farmers in the countryside. They are determined to find influential husbands for their daughters, Glycera and Charis, but first they must defend Athens from the oligarchs plotting to reinstate tyrannical rule. Young and impatient, Glycera and Charis soon become infatuated with their neighbor's rich and arrogant son, Cimon. When their fathers travel to Athens to see Aristophanes's latest comedy, the girls use the chance to accept an invitation to Cimon's house... with no notion of what awaits them on their visit. Alternating between the secret drama playing out in the countryside and the public one playing out onstage in Athens, Alessandro Barbero weaves "a compelling story of women's valiant struggles to maintain their dignity in a misogynistic society" (Historical Novel Society).

THE ATHENIAN WOMEN

PROLOGUE
Mantinea, 418 B.C.

The sun baked the countryside. The fields of wheat and barley had long since been harvested, all that remained was scorched stubble. Dust kicked up with every gust of wind: the sea wasn’t far away. Practically all the Athenian hoplites were stretched out in the shade of the holm oaks, their bronze helmets and shields stacked on the ground, as they finished eating their daily rations of flatbread and cheese. A few men had hung their wineskins from low branches, and that’s how they drank their wine, lying under the tree without even bothering to get to their feet.

Two friends, Polemon and Thrasyllus, had sat down a little way from the others. They were two middle-aged peasants, with gnarly hands and sun-weathered faces: simple folk, owners of a patch of land and a couple of slaves, accustomed to lending a hand if a plow had to be shoved through rocky soil. When the time came to prune the vines, they preferred to do so in person, and would never let anyone else into their vineyard, entry to which was barred by a wooden gate. Like many Athenians who lived in the countryside, they’d never ventured far from their village; and now that the Athenian army had invaded enemy land and was marching against its age-old rival, Sparta, they were stunned to find themselves so far from home.

“I’d say it’s as hot as it is back home,” Polemon declared.

“Everything is exactly the same as it is back home,” Thrasyllus corrected him, as he looked around. “And to think that we’re actually in the Peloponnese!”

“Hadn’t you ever been before?” broke in a young man sitting a few paces away; he had a beard just starting to sprout on his chin, and silver buckles on his sandal straps.

Polemon and Thrasyllus shook their heads.

“I came here two years ago,” the young man went on. “My father took me to the Games. He competed himself when he was young,” he added proudly.

They both shrugged their shoulders. The games at Olympia were no doubt a very fine thing, but they had neither the time nor the money to attend: let the rich go to them. In any case, the next games wouldn’t be for another two years, and anything could happen now that the war among the Greek cities had broken out again, after a few years of peace.

In the silence, a cicada started chirping overhead.

Polemon put the leftover cheese and the knife away in his canvas rucksack.

“How long do you think it’s going to take before the Spartans realize that they’re not going to be able to beat us and sue for peace?” he grumbled.

“Those people are slow on the uptake, it might take them a little while longer,” Thrasyllus laughed.

“My father says that the Spartans will never sue for peace,” the young man broke in again.

Thrasyllus pulled himself up to a sitting position, uncorked the wineskin, and drank a gulp of wine.

“Yes, by god, they’ll sue for it, and they’ll be all too happy to,” he retorted flatly.

It was only a few months since the assembly had voted for war. The opportunity was simply too tempting! The inhabitants of the Peloponnese could no longer stand Spartan rule, and they had all taken up arms: the men of Argos, those of Mantinea, the countrymen of Arcadia. They’d called on the Athenians for their help: If you come lend a hand, this is the time we can be done with the Spartans for good. In the assembly only a few aristocrats had dared to speak out against it, parroting the usual argument: that the path to prosperity, for Athens, led through peace with Sparta, not a new war; but no one had paid them heed. When the motion to go to war had been put to a vote, the assembly had given its enthusiastic assent; Thrasyllus, too, had raised his hand, shouting and stamping his feet like all the others. Athens is strong, Athens brings liberty to the Greeks, Athens was born to rule, the goddess will protect us and this time we’ll sweep them away once and for all, those bastard Spartans! Polemon had been hesitant right up till the end; he too hated and feared the Spartans, because that was how he had been raised, but those few years of peace after the long war had been such a blessing for the countryside! In the end, though, he had decided that he had to do what all the others were doing, and he too had raised his hand . . .

And in fact things couldn’t have gone any better. The Spartans lacked the strength to wage battle against so powerful an enemy, and for days they had been retreating. So now here they were, on the sunbaked Peloponnesian plain, the Athenians and their allies; not far away, in a grove of maritime pines, the hoplites of Argos were camped, and from time to time the wind would carry past the sounds of their odd dialect. They were all there, eating and drinking in that scanty shade, sweating in the midday heat, listening to the chirping of the cicadas, and waiting for the Spartans—such blockheads!—to finally realize that they were done for and sue for peace. And when they did, they would all march down there and impose their terms.

“How far away from here is Sparta?” Thrasyllus asked.

“Two days’ march, I’ve heard,” Polemon replied.

“In that case,” Thrasyllus laughed, “the day after tomorrow we’ll be bathing in the Eurotas!”

Very few Athenians had ever had a chance to bathe in Sparta’s river. From what people said, the young women went swimming naked there: the Spartans are obsessed with fitness, even their women are forced to exercise.

Polemon shrugged.

“All I care about is whether we get back home in time to keep an eye on the olive harvesters! By god, unless the master is there to keep an eye on those women, they’ll rob you blind . . . ”

The young man beside them heaved a sigh of annoyance. Those topics bored him. He leapt to his feet and went over to the horse he’d tethered to a tree a short distance away; the slave who was watching over the animal and who had been squatting in the shade jumped up, but the young man ignored him and started stroking his horse’s muzzle; the two friends could hear him talking to the horse in a low voice.

“Look at him, the fine horseman,” Polemon commented scornfully.

“Those fellows, if they could find a way to strike a bargain with the Spartans to lower the yoke on the people’s neck, they’d do it in a flash!” Thrasyllus agreed. The Spartans, it’s well known, didn’t even know what democracy was: there the Equals commanded, and everyone else obeyed them.

“But this time we’re going to put an end to it,” Thrasyllus concluded.

Just then a buzz of voices reached them that had been spreading among the holm oaks. In the distance, the hoplites were getting to their feet, buckling their bags, and gathering their weapons. Then the rumor that had been flying from one small group to the next reached them too.

“Orders from the generals! Everyone in marching formation at the edge of the woods!”

Polemon and Thrasyllus gathered up their things and fell into line with the others as quickly as they could. Everyone was chattering, asking each other what could be happening. Then a general on horseback trotted toward them. He had pulled his bronze helmet back so he could be heard more clearly.

“Men of Athens! The gods are with us! The sacrifices have given auspicious omens, and now the enemy has been spotted. They’re marching through the woods. We’re going to wait for them on the other side, they won’t get away from us this time!”

The hoplites let loose with enthusiastic cheers, stamping their feet and pounding their spears against their shields. The general smiled broadly and rode off quite pleased, only to go and say the same words to another small knot of men. In Athens the generals were politicos elected by the citizenry, and so they were eager to tend to their constituency.

Electrified by the news, the troops emerged from the shadows and began marching through the fields of stubble, raising a dense cloud of dust. Here and there men coughed. Each of the men, in his heart of hearts, was torn by clashing emotions. Wouldn’t it have been better to allow the enemy to go on retreating, instead of forcing him to fight? Certainly, battle was the best way of settling things quickly: no one likes wars that drag on too long, and the idea of going home as soon as tomorrow was agreeable to one and all. There were none of them who hadn’t left behind wives, young children, slaves, livestock to tend to, the last hay to dry, the shop shut tight, and the storehouse in the guard’s care; so they were all in a great hurry to get back. Still, going into battle meant fighting the Spartans. And that idea sent shivers down just about everyone’s spine. Weren’t they the best soldiers on earth, the Spartans?

“So much nonsense,” said Thrasyllus, half suffocated by the dust because now the column, spurred along by orders, had broken into a run. “Once they might have been, but now they’re no longer the men they used to be. Times change.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Polemon; and then he fell silent, clenching his teeth to maintain the pace, with sweat pouring down his face.

At last, they came to a sudden halt, in the middle of a dry meadow already trampled by the thousands of men who had preceded them. The entire army faced left, in the direction of the forest that closed off the horizon. The generals on horseback trotted the length of the column, deploying the men into battle formation, starting from the right flank, the post of honor. The Athenian hoplites formed the tail of the column, meaning that they were on the left flank...

Table of contents

• ALSO BY ALESSANDRO BARBERO
• THE ATHENIAN WOMEN
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR