Authors: Gore Vidal
In any event, at Pericles’ urging, I did my best to recall the only private conversation I ever had with Themistocles. It took place at Magnesia, a year or two before his death. I cannot remember why I was in that part of the world. But I do remember that when word spread along the highway that the king’s friend was approaching. Themistocles sent me a messenger. Would I be his guest at the governor’s house? Naturally, being Persian, I was pleased that the great man remembered me. Naturally, being Greek, I knew that he wanted something from me.
I remember that it was late afternoon—in the summertime, I think. We sat together in a beautiful loggia overlooking the gardens of his considerable estate. Over the years, Themistocles had amassed an enormous fortune which he had managed, somehow or other, to spirit out of Athens before his fall from power.
“There has been a misunderstanding between me and the satrap at Sardis.” Themistocles poured us wine with his own hands. “A small matter but ...” In the Greek fashion, he threw out some wine onto the pavement. “Years ago,” he continued, “I set up a statue at Athens called the water bearer. It was a memorial to the time when I was water surveyor, a very difficult job which I think I handled rather well. The statue is bronze—old style, of course, but everyone always liked it. Anyway, after the fall of Athens, the Persians took the statue and set it up in the temple of Hera at Sardis.” Yes, Democritus, he said “the fall of Athens.”
“So I asked the satrap if I might buy the statue from the temple and send it back to Athens—you know, as a symbol of the peace between the Persians and the Greeks, and so on. The satrap was furious. He has now accused me of insulting the Great King, of treason, of ...” Themistocles discussed at considerable length the satrap’s threats. He was genuinely shaken by their exchange. I did my best to soothe him. I told him that I would set matters right with both the chancellery and the third house of the harem. Certainly, the peace treaty was of more importance to the Great King than a single statue. Unfortunately, at about this time, the Athenians saw fit to attack our province of Egypt. In a rage, the Great King ordered Themistocles to assemble the fleet. A week later Themistocles died—of a horse’s bite, it was said; and the statue of the water bearer remains at Sardis to this day.
Once I had reassured Themistocles that the Great King would not be swayed by a mere satrap of Lydia, we discussed a thousand and one things. He had a quick and curious mind. He asked many questions and he listened to many, if not all, of my answers.
I asked him questions, too. Certainly, I asked him about Egypt. Even then, everyone knew that disaffected elements within Egypt were looking for aid from outside. Would the Athenians help the Egyptians rebel against Persia? Themistocles’ response was firm: “Unless the Athenians are entirely mad—not to be ruled out, may I say, from personal experience”—he smiled—“they will never attack the mainland of Asia or Africa. What would be the point? They could never win. There are not enough of them.”
I repeated this speech to Pericles, who murmured, “Yes, yes. He’s right. About there being too few of us, that is. Go on. Please.”
I told Pericles the rest of what I remembered. The dialogue was something like this:
“I am certain that there is no more danger to Athens from the Great King.” Themistocles gave me a side-long glance to see just how seriously I took such a statement from a Persian pensioner.
I was neutral. “I am no longer in the Great King’s confidence. But I agree with you. The Great King wants only to maintain what he has. If my prayers are granted, we will one day go to the east ...”
“And if
my
prayers are answered, the Athenians will go to the west.”
“Did he say where?” Pericles was now so close to me that I could feel on my cheek the heat of his face.
“Yes. Themistocles spoke of Sicily, of Italy. ‘Europe must be Greek,’ he said. ‘We must look west.’ ”
“Exactly! Now, what did he say about me?” I was amused to find that Pericles has all the usual public man’s vanity. Fortunately—or unfortunately—the public man almost always ends by confusing himself with the people that he leads. When General Pericles thinks of Athens, he thinks of himself. When he helps one, he helps the other. Since Pericles is gifted and wise—not to mention cunning—Athens
ought
now to be in luck.
Although I could not remember whether or not Themistocles had mentioned his political heir, I invented freely. One is never under oath when talking to a ruler. “Themistocles felt that you were the logical successor to
his
successor Ephialtes. He told me that he did not take seriously the fact that you are under a curse because of your descent from the Alcmaeonids ...” I threw this in because I was curious to learn Pericles’ reaction to the fact that many Greeks think that he and his family are still under a divine curse because, two centuries ago, one of his ancestors killed an enemy in a temple.
“As everyone knows, the curse was lifted when our family rebuilt Apollo’s temple at Delphi.” From this perfunctory answer, I cannot tell whether or not Pericles believes that the curse is still in effect or not. If it is, Athens will suffer because Pericles
is
Athens, or so he thinks. As I grow older, I tend more and more to believe in the longevity of curses. Xerxes expected to be murdered and I am sure that, at the end, he showed no surprise, assuming that he was granted a moment’s reflection before the awesome royal glory passed, in a welter of blood.
I played the courtier. “Themistocles spoke of you with respect—unlike Cimon, whom he hated.” This last was true.
“Cimon was a dangerous man,” said Pericles. “I should never have allowed him to come back. But Elpinice outwitted me. Yes, I was taken in by that evil old creature. I still don’t know how she did it. They say she’s a witch. Perhaps she is. Anyway, she came to me dressed as a bride. I was shocked. ‘You’re too old,’ I said, ‘to wear perfume and dress like that.’ But she argued with me like a man, and she got her way. Cimon came home. Now he’s dead, while Thucydides ... Well, the city is too small for him and me. One of us must go. Soon.”
Pericles rose. Once again the strong arm helped me to my feet. “Let us re-join the guests and celebrate the peace with Sparta and the peace with Persia.”
“Let us celebrate, General, the peace of Pericles.” I spoke with perfect sincerity.
Pericles replied, with what I took to be perfect sincerity, “I would like future generations to say of me that no Athenian ever wore mourning on my account.”
* * *
I, Democritus of Abdera, son of Athenocritus, have organized these recollections of Cyrus Spitama into nine books. I have paid for their transcription, and they can now be read by any Greek.
A week after the reception at the house of Aspasia, Cyrus Spitama died, swiftly, without pain, while listening to me read from Herodotus. That was nearly forty years ago.
During those years I have traveled in many countries. I have lived in Babylon and Bactra. I have traveled to the source of the Nile and I have gone as far east as the banks of the Indus River. I have written many books. Yet when I came back to Athens this year, no one knew me—not even the garrulous Socrates.
I think that Cyrus Spitama was correct when he said that the curse upon the Alcmaeonids still continues. Pericles was a great man, greatly doomed. At the time of his death, twenty years ago, Athens was being battered from without by the Spartan army and from within by the killing plague.
Now, after twenty-eight years of constant and debilitating warfare, Athens has surrendered to Sparta. This spring, the long walls were pulled down and as I write these lines there is a Spartan garrison on the Acropolis.
Thanks, in large part, to the education that I received from Cyrus Spitama, I have been able in the course of a long life to work out the causes not only of all celestial phenomena but of creation itself.
The first principles of the universe are atoms and empty space; everything else is merely human thought. Worlds such as this one are unlimited in number. They come into being, and perish. But nothing can come into being from that which is not, or pass away into what is not. Further, the essential atoms are without limit in size and number and they make of the universe a vortex in which all composite things are generated—fire, water, air, earth.
The cause of the coming into being of all things is the ceaseless whirl, which I call necessity; and everything happens according to necessity. Thus, creation is constantly created and re-created.
As Cyrus Spitama was beginning to suspect, if not believe, there is neither a beginning nor an end to a creation which exists in a state of flux in a time that is truly infinite. Although I have nowhere observed the slightest trace of Zoroaster’s Wise Lord, he might well be a concept which can be translated into that circle which stands for the cosmos, for the primal unity, for creation.
But I have written on these matters elsewhere and I mention them now only to express my gratitude to the old man whose life story I am pleased to dedicate to the last living survivor of a brilliant time, Aspasia, the wife of Lysicles, the sheep-dealer.
THE END.
GORE VIDAL
wrote his first novel,
Williwaw
,
at the age of nineteen while overseas in World War II.
During three decades as a writer, Vidal has written with success and distinction novels, plays, short stories and essays. He has also been a political activist. As a Democratic candidate for Congress from upstate New York, he received the most votes of any Democrat there in half a century. From 1970 to 1972 he was co-chairman of the People’s Party.
In 1948 Vidal wrote the highly praised, highly condemned novel
The City and the Pillar
,
the first American work to deal sympathetically with homosexuality. In the next six years he produced
The Judgment of Paris
and the prophetic
Messiah
.
In the fifties Vidal wrote plays for live television and films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. One of the television plays became the successful Broadway play
Visit to a Small Planet
.
Directly for the theater he wrote the prizewinning
The Best Man
.
In 1964 Vidal returned to the novel. In succession, he created three remarkable works:
Julian
,
Washington
,
D
.
C
.,
Myra Breckinridge
.
Each was a number-one best seller in the United States and England. In 1973 Vidal produced his most admired and successful novel
Burr
,
as well as the volume of collected essays,
Homage to Daniel Shays
.
In 1976, thirty years after the publication of
Williwaw
,
Vidal wrote
1876
,
which, along with
Burr
and
Washington
,
D
.
C
.,
completed his American Trilogy.