The Hemlock Cup - Bettany Hughes [87]
By the beginning of the 430s this cheerful landscape had already begun to wear a frown.
The region was discontented. Pericles had stamped his mark on the surrounding territory and resentment had started to simmer. The foundations of the new Athenian-run towns of Brea in 445 BC and Amphipolis to the north in 437/6 BC could only mean one of two things: that the Athenians wished to expand their empire, or that they didn’t trust the Greek inhabitants of the north to behave without Athens keeping a close eye on them. Neither motivation was flattering.
Then there was the problem of money. To rub salt into the wound, the annual levy demanded by Athens from city-states in the region was raised from six to fifteen talents.4 The Athenians knew how a handover of cash can focus a troubled mind. To pre-empt a revolt Athens dispatched an ultimatum: pull down your walls, give over hostages, sever connections with the mother-city Corinth.
The Potidaeans desperately sent envoys to Athens and Sparta respectively. They asked the former to temper their actions and the latter to retaliate, should the Athenians become too heavy-handed. Athens’ interventions in Samos and in the rich waters off Corcyra were fresh in everyone’s minds. When it came to overseas interests, the Athenians were clearly forming a plan.
Unfortunately for Potidaea, although only a modest town it was useful to larger international interests. The nearby king of Macedon wanted to draw the Corinthians into this northern conflict to strengthen his own position against Athens. He fluffed up anxiety, joining the envoys that Potidaea had already sent to Corinth/Sparta with his own and demanding help from forces down south.
Now the military elite of the region were involved; the machinery of war was starting to turn. Thirty Athenian triremes left Piraeus, 1,000 hoplites – Socrates amongst them – started the journey north.5 Word reached the jumpy inhabitants of Potidaea, and they knew that this wasn’t simply cage-rattling. Here the earth is red-rich. Athenians were determined to protect (some would say to annex) these lands where iron keeps the hills green throughout the summers, where rival cities (Sparta, Corinth) and barbarian tribes were also battling to create empires. Anticipating casualties, a number of locals were evacuated to the nearby flagship new-town of Olynthos. And from roads way beyond Athens on the Peloponnese dust started to rise. Corinth dispatched 1,600 hoplites and 400 lightly armed troops to protect its threatened city-child.
The Greeks were at war – with one another.
Socrates at war
Greek encampments were untidy and relatively haphazard. Trees were cleared for firewood and rough shelters, soldiers would huddle under animal skins – one-man bivouacs. Those who could not afford tents companioned around camp fires.6 The nights were chill at that time of year; the campaign fell some time between September and November in 432 BC. It was only the really wealthy who could afford a grand battleground-home. And one of the most beautiful men on campaign, Alcibiades, had a tent big enough for Socrates to share.
The two soldiers came from different tribes, but on this campaign they were mess-mates.7 The democracy had thrown them together. They would have sat in the same theatre, drunk at the same symposia, perhaps trained together in the gymnasia or the Agora, and certainly sought one another out in the city; ‘Hello there, Socrates. Where have you been? Not that I need ask, you’ve been chasing after that gorgeous Alcibiades.’8 We do not know how their relationship started, but we do know how far it went. They lay together, Alcibiades carping that nothing physical ever took place: ‘I might as well have been sleeping with my father or an elder brother.’9 On campaign Pericles must have approved of this bit of mongrel billeting – social engineering if