The Praise Singer (23 page)

NEXT YEAR was an Olympic one. The sixty-fourth, it must have been. Why do the Olympics never stale? The last I went to was the seventy-fifth; but it seemed as fresh as ever.

There is the ancient beauty with its changes: the oaks of Kronos may shade one from heat or shelter one from rain; the Alpheus may chuckle low on its pebbles, or rush down in spate; the women across the water may be sunning themselves with straw hats and fans, or huddled in their scented tents; it may be sweet and balmy or grilling hot, the athletes plastered with dust and sweat like clay.

There is always something new; a dedication in the Altis, new craftsmen showing work; the horse-copers’ pitches down the road to tempt chariot lords, the bloodstock and handsome mules. I bought a mule that year myself, a sweet grey mare with the smooth pace that feels a part of one. Dear Leuko, she helped me to many a song.

There are new faces, and altered ones: the young wrestler who just held his own last time, now sheathed in bronze muscle in his pride of strength, victor of the pankration; some new poet from Further Greece; a philosopher from Ionia, who’d once have recited his theory in Ephesos or Miletos; a lord who inherited since last time, and is entering a chariot team; boys become youths, youths become men. And the shift of politics between city and city, nowhere to be studied so well as here.

Always I rejoice most in the athletes, dedicating body and spirit to the god: ambitious, emulous, passionate to win; and yet, making their offering. It is nearly always a joy to hymn their victories. There can be bad winners, as there are bad losers, but they are few, after their long training at Olympia itself, when the spirit of the place seeps into them. There are always ways of hymning a man who has won fairly, but whom one does not much like. One goes off into digressions about his ancestors or his city or the family’s patron god. They never notice, if the song goes well; and one has earned one’s fee without telling lies. Other poets know, but that is our private mystery.

Head and heart of the games is the athlete. You could say of the chariot-race that it is a rich man’s toy, a contest whose prize goes to one who did nothing but spend his gold. Yet, like all the rest, I am its captive. After all, in Homer, godlike Achilles put it first, and one can’t argue with that.

Though the owners don’t mount their chariots, there is no event where you see more endurance, courage or skill. When I was young and poor, and had no one to command a seat for me, I used to spread my blanket overnight on the slope beside the track, stretched out full-length to keep a place for my master, so that he could sleep under cover and come down next day. The last two times, the boy did it for me. I daresay he won’t need to again.

That year, though, I got a seat and even an awning. The Archons had brought? a large company, with many men of rank. It overflowed the Athenian platings, and but for Hipparchos, we three poets would have had to take our chance on the slopes; it is not every patron will displace minor nobles for bards. Chairs at Olympia are for the great alone; but we had a bench with cushions, were well up the bank, and had a good view of the walk-past.

For the honor of the house, Hippias had entered a chariot. He had barely seen it, leaving everything to Hipparchos; so it was gorgeous, with the Race of Pelops in gilt relief. The horses were good Thessalians, and the driver, who had come with the team, was Thracian. He looked strong, but was rather big; your first-class driver can manage without weight, because he gets the team to think along with him. Such men are rare, however, and we all cheered the chariot on its way.

“Here’s Kimon’s,” said Anakreon, and gave me a nudge.

Kimon son of Stesagoras sat in the row below the Archons; a man getting on in years, high-colored and hawk-nosed. His faded yellow hair was clubbed into a net in the old-fashioned style, and the pins that fixed it were headed with golden grasshoppers, meaning that his Attic ancestry went back forever. He looked a perfect type of the old oligarchs who in their great days had been little lords accountable to no one, ever since the line of High Kings died out. Moreover he was a Philead, and even the Alkmaionids ranked no higher, besides the Phileads having incurred no family curse. At one time they had been at open war with the Pisistratids; most were in exile; and how Kimon, alone of them all, came to be in the seats of honor was already an Olympic legend.

Anakreon, who had kept his eyes on the chariot, suddenly grabbed my arm. “By Zeus, look! It’s the same team again!”

For some reason, this was Lasos’ first visit to the Olympics. He was short-sighted, which always made him fretful at the races. “The same as what?” he said.

Anakreon and I started together to enlighten him. “Those mares. He won the last two Olympics with that same team.” “They must be now-what-ten years old at least, that’s if they were two-year-olds the first time.” Just then the charioteer raised his arm to salute the owner. “He’s the same too,” Anakreon said. “That little dark Sicilian.” “They look in good shape,” I said. “Mares are clever, if they can stay well.” Then both of us said together, “What if they win?”

“What if they do?” said Lasos curiously. “Will it be a record?”

“No, it’s been done by a Spartan once. But don’t you know what happened last time; why Kimon is sitting here?”

“Don’t tease the poor boy, Simonides. What happened, my dear, was that Kimon proclaimed the victory in Pisistratos’ name, instead of his own. He gave it to him, an Olympic chariot crown. He might nearly as well have presented him with a city. So the Old Archon shook hands on it, and invited him back from exile. That’s why he’s here, instead of over there.”

He pointed along the course, to where the Alkmaionids were gathered. It was only at times like this that one ever saw them; and then, if you had sense, it was at a distance.

“Well,” I said, “I doubt he could ever have won with two-year-olds; they seldom stay the distance. They may be eleven by now or even twelve.”

“Eleven. They were three-year-olds, he told me so at the time.” Out of the three of us, only Anakreon had been eminent enough, eight whole years back, to talk with Kimon. “They’ll never do it again,” I said. “It’s just a fancy the man has taken.”

It was a big entry that year; thirty quadrigas, no less. It seemed to take half the day getting them into the starting-stalls, after the place-lots had been drawn. Each four had a pair of grooms to lead it and help the charioteer; but there were more than the usual run of tangles and bickerings. No owner of sense will run stallions where mares are running, but the horses were excited as always by the crowds, and some charioteers are not above a sly flick of the whip at another team, if the umpire is not looking.

I’ve never envied tho?se umpires. If the teams were to start from a level line, they’d be in heaps before they were under way; so they have this stepped-back order, one couple of chariots side by side at the apex, the next couple a length behind on each side, and so on outward, like a huge arrowhead. The umpires have to see the gates opened in proper order, the back ones on the outside first, and so on to the foremost that start the last; and I never saw a race yet where some driver did not complain that his gate was slow.

This time it seemed fair enough. The bronze dolphin came clanging down, the bronze eagle was hoisted on its pole over the altar; up went the gates and out went the chariots; the thunder began, and the pale dust rose billowing till it clotted our noses and tongues.

It was a good race that year. I am not one of those who value the event by the number of crashes, and sit near the turn to see them. For me, that is like giving a music prize for loudness. Besides which, I do not like the spectacle; I can picture the death of the blameless hero Hippolytos without seeing it enacted before my eyes. A chariot collision can butcher a good man and a gallant team as bloodily as a god-sent bull from the sea. Most drivers hitch the reins around them for extra grip, and though they wear sharp knives to cut themselves free if they fall, with a broken arm or a kicked head they don’t get a chance to use them. Even if the driver escapes alive, it’s not often the team gets off without one or all being dragged off the course and slaughtered. It was not for this that Poseidon gave to mankind a creature of such beauty. It is the horse at his godlike best that I love to watch.

It was a dry year; the dust was almost a fog, with people muffling their faces up to the eyes. From our good seats we would see the start and the finish, and all the turns at our end; the further turnpost was invisible in the murk. One saw only a turbulent mass like driftwood in a swirling river, heard the cheers of the crowd, the shouts and neighing that meant a crash or a foul. One chariot at our end had a wheel wrenched off on purpose by another; the charioteer, a fine driver, got his car and horses somehow off the course, and the man who’d fouled him was disqualified. He must have hoped that the dust would hide it. At the far end, we learned later, two teams tangled their yoke-poles and a man was killed. There were one or two other crashes from which men and horses were dragged out with broken bones, the men to race again, the beasts to die.

However, near a turnpost one does not only see disasters; one sees all the skill. All up the straight they have been working and weaving for places inside the turn; but many a driver has taken it too close and wrecked his car on the column. The man who can cut it fine and skim past is a winner, but he needs clever horses, all of whom know him and each other well. All this is as true as when prosy old Nestor instructed his son, who no doubt knew it all already, at Patroklos’ funeral games.

The Athenian chariot was running a steady, well-judged race, neither fouling nor being fouled, getting the most from the team, coming fairly close in without collisions. But at each turn one saw, on the outside, a flash of bright yellow swinging round, the outside taken by choice, trusting in speed and in horses who knew their work. The driver in yellow was Kimon’s; he showed up well, even after the sixth lap when the pale dust was cloaking horses and men alike. His team knew the track of old; he had no need to whip the outside horse or check the inmost, to get them turning as cleanly as a wheel. You could not have asked better of cavalry chargers with knights on their back to guide them.

At last came the twelfth, last lap. The ancient fever rose; the crowds roaring, the drivers cracking their whips and giving their shrill yells; the horses screaming as they had the last ounce flogged out of them. One team swerved across the course into another still running the lap before, so that they crashed head on; the frightful din of s?houts and squeals hardly seemed to increase an uproar that was splitting one’s ears already.

Only fifteen chariots finished, about the usual number. The Athenian team came fourth, which was creditable at least. But leading by half a length came Kimon’s team with its yellow-robed charioteer and the neat-footed mares, their chestnut sides dappled with foam, their nostrils flaring scarlet, but game to the last, stepping off from the finishing post as prettily as deer.

We turned round to acclaim the owner. He stood up smiling, and lifted an arm to the cheers. In the thrill of the race, I had lost all thought of politics, which are made by men, while beauty and bravery are from the gods. It was not till Anakreon poked me in the ribs that I remembered.

The chief of the judges mounted the platform with the herald. At Olympia, the herald himself is the victor of a heralds’ contest held beforehand. This one was a first-class trumpeter with a ringing voice. “In the name of Olympian Zeus, the winner of the four-horse chariot race is Kimon, son of Stesagoras, of Athens.”

This time, Kimon of the god-descended Philead clan had claimed his victory for himself.

The chariot drew up before the podium, the mares jingling their harness as they got the air back into their lungs. Above them stood the wiry dark Sicilian, in the stillness this moment demands. He had been through it twice before; from where I sat I could see his eye already stealing down to the foam-flecked mares, with the fondness of a father, longing for all this to be over, waiting to caress them, to give them the little drink they must have before the deep one; to see them rubbed down, and put into their blankets. But he was only the charioteer, and must await the crowning of the victor.

Even at Olympia, I have seldom heard such cheering. People were standing on their seats, tearing the wreaths from their heads to fling flowers and oak-sprays at the podium. In the whole long history of the games, over the centuries, it had only been done once before, three victories running with the same team. It would become a legend.

And when that thought came to me, I saw what else it meant. The legend would be Kimon’s, and his alone. Whatever had been proclaimed at the games last time, whoever had worn the crown, it would be forgotten. Men would talk forever of Kimon’s triple victory. At that moment, he was bending his head for the olive crown.

In so much commotion, it was quite safe to look round. But if there had been anything to see, we had already missed it. Hippias and Hipparchos were sitting in quiet talk, like any two lords whose rank restrains them from vulgar acclamations.

Anakreon said, “They are taking it very well.”

“Of course. They know how to behave in public.”

Lasos was still in ecstasy from the race. It took him a moment to follow us. Then he cried in his headlong way, “It was an epic! No one, no man born of woman upon this earth, could be asked to give that away!”

“No,” I said. “It would have been policy, of course; but policy has its limits.”

Anakreon said softly in my ear, “Policy? Well, my dear, that depends upon what he wants.”

Neither of us turned to share this thought with Lasos. He was quick-witted, but indiscreet. Before long, he would think for himself what an Olympic chariot crown can mean to a man who aspires to power; power that his forebears held for generations and never surrendered willingly-on sufferance to Solon, to Pisistratos not even that. Let Lasos think for himself, said Anakreon’s sidelong eye. When the crowds were breaking up we slipped away from him and strolled off past the Hera temple to the shady slopes of Kronos’ oak wood. Of course there were people all about, but one need not be overheard.