Amber and Clay Laura Schlitz (if you liked this book TXT) 📖

were either black and decayed, or ghastly white, but Melisto looked like herself: compact, stocky, brown-skinned, with a flush of healthy rose on her cheeks. There were scratches on her arms and legs. The hair Thratta had braided so often was loose and windblown.

Thratta realized that she had never expected her spell to work. Horror and hope seized her in the same instant. If Melisto stood before her, the spell was cast. If the spell was cast, Rhaskos might be freed.

Thratta ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth. “Find my son. My son, Rhaskos. I told you about him long ago — do you remember? They took me from him. He had red hair — I marked him with blood and ashes — his left arm.” She bared her arms, showing her own tattoos. “Find where he is. Set him free. I bind you to do this; by Hekate and Hermes, I command you. You will never rest until my son is free. By Hekate and Hermes and Bendis, by your own Artemis, I bind you.”

Melisto’s lips parted as if to ask a question. Then her face changed; it was no longer solid, but grainy; no longer grainy, but translucent. She vanished. Nothing was left but an orange glow where her tunic had been.

Thratta waited until her knees felt strong. Then she turned her back on the city and began her journey to Piraeus.

EXHIBIT 11

Kylix (drinking cup), mid-fifth century BCE.

This black-figure kylix was found at Kolonos. Though the outside of the cup has been damaged, enough painting remains to show that it was decorated with dancing satyrs, followers of the god of wine, Dionysus. A cup like this one was probably used at a symposium, or drinking party.

The interior of the cup is better preserved and depicts a ship surrounded by leaping dolphins. As the drinker held the cup by the handles and emptied it, the ship would appear to float on waves of wine. The symposium was often compared to an ocean voyage: the drinker was adrift in a sea of poetry, philosophy, and drunkenness.

The Greek historian Timaios tells the story of a symposium where the guests were so drunk and dizzy that they thought they were on a ship about to capsize. In an effort to avoid shipwreck, the drunkards gathered up all the furniture and flung it outdoors. They remained “seasick” for some time, and the house where the party took place was thereafter called the House of the Ship.

1. PIRAEUS

The winter after the Petraios festival,

Menon went to Athens to recruit soldiers.

Long ago his grandfather helped Athens fight the Persian Wars.

Menon thought it was high time

Athens returned the favor.

He shipped off to Athens, and he took me.

By then, I’d served him two or three years.

He took it for granted I looked up to him. He owned me,

so I wasn’t about to tell him the truth. Truth was, after the Petraios festival

we were enemies. We were like two curs,

circling each other,

hackles raised,

sniffing out ways to thwart and hurt.

He was better at hurting.

I was better at hating.

He’d been made a general.

For weeks at a time, he’d go off to war,

come back and greet me,

punching my shoulder,

knuckling my hair.

We both pretended that it didn’t hurt.

He hated me in ignorance.

I hated him in secret.

He wanted the Athenians to see his wealth:

his retinue of slaves. So off we went.

I’d never been on a ship before,

and I was seasick. Menon was scornful

and pleased. By the time we reached the harbor at Piraeus,

it was starting to sleet:

a strange harbor, a foreign city —

a five-mile walk to Athens,

the wind finding holes in my cloak,

my stomach uneasy,

and Menon on horseback.

I’d never seen such crowds —

men and donkeys and pigs,

mud and sleet and miracles:

gods and heroes cut from stone,

cloud-white goddesses

and slim boy-gods;

patterned tunics painted

turquoise —

honey-color —

terra-cotta pink —

and every blue:

sky or sea or Poseidon’s beard.

They were everywhere, those statues:

measuring me with their eyes.

I don’t know when I first looked up

but halfway to the sky,

there it was, the city’s crown

encircled by purple mountains

steeper than any hill in Thessaly — the Akropolis.

By then I’d found my land legs, and I wanted to see —

My teeth were chattering,

my belly empty as a broken jar,

but there were wonders on every side,

and I wanted to stop and see —

but Menon was on horseback,

and I had to keep up.

2. SYMPOSIUM

That night we went to a symposium.

I guess you’ve never been to one. They’re for grown men.

Free men.

Athenian men, if you hear them talk,

are the freest of the free,

and free men need entertainment.

At the beginning

there’s music,

pretty slave girls;

flute players and acrobat-dancers. Astonishing!

Girls are weak, everyone knows that,

but I couldn’t do the things they did:

flip through the air backward

or walk on my hands —

I tried. I fell down.

They didn’t wear too much, those girls,

I liked watching them.

I didn’t know any girls, so I was curious.

The rooms where the symposia were held

were always the best rooms. Paintings on the walls,

patterned stone underfoot. At the beginning,

the air was fragrant with garlands and incense

and tempting food;

sometimes — by the end —

the stink of piss and vomit.

The point of the party is to drink.

And talk. How much you drink,

and what you talk about,

is up to the man in charge for the night: the symposiarch.

He decides

how much water to mix with the wine

and when the men should drain their cups.

There were couches lining the walls

— so the men could lie down and drink.

I wasn’t supposed to stand in front of anyone,

so I kept moving,

trying not to take up space.

The men drank and argued —

the things they argued about!

Menon called me stupid,

a thickhead Thracian, but even I knew

better than those men.

They liked to ponder: what was first?

the first chicken, or the first egg?

How could anybody find that out?

And what’s more, who cares?

Here’s another thing: they said it was impossible to cross the street,

because before you walked the whole way across,

you’d have to walk half the way across,

and before you walked half the way across,

you’d have to walk a quarter