and Hipparchus, had had a perfect opportunity, given that the Athenians had been so remiss as to neglect to raise a temple to Zeus, the king of the gods. In a precinct traditionally sacred to Zeus, they had begun work on a temple of truly Pharaonic grandiosity. It had been uncompleted in 510 b.c. when the tyranny had been overthrown and Hippias sent into exile. Afterwards, the new democracy had neither finished it nor torn it down. Instead, they had simply left it standing, half-finished, as a mute testament to the tyrants’ megalomaniacal folly. And so it would stand until the second century a.d., when the Roman Emperor Hadrian would deign to complete it.
Jason, who had known Zeus personally, tried to imagine just how that second, generation Teloi would have taken all this.
He touched Landry’s shoulder. “Let’s go, Bryan. It’s time to meet Miltiades down in the Agora.” The historian reluctantly complied.
The four of them turned away, toward the gates, past the immense bronze four-horse chariot placed by the democracy in this one-time aristocratic showcase as a monument to its victories over those who had tried to strangle it in its cradle. They proceeded on down the great ramp and through the crumbling old wall that still marked the outline of the Bronze Age lower town. There they turned right and followed the Panathenaic Way, past the temple enclosure of the Eleusinium on their right, from which the procession to Eleusis for the Mysteries would depart in October. After the next intersection, on the left, was the fountain-house where the women of Athens came in the morning to collect water—one of the tyrants’ more useful projects. Then, beyond that, the Agora opened out to their left.
It had been called the Square of Pisistratus, after the tyrant who had cleared it. Like the fountain-house, and unlike the temple of Zeus, this was something the democracy could use. In fact, it had needed such a gathering-place for its public business. So the detritus of the tyranny had been cleared away and replaced by public buildings like the Bouleuterion where the boule that prepared the agenda for the popular assembly met, and the circular Tholos where its members ate at public expense. Emphasizing the political change was the bronze statue of two men, heroically nude, with drawn swords—Aristogiton and Harmodius, “the tyrannicides,” who had killed Hippias’s brother and co-tyrant Hipparchus, and died for it.
As they passed that statue, in the center of the Agora, Landry provided an amused elucidation. “They were homosexual lovers. Hipparchus took a shine to Harmodius and tried to use his political power to have his way with him. Eventually he pushed the two of them just a little too far. They decided their only way out was to murder him.”
“And for this they put up a statue of you in this city?” Mondrago wondered.
“Well, the new democracy needed all the heroes it could get,” Landry explained. Jason, who had visited the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, recalled the word spin.
They continued on, through the noisy merchants’ stalls. The shady plane trees that featured in so many artists’ impressions of the Agora still lay in the future, waiting to be planted after the Persians’ retreat in 480 b.c. Jason would have welcomed them, on this sunny late-July afternoon. He paused for an instant under a merchant’s striped awning and looked at the crowd. There was a subtle difference from what one would expect in such a marketplace—an unmistakable undercurrent of tension. This was, unmistakably, a city under threat.
One head stood above the general run. The man’s exceptional height was the first thing that attracted Jason’s attention. What held his eyes was that, unlike most of the people who made up the Agora’s sweaty, dusty, entirely ordinary bustle, this man looked the way Classical Greeks were supposed to look, complete with the straight, high-bridged nose and regular
Jason, who had known Zeus personally, tried to imagine just how that second, generation Teloi would have taken all this.
He touched Landry’s shoulder. “Let’s go, Bryan. It’s time to meet Miltiades down in the Agora.” The historian reluctantly complied.
The four of them turned away, toward the gates, past the immense bronze four-horse chariot placed by the democracy in this one-time aristocratic showcase as a monument to its victories over those who had tried to strangle it in its cradle. They proceeded on down the great ramp and through the crumbling old wall that still marked the outline of the Bronze Age lower town. There they turned right and followed the Panathenaic Way, past the temple enclosure of the Eleusinium on their right, from which the procession to Eleusis for the Mysteries would depart in October. After the next intersection, on the left, was the fountain-house where the women of Athens came in the morning to collect water—one of the tyrants’ more useful projects. Then, beyond that, the Agora opened out to their left.
It had been called the Square of Pisistratus, after the tyrant who had cleared it. Like the fountain-house, and unlike the temple of Zeus, this was something the democracy could use. In fact, it had needed such a gathering-place for its public business. So the detritus of the tyranny had been cleared away and replaced by public buildings like the Bouleuterion where the boule that prepared the agenda for the popular assembly met, and the circular Tholos where its members ate at public expense. Emphasizing the political change was the bronze statue of two men, heroically nude, with drawn swords—Aristogiton and Harmodius, “the tyrannicides,” who had killed Hippias’s brother and co-tyrant Hipparchus, and died for it.
As they passed that statue, in the center of the Agora, Landry provided an amused elucidation. “They were homosexual lovers. Hipparchus took a shine to Harmodius and tried to use his political power to have his way with him. Eventually he pushed the two of them just a little too far. They decided their only way out was to murder him.”
“And for this they put up a statue of you in this city?” Mondrago wondered.
“Well, the new democracy needed all the heroes it could get,” Landry explained. Jason, who had visited the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, recalled the word spin.
They continued on, through the noisy merchants’ stalls. The shady plane trees that featured in so many artists’ impressions of the Agora still lay in the future, waiting to be planted after the Persians’ retreat in 480 b.c. Jason would have welcomed them, on this sunny late-July afternoon. He paused for an instant under a merchant’s striped awning and looked at the crowd. There was a subtle difference from what one would expect in such a marketplace—an unmistakable undercurrent of tension. This was, unmistakably, a city under threat.
One head stood above the general run. The man’s exceptional height was the first thing that attracted Jason’s attention. What held his eyes was that, unlike most of the people who made up the Agora’s sweaty, dusty, entirely ordinary bustle, this man looked the way Classical Greeks were supposed to look, complete with the straight, high-bridged nose and regular
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