Revenge in Athens: From the Files of Lysias the Lawyer

By Rick Garnett

"Revenge in Athens" is the second novel by Rick Garnett, the author of "I, Paris", a critically acclaimed retelling of the story of Helen of Troy. Set in Athens in the turbulent years immediately following the war with Sparta, "Revenge in Athens" recounts the efforts of Lysias, the greatest of contemporary Athenian "lawyers", to defend a poor farmer accused of killing Eratosthenes, the aristocratic lover of his beautiful young wife. Beginning with two of the most dramatic of Lysias' surviving works, the book draws on numerous other sources, and on the author's imagination, to paint a non-idealized picture of a radically male-dominated society filled with passionate antagonisms and litigious zeal. In this framework Lysias, strives to extricate his client from the deadly toils of the complex Athenian legal system, and thereby also to achieve partial revenge for the death of brother at the hands of the same Eratosthenes. Lysias is aided in this effort by Timon, his skillful man-Friday, and his alluring, perspicacious mistress, Metaneira. Throughout the story the author weaves informative set pieces, revealing vignettes of often-neglected aspects of Athenian society, and vivid glimpses of the inner lives and relations of his characters, leading to a surprising finale.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483568607

Book preview

B.

Lysias-- Athenian lawyer or forensic speechwriter in the 20 years following the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian war; son of Cephalus; brother of Polemarchus; husband of Agatha; lover of Metaneira; master and friend of Timon.

Euphiletus-- Athenian small farmer; husband of Antha.

Eratosthenes--Seducer of Antha; former member of the Thirty tyrants installed by Sparta as governors of Athens; part of the group that arrested and killed Polemarchus.

Antha--Wife of Euphiletus; lover of Eratosthenes; mother of Myron.

Frona--Young female slave of Antha and Euphiletus; liaison between Antha and Eratosthenes.

Metaneira--Hetaira/prostitute; lover and soul-mate of Lysias.

Agatha--Wife of Lysias.

Basil--Father of Eratosthenes.

Phillip--Brother of Eratosthenes.

Myra--Wife of Phillip; friend to Antha.

Nikomedes-- Lawyer for Basil and Phillip.

Euphiletus stirred slightly and turned heavily onto his back. He felt a dull pain in his right shoulder, a reminder of recent days of hard work harvesting and pruning. His farm was several miles outside the city walls in the direction of the Academy*, the beautiful grove of trees northwest of the city. It was a small farm, not much more than an acre, but it was his, all that he had, except the house where he lay. The house itself was in the northern part of the City, in the Skambonidae Deme*, just far enough south of the Eridanus River that its stench did not reach him, unless the breeze from the north was unusually strong.

The pressure of the bed slats had aggravated his shoulder until at last sleep had yielded to discomfort and he found himself awake. But, was that discomfort the whole reason his mind had struggled upwards from the depths of sleep? Then he remembered; there had also been a sound, like a door closing. For a moment he considered whether he should rise and walk quietly downstairs, past the room where his wife and son were sleeping, to check the bar of the door from the courtyard to the street.

Just then a sound of wind across the ventilation chute adjacent to his room signaled that the air was moving briskly outside. This, in all likelihood, had caused the heavy wooden gate to strike the threshold boards. He tried to return to sleep, but without success as his entire body continued to signal its stress and discomfort.

I am, after all, getting older, he murmured to himself. Sometime soon I will have to stop doing all the work myself and turn some over to a slave, if I ever save enough to buy a man slave. If only I had married sooner, my son might already be of an age to help me.

He could tell that the night was far from over. No sounds of early morning foot or animal traffic drifted off the streets. Listening carefully, he even heard laughter and raucous conversation from a not-too-distant drinking party.

He wanted desperately to sleep. A few more hours rest, followed by a good breakfast, would give his body time to lose its ache, and his mind an opportunity to focus on the business of the day. But sleep did not come. Instead, almost against his will, his mind thrust up recollections of the evening.

After supper he and Antha, his wife, were sitting together in the upper room. She was mending with skillful stitches a thin wool coverlet for Myron, their young son. He himself had just begun to relax, a cup of wine in hand, thinking over the past week’s work, anticipating sleep.

Then the sound of the distinctive fussing that signaled Myron’s hunger rose from the floor below. After a little while, seeing that Antha made no move, he had said, There is not much noise from the street, so I assume you hear our son. Do you expect me to tend to him, ill-equipped as I am to satisfy his hunger? His tone conveyed a mixture of satisfaction at what he thought a clever turn, and mild irritation that Antha had required such prompting.

She, taking her cue from the jocular aspect of his question, replied, I know what you are waiting for. You want me to go and tend to Myron so you can make a run at Frona. I have seen the way you strip her with your eyes.

He had looked at her intently, uncertain whether she was serious or simply trying to maintain a certain lightness in the conversation. He had laughed, but a little nervously, mildly disturbed that his interest in Frona, their young female slave, was not as well concealed as he had thought.

Frona was young and pretty. Antha would have preferred an older, less well-favored choice, but Frona was also clever and efficient. After Myron’s birth, she became, in Antha’s eyes, nearly indispensable. She cleaned and bathed the child, and carried him outside to catch the morning sun. She managed the shopping, housekeeping, and most meal preparation with unobtrusive competence. Still, the appreciation Antha felt for Frona’s services was tempered by her awareness that Euphiletus appreciated her in another way.

For the most part, aware of Antha’s feelings, Euphiletus tried not to show any interest in Frona. But one night, after a strong cup of wine, thinking that Antha was downstairs with Myron, he had followed Frona into the kitchen. As though by accident, he fell against her, pressing her against the central column between the kitchen and the living space, a position which he made no move to change for what seemed to Frona many minutes.

She did not resist or protest, knowing that, as his slave, she was at his disposal. His closeness steadily increased, and his hand was moving slowly down the gentle contour of her back when suddenly he stiffened and drew back, staring past her at Antha’s form outlined in the doorway.

I stumbled; that is all, he murmured. There is no need for you to look at me that way. And now I hear Myron crying. He is hungry, as am I. So the best thing is for you to go and tend to him, while Frona fixes dinner for us both.

Wordlessly, Antha turned away, as Frona slipped out from the space between his body and the column and began rummaging intently among the pots and pans stored in a cabinet beside the stove.

Now thoroughly awake, Euphiletus found himself picturing his wife’s face. She is beautiful, he thought. That evening, in the faint light from the flickering olive lamp, her strong features, framed by jet black hair, had seemed more than usually striking.

It was good fortune, he reflected, that had brought her to his house, only a few years before, from a family with too many female children for its resources.

Her father had been a man of some substance until the last years of the war. He owned a fleet of wide-beamed ships on which he imported, for resale at a handsome profit, iron, timber, and wheat from the northern regions.

Though disappointed at his lack of male offspring, her father had ensured that Antha and her two younger sisters passed their childhood years with a degree of comfort and status well above the norm.

All this had ended when the war evolved into a final rapid string of naval battles in the East. Her father’s ships, some willingly consigned, the others confiscated near the end, were lost, along with all the rest of Athens’ naval strength.

Thereafter, her family lived frugally on the produce of the modest farm, not far from Euphiletus’ own, that her father’s small reserves had sufficed to buy. He, old beyond his years, and exhausted by his losses, was relieved when his acquaintance with Euphiletus, born of their proximity and now similar status and concerns, had led to Euphiletus’ eager offer to become his son-in-law.

So Euphiletus married Antha, bringing her to his home with only a token dowry. For his own part, this insufficiency was more than compensated by her stately beauty, and the obscene quips and gestures with which his friends regaled him and each other at the wedding feast.

Bringing his thoughts back to that evening, Euphiletus recalled that they had been interrupted by renewed, even louder wailing from the downstairs bedroom. Enough, he had said sternly. Go tend to the child. It is bad enough that I must hear his fussing, but even the neighbors will start to wonder what sort of house I manage if my hungry son goes unattended for so long.

She had put aside her mending and walked across the room toward the doorway to the stairs. As she passed close to where he sat, he had noted with surprise that her face was whitened and her hair was artfully arranged. Why would that be? He had put the thought aside as perhaps a trick played on his eyes by his long days in the bright sun.

With a slight smile and a movement of her finger, as though admonishing a child, she had slipped through the doorway, and, with exaggerated firmness, barred the door from the outside. Soon he noted with satisfaction that the child’s fussing had died away. Thinking them both peacefully settled, he had retired to his bed and slept until the present wakefulness.

Now, however, noting that the house was bathed in silence, and that his aching limbs still were longing for repose, he turned on his left side and sank again into a deep sleep, until the eastward facing windows of the house were filled with light from the blazing Attic sun.

Lysias made his way through the crowd, passing behind the columns of the South Stoa* towards the small but new and well-built structure that served as his place of business. As he entered the door, he glanced up at the majestic eminence of the Parthenon, which never failed to generate a wave of gratitude that he lived and worked in a city which, despite its recent humiliation, remained the most free and beautiful community the world had ever known.

His office was in the Koile Deme, almost equidistant from the Heliaia* and the Areopagus*, symbolizing neatly, he thought, the divisions of jurisdiction within Athenian law. The Areopagus was the last bastion of aristocratic power. Made up of former archons, the City’s highest public officers, it once had governed almost all important public affairs. Now, though diminished by the growing democratic tide, it continued to serve as the court for homicides. Even fervent democrats admitted that a citizen’s best chance for simple justice in accordance with the law lay in trial before a jury selected from the Areopagus.

In the Heliaia, by contrast, some five hundred of the most ordinary men decided almost every other type of case. There the justice of the outcome was more uncertain.

Lysias felt at home. Here was the center of the City’s civic and forensic life. He himself, he reflected with pride and satisfaction, was a notable actor on the multiple stages where the dramas of that life unfolded.

And what dramas! The life and fortune of any person in the City could be placed at risk by the simple determined action of any other adult male citizen; a sworn indictment, a visit to a magistrate, routine acts that set in motion a steady progression toward the great combat, the trial itself. Anyone caught in the toils of these procedures faced a sudden, real prospect of exile, confiscation, loss of civil rights or death, after trial of a day or less, with virtually no rules, without appeal.

No wonder so many of them came to him for help. What other city placed such power in the hands