Free The Pericles Commission by Gary Corby Page A

I beg you recall he was my friend too, and my leader. His murder affects me and many other men.”
    That was a hard appeal to deny. “So far, all I’ve done is ask questions.”
    “Yet even that small effort appears to have offended somebody,” Archestratus observed with some justice. “Are you so objectionable in your conversation, or do you think perhaps you are asking the right questions?”
    “Let us hope the latter.”
    “How did a young man like you come to be embroiled in such a murky situation?”
    I told him of the falling corpse and of meeting Pericles as he came down the path.
    “And you saw Pericles descending? How interesting.” He took a handful of grapes, popped one into his mouth, and sat back.
    I said, “I know what you’re thinking, but it doesn’t necessarily work. He could have been coming down from either the Acropolis or the Rock of the Areopagus. He says it was the Acropolis.”
    “Do you believe him?”
    “I don’t believe anyone yet! Is it possible Pericles used the bow, threw it away somewhere I missed, and then walked calmly down the path? Yes, it is.”
    “So your employer might be the man you’re looking for. What a piquant thought. What would you do if the evidence led to Pericles?”
    Panic, most probably. I’d wondered the same thing.
    “You feel a little bit lost, don’t you, young man? I wish I could sympathize with your plight, but I must be honest and welcome you to the twilight world of Athenian politics, where the man who proclaims friendship in the morning is the one who stabs you in the back over wine that evening. If there is one piece of advice I hope you will take from this conversation, it is trust no one who is a player. Trust their motives least of all. Take Xanthippus for example. I imagine he told you he has the purest motives for opposing Ephialtes. I expect the phrase ‘for the good of Athens’ came into play?”
    “It didn’t, but the sentiment was there.”
    “I am surprised. It’s a phrase Xanthippus repeats endlessly, as if he were the only judge of benefice. Xanthippus used to be a man of the people himself. But something warped his spirit; perhaps it was the war against the Persians. The war certainly proved he’s capable of killing in cold blood, and with the greatest cruelty.”
    “It did? But Xanthippus was one of the heroes of the war.”
    “Do you know the story of the Persian commander? No? There was among the Persian force a commander called Artäyctes. This man stole great treasures from a Hellene sanctuary at Elaeus, in Thrace, far to the north and east of here. Much later Artäyctes and his son were captured by a force led by Xanthippus. Artäyctes tried to bribe his way out of trouble; he offered to restore the treasure, to pay the sanctuary one hundred talents—that’s six hundred thousand drachmae!—and twice that amount to the Athenians, if only they would release him.”
    “No wonder Xanthippus is so wealthy,” I said. For surely he would have pocketed some of that.
    “You think so? Then let me tell you, Xanthippus had Artäyctes led to the shore, where they nailed him to a plank and raised the plank high so he could see. Then they chained his son to a pole set in the ground. They stoned the son to death, before the eyes of the father, whom they left to die slowly of crucifixion.”
    The thought of it made me shudder. Had the grumpy, cantankerous old man I’d met truly done such a thing?
    Archestratus continued, “You see that Xanthippus is not a man one crosses lightly. He’s been living off his hero reputation and his power base. That base is the Areopagus. It’s what gives him the ability to influence policy without having to justify himself to the people. Without it, he’d be nothing.”
    “You aren’t exactly free of that ambition yourself, are you?” I challenged him. “Isn’t everyone looking for power?”
    “They certainly are! But the difference, young Nicolaos, the important difference, is that I seek