Alkibiades, a tale of the Great Athenian War

by Charles Hamilton Bromby

The offer was accepted, and Alkibiades promised to meet the king at the ford that afternoon. One of the messengers returned with the answer to his master, the other stayed to act as guide. Great preparations were made in the camp of Alkibiades. The most presentable of his followers were arrayed in all their savage splendour. Their leader himself did not disdain to adorn himself in a dress suitable for the kingly presence, and appeared in his finest armour. Nor did he forget the gifts it was the custom for a guest to bring when dining with so great a personage.

Early in the afternoon they reached the ford. On the other side was the royal cavalcade, with trumpets and drums; and there, amid barbaric splendour, sat the king upon a white stallion with a lion’s skin upon its back. Two Thrakians swam the stream, guiding the horse of Alkibiades. The royal barge, a sort of flat-bottomed punt, was brought across for the leader, and when, not without some dread of submersion, he had taken his place in it, was pulled and pushed by naked servants of the king across the stream.

Alkibiades mounted his wet horse, and rode to greet Amadokos. Loud blasts from the trumpets sounded as they met. The king was serious and polite, with a high-bred, stately courtesy, mingled with an easy cordiality,—a natural politeness which more civilized people have somewhat managed to forget. He was evidently struck with the commanding appearance of his guest. As the one took the right hand of the other, something told each of them that he could trust the other.

For a king who boasted Athenian descent, or, at least, Athenian relationship, the Odrysian’s Greek was peculiar—certainly not Attik or Sophoklean. There was a strange jumble of Thrakian words mixed up with it; what few Greek verbs were used by him were sometimes declined in a way unheard before by the Athenian. Alkibiades could, however, from what of the Thrakian speech he knew, understand his host, as they rode off together talking of many things.

If the music at the meeting of the two distinguished men was loud, it was nothing compared with that which welcomed them as they were assisted to dismount from their horses, and entered the royal tent, where the banquet was awaiting them. And a strange banquet it was. At the end of the pavilion, on a raised platform, were set two small three-legged tables, as the place of honour for the king and his chief guest. All down the tent on either side were other smaller tripod tables. There were no couches to recline upon during the feast, but seats in which each guest sat upright at his table, in a manner altogether strange to one accustomed to the Grecian banquets. On every table were piles of baked meats of various kinds—venison, kid, and mutton—and large flat loaves of unleavened bread. When the blowing of trumpets was over, Amadokos, sitting down, invited his guest to be seated. Then, taking a large hunch of bread, and the choicest bits of meat from his table, he handed them to Alkibiades, who, seeing the other Thrakians do the same to their neighbours, handed some bread and the best pieces of meat to the king. The Thrakians then set to work vigorously, and ate their food voraciously, the monarch sending to his more honourable guests pieces from his own table so frequently that he had nothing for himself, except what Alkibiades presented to him.

As soon as they began to eat, young slaves brought in horns full of wine, and presented one to each guest, beginning with the king and Alkibiades. After the king had eaten and drunk a little, he rose, and, with a horn full of wine in his hand, turned towards Alkibiades, who, having learnt something of the customs of his entertainers, also rose with his wine-horn in his hands. They both drank of the fine strong Thrakian wine, but what was left in the king’s horn he poured over the dress of Alkibiades, who, though astonished at this unusual attention, saw it was intended to do him honour, and did the same to his host, pouring the remains of his wine over the garments of Amadokos. This mark of reciprocal goodwill so pleased the Thrakians that they leapt to their feet, and deafened the Greeks with their shouts of delight, but soon sat down again to many other horns of wine, which the slaves continued to supply unstintingly.

Agrestides now entered the tent followed by two Greek servants bearing a splendid Persian carpet which the Selymbrians had given to Alkibiades, and a golden amphora from Chios, chased with figures of Dionysos reclining and boys and girls gathering in the vintage and pressing the grapes. Alkibiades presented these gifts to the king, who received them graciously, while the Thrakians jumped up again, and shouted louder than before.

Musicians then came in, playing on curious shrill pipes and rude harps of seven strings, making amongst them a most strange, pathetic, wailing melody. To the cultured, musical ear of the Athenian the noise of the drums and trumpets of ox-hides had been painful. When a boy, he had utterly refused to learn the flute or flageolet, thinking it unmanly; but his love and knowledge of music were shown when he presented his liturgy at Athens, by the way in which his chorus had been trained under his care, and by the choric songs he had himself arranged. Now this savage music, in the minor mode, of the pipes and harps seemed sadly to recall something of old times long past, and to inspire a tender yearning as for something else unknown, indefinite, indefinable, and brought back thoughts of his own days that were gone by for ever, and sad memories of his wife, and of the friends whom he had lost.

These reflections were stopped by the sudden entrance of a troop of buffoons, whose antics, coarse and not too delicate, roused the loud laugh and noisy acclamation of the revellers, who by this time were getting not a little intoxicated with their wine. Then came a pantomimic show and dance. A warrior, laying aside his arms, represented a poor despised field-labourer, imitating his ploughing and his sowing, ever looking back while he laboured, as if in fear. A band of robbers rushed in, the peasant fought bravely for his plough and oxen, but in the end, amidst the braying of the ox-hide trumpets, he was bound and carried off in triumph. All this was played in time to the music of the pipes, and was meant to show the superiority of the caste of robbers and soldiers to the poor miserable tillers of the earth.

When the feast was over, Amadokos and Alkibiades, almost the only sober ones of the party, retired to the royal private chamber. The king told his guest that he had heard of his valour and invincible arms, and of his having overcome both Spartans and Persians combined at Kyzikos; and informed him that he himself was descended from Tereus, the ancient king of Thrace, who married Prokne, daughter of Pandion, the old king of Athens, and sister of Erechtheus, so that he, by ancestry, was of the same race as his guest. But now, he said, he was hard pressed by several of the neighbouring tribes, who were constantly invading his dominions and carrying off his people and their cattle. He promised Alkibiades that, if he would help him against some of these enemies, he would pay his men whatever was customary, and any booty they might take should belong absolutely to the victor.