Beyond the Dipylon Gate

Christos was a deserter from the Athenian army. He had served under Thucydides himself during the great war with the Spartans, and had discovered that he had no lust for battle. Faint of heart he was not, he simply did not share the zeal of so many of his fellow soldiers, who fought for the glory of Athens or the vague promise of some eternal reward for the righteous. Too often had he seen men who prayed devoutly for the grace of the gods savagely slaughtered, and drowned in ignominious defeat. So after the disastrous loss at Amphipolis he had simply fled, assuming that his comrades would count him among the dead or captured. When Christos was young his father thrashed him soundly once after the boy declared that there was no such place as Olympus, and nothing but clouds and eagles held sway above the mountain tops. Far from altering his opinion, this only reinforced his assertion that what could not be seen or heard, tasted or smelled, did not exist. He scoffed at the custom of burying the dead with all their wealth; they had no further use for money. Better to stick a rock in a corpse’s mouth than an obol. This was why he saw nothing wrong with robbing graves.
Philimenes was a drunk, a liar, and a thief. An escaped slave, he had killed his master in a fit of rage after the latter struck him one too many times. Were he to return to Corinth, he would certainly face a death sentence. As a man with a past and no future, he had nothing to lose and everything to gain from his present vocation. Christos did not trust him, and Philimenes knew this, but finding Athenian citizens to assist in plundering their ancestors’ tombs was difficult at best, so Christos had to content himself with whomever he could enlist for such a task.
The pair had almost dug four feet into a grave marked with an elaborate marble stele bearing the family name SOULAKOS. This time Philimenes busily dug with the old iron shovel while Christos stood above him holding the lantern.
They were anxious to finish that night, not for fear or being caught, which was a constant worry to which they had learned to adjust, but the winter air hung thick with fog, and the gentle breeze seemed to become less so every few minutes. Christos swore he felt a few stray raindrops strike his face, which, if he believed in the gods, he would have interpreted as portentous.
Philimenes gave a short cry of triumph as the shovel blade struck wood. Squatting, he greedily brushed the remaining dirt from the lid of the coffin, and raised his left hand to Christos as a signal for the spade. Scraping the earth from around the edges of the wooden box, he staggered to his feet, and straddling the coffin, slowly lifted the lid. He gagged violently and nearly fell as the pungent odor of death struck him in the face. Christos winced from his post above. Grasping his nose and mouth with one hand, Philimenes steadied himself against the side of the pit with the other, and after regaining his composure, stooped and lifted up a black and red attic jar which lay neatly at the feet of the shrouded corpse. Holding his breath, he delicately handed his find up to Christos, who set it on the ground and proceeded to help his companion climb out of the hole.
They both scrutinized the jar, which was covered with bright splashes of paint depicting horses, lions and naked men with swords.
“What a lovely piece of pottery,” Philimenes remarked with feigned bemusement. “Reminiscent of the fine vases my erstwhile master decorated his Corinthian home with.”
Christos scoffed. “As lovely as the one you smashed over your late master’s head?” he said. “The only use you have for a vessel is how much wine it holds.”
Christos lifted the lid off the jar and spilled its contents out. A woman’s hair band and a pair of matching bracelets, both silver. A small bottle of perfume, and a gold ring. Christos held each article in his hand, examining it unemotionally before tossing it back into the jar. “Let us be done for tonight, Philimenes. The weather grows ominous. Give me the shovel,” he said. “I suppose that it is my turn.”
With a grin, Philimenes complied, and sitting down to watch his comrade work, he plucked a small flask of wine from his belt, and took a long swallow. In an exaggerated display of generosity, he handed the vial to Christos, who declined.
“That wine will be the death of you, Philimenes,” he warned. “One day you shall carelessly tumble from some precipice and break your neck.”
Philimenes merely laughed. “Then I shall be in Tartarus with all of my friends,” he replied, taking another swig.
“Nay, you shall wander in limbo for eternity,” Christos retorted jokingly. “Even a thousand drachma would not convince Charon to ferry a scoundrel such as you across the Styx.”
Philimenes smiled wanly in return. “I thought you didn’t believe in that,” he replied.
“I don’t,” Christos answered grimly. After his chore was about half finished, he paused, and leaning on the shovel, inquired, “How many was it tonight?”
Philimenes took another swallow, as if it were a prerequisite for a response. Fastening the vial back in place on his belt, he glanced into a large cloth sack the two had brought. “Three or four,” he finally replied. “Though I think that after the first, we had enough to quit for at least- ’’
Philimenes froze, his eyes fixed almost in horror at someone or something several yards away.
“What is it?” Christos asked, alarmed. He glanced in the direction of Philimenes’ eyes, expecting to encounter a late night patrol of the Athenian police. A girl of about 10 stood twenty feet from them, dressed in a white gown and sandals. She had wide brown eyes, long hair and a peaceful, sad face.
“Who are you, child?” Christos demanded.
“Daphne,” she replied, as casually as if answering a question put to her by any adult.
“Go home, Daphne,” Christos ordered her. “ Go home and tell no one that you saw us here. Do you understand?”
The little girl nodded. Then Philimenes stood up and approached her. “Not yet, little Daphne,” he told her. “Don’t go just yet. I have a gift for you. Come here.”
Christos saw Philimenes draw the knife at his side. “Philimenes, no!” he shouted, and stepped in front of him, holding the shovel out like a barrier. Enraged that his attempt at murder had been interrupted, Philimenes suddenly turned on Christos, slashing at him savagely with the blade. Almost simultaneously, Christos swung the shovel across Philimene’s head, hearing the loud thump as it connected. Then Christos dropped the shovel and fell to his knees. He was fiercely aware of the sharp stinging that ran from his shoulder to just above his abdomen. He instinctively slid his fingers over his tunic and they came up wet. When he had mustered the strength to stand the child was gone and Philimenes lay supine at the bottom of the ditch, eyes gaping in shock. Blood trickled from his left temple.
Christos stood over the body a full five minutes, staggered by the force of what he had done. With professional detachment he had stoically observed flesh and bone hacked asunder during the wars, but the sight of Philimenes’ lifeless eyes resentfully glaring up at him filled him with revulsion. He could not bring himself to simply take the sack of loot and walk away, so with a great sigh and a groan of pain, he heaved a shovelful of earth onto the body. In another ten minutes he had completed his gloomy task, and placed the shovel beside an adjacent laurel tree. Without Philimenes he could not carry everything back. He slung the sack over his shoulder and with the lantern in the opposite hand, proceeded back towards the main road that ran through the Kerameikos cemetery and led eventually to the Acropolis.
He stopped to rest after a short while, increasingly aware of the pain and the growing fatigue that had latched onto him. He plopped down on a dry mound of earth, and leaned back against a grave stele carved with various bas-relief figures. Being the consummate atheist that he was, he saw nothing irreverent in his actions. A thick fog now accompanied the humid air, and he could not even make out the road that should have been about twenty feet away. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, seeking to gather his thoughts.
Just as he felt the first wave of slumber surge over him, Christos was jolted back to full consciousness by the sound of shouting. He sat upright and knew at once that this was not the preliminary hallucination with which a distressed and weary mind plagues the would-be sleeper. Christos could not deduce from where in the misty night the sound was coming, or whether it was from a man or woman.
He stood up and looked around him. He was not afraid, merely curious. The lantern had burned out and he could discern nothing but the vague shapes of trees. He stepped forward a few paces.
He was fully awake now, and found that the pain in his chest and stomach had subsided. He strode forward confidently, expecting to come to his destination in a few more steps, when something made him turn around, and through the veil of milky fog he saw a human figure in the distance. Could the child have become lost? he thought, and as he shook his head to clear his senses the shape was gone. Deciding that his mind was playing tricks on him, Christos turned and resumed his trek. He soon realized that he was lost, and after accepting the certainty of such a virtually impossible situation he sat down once more, deciding that waiting until daylight was the only sensible choice
The night around him was totally inscrutable, and totally silent. He felt completely at ease and relaxed, yet not sleepy. He took another deep breath, enjoying the solitude which had been bestowed on him for a few hours. But the respite was short-lived. Another distant figure wandered into his field of vision. Christos squinted hard but was careful not to move. The shape assumed that of a man carrying a staff of some sort, or a spear. Then there were two of them, and four, as if the abrupt entities were simply coalescing from out of the swirling darkness. An iridescent glow pervaded the group, and Christos guessed that one of them was holding a lantern. They were advancing in his direction, rapidly. In no mood for a late night interrogation, Christos stumbled awkwardly to his feet, nearly falling backwards over the headstone as he did so. He turned around and dashed headlong into the night, abandoning his own lantern and sack of plunder.
His flight was unimpeded for a full five minutes, and miraculously he still possessed unbounded energy, probably from the sheer rush of adrenaline. Ahead of him Christos heard the sound of flowing water, and surmised that he had come upon the Eridanos river. He was an excellent swimmer, and if necessary, he was prepared to take that course of action. He gradually slowed to a halt, and quickly looked behind him.
He spied a barren landscape where trees and stone monuments should have been, and only a light fog now barely obscured the encroaching forms. He seemed to have put no distance between them and himself, and he began to make out their tattered garments, their pale countenances and their wretched, vengeful stares.
“No,” he whispered.
As he turned forwards again he clearly saw that he was at the banks of a great river, and the sight of a lone figure with a paddle atop a raft confirmed his worst nightmare.
And Christos without a single coin.