I’ll never forget my eighth birthday, because it was the last birthday when my parents were still alive.
At the time I was into dinosaurs and also Greek myths, so Mum made a cake that showed Hercules bashing a Tyrannosaurus rex with his club. Everyone got a badge with the name of a Greek god or goddess on it and also a plastic dinosaur to take home.
Anyway, the point of this story is Daniel the Storyteller. He was a friend of my dad’s. He was trying to make it as an actor but in the meantime was doing kids’ birthday parties.
I remember being upset because I had asked for a magician and when my dad said we were getting his friend Daniel I thought he would be rubbish. But he was amazing. He didn’t have props or anything. Just his voice and his face and his body. When he started to tell the story everybody went absolutely quiet, even Callum Carter, who hardly ever sat still. Daniel told us the story of how Odysseus, the wiliest of the Greeks, killed all Penelope’s suitors with his bow and arrows.
That was the day I put aside my dinosaurs to devote myself to ancient Greeks and Romans.
When Alcibiades got up to speak at the Assembly, he captivated the crowds just like Daniel the Storyteller.
First of all, he looked amazing. He was still wearing his long charioteer’s tunic and the breeze blew it against his body so you could see how muscular he was. Second, he was one of the few people there with blond hair. The sun made it glint like gold. Third, even from a distance his gaze was piercing. When he turned your way, it felt as if he was speaking just to you. Then there was the way he moved his body and arms. It made you not want to look away. But the most impressive thing about him was the way he made his voice carry.
We kids had climbed a pine tree to see over the crowds. I reckoned there were five thousand men there at least.
Although the cicadas were chirping loudly around us, we could hear Alcibiades perfectly.
He made his listeners laugh, nod their heads in agreement and finally burst out in rapturous applause.
All except for Crina, Simona and Kid Plato.
‘Wasn’t he brilliant?’ said Dinu in Greek.
‘Amazing,’ I replied in the same language.
But Crina whispered in English, ‘He reminds me of all those politicians who wave their arms a lot but are full of hot air.’
And Simona asked: ‘What did he actually say?’
‘He hardly even addressed the charge,’ came the voice of Kid Plato from the lowest branch. ‘He mainly talked about how he wins every contest he enters so they have to keep him on as general! And like a typical sophist, he won over the crowd.’
I told Crina what Kid Plato had said.
‘Look!’ cried Xanthus, as an official stepped forward. ‘They’re going to vote.’
Five thousand Athenians fell silent.
When the official asked how many people cast their vote to condemn Alcibiades, only a few hands went up.
When he asked how many of them wanted to pardon the general so that he could lead the fleet to Sicily, almost everyone raised an arm or a walking stick high in the air.
‘Woohoo!’ shouted Dinu and Xanthus cheered too.
But at the word ‘Sicily’ I felt a chill pass through my body and the pine tree started to tip strangely.
‘Oh my God!’ I gripped the branch and willed myself not to faint. ‘It’s the Expedition to Sicily!’
‘What does that mean?’ said Dinu. We were speaking in English.
‘Everybody’s been talking about Syracuse,’ I said, ‘which means nothing to me. But the herald just said Sicily.’
‘Sicily?’ said Crina. ‘I read about that in one of my books.’ Then she reached out and gripped my arm. ‘Oh my God. Is that the guy who came up with the idea? I thought his name was Al Sibees!’
‘Al-sib-EYE-uh-deez in English, but Al-kibee-AH-deez in Greek,’ I said.
‘Oh no!’
‘What are you talking about?’ Dinu pulled himself up and his face appeared below us, framed by pine needles.
I took a deep breath. ‘Alcibiades has just convinced the Athenians to let him lead the fleet to Sicily in order to get their gold and then defeat the Spartans once and for all.’
‘What’s so terrible about that?’ he said.
I took a deep breath. ‘The Sicilian Expedition is destined to be the biggest military disaster in the history of Athens. It will ultimately cause her downfall.’
Dinu was looking at me with wide eyes.
I leaned closer to him. Even though we were speaking English I lowered my voice. ‘Don’t you remember? Magister Gerardus wrote the figures on the whiteboard. The Athenians will lose two hundred ships and twenty thousand men will die.’
‘Oh my God!’ breathed Crina. ‘Twenty thousand men!’
‘I’ve got to warn him!’ said Dinu suddenly. The branches of the pine sprang back as he started to climb down out of the tree.
‘Dinu!’ I cried as he landed in a puff of dust. ‘Don’t tell him! It’s one of the biggest disasters in the history of the world. If you stop him, you’ll definitely change the future!’
But I was too late; Dinu was already running down the dusty slope of the Pnyx.