He turned to Pausanias as he spoke, while the crowd howled and cheered behind him. The Spartan regent looked back with eyes full of anger. Aristides gestured to the rostrum, but it was the king of Macedonia who suddenly stepped forward. It took a moment for the Athenian council to see he stood there, but Alexander gripped the rostrum and remained until the sound died once more.

‘I came here from a land at peace,’ Alexander said, ‘with thriving markets, with city walls. I came as an ally of Persia, my pride intact, though you insult me! I rode past rubble to enter Athens. You poor fools, you have no walls! You cannot defend this city, not if you choose to slap away the hand extended to you. I urge you to think again.’

His knuckles whitened on the rostrum as they called out suggestions to him. After a moment he stood back.

‘Do as you wish then,’ he said to Aristides in disgust.

‘That is the heart of freedom, I believe,’ Aristides said. ‘That choice.’

‘You choose an ending,’ the king of Macedon said. He shook his head as if in sorrow.

‘Perhaps,’ Aristides replied. ‘But we choose. One day you will understand.’

Aristides turned then to Pausanias and Tisamenus. The soothsayer was wide-eyed and in awe of all he had witnessed.

‘Regent Pausanias, we will discuss the offers until dawn. I think then that we will vote on it on the Pnyx, with the whole Assembly of Athens present. You are welcome to attend as witnesses, of course. For once though, I think it will be a formality. Now, I have put rooms aside in the city for you. They are new-built and simple, but perhaps that will not be so strange to men of Sparta.’

He spoke with the noise of the crowd like a clatter of pigeon wings behind him, filling the room. The council hall had been the very first building rebuilt after the fire, the labour of hundreds. It smelled of sawdust, pine, olive oil and sweat.

Pausanias had lost the sense of the room when it had erupted. He was used to silence and discipline, not maniacs all shouting over one another. Yet he recognised the certainty in Aristides, as well as his authority. That had been clear from the moment he had opened his mouth to speak.

‘Will you truly decline the funds I offered?’ he said at last.

With Alexander of Macedon in red-faced attendance, Pausanias and Tisamenus followed Aristides back out to the rooms and corridors beyond. Behind them, Themistocles and the epistates began to invite speakers. Yet the crash of noise and energy was already dropping in the room. The main event was at an end.