She hoped they understood the significance of the men in bronze at her side. As the shelters filled and were found to be inadequate, thousands more had to sit on the cliffs, jammed together for warmth while the rain fell harder, hissing across the sea. The space around her family and slaves shrank as people shuffled closer, mindless as cattle. On the edges, more than one group came to blows as men tried to make space for their mothers or held up children and shouted for others to let them in. Those who heard pressed their lips pale and were thankful they were out of the wind and wet.

They had all been refugees before, Agariste reminded herself, then returned to something like normal life. She did not know if it was madness to hope for the same, or whether this second blow would break them. Perhaps Athens was truly gone this time. She knew Themistocles talked a grand vision, saying the people were the city, not mere stone or walls. It was hard to see much glory in the shivering crowds on Salamis.

Pericles returned in noise and life, tearing her reverie to rags, skidding on the wet ground as he came to a halt.

‘Father is down on the new docks, talking to some of the other strategoi and archons. I listened for a while …’ He trailed off, clearly recalling the times his mother had told him he would hear nothing good if he eavesdropped on conversations.

Impatiently, Agariste waved him to continue and he grinned at her. He was handsome, she believed. Half the young daughters in Athens knew his name, or so she had heard. She saw the gleam in his eyes that would make him the enemy of their fathers in time, if it hadn’t already. Yet there was a sort of innocence in him. At his age, all the grief and rage around just passed him by, if he noticed it at all. In that moment, as his odour of clean sweat and salt washed over her, she envied him. He grinned at her, basking in her love.

‘Father said Themistocles organised some sort of search of bags on the docks of the Piraeus. Something to do with a missing cup from the temple of Athena. Then Aristides said he had not heard of a missing cup and Dad said that did not surprise him at all. He said the amount of wealth that had turned up in the search was worth a thousand cups. It will all go to pay the rowers, or something. Confiscated.’ Pericles saw his mother was wincing and patting the air with one hand. He dipped his head and lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘He said something about the Spartans too, but then they saw me and sent me away.’

‘What was that about a cup?’ his sister Eleni asked.