While he waited, Epikleos scraped his foot across a shard of pot that crunched underfoot. For himself, in all honesty, he was in awe of both men, but they were made of very different clay. Few could move the Assembly like Themistocles.

Epikleos turned his hand so that he could bite a piece of nail on his thumb, something he only did when he was worried. Epikleos had tried to warn his friend, but Xanthippus would not hear him.

22

Cimon entered the gymnasium to the south of the city. He had not slept the night before and he could feel the scratchiness and sweat as weariness caught up with him. Yet at eighteen, he felt sharp even so. Sleep was just an interruption to life, an irritant that tugged at his sleeve when he wanted to go on and on.

None of the staff challenged him as he entered the gate and strode through the cloisters along the open field. That too was exhilarating. With his father barely in the grave, he had risen as a name in Athens. Part of it was from those who thought Miltiades had been poorly treated, killed unfairly after a lifetime of service. There were others who had been at Marathon who had pledged themselves to his son after the funeral procession. Cimon did not completely understand what drove those men, but he was willing to take their oaths. He did so without hesitation, though it made them clients of his family. That support would incur its own debts when they fell ill or were wounded. Yet he had not turned them down – and word had spread that he would not. He saw in them that Marathon had been a golden moment, when they had tested themselves and not been found wanting, when they had proved their courage in the forge-fire. Nothing would ever taste as sweet again, he thought. For them. He would find his own fruit – and make it run in thick juice down his chin and chest.

Themistocles had brought that support to the fore, with his speech at the funeral. Cimon still didn’t know if the man had planned it, or whether he had simply reacted to seeing so many hoplites in armour, come to honour a name of Athens. From that moment, Cimon had been handed his father’s mantle. Men who had commanded a phalanx had bowed to him – men with the influence no mere eighteen-year-old could match. Cimon had joined the Assembly, but he could not bring his own trials, nor put his name forward for any number of posts. He could not lead Athens until he was thirty. On that morning he knew two things: that he would, and that it seemed a long way off.

Themistocles was in the boxing ring, sparring lightly with another man. Both were naked except for the wrappings on their hands to protect the knuckles. Even then, too many of the trainers had hands that resembled meaty slabs.