‘I’d like to scratch a name on this ostracon, so I can vote today.’ He held up a potter’s nail, used to mark designs in the cheapest vessels before they went for firing.

‘And you cannot write?’ Aristides said. It was not a great surprise, though he saw the man was embarrassed as he nodded.

‘I never learned, kurios. Can you do it for me? It won’t take more than a moment.’

‘Of course. Tell me the name and I will write it for you.’

Aristides took the piece and the long iron nail from him, holding it like a stylus. He looked up then as the man leaned close and touched his finger to the clay.

‘Aris … tid … es,’ the man said.

Aristides froze.

‘There is to be a vote of ostracism, then?’

‘Yes, kurios. If you could put the name …’

‘Today? For Aristides?’

The man nodded, frowning at the delay. Aristides raised one eyebrow.

‘Do you know this Aristides?’ he asked.

The man shook his head, then leaned to one side and spat on the red earth at his feet.

‘No, but I hear his name all the time. “Aristides the Just”, “Aristides the Honourable” – what does he know of the lives we lead, eh? I am sick of all of them.’

‘I see,’ Aristides said faintly.

‘Will you write it, then?’ the man said, tapping the shard with his fingernail.

Slowly and carefully, Aristides scratched his own name into the clay.

‘There. It is done,’ he said, handing it back.

The man beamed at him, squinting at it.

‘Thank you, kurios. You are a good man.’

Aristides went past him, to the end of the road and into the Agora. The Pnyx was not too far off and he could see crowds gathering there, looking clean after the dust of the Ceramicus. It had touched the hem of his robe, Aristides realised, darkening it further and staining the skin of his hands. Perhaps the potter had thought he was one of them, his robe patched and old, without oiled hair or gold rings or any sign of wealth.

With a heavy heart, Aristides walked towards the Pnyx and made his way to the heart of the vote. It did not surprise him to see Themistocles there, with Cimon not far off. The young man was visibly drunk again, Aristides noted. Cimon swayed as he stood on the great flat stone and his eyes were glassy. Aristides shook his head at the sight. Grief was a corrosive force in a man’s life. It had to be denied like any weakness, not drowned in wine. Still, Cimon was not his client, nor even a friend. His fate would be his own. It still rankled to see such a promising young man ruined, but that was the way of things. Some rose and some were destroyed. It seemed that, today, Aristides himself might fall.

He stood for a long time watching the voting. There was no clear pattern. Men of the outer city came up and deposited a piece with his name inscribed on it. Neither was there malice in their expressions, not for the most part. He was pleased at that. Yet as a rumour will feed on itself, so the process of voting brought more and more to the Pnyx. There was an excitement in the air and Aristides wondered how many would vote without even knowing who it was they would send into exile.