He rubbed his face, so tired he could barely think as his vision blurred. He needed to sleep, to eat, to experience quiet and peace for just a few hours before being thrown back into the tumult. He and his crew had peeled off from the main fleet the morning before, part of a hundred and sixty Athenian ships. Themistocles had trusted him to lead them home, then carry the news to the Agora and the Areopagus. Younger men had made the run from the port into the city, calling the news as they went. It had been chaos from the first moments, but they’d come. His people had gathered up their loved ones and run to the quays. They had trusted in the Athenians of the fleet, their husbands and brothers and sons.

Xanthippus slapped himself on the face with his left hand, keeping himself alert. He looked further along the road, watching for Agariste and the children. He would not leave without them. Yet all the while he stood there, he felt the gaze of many, wondering why his ship remained while others drove back and forth, back and forth. Some old women had tried arguing with his hoplites, gesturing furiously. Those men had glanced back in mute appeal, but he had sent them to another ship, over all their curses.

The crowd was thickening, if anything, though he’d seen more people than he’d known lived in the city taken to Salamis. He imagined every deme of Athens being emptied – the Ceramicus, the council building, the temples on the Acropolis. He wondered if the city had been quiet without the men who crewed the ships. He imagined them subdued and worried, waiting for news. They had been given a victory after Marathon. He recalled the cheering crowds then, with garlands of amaranth flowers. That day was still a shining memory, he realised. Before his banishment and all the bitterness of years away. Before the politics of the city had taken on a sour taste. Before the king of Persia had brought an army and a fleet to break them.

Xanthippus swallowed when he saw the cart coming through the crowd. He was not certain for a moment, then he recognised Pericles on horseback, with Agariste and Eleni driving the cart and – there, Ariphron and Epikleos riding horses at the rear. He could hear his dog barking and saw the big mastiff bounding along, wild with excitement. They made a path as those on foot gave way to the strength and size of the horses or were buffeted. Some of the women trudging along must have recognised Agariste, or known it was her husband who waited with the ship. They increased their pace. Part of the crowd there seemed to swell and heave forward, coming in his direction, so that Xanthippus saw they would arrive together, infecting one another with a sort of desperate need. He could hear his dog howling as it ran.

‘Let them on,’ he called to the hoplites guarding the gangplank.