Tears showed in his eyes as he looked back. Xanthippus remained silent. He didn’t know why Themistocles was sharing these intimacies with him. He found himself fascinated, but also stung somehow, as if he would have to defend his own easier youth and childhood. They had walked different paths, of course, but they were both there on that day in Athens, being rubbed down and drinking the same wine and water. Did it matter which path they had walked to reach that place?

‘She would be very proud,’ Xanthippus said.

‘Yes. So when I hear Aristides saying being the named archon doesn’t mean anything to him, that it is all a form of vanity, I think … I think perhaps he is a man who has known ease. I wonder how much he can truly understand of the lives of common men in Athens.’

‘How much can any of us understand of other lives?’ Xanthippus said. ‘I see you – and I have listened to you. I know you are a man of influence and authority. I saw it at Marathon, in the way you spoke to the men.’

He noted the surprise in Themistocles to hear that. The man was convinced he and Xanthippus were too different to understand one another.

‘Yet I see quiet dignity in Aristides,’ Xanthippus went on.

‘Arrogance,’ Themistocles muttered, settling back.

Xanthippus hoped that was not aimed at him, though Themistocles was subtle enough to insult them both in a single word.

‘Not at all. He makes a virtue of abstinence, of discipline. Men see that. He is a fine leader for this city.’

‘More like a Spartan than an Athenian,’ Themistocles said. Again, he had phrased it so that Xanthippus could not know whether he meant himself or Aristides.

‘There are virtues in both!’ Xanthippus snapped. He heard Themistocles sit up to respond, swinging his legs over once more.

‘Oh, I know that,’ Themistocles said. ‘Though I have never enjoyed their … superiority, the way some men – of Sparta or Athens – believe they are a better breed, that better blood runs in their veins.’ He shrugged. ‘It brings me to anger sometimes. Aristides the Just, they call him, for his decency and his honour. Yet he has never known fear or starved. Can such a man truly lead this city?’

‘He starves every day!’ Xanthippus said. ‘He wears a ragged robe and patched sandals and refuses all trappings of wealth. I have seen him make a meal from the scales and fish guts the fishermen leave on the docks. You said yourself he uses no clean oil at the gymnasia, only the leavings.’

‘Yet he has estates and lands as great as your own. He disdains wealth, but he has more than any thousand of his fellows. To walk in rags? There is a colossal arrogance there. It grates on me.’

‘Are you so different?’ Xanthippus heard himself say. It was as close to an insult as he had ever come and he regretted it. Themistocles did not seem annoyed by it, but answered calmly.