If Miltiades survived, he would surely be an enemy and a dangerous one. His son Cimon had marked his father’s accuser with a stare that seemed to burn in its anger. Yet Xanthippus would not have taken it back, even if the chance to do so had been handed to him. Miltiades going free had been a stone in his sandal from the day of Marathon, a wound that would not heal. He knew what he had seen. The details were as clear as if they had been carved in relief.

The voting began as the first noon bells sounded across the city. Half of Athens would be making their way home for a light lunch, or strolling to one of the gymnasia for a rub-down and food from a street vendor. The jurors, too, would feel the first stirrings of hunger. Thin men all, they could not delay too long without something to feed them. Xanthippus watched as each one chose a bronze rod and worked it through the disc marked ‘public vote’, hiding whether it was solid or hollow by a grip between thumb and forefinger. Solid meant guilty, agreed beforehand.

One after another, they dropped the little things into a basket and discarded the other rod into a second, watched closely all the time. The tellers too were chosen by lot, as well as the men whose task it was to judge the count and confirm it. There was no room for corruption, not in a decision over a man’s life.

Xanthippus felt tension leave him as he walked back to Epikleos.

‘Not much longer,’ he said.

Four hundred votes did not take long to count, even when each one had to be disassembled and held up to see if it was solid or hollow. A few jurors tried to catch Xanthippus’ eye. He sensed their gaze as they turned towards him, but looked away. He did not want to guess the result until it was done, for good or ill. Epikleos watched them avidly, turning back and forth to get the first sense of victory and driving himself mad with the strain of it.

Xanthippus took a moment to thank the witnesses, still on their feet with tension. In theory, both ship’s captain and hoplite officer had spoken only the truth, on oath to the gods. There could be no punishment for honesty. Yet the reality was grubbier and more human. Both were brave men. Perhaps it was relevant that they were also from families of means, who did not have to fear sudden poverty at the hands of Miltiades and his supporters.

Xanthippus frowned at that thought. It was well known that slaves had to be tortured before they could testify as witnesses. Only torture could be relied upon to bring an honest word from a man bound to serve a house and family. He had called no slaves for the trial of Miltiades. He wondered if he would have summoned some of the rowers if they had been truly beyond the reach of spite and malice. As free men, but without wealth or position, they had their reflections in the jurors. More, they had a voice and he had not asked for it. He grimaced at the thought, praying it would not be his own hubris that cost him the judgment.