Not till the afternoon of the next day did Diossos set off on his journey again. The giant came along to show him the way to his brother’s house.

“He will welcome you there and show you your way because I don’t know about such things,” he said.

They arrived only at dusk because the brother lived quite far away in the valley, at the foot of the great mountain of Parnassus.

His household was spacious and prosperous. Several children and adolescents ran out of the house to meet their uncle. The host himself, Kilon, was a magnificent man himself, even if not quite so big as his younger brother. He was considerably better informed about the world, talkative, and quick-witted. Learning from Diossos about his misfortunes and the purpose of his journey, he looked at him seriously, stroked his beard, and finally promised that he would show him the way once the boy had rested.

“Because you need to rest. You still have a long way ahead of you. But don’t be afraid; no one will betray you here. Not just me, because I never played such tricks, but also no one in the whole country of Athens. Of course, if you were a runaway slave, some wretch might turn you in. But you are not a runaway slave. You are a debt hostage. We call this a lien, and it’s illegal here. Our law does not allow people to be pledged for debt, so no one can turn you in, even if he wanted to. Got that?”

And then he turned to the adolescents, his sons, and the sons of the neighbors who surrounded them.

“Look here, you kids, look at him. You, too, could be like this, roaming the world without a mother or a home, like homeless dogs, in constant fear and hunger! By Zeus! You might well all be like this now if it had not been for us: for me, my brother, and others here, your fathers, zeugitai, all of them. Remember that!”

The little boys didn’t know what that meant, but the older boys knew it well. In Athens, zeugitai were free farmers, rich enough to have a pair of oxen to work in a yoke, and to own a set of bronze armor, which they donned in times of war to defend their country. And Kilon had fought in several wars.

“Tell us about your battles, father,” they asked.

But Kilon shooed them away.

“Not now, kids. We have to feed our guests first. Come after supper.”

And they came, of course. They filled the entire room. Adolescents – fifteen- and sixteen-year-old boys – and boys Diossos’s age, and even younger. A few neighbors came, too, and a few curious women slipped in behind them. These women, along with Kilon’s wife, sat in a circle around Diossos and began to pepper him with questions: how had he run away, and why? And where was he going? And what adventures had he had along the way? They shook their heads in astonishment on hearing what he had already been through, how he had been captured and beaten. They sobbed a little and took pity on him and still more on the plight of his mother and sister in prison.

Finally, the host came to his rescue.

“Leave him alone, women,” he said, “he’s on his last legs, and he won’t tell you anything new. And what news is this? Have you never seen fugitives from the Peloponnese? Here, there are not so many, but in the border villages, not a month passes without at least a dozen. And most of them are debt hostages like him, who flee from imminent enslavement.”

“Yes, there are many fugitives, but they are usually grown-ups – not poor little things like him, all alone,” said one of the women.

“That there is no mercy for such a kid!” exclaimed another.

“And the Megarians are the worst!”

“It’s true,” admitted Kilon. “And they have always been the worst! Remember how in the bad old days, their soldiers always came across the border whenever we had a dispute with our landlords?”

Silence fell. When men spoke, the young did not dare even to whisper. They were afraid that their fathers would chase them out of the room, but Kilon had a different idea. He looked around the still childish faces and spoke to them:

“You youngsters think that life has always been like this with us? This rich and this content? You think that I had time to relax, to rest after a day of work, or plenty to eat when I returned home?

“Oh, no! Even though my father was not poor, he had a house in Eleutherae, and a garden next to it, and two pieces of farmland, but, as I remember from my earliest days, on all of them stood these white stones. And do you know what those stones meant? They meant that the land had been mortgaged. It meant that my father was not really the master of what he owned: the true master was the creditor to whom he owed money.

“And in those days, everyone in the whole country was burdened with debt.

“You see, when bad weather came, and the crop failed, the farmer was short of cash, and he had to borrow money just to survive till the next harvest. And money lenders would lend it to him on interest. That’s normal and happens today, too. Or maybe a war came, and a new tax was imposed to pay for it, and the farmer had to pay the tax but didn’t have the ready cash. So, these money lenders would loan him money. On interest. And that’s normal, too, and is so still today.

“But some things were different in those days. For one thing, the interest. And what interest that was! Today, we pay three percent a year, and the law forbids a higher rate. But in those days, the rate was whatever the lender demanded. One hundred percent! Three hundred percent! Perhaps the farmer needed just fifty drachmas until the next harvest and borrowed it – well, by next harvest, he would discover that his debt had grown to two hundred drachmas! And if he did not pay it in full by then, the unpaid part would grow and quadruple again before the next harvest!

“Soon, the farmer lived and worked for one purpose only: to pay off his debt. And the law was harsh in those days. The creditor could demand five-sixths of the crop to pay down overdue debt. Five-sixths! Think about it: this meant the farmer could now only keep one-sixth to feed himself and his family.

“You try to live on one-sixth of your crop! After a month, your bones will show through your skin.

“By the time I was a boy like you, these white stones were everywhere. All across this land, every piece of land and every house had been mortgaged. And every farmer starved on one-sixth of his crop. The peasants had nothing they could call truly their own.

“And when the harvest came and the time came to pay back the debt, and you had no way of paying it back in full, well, then, the creditor did not have to extend your debt yet again. Any time you did not have money to pay back in full right there and then, the creditor had the right to take whatever he wanted: your animals, your grain, your land, your children, your wife, even you. Then you lost everything, and you were now a slave. A nobody. You ceased to be a person. You were now an animal like a pig, or a cow, or a dog.

“My father was strong and worked hard like an ox, and he did not give up. Although the white stones were already in our field, we were still free; there was still hope. My brother and I helped our father, worked hard, to exhaustion sometimes – but in the end, it was all for nothing.

“Our local eupatrid[1], who held the liens on our land, was rich, and he sat in the Areopagus [2]. He had land, houses, palaces, ships. He had hundreds of slaves, servants, and bodyguards. But none of that was ever enough for him, and he never forgave us a broken obol. He did not forgive us, oh, no! Instead, he only added to our burdens. The crop was not good, he said, so he paid us less for it than the market would; the donkey we had borrowed died, and now we had to pay for it at full price, even though it had been twenty years old and half-blind. These were heavy burdens, and we had no one to turn to for protection. He was our creditor and our government.

“My mother died of poverty and hunger, and that bit my father hard, and he followed her soon after that. And the man had been fortunate: he died a free man.

“Now, my brother and I were left alone.

“A few years passed. I married this old woman here, the wife. She was a pretty girl then, not like now, but poor just like me. We moved in together. A baby was born to us, a boy. Life was hard, but we were in love and happy together. And then… then the rumor came that we would be enslaved. Like this boy here.

“When I think of it now, I still shiver at the memory of those events. It didn’t just happen to us: several families in the village were also enslaved at the same time. You see, our lord had decided to take ownership of the land, set up his own farm, to be worked by his own slaves, and to clear the land of us, the rabble who were in his way, to seize us for our unpaid debts and sell us into slavery.

“At first, I wanted to run away into the forest, then over the border to Boeotia, but how could I? The wife was still in bed after childbirth, the baby was a newborn, just a few days old, and it was still winter. And it was a cold winter that year; we had snow on the ground for a month. What was there to do?

“So, we waited to see what would happen. A week passed, and our lord came, with his guards, all armed. They rounded us up and separated us, like animals, into categories. My wife, she was young and pretty – he took her to his house, for housework, service, and a few others also. And me… me they were going to take down to the port of Phaleron, to sell to a trader. For export. Like cattle.

“They divided all families like that. Imagine: people crying, shouting, begging. But this meant nothing to him. Our lord looked at us with his cold, blue eyes, totally indifferent, as if we were goats or garden vegetables. At this – I say – at this, I felt such hatred for the man that my throat choked. I swore that I would take revenge on him. I swore it by Dionysus, by Zeus, by Demeter[3], the good mother of all.

“And then they marched us down to Phaleron to load us on the ship. But before we reached there, my brother and I escaped. We had been bound together with rope, but what is a little rope to my brother?! He could have broken a chain, so strong he was, let alone a little piece of rope! So he broke his rope, helped me out of mine, and we ran into the forest.

“We were not alone then. I don’t quite understand why, but that was a bad year, and that winter, many lords took their debtors into slavery, and quite a number managed to get away and wandered in the mountains, homeless dogs, without hope, without bread, without strength, and sometimes without reason.

“It was early spring, I remember. The first flowers were blooming. The Great Dionysia[4] was on. Solemn holiday, you know, the greatest holiday in our parts. After the service, after the sacrifices, the processions into the woods started. And then, as always: dancing, singing, wine, merrymaking, you know. Dionysus is a kind and loving god, and he likes people to enjoy themselves. But this year, few people were rejoicing. The farmers marched and sang these hymns of sacred joy, but in their hearts, each thought to himself: when will they take my land? When will they enslave my children and me?

“So, that was how that joyous holiday went.

“Until, from the front of the procession, the priests came and chastised us, saying: ‘This is not like the Dionysia, this is like a funeral!’ But then one of the priests, a young man, shouted:

“‘These people are not wicked not to rejoice! The wicked are those who took their joy away! The people who deprive them of life!’”

“We looked at him, and he looked at us. We talked a little, not much. But before evening, each of us had something in his hand: one had an ax, another a hoe, a sickle, a scythe. Is there a shortage of sharp metal implements on the farm? And we immediately became cheerful. Bakkhe! Bakkhe![5]

“And now, the dancing and singing start. And our cluster continues to grow. Pipes squeal, flutes whine, tambourines thump, the forest is throbbing. Bakkhe! Bakkhe!

“Near Eleutherae, some farm maids run to us from a rich farmhouse, crying and complaining about their lord. But we say nothing. We are happy! We drag the girls in among us, into our procession, dancing, and singing, and we run through the forest again. Bakkhe! Bakkhe!

“I thought only about my wife and the little one, and – nothing. I’m happier and happier. Only my teeth gnash. But I have a really nice pitchfork. A really nice pitchfork.

“And tambourines strike, and flutes whine, and trumpets, and pipes. Bakkhe! Bakkhe! Merry. Merry. Night comes, and the forest swarms with people. Overhead, the spring wind comes, strong, bending trees. And so the trees sing with us. And you know… a shiver runs down your back, strange, animal, but not out of fear, oh, no! But to let you know that the good god Dionysus is there with us, he is there, with us, this one time. And he is glad, oh so glad, dancing and clapping his hands, singing with us. We light torches and run through the forest with these burning torches, with screaming, with singing. And the forest suddenly burst into fire. A great, wild, crazy fire!

“Bakkhe! Bakkhe!

“And the tambourines are beating, and the flutes are squealing, and the pitchforks are singing, and the scythes are buzzing! Merry! Merry! Joy! Joy!

“And with singing, and torches, and with all our instruments, and all our tools, we go down into the valley, from the valley into to the gardens, to the lord’s palace, to our eupatrid, to dance with him!…”

Kilon fell silent and glowered around him. It was quiet. After a while, he spoke again:

“That was a really fine house, our eupatrid had. Really, really nice. And it burned beautifully, I tell you, beautifully. The house, the pens, the stables, the slave quarters, everything. Beautiful! Just beautiful! By Bakkhus[6]! I have never seen such a beautiful fire since! One thing only went badly: that I was not able to take my vengeance on our lord like I had promised the almighty gods. My brother caught up with him first, two blows to the head, and he snapped the thing right off at the neck, like a poppy pod. Yes. My brother is strong, and he can be a little awkward.

“Everyone among the slaves and servants who survived now came with us into the mountains. I found my wife and child and took them with me to the forest.

“Such was that Dionysia. The Great Dionysia. Ho, ho, people in Athens wondered what that was, that glow in the mountains, how rowdy the peasants celebrated their holiday that year. Because it was not just one palace that burnt that night, but all of them in the valley. Yes. So it was. The Great Dionysia.

“Hard times followed. We had to hide in forests, in the bush. Troops were sent after us. There were battles, skirmishes. Forests, mountains, and wilderness swarmed with people because more and more villagers fled the land to join us – for fear of captivity or punishment. The hunger was great because all farmland lay fallow. Our lords – the gentlemen, the eupatrids, they fled to Athens. And we fled to the mountains. And between us was a kind of desert in which people hunted each other like jackals.

“That’s how it was in those times. Terrible to speak of it even today. But we stuck by it; we did not yield an inch.

“Then, our leaders got in touch with the people of the coast – with the artisans, sailors, fishermen, shopkeepers. They had also had enough of it all. Hunger took its toll, trade froze, there was nothing to buy or sell, nothing to export or import. There was among them their leader, the wisest man – Solon. You all know who he is. He was also one of the eupatrids, some say even from the family of kings, but he was a man, not a soulless robber. An honest, humane person.”

“And Timocrates, the father of our Pisistratus, was also with him. He was a eupatrid, too, but also humane,” interjected one of the neighbors. “And he raised his son to be a decent man.”

“That’s how it is. There are men and beasts in every estate,” said someone else.

But Kilon continued:

“Then this Solon thought to put an end to all this war business and make peace with us. So, he started talking to us, and his people – the artisans and shopkeepers of Athens – they also preferred to talk with us rather than with the lords. You know, a peasant can sometimes become a sailor, a sailor a peasant, but neither of them will ever be a eupatrid. It’s just easier to talk like that, equal with equal.

“The talks then went on to see how they, the lowlanders, could help us highlanders. But the lords cottoned on and did not think to give up so easily. They hired more soldiers and more slave catchers, and then they got in touch with the Megarians to buy their help. And the Megarians, a wicked people, not only promised to help but also called others to join them – the Corinthians and, worst of all, the Spartans. Those scoundrels always and everywhere support the lords.

“So, they gathered a large army on Salamis[7] to help our lords and were already sitting there in camp, sharpening their swords for our necks.

“But Solon acted first. He was not called ‘the wisest of men’ for nothing. He quickly gathered, hush-hush, his people from the coast, took several hundred of ours, and with them, he crossed to Salamis at night. Our priests had tried to dissuade him with false oracles, threatened him with a curse, but Solon didn’t listen. He knew perfectly well the curse was just a trick of our lords. So, we crossed at night and right away jumped on them.

“Hey-ho! What a fight that was! Our legs worked more than our hands! Before morning came, with Zeus’s help, we cleared all those crooks and villains! We wiped them clean off the island!

“And how things now changed! Such fear now came on Megara that they sent envoys to Solon to beg for peace. They gave up Salamis right away, curled their tails between their legs, and – whoosh! – back to their doghouse!

“And what joy in Athens! First, that we regained Salamis; and, second, that there was no more talk of any war to help our lords. Only our eupatrids, our areopagites[8] became now – how to say it – a little melancholy-like. Like they say in the theater: ‘morose.’

“The city people greeted Solon as a savior. And we set up camp right outside the walls so that our lords could see us better, their slaves; you know – their property.

“But, somehow, the guards did not come. Slave catchers did not come. No dunning reminders, no court enforcements. No threats, no anger. All polite now. Solon came out to see us every day, ‘to review his troops,’ he said, sending us food and wine from the city. Not much time passed, maybe ten days, and a deal was struck. Our eupatrids gave up everything. Solon became an archon[9], polemarch, commander, and king, and now he could do whatever he wanted.

“What came then, you know – seisachtheia[10]! The cancellation of all debts! The lifting of all encumbrances. And the liberation of debt slaves! Those were great days!

“All who had been sold into slavery for debt now regained their freedom. The state paid the ransom for all those who had been sold abroad. There would never again be mortgaging of people for debt like cattle. All debts were canceled, and all those white stones were removed from the land so that the land could, at last, breathe freely. Oh, and we all breathed freely at last – oh, how we breathed at last! Oh-ho! Such joy there was! From Athens, from harbors, from mines, from palaces, people came out, yesterday’s slaves – today as free as the wind. Such crying was there, such sobbing, but it was all joyful, happy tears. Fathers recovered their children, wives their husbands, and children their mothers. On the roads, in villages, in cities, everywhere, you saw people falling on their knees and kissing the ground.

“Seisachtheia! Seisachtheia!

“Yes! Life was worth living again! Spring was coming, the Great Dionysia again. But this time, the priests did not have to encourage anyone to rejoice. We rejoiced! Joy itself was in the air; it followed people, followed people in the groves, in the fields – the fields which were now sown with seed again. Joy itself. Hey-ho! People!

“So, this how it was, boys. This is how it was. As long as we live, we will not let others forget. We will not let others forget! And neither will you. Right, boys?”

He ran his eyes over the feverish faces of the boys, the adolescents, the young farmhands. They stirred, became animated. Their eyes sparkled.

Diossos looked at them in amazement. He had never seen boys like these or ever heard words like these in his Corinth.

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[1] Eupatrid (pl. eupatridae): the traditional aristocracy of Athens

[2] Areopagus: the ruling council of Athens

[3] Demeter: goddess of land and fertility

[4] Great Dionysia was a rural festival in Eleutherae, in honor of god Dionysius and celebration of new wine

[5] Bakheia was the ritualistic frenzy induced by Dionysus in the participants of the festival

[6] Bakkhus: another name for Dionysus

[7] Salamis: island opposite Athens, object of long-standing dispute with Megara

[8] Areopagite: member of the Aeropaugs, the ruling council

[9] Archon: ruler

[10] Seisachtheia: cancellation of all debts under Solon