L.M. Manovsky - The Years of Eirene

Prologue

In ancient Greece, Εἰρήνη (Eirene) was more than a goddess — she was a yearning that assumed personified form. To the people, Εἰρήνη embodied the quiet elegance of peace after storm, the still hearth, the harvest unburned.
Statues showed Εἰρήνη cradling the infant Πλοῦτος (Plutos), the god of wealth. A sign that prosperity follows peace, not war. In times of unrest, Έλληνες (Hellenes) prayed to her not with loud and pompous offerings, but with hopeful stillness, wishing only for very little and yet so much: calm seasons and homes without mourning.
Εἰρήνη was not triumph; she was rest — the soft breath the πόλις (polis) took between battles.

Chapter 1 - The House of Kallias

Chapter 1 - The House of Kallias - Athens, 448 BCE
The goats had broken the fence again. Two goats stood in the olive grove, chewing as if it belonged to them. Νικίας shouted and waved a branch. His child voice cracked in the air. The goats were not scared of his size and did not move by the length of one finger - a δάκτυλος. The child, angry at their indifference, screamed louder, yet hesitated to approach them closer. Κάλλιας arrived. His shoulders were broad, tough, bearing the marks of the hard toil from the years that he bent over fields and on ships. He squinted at the sun, then at the boy...

Chapter 2 - The Foreshadow of Empire

The sea had been calm since dawn. Κάλλιας stood at the rail of the ship, his hands pressing the wood, his eyes watching the island drawing near. The prow cut the water like a blade. Seaspray salted his beard. "μὰ τὸν Ἀπόλλωνα! By the Apollo!" someone whispered behind him...

Chapter 3 - The Art of Democracy

The boy walked beside his father past the statues. They lined the way like ghosts. Σόλων’s eyes were carved in stone. His mouth set in judgment. Beside him, Δράκων, taller, crueler. His chisel lines still sharp after a hundred years. The boy squinted up at them.
"He made death the penalty for stealing a cabbage," Νικίας said...

Chapter 4 - The Voice of Aspasia

The dawn broke softly over Hymettus, but there was little joy in it for Κάλλιας. He had risen early, as he always did. The others were still sleeping when he stepped into the yard. The olives were beginning to swell on the tree near the wall. A good year for fruit. But he would not be tending them today.
"μὰ τὸν Δία," he muttered...

Chapter 5 - Strategos

He had not always liked him. Few did, at first. Κάλλιας remembered the way people spoke of him - Περικλής. The tall one with the long head and quiet voice. The kind that made a man listen twice, because the first time he doubted he heard him. Too serious. Too noble. Too full of ideas. "Με τὸν Ἅιδην! To the Hades!", they would whisper. "He's not like us."

Chaper 6 - Archon

Κάλλιας remembered this place that portrayed so many stories of the past of this place. θέᾱτρον του Διονύσου. Theater of Dionysius. Even now, when he walked past the θέᾱτρον, he could still see the light of that day. The sun descending slowly. Young men clearing the benches.
They had said Περικλῆς was mad to sponsor the play....