The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies (20 page)

I admire the ancient Athenians for many reasons. I like their architecture, their statues, their pottery and their writing. They had good armour too. I admire their bravery. They were responsible for repelling two huge invasions from the east, defeating the Persian Kings, Darius and Xerxes. Other Greek states helped in the wars but, in my not-to-be-relied-upon historical opinion, the Greek successes were mainly down to the Athenians.

Mostly I admire them for inventing democracy. It was a new idea that all citizens should have a say in the running of their nation. It was a brilliant innovation, and a step forward for the world. It’s true that Athenian democracy did not extend to the universal franchise we’d expect today, but they made more progress in a generation than most other countries would manage in the next 2000 years.

Not everything about Athens was good. They spent a lot of time fighting and arguing with other Greek city-states. They made some disastrous foreign policy decisions, and the continual warfare led to their eventual downfall. Nonetheless, the great city-state of Athens, at its peak in the fifth century BC, left a huge mark on the world.

I’ve tried setting a novel in ancient Athens before, but it never really worked, and I abandoned these earlier efforts. It wasn’t until I decided to make it revolve around Aristophanes that my book started to make sense. Aristophanes’ riotous comedies helped to set the tone. If the Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies isn’t exactly historical, containing as it does visits from nymphs and Amazons, well, Aristophanes laid the groundwork for this long ago, with his combination of real-life Athenians, Gods, and mythical creatures, all coming together in outlandish and improbable encounters. I’m very keen on Aristophanes. Despite the often-farcical nature of his plays, there is no-one better for telling you what life was actually like in the ancient city. These comedies might lack the grandeur of the great tragic writers, but they’re the best place to learn about the sausage sellers, jurymen, farmers, and squabbling politicians who actually lived there.

Despite the various non-historical visitors who appear in the book, it is set in a real historical period in Athens. In 421 BC, Athens and Sparta had been at war for most of the past decade. Many Athenians were sick of the fighting, including Aristophanes. However there were plenty of people still in favour of war, which is where my book begins. Aristophanes did stage a play called
Peace
at the Dionysia in 421 BC, and there was a peace conference between Athens and Sparta. The comic poets Leucon and Eupolis both existed, and were Aristophanes’ rivals for the prize, although little is known today of their work. Nicias and Hyperbolus were real politicians. Callias was the richest man in Athens, and Alcibiades was a notorious young aristocrat. Theodota the hetaera lived in Athens too. Her encounter with Socrates is described by Xenophon, and they do seem to get on rather well. As for Bremusa the Amazon and Idomeneus of Crete, they are both characters I borrowed from Greek Myth. Luxos’s poem about the Goddess Athena unfortunately did not originate with me; it’s my interpretation of an ancient Greek hymn to Athena.