Molten Sulfur Blog

In 480 B.C., against the backdrop of the second Greco-Persian War, a small Athenian force under Aristides the Just launched a daring, high-stakes raid. The raid went well, but unexpectedly ended with a seer demanding a human sacrifice—a practice the Greeks considered barbaric. The soldiers involved had to decide whether they valued their religion or their ethics more highly. It’s a super gameable dilemma that players can take in more directions than just religion or ethics, and it works at the table even outside its cultural context.

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Aristides was born to a family of no great prominence. In the political chaos of late 500s B.C. Athens, he was a member of the anti-tyrant, pro-democracy movement, but within that movement he was a member of the faction backed by the wealthy aristocrats: slow and steady, no sudden changes. This matched his even temper: unflappable in both triumph and defeat.

Aristides was an enemy of the most powerful Athenian statesman of his day, Themistocles. One source (citing a lost original) claims the two were once rivals for the love of the beautiful Stesilaus of Ceos. Even after she passed away (or her beauty faded; the text is unclear), they retained that enmity. Themistocles rode the populist faction of Athenian democracy. His faction advocated for military strength, both for geopolitical reasons and as a jobs program for the poor, who were paid to build the new walls and row the new warships. Aristides’s faction, backed by the wealthy who paid for military expenditures, opposed the buildup.

The two men had no way to know how tightly they’d be linked when war came with Persia. Before then, they were constantly scheming against one another.

Aristides was once placed in charge of the treasury, where he found that Themistocles and other members of the populist faction had been embezzling public funds. Aristides announced his findings. The leaders of the populist faction, furious, had Aristides brought up on charges of embezzlement himself, but Aristides was acquitted and then reelected to run the treasury. In his second term, Aristides pretended to have a change of heart and kept his mouth shut about the embezzlement he found. When election time came around again, this time the leaders of the populists rewarded Aristides with their endorsement. He then exposed their hypocrisy by publicly laying out their various embezzlements over his second term. It was obvious political theater, but it played well with the voters.

Aristides was a general at the Battle of Marathon (490 B.C.). His reputation for honesty meant he was in charge of guarding all the loot of the defeated Persians to ensure it went to the public treasury.

It might have been around this time that people started calling him Aristides the Just. His reputation was such that some people stopped bringing lawsuits against one another (a famous Athenian pastime) and took their disputes to Aristides for binding mediation, confident they’d receive a just verdict.

Themistocles used this against Aristides. He argued that Aristides was undermining the courts, a first step towards declaring himself king. He lobbied for Aristides to be ostracized: a legally-enforced ten-year exile, implemented by popular vote. The Athenian voting public was famously fickle and jealous. In one story, an illiterate voter approached Aristides and, not recognizing him, asked him to write “Aristides” on the pottery sherd used as a ballot. Aristides asked the man how he’d been wronged. The voter said he didn’t even know this Aristides fellow, but was tired of hearing him called “the Just,” as if he were so much better than everybody else. Aristides scratched his own name on the man’s pottery sherd and handed it back to him. He lost the popular vote and was sent into exile.

But when the Persians invaded again, Aristides was recalled. He served as a general under Themistocles’s overall command, both men agreeing to set aside their differences for the good of Athens.

Off the Athenian coast, the Persian navy prepared to square off against the combined navies of the allied Greek city-states. The city-states were squabbling about strategy and it wasn’t clear if they’d actually be willing to do battle. Under cover of night, Themistocles rowed over to the Persian fleet and gave them advice about where to position their ships to keep the Greeks from escaping. The Persians followed his advice. Themistocles rowed back and told the naval commanders what he’d done. They couldn’t escape, so they’d have to fight. The Greeks handily won the ensuing Battle of Salamis, but if they hadn’t there’s a decent chance the Persians would have won the whole war and rewarded Themistocles for his asistance. The question of his real intentions the night before the battle would follow Themistocles for the rest of his life.

That same night, the Persians landed troops on the small island of Psyttaleia. With the Greeks bottled up, the Persians knew where the battle would be. Shipwrecked survivors would wash up on Psyttaleia. Persian soldiers on the island could execute any half-drowned Greek sailors and rescue any Persian ones.

Aristides led a small team of handpicked Athenian soldiers to Psyttaleia for the same purpose. They killed all the Persian soldiers on the island except for a handful of notables, whom they took prisoner. Three among them were adult nephews of the Persian emperor. Plutarch describes them as “most beauti­ful to behold, conspicuously adorned with raiment and with gold.” Aristides hurried the prisoners to Themistocles before the naval battle could begin.

Themistocles was sacrificing an animal to the gods to get divine help for the coming battle. Beside him was the seer Euphrantides. Greek culture in this period placed a great emphasis on sacrifices, omens, and portents, even on the battlefield. (I wrote about this a little last year.) One of the major signs they used was sneezing. Sneezes are spontaneous, sent by the gods. A sneeze at the right time or place was a divine message. 

And as the prisoners were brought before Themistocles, someone to the right—the favorable side—of Euphrantides sneezed. At the same time, Euphrantides claimed to see the fire blaze up where the dead animal sacrifice was being charred. He declared this meant that the gods wanted the three young men sacrificed. This wish came in particular from an aspect of the god of wine and madness called Dionysius the Devourer or Dionysius Carnivorous. Human sacrifice was not a Greek cultural practice. They found it repulsive. (There’s a whole Athenian play touching on how shocking human sacrifice was: Iphigenia at Aulis.) But this was going to be one hell of a battle, emotions were running high, and no one wanted to turn down help from Dionysius the Devourer.

According to Plutarch, who cites the lost writings of Phanias of Lesbos, the gathered soldiery demanded that the sacrifice Euphrantides described be carried out. Themistocles, ever the populist, went along with it. Nobody wrote down how Aristides felt about it.

At your table, the PCs can be hired on for a fairly routine mission. They and a few other soldiers/adventurers will be led by your Aristides-analogue, who reports to your Themistocles-analogue. Both officers are also politicians, and profound rivals. The context of war and the Battle of Salamis is not necessary. The target of the mission can be pirates, bandits, heretics (Donatists, perhaps?), a fifth column, Old Believers, a clandestine and deniable foreign long-range patrol, or any enemy hated by either an old-fashioned fuddy-duddy like Aristides or an ambitious rabble-rouser like Themistocles.

The party and their allies have to sneak onto an island under cover of darkness. If they’re spotted, the enemy is ready for them and the fight is harder. Regardless, in the battle a few of the combatants are unusual in appearance and dress. These ones surrender rather than being killed. Turns out they’re related to someone important in your fictional campaign setting.

But one of the adventurers alongside Aristides and the party is based on the seer Euphrantides. He sees signs and omens and declares the prisoners must be sacrificed. The Aristides-analogue is stuck. If he performs the sacrifice, he’s a monster. If he doesn’t, he’s ignoring the will of the gods. Either way, his commander (your Themistocles-analogue) will spin it politically as a personal failing on the part of Aristides. Assuming the PCs have proven themselves halfway trustworthy and/or reliable, he asks the party if they can think of anything. The ball’s in their court.

So what do the PCs do? Do they give advice? Do they take action, like freeing the prisoners over the seer’s objections? Do they try to cover up the seer’s demand for a sacrifice? Might they even be able to get word to the outside world, thereby making the dilemma the problem of your Themistocles-analogue, not theirs or Aristides’s? However the PCs approach this situation, your versions of Aristides and Themistocles remember their actions and judge them accordingly: Aristides according to whether they were just, and Themistocles according to whether the party grew or diminished his popularity.

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Sources:
Herodotus’s Histories (I use the Purvis translation because that’s what Strassler’s Landmark series uses, and that series is gold from beginning to end)
Plutarch’s Lives (I use the Dryden translation because I got it almost for free at a church book sale)