“No sign of a king anywhere,” Mithredath said, still bemused at that. “I wonder if they settled everything they needed to decide on by counting potsherds.”

“I would guess they probably must have, excellent saris,” Polydoros said. “All the inscriptions read, ‘It seemed good to the council and to the people.’ How would they know that-why would they write that?-if they had not counted potsherds to know what seemed good to the people?”

“There you have me, good Polydoros. But what if something that ‘seemed good to the people’ was in fact bad for them?”

“Then they suffered the consequences, I suppose. They certainly did when they decided to oppose Xerxes.” Polydoros waved at the dark ruins all around.

“But they were the leading Yauna power at the time, were they not? They must have been, or Khsrish would not have obliterated their city as a lesson to the others. Until they chose to fight him, they must have done well.”

“A king can also make an error,” Polydoros said.

“Oh, indeed.” Being a courtier, Mithredath knew better than the Hellene how gruesomely true that could be. “But,” he pointed out, “a king knows the problems that face his land. And if by some mischance he should not, why, then he has his ministers to point them out to him so that he may decide what needs to be done. How could the people-farmers, most of them, and cobblers and potters and dyers-how could they even have hoped to learn the issues that affected Athens, let alone what to do about them?”

“There you have me,” Polydoros confessed. “They would be too busy, I’d think, working just to stay alive to be able to act, as you say, more or less as ministers in their own behalf.”

Mithredath nodded. “Exactly. The king decides, the ministers and courtiers advise, and the people obey. So it is, so it has always been, so it always will be.”

“No doubt you are right.” An enormous yawn blurred Polydoros’ words. “Your pardon, excellent saris. I think I will imitate your servants.” He unrolled his blanket and wrapped it around himself. “Will you join us?”