The final member of our party was Young Glaucus. In taking him, I was repaying favours. Glaucus senior was my personal trainer at the gym I attended. He himself would have enjoyed this trip, but he put a lot into his business and could not get away. His son, who was offered to me as a bodyguard and athletics adviser, was around eighteen. quiet, pleasant, intelligent, well-mannered, and respectful of his father. Too good to be true. – he was hankering to take part in the classical Games. Glaucus had been teaching him sports since he could only toddle. My role was to give the young athlete a prior visit to Olympia to decide if he was really serious about competing. Too bad there would be no contests there now.

Jupiter knows who his mother was; the older Glaucus used to get a winsome look when he spoke of her. She must have come from somewhere in North Africa, and been endowed with extraordinary looks. The son was striking. On top of that he was a massive specimen.

"He"s really going to make us unobtrusive!" Helena chaffed.

"Planned distraction. While people are staring at golden boy, they won't think twice about us."

Albia (sixteen, and ready for emotional disaster) was already staring

hard at him. So far, Young Glaucus acted the dedicated athlete, fettling his fine body while unconscious of his handsome face. Albia seemed set to enlighten him.

This was the select party with whom I set off, anxious to be on the move before autumn arrived. (And before Pa gave me a hideous list of Greek vases to import for him.) Time was against us. After October, the seas would be closed. Getting to Greece was still feasible, though coming home might pose problems.

Never mind that. We put ourselves in the mood of leisure tourists. We felt like gods, wandering about the continents on the lookout for wine, women, adventure, and arguments…

But our purpose was grave. And since I had chosen to drag us down the toe of Italy to take ship at Rhegium, opposite Sicily, we were exhausted, tetchy, and much poorer before we even left the land. Most of the others recovered on the voyage. I get seasick. Helena had brought ginger root. It never works on me.

By the time we sailed, both Helena and I had realised that leaving the children was a huge mistake. She buried her head in a scroll, looking persecuted. When I was not throwing up, I put it out of my mind by exercising on the deck with Young Glaucus. That made me seem even more of a heartless bastard.

Adventures began immediately. The weather was already uncertain. Our ship's captain was having some private breakdown so had locked himself in the only cabin, where he remained out of sight; the bos"n kept schmoozing Helena, and the helmsman was half-blind. Halfway across, we hit a lightning storm that threatened to sink us – or force us off course, which was worse. Being dragged to some rocky Greek island peopled by goats, fishermen, abandoned maidens, love poets, and sponge-divers would have made our journey a complete waste of time. Traders take the risk because they have to; I was starting to feel tense. We had far too much luggage – yet nothing good enough to buy off any islanders who made their living "salvaging" shipwrecks.

We reached land eventually, at a port called Kyllene up in the Gulf of Corinth, which would serve our purpose. Instead of being on the west coast, a mere ten or fifteen miles from Olympia, we now had more than ten miles to travel south to Elis, at which point we could take the Processional Way over the uplands – another fifteen miles. (That's fifteen miles according to the locals, so we knew in advance it would be twenty or more.) By the time we tumbled off the boat to search for lodgings, travel had lost any glamour and I just

wanted to go home again. An aspect the tour guides always forget to mention.

It gave us some idea how unsettled each of the Seven Sights Travel groups might be when they landed at their first new province.

PART TWO OLYMPIA

There are lots of truly wonderful things you can see and hear about in Greece, but there is a unique divinity of disposition about the games at Olympia…

Pausanius, Guide to Greece

VI

First stop Olympia. Wrong. First stop Tarentum. Second Kyllene. Third Elis. Fourth Letnnoi Fifth stop Olympia.

From Rhegium we had sailed around the foot of Italy and north again. the wrong direction, though apparently this was the way Greek settlers in Southern Italy always sailed to the Games. Then, after an unbudgeted-for stay in Tarentum, we endured another long haul down towards Greece, and met the storm.

The winds dumped us at Kyllene, a typical tiny seaport, where because of the weather they had run out of fish and run out of patience, though they still knew how to double-charge for rooms. I was calm. I take my duties as the lead male in a party seriously. these duties are, to rebuff lechers, to outmanoeuvre purse thieves, to wander off at unexpected moments, and when everyone else is at breaking point to exclaim very brightly, "Well, isn't this fun?"

Luckily we had brought maps, the locals seemed to know nothing about their district They all pretended they never went to Olympia themselves We travelled inland to Elis, an ancient town which had grabbed the right to host and organise the Games From Elis (which acquired this right by fighting for it, heralds with olive wreaths to signal universal peace are dispatched throughout the Greek world, to proclaim a truce in any current wars and to invite everyone to attend the festival. Competing athletes are made to spend a month in training at Elis (spending money, I thought cynically) before processing to Olympia.

We knew Aulus had landed further down the coast of the Peloponnesus and gone up to Olympia by river. The Alphaios is navigable, after all, this was the mighty river Hercules diverted to wash out the Augean stables. Helena had looked at the map, and for us she chose the traditional road route. It was centuries old and apparently had not been visited by a maintenance team since it was hacked from the rock. Taking the Processional Way also brought us into close

contact with Greek donkeys, a subject on which our diaries would elaborate at full-scroll length – had we any energy left to write them.

It took us two days from Elis. We had to stop a night in Letnnoi. Spectators and competitors at the Games do this, but they bring tents We were stuck with cramped accommodation in the village We went to bed late and we started out early.

At Letrmoi the Processional Way picked up the spur from the coast at Pheia, another visitors" route, though its condition did not improve. In some places the Greek road-makers had dug out double ruts to guide chariot wheels. One way We were several times forced off the road by carts whose wheels were stuck in these ruts. The few passing-places were occupied either by pilgrims heading back to Elis and Pheia, who had seized them as picnic spots, or by boot-faced locals grazing mangy goats.

Once or twice, it was our turn to grab the picnic spots. We spread out a simple woollen rug and squashed on it together, turning our rapt gaze to the sunny, pine-clad hills over which we were slowly climbing. Then we all stood up, and tried moving the rug in the hope of a sandier base with fewer pointed stones. As the water gourd went round, we dropped rancid sheep's cheese down our tunics, and argued over the olives. As usual, Helena had been charged with topographical research, so she kept up a commentary to instil us with awe for the revered religious site we were about to invade.

"Olympia is the main sanctuary of Zeus, whom we call Jupiter. It is holy and remote -" I let out a guffaw. This area was remote all right. "And was old even before the great temple was built This is a sanctuary of Gaia, the Earth Mother, who gave birth to Zeus – I don't want any of you trying any fertility rites, incidentally – and we shall see the Hill of Cronus, who was the father of Zeus Hercules came here on his Twelfth Labour. The statue of Zeus in his Temple was created by Pheidias, whom we call Phidias, and is one of the Seven Wonders of the World. As you all know. " She tailed off, having lost her audience. I, for one, was nodding in the sunlight.