The Last of the Wine (7 page)

The dead were scarcely cold, when news came that the Thebans were on the frontier, making ready to invade.

We had just sat down in school when this was shouted outside. Armour began to sound in the street, as the citizens turned out to the mustering-places. Our trainer looked in, calling out to the master that he was off. Then the herald’s trumpet blew from the temple roof of the Twins, calling the horsemen. At this Mikkos, knowing he could do no more with us, said we should be wanted at home, and dismissed the class.

I found my father standing in his armour, slinging on his sword, while Sostias brought him his spears to choose from. He said, “Since you are here, Alexias, go to the stable and look over Phoenix for me. See that his frogs are clear, and the big saddle-cloth is strapped on to cover his belly.”

When I got back he had his helmet on. He looked very tall.

“Father,” I said, “can I ride Korax and come too?”—“Certainly not. If things go badly and they call for boys of your age, go where you are told, and obey your orders.” Then he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Though we may be here or there, defending the City we shall be side by side.” I replied that I hoped he would have no cause to be ashamed of me. When he had embraced my mother, she gave him his knapsack with three days’ food in it. He stooped under the lintel, then vaulting on his spear leaped upon Phoenix, and rode away.

The City seethed all day. Everyone thought the Thebans had had a signal from the conspirators, and that the plot had come out in the nick of time. Some said it was the Spartans who were coming, and the plan had been to open the gates to them. The Senate marched up to the High City and sat all night.

My mother and I worked about the house, making everything fast. She talked cheerfully to the slaves, and said she remembered her own mother doing all this when she was a child. I went with our old slave Sostias to buy food in case of siege. But when dark fell and the troops were still standing by, I got tired of sitting indoors; so I said, “Father would be glad of some wine, I expect, since everything is quiet.”

She gave me leave. I said she must keep Midas at hand, so, lighting a torch, I went up alone to the Anakeion. The temple precinct was full of the smell of horses, and the sound of their treading and snorting. High above the picket-lines I could see the Great Twin Brethren, the friends of the horseman, leading their bronze chargers against the stars. I put out my torch, for one could see by the light of the watch-fires; and I asked for my father by his name, and his father’s name, and the name of his deme.

Someone said he was standing guard at the northeast corner of the precinct; and going that way I saw him on the wall, leaning upon his spear with firelight on his armour, like a warrior done in red on a black vase. I went up and said, “Sir, Mother has sent you some wine.” He said he would be glad of it later; I put it down, and was going to bid him goodnight when he said, “You may stay for a while, and watch with me.”

I climbed up and stood beside him. One could not see far, for the night was moonless. No one was very near; as it got cooler, they were drawing round the fires, or into the temple. I felt I should say something to him; but we had never talked much together. At last I asked him if he expected an attack in the morning. “We shall see,” he said. “Confusion in a city breeds false alarms. Still they may be coming, in the hope we have not enough men left to man the walls.” He did not look round as he talked, keeping his eyes on the dark, as men do on watch, lest the firelight dull them. Presently I asked, “How long will it take the Army, sir, to conquer Sicily?” He answered, “Only the gods know.”

I was surprised and fell silent. After a moment he said, “The Syracusans had not injured us, nor threatened us. The war was with the Spartans.”—“But,” I said, “when we have beaten the Syracusans, and have got their ships and harbour and the gold, shan’t we finish the Spartans easily?”—“Maybe. But time was when we fought only to hold off the barbarian, or to defend the City, or for justice’s sake.”

In most men I should have thought such words poor-spirited; for I was used to hearing that we fought to make the City great, and leader of the Hellenes. But when I saw him standing in his armour, I knew not what to think.

He said, “In the third year of the war, when you were still at nurse, the Lesbians, our subject allies, rose against us. They were reduced without much trouble; and the Assembly voting on their fate thought it wise to make an example of them. The men of fighting age should be put to the sword, and the rest of the people sold as slaves. So the galley set out for Lesbos with this decree. But that night we lay sleepless, or started up from sleep, hearing the cries of the dying, the shrieks of women, and children’s weeping, still in our ears. In the morning we all returned to the Assembly, and when we had rescinded the decree, we offered rewards to the rowers of the second galley to overtake the first. They did it; for the first had laboured along as if sick men pulled the oars, so much their errand oppressed them. When they were overhauled at Mytilene, the Athenians felt reprieved as much as the Lesbians; they rejoiced together and shared their wine. But last year, the Melians, who owed us nothing, being Doric, chose to pay tribute to their mother-city rather than to us. What we did, you know.”

I took courage to say he had never related it to me. He answered, “When you sacrifice, pray the gods that it may never fall to your lot, either to suffer it, or to do it.”

I had never guessed that such things were in his mind. It was Alkibiades who had moved the Melians’ punishment. “The gods punish hubris in men,” he said. “So why should we think they praise it in cities?”

Just then someone relieved his watch. We went to one of the fires, where he shared his wine with some friends, and presented me to them. “You can see,” he said, “that he has not done growing yet, from the size of his hands and feet.” Then I felt that he was apologising for me, because anyone could see I should never be as big as he was; I remembered how he had wanted to expose me at my birth; so as soon as it was civil, I took my leave.

I was kindling my torch at a fire that was burning near the statue of the Twins, when a man, who had just come down from the temple, walked up to me. He had his helmet off, and turning with my torch alight I saw that it was Lysis. I had seen him before in armour, exercising with the horsemen; he looked very well in it. He said, “Did you find your father, son of Myron?” I thanked him and said yes. He stood for a moment, so that I almost thought he had come out on purpose to speak to me; but he only said, “Good,” and went back up the steps again.

Next day no more had been heard of the enemy, and the troops went home. The next storm to shake the City concerned Alkibiades.

His sail had scarcely dropped under the horizon before the informers crept out. The tale of the Eleusis party was told in full. Even the woman, whose role it would be unholy to hint at (let the Twice-Born guess; they will be right), was found and induced to testify. Now that his face was out of sight, and his voice out of hearing, everyone saw the madness of trusting the army to such a man. So the state galley, the
Salaminia
, was sent to fetch him and his friend Antiochos the pilot, who had been denounced too. He was not to be seized, however, lest trouble with the seamen and the Argives should break out again. The trierarch of the
Salaminia
was to offer him civilly the trial he had asked for, and convoy him back in his own ship.

I remember, on the day of the decree, coming in to find my father standing by the big press with a painted winecup in his hands. It was one he rarely used, for it was valuable, one of the finest pieces of the master Bacchios. In the bowl was a picture, red on black, of Eros coursing a hare; it was inscribed on the one side MYRON and on the other ALKIBIADES. My father was turning it in his hands, like a man in two minds; when he saw me, however, he put it back in the press.

Nothing but Alkibiades was talked of in the City. In the street, the palaestra and the markets, old tales were told of his insolence and riot. Those who had once spoken for him would only debate, now, how he came to be what he was, after being brought up by so good a man as Perikles. The answer was always the same: the Sophists had corrupted him. They had taken him up as a lad, caught by his beauty and quick mind; they had puffed him up with vanity, taught him impious free-thinking (here someone usually quoted
The Clouds
) until he dared to chop logic with Perikles himself. After which he, having got from them what served his turn, laughed at their talk of wisdom and virtue, and went away.

I listened sick at heart, waiting for the name that always came up before long. It was common knowledge, people said, that Sokrates had been in love with the youth, and wanted to make a greater Perikles of him; would follow him to his loose revels, rebuke him in front of his friends, and drag him off like a slave, out of jealousy, unwilling to have the boy an hour out of his sight. I felt the disgrace as if it were my own. Since I could not silence the men, I spoke to Xenophon. We were scraping each other’s backs after wrestling; as I worked on him with the strigil, I said I could not see any crime in trying to make a bad man good. He laughed at me over his shoulder. “Scrape harder; you never scrape hard enough. I will say for you, Alexias, you stick to your side. Well, let’s be fair to him; all these people were taken in by Alkibiades themselves and want a scapegoat. But a man like Sokrates, who goes about all day tripping people up and setting them right, can’t afford to make a fool of himself. Do you know that when Alkibiades was a youth he once used his teeth in a wrestling-bout, when he was losing? If that had happened in Sparta, they would have beaten not only him, but his lover as well, for not teaching him to be a man.”

I had not spirit enough even to rise to the Spartans. “Look into the scent-shop,” he said, “and you will see Sokrates’ young men lolling about by the hour, word-splitting and discussing their souls; like Agathon, who, if you mistook him for a girl, I should think would be delighted.”—“He is a crowned tragedian,” I said. “Why laugh at a man who will be immortal, when no one remembers you or me? Have you seen Sokrates in the scent-shop? I never have.”—“It will be some time, I should say, before we see him anywhere. Ten knucklebones to one I’ll lay you, that he doesn’t show himself in the colonnade for a week at least. Do you take me?”—“Yes.” He noticed then that I had stopped scraping, and looked round. “Pax,” he said smiling, “or we shall be having to clean-off all over again.”

Someone had said that Autolykos the athlete was wrestling in Taureas’ palaestra, so we asked our tutors if we could watch. They agreed to pass through but not to stop. We found that Autolykos had finished his bout and was taking a rest; the place was full of people admiring his looks and waiting for him to wrestle again. A statuary, or a painter, was sitting and making a sketch of him. He was used to all this and took no notice of it. We were edging our way through the press, when from the other end came a hush, and then the muttering of an angry crowd. My hands felt cold. I knew who had come in.

He was alone. It did not occur to me that he had not sought for company; I thought they had all deserted him. Kriton, who had been watching the wrestling, came over at once to walk with him; and to everyone’s surprise, Autolykos himself saluted him, but being naked and covered with dust did not leave the wrestling-ground. Everyone else drew away as he passed, or turned their backs; as he drew nearer, I heard someone laugh.

As for me, I was neither brave enough to go forward, nor coward enough to go back. When others withdrawing left me in sight of him, I could scarcely bring myself to look. The best I hoped for was to see him staring them all out, as they say he did the enemy at Delion in the retreat. But as he passed me he was saying as if conversing at home, “But his contention is that the method can be taught, not the power of apprehending it. If it were a question of mathematics …”

I did not hear any more. As Midas was calling me, I turned to go: then I saw that Xenophon was standing just behind. At first he did not see me, for he was following Sokrates with his eyes. I waited for him to pay up his bet, for he was always a good loser. But still looking past me, he said, “On the day when the gods send me trouble and danger, may they send me also that man’s courage.”

On the way home, we climbed to the High City and looked out at the harbour. A ship was leaving; the day being clear, we saw a blue device upon the sail. “That will be the
Salaminia
,” we said, “with her blue owl.” She stood away quickly, making haste to Sicily.

T
HAT YEAR AT THE
Dionysia, my father took my mother and me to the theatre. The poet was one he was very fond of, because he laughed at the sophists and the democrats and at everyone who wanted to upset the City with anything new. Kydilla came to attend my mother, and Sostias to carry the cushions; my father gave him two obols to see the show. It was a clear bright day; a few little cloud-shadows swept across the sunny theatre, and blew away towards the sea. My mother with Kydilla went off to the women’s seats. She had on a new pair of gold earrings my father had just given her, with little leaves hanging in them that trembled when she turned her head. The seats were already filling. The sheep-skins and undyed clothes of the working people at the top, and the bright colours on the lower benches, made the bowl of the theatre look like a great flower, lying against the flank of the High City in a calyx of dry leaves.

Nowadays I often wonder that I still attend the plays of Aristophanes, whose hands are stained, if words can stain the hand that wrote them, with the blood dearest to me on earth. That day I went unwillingly, because his mockery of Sokrates was quoted everywhere, as indeed it stuck to him all his life. Yet in this comedy was a song about birds, so beautiful that it made the hair prickle on one’s neck. Indeed, while he is singing, he makes his own heaven and earth; the good is what he chooses, and where he sets their altars, there the gods alight. Plato says that no poet ought to be allowed to do this; and he is too distinguished now to be argued with any longer. I notice, however, that he goes himself. At all events, Aristophanes missed the prize that year. It went to a play called
The Drunken Revellers
, which roused the audience to great fury against Herm-breakers and blasphemers.