The Last of the Wine (19 page)

He smiled at me, as one does at a child who tugs one’s clothes. Then he said, “Have you ever wondered why I hate Kritias?”—“No, Phaedo; I can’t say I have.” He nodded. “You are half right. I was a beginner at Gurgos’s, the first time, and green enough to show I didn’t like him. I even expected he would complain of it.” He smiled slightly. I wrapped my arms across me; I was feeling cold. “Most people charge fees for teaching, but Kritias paid for the privilege of instructing me. I got to know his knock … As Sokrates was saying the other day, the gift of knowledge can never be taken from us.”

I remembered in time that if one touched him, he would always move away. I waited. In the dead light he seemed to wear a cap of silver; his dark eyes were old and brilliant, like the eyes of Apollo’s snake.

“I came to Sokrates first,” he said, “for his negative method. It pleased me to watch him undermine the security of fools. There, I thought, is a man who will not tame the truth, but will follow it into the dry places. So in my turn I followed him; and he led me where I had not thought to go. It doesn’t frighten me when he tears down the definitions, and leaves nothing in place. Justice, holiness, truth … if one hasn’t defined, one has had the demonstration. Well, from today I can say, I think, that I’m his prize student of the negative elenchos. I’ve outstayed my rivals … Kritias, and Alkibiades.”

I was silent, trying not to be angry with him for having drawn me too within the circle of his pain. Presently he turned to me. “Still thinking with your belly, Alexias. Don’t let Lysis make you soft. He’s in love with you, and too simple to know what he is doing. If you turned your back on a battle he would die of shame. Think with your head even if it hurts you. When a man is freed from the bonds of dogma and custom, where will he run? To what he hates, or what he loves? Tell me, do you think many people hate Lysis?”—“Lysis? I don’t think it would be possible to hate him.”—“So Sokrates feels about what he is in love with, wisdom, and God. So he turned the key of the cage, and set Alkibiades free. And now Kritias too is running on the mountains, with no more between him and his will than a wolf has. For a long time now I have watched Kritias getting loose, from the soul, if you like the word, or from whatever keeps a man on two feet instead of four. I have gone step by step with him, for his reason is a mirror held up to mine, till I stood at the very edge of his conclusions. It is the true teacher’s gift, they say, to discover a man to himself … At Gurgos’s once I lay awake considering how to kill him. But already it was too late.”

W
E WENT BACK TO
war soon after. King Agis was at Dekeleia in command, and saw to it that if the Thebans relieved his Spartans they should not sit idle. We found them easier, however, partly because they are inclined to be a little slow (though not as slow as the comic writers pretend) and partly because we had been coming and going in the truce till we knew each other better as neighbours than as enemies. I remember particularly two whom we picked up badly wounded. One could have got away, but had rushed back when he saw the others fall. Next day we handed them over through the heralds; for it would be long before they fought again, and to despatch helpless men is always disagreeable, particularly if they have shown courage first. I brought them some food and drink at night, and asked them if they were lovers. They said they were, and that it was a custom of their city for friends to take a vow at the tomb of Iolaos, whom Herakles loved. After this they always served together in battle, and were put in front to stiffen the line, as being more likely than anyone else to prefer death before dishonour. “Some day,” the younger one said, “they will make one regiment of us, and then we will conquer the world.” And he turned to his friend, who though weak with his wound looked round and smiled. I would have liked to talk longer to them, but they were in pain so I let them be.

Demosthenes sailed for Sicily in early summer. The fleet went soberly, with no ceremony beyond the sacrifices, and libations to the gods. Lysis and I sat our horses on a hill, with the troop about us, and saw the sails grow little on the sea. He and I caught each other’s eyes and smiled; then he turned and called, “A cheer for our fathers, and good luck to Demosthenes!” We all gave it, and felt proud that when the army came back with victory, no one could say we had sat idle among the women.

We had need of pride in the months that followed. I was strong and in the flower of youth, yet I knew weariness then as since I have seldom known it. The remnant of the harvest was ripening in the farms. There was only the cavalry to save it. All the infantry that was left was manning the City walls, so near were the invaders. By day the citizens watched in shifts; you could see men plying their trades in armour, or shopping in the market. By night every fit man slept in the mustering-places about the temples, lest Agis should surprise us.

The horsemen were based on the Anakeion; we in our turn saw the Twins’ bridles against the stars, and more than once I stood watch on that same wall where I had stood with my father when I was fifteen. Dawn would grow red in the sky and we would wait for the sound of the trumpet, which was never long delayed; we would take out our weary horses, rub their legs still lame and stiff with yesterday’s riding, and set out again. But often we slept the night in the hills, with what shelter we could find.

Sometimes when the night was chilly, or there was rain, and we ached all over from riding or from wounds, Lysis and I would draw together, seeking a little warmth; but we never shared a cloak, because when you do that in winter you will do it in spring. Remembering those days, I hardly know what kept us to our resolve; we had no time to pursue philosophy, or be quiet, or consider the gods except when the squadron made the morning or the evening prayer; and I think it was weariness more than anything that made it easy to us. Yet sometimes in the night watch, when the Galaxy unrolled its book across a moonless sky, I knew what we were about, and where Sokrates was sending us. When Lysis had left me and gone to sleep, I would feel my soul climb love as a mountain, which at the foot has wide slopes with rocks and streams and woods, and fields of every kind, but at the top one peak, to which if you go upward all paths lead; and beyond it, the blue ether where the world swims like a fish in its ocean, and the winged soul flies free. And thence returning, for a while I found nothing created that I could not love: the comrade I had been angry with in the day, the Spartans sitting in Dekeleia; even Kritias I was sorry for, and knew why Sokrates had not sooner cast him out. Yet I was not drowsy, nor lost in dreams, but saw the night sparkle like a crystal, and every coney stirring, or the silent owl.

Towards the end of summer we got a dispatch from Sicily; but I quote my father’s letter which came with it, for brevity’s sake. I had written to him, by one of Demosthenes’ ships. After some instructions about reclaiming the farm, he said, “Your choice of a friend I approve, a young man of good reputation, whose father also I know. Do not neglect his instruction, whether in virtue or in the field, that your fellowship may be held in honour by gods and men. With regard to the war, since I cannot amend your news with better, receive mine like a man. Nikias by infirmity of purpose has paltered victory away. Demosthenes, a good man out of luck, threw for double or quits and lost. He knows the game is up, and means to bring us home again with what he can save. Nikias lingers, waiting on omens, or for a democrat to open the gates of Syracuse, or for the intervention of a god; but Syracuse is not Troy. In my opinion he fears to face the Athenians with a defeat. Demosthenes, however, is a man and will do what is needful. Endure till we come; we will sweep Attica clean together.”

I was half ready for the news, for it came after long delay, and the sound of victory flies fast. I don’t think there was great astonishment anywhere. People looked rather sullen, but everywhere one heard “When the Army is home again …” We thought of our farms; we had had enough of King Agis sitting on our skyline.

It was he, however, who lightened for us a weary evening at the Anakeion. I had been polishing my armour beside the fire; we had eaten, but were only half-full, for now the food had to come round by sea, rations were short. Xenophon had left his own fire and come to sit at ours; I shared my oil-flask with him, and we compared our wounds. One could always tell a cavalryman in the palaestra, by the way he was scarred about the arms and thighs and wherever the armour stops. Xenophon was trying to expound to me an invention of his, a long leather guard for the left arm and hand, which would not impede the reins like a shield. Suddenly a tremendous burst of laughter came from one of the other watchfires. Then it spread to the next, as if a flaming stick were being passed round to kindle it. We were getting up to satisfy our curiosity, when Gorgion arrived with the news. He was laughing so much that he nearly fell in the fire.

When he could speak, he said, “Do you want to know the true story of King Agis? Perhaps you thought he has been staying here because he hates us, and wants to do us harm. You were wrong, my friends. King Agis stays here out of family feeling, being united to us, you might say, by the most sacred ties. How proud he must be that he obeyed the omen, and left his new wife untumbled. If he hadn’t, he would just have fathered one Spartan more, instead of an Athenian.”

“An Athenian?” I said, not daring to believe what I saw coming, till I remembered the laughter. “Don’t tell me Alkibiades has been keeping King Agis’ bed warm for him all this time?”—“No one was using it. I daresay he used to feel chilly, after swimming in the Eurotas twice a day. Now we know why he never caught cold.”

A few years ago, when I was Xenophon’s guest at his place near Olympia, I happened in our talk to recall this occasion. He said he had always reckoned it a most shocking thing, a virtuous man’s piety being abused, and he could not conceive of anyone finding humour in it. People’s recollections differ after so long; but my own is that he laughed as loud as I did.

“Well,” I said, “he’s warmed the Eurotas for himself now, at all events. It must be blazing.”—“Yes, indeed. For the Spartan ladies, whose privilege it is to tell the City if a man drops his shield, aren’t as shy as ours; it’s no glory in
them
not to be talked about. When he gave her a boy, she boasted of it everywhere.”—“Tell us,” said Lysis, “how he proved his innocence.”—“The child’s his picture in little, they say. But he carried it off with his usual grace, and taught her to make a fool of him. He told all enquirers that he, for his part, had never been the helpless prey of Aphrodite. Noble ambition alone had moved him. He had wished to found a line of kings.” We gasped, and wiped our eyes. Someone said, “Say what you like, there will never be another like him.”

So we laughed, and shared the last of our wine, and fell to telling bawdy tales and then to sleep. I daresay I remember the night so well, because soon afterwards there came an end of laughter in the City.

W
E WERE DRIVING THE
Spartans off a farm near Marathon, when Phoenix stumbled and threw me. But for Lysis, I should have been speared on the ground; as it was I broke my collar-bone, and had to lie up at the farm. But I was in such fear for Phoenix, who had gone very lame, that I used to get up every day to see him; moreover the farmer was old, but his wife not. Like Sokrates, she made no charge for instructing the youth; but she undid the bandage Lysis had braced back my shoulder with, because it made me awkward. He rode over a few days later to see how I was mending, or I should be crooked to this day. I had to be carted back to the City, and the bone set again.

He was disabled himself, with a thrust in the arm he had got in beating the Spartans away from me. He had made light of it at the time, but now it had an angry humour in it, and had to be dressed every day. Most of us found that we did not heal so quickly as at first; the food was bad, and we were tired. This was the first time Lysis and I had been wounded together; so we thought it a holiday.

One day we were walking in the Agora, both feeling a little weak and sick; Lysis was feverish from his wound, and I had not long got on my feet again. We heard a great clamour from the other side, and went to see, not hurrying much, because it hurt us to be jostled in crowds. As it happened, however, the man who had caused the commotion was coming our way, and bringing it with him. He was a metic, a Phrygian, with a barber’s apron on. He was spreading his hands, calling on the gods to witness his truth, and demanding to be taken before the archons.

I remember the look of him well: short, smooth and paunchy, with a ruby in his ear; and a black beard crimped to display his art. Having come some way in a hurry, he was sweating like a pig from his hair down into his beard; he looked the kind of little man who gets a roar in a comedy by pretending to have dirtied himself with fright. But no one was laughing, unless the gods were, as they sat above the clouds. They, it may be, were saying, “We sent you Perikles to counsel you, and was not that dignity enough for your City? We sent you omens and prodigies, and writing in the stars, and the gods in your streets were wounded for a sign; but you knew better, you Athenians. You would tread upon purple; you would be greater than Necessity and Fate. Very well; take this in your face.”

He came towards us, out of breath, with a brawl about him, as if he might have cut a customer he was shaving, or overcharged. Seeing us, he outran the men who were shouting at him, and panted, “Oh, sir, I can see you’re a gentleman, sir, and a soldier; speak to them, sir; the City’s given me a living these seven years, and what call would I have to leave my shop on a busy morning with a ship just in, and make up such a tale? I swear, sir, the man left me not an hour ago, and I came straight here, the gods be my witness. Stand by me, sir, you and the noble youth your friend, and take me to the archons, for people take liberties, sir, with a foreigner, though seven years I’ve …”

So Lysis turned to the people, and said they ought to leave the man to the law, whatever he had said, and anyone was welcome to come and see justice. Then they grew quieter, till an old man in leather, an armourer, said, “And how many more will he tell on the road? Stop his mouth with pitch, I say. It’s well enough for you, son of Demokrates, to keep your temper, but I’ve three sons with the Army, three sons, and how many more like me won’t close their eyes tonight for this liar’s tale? All to make himself somebody for a day, the foreign bastard, and cry up his stinking shop.” Then the noise broke out again worse than before; the little man ran in between Lysis and me, like a chicken under a hen’s wing, and we were forced to walk with him where he was going. He chattered in our ears, and the crowd shouted behind us, and called to others who shouted in their turn and joined the press. And the barber wheezed and panted out his tale, between the names of patrons who would put in a word for him, or sometimes broke it off to promise us a hair-trim or a shave for nothing.