The Orpheus Descent (25 page)

Once upon a time, though I’m too young to remember it, Alcibiades was Socrates’ star pupil.

Forty-two prisoners. If there’s an odd number at sunset, I’ll be freed. That’s what I told myself. The sun’s creeping back down the cave. Dust from the quarries outside swirls in the beam, though there’s no actual quarrying going on. They’ve got all the stone out: now they’re just enormous holes in the ground. Useful for dumping things you don’t want.

I don’t know what happened to Polus and his smugglers: we were split up early on. I don’t think they’re in this cave. The prisoner next to me is mumbling to himself nonstop. When I catch snatches, it sounds like Aeschylus. Perhaps he’s an actor. Opposite is a man who swears he’s a survivor from Alcibiades’ expedition, though I don’t believe him. No one could have survived here that long.

I’m covered in bruises. Getting me here involved a certain amount of casual violence: being beaten, kicked, punched, hauled and dropped. The advantage of being a big man is that people usually think better of trying to hit you. The disadvantage is that when they do, they feel they have to make it count. The shackles and collar have chafed my skin open; there’s a welt around my neck where they tore off the gold chain; fleas have bitten me raw. At night, I can’t sleep for trying to fend off the rats. Soon, I’ll be too tired to bother.

Even Socrates can’t reach me in the depths of this cave. I try to speak to him, but he doesn’t reply. I’ve got all the time in the world, but there isn’t a thought in my head.

Next time, the guards don’t throw shadows. The first I know is the slap of their boots. My heart lurches into panic, the familiar routine, but even as it speeds up it’s already slowing down in anticipation that they’ll go past.

They stop in front of me. I’m face to face with the roaring lion on an iron buckle. One of them grabs my neck so he can unlock the collar that ties me to the wall. Then they hoist my arms onto their shoulders and drag me away. After a week in the cave, my eyes shriek at the daylight, even at dusk. Dark spots blur my vision – or perhaps they’re bloodstains on the rocks outside.

In the cave behind me, forty-one prisoners watch me go.

Forty-one. It’s an odd number.

The guards don’t say anything and I don’t ask. They bundle me into a cart with a canopy over the top and set off down the hill. It’s a bouncy, stop-start journey. Early on, I can hear traffic and crowds around me; later, there’s just a roar like blood in my ears, punctuated with shouted challenges and answers. The cart wheels ring loud on the stone road.

The cart stops. The guards pull me out. I’m in a high place surrounded by massive walls. To my right, I can see the sun setting blood-red over the sea, but there’s no time to admire it. More guards are waiting for me; these ones have gilded armour and hard faces. The men who brought me from the prison salute and hurry away as quick as they can.

There are doors and there are rooms. The last one isn’t the biggest, but it’s clearly the most important. There are no windows, nowhere for secrets to leak out. Seven guards stand to attention around the room. None of them carries any obvious weapon, but their arms look big enough to do the job.

In the centre, on a golden chair, with armrests carved like crouching lions and a radiant sun above his head, sits the tyrant. He’s bigger than me, with golden-red hair and a face freckled like a barbarian. He’s as notorious as they come – and yet, looking at him, he can’t be any older than me. One hand is balled into a fist.

His name is Dionysius. At this point in time, he’s the most controversial man in the Greek world. A military genius, a bulwark of civilisation, a usurper, a murderer, a tyrant – his name is debated in every agora from the Pillars of Hercules to the Black Sea. It’s almost disappointing to find out he’s simply a man.

He sat still, studying me. I stared into his blue eyes and tried to find the humanity in their depths. I didn’t touch bottom.

He seemed to expect something from me, though I had no idea what. I waited.

‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked at last.

‘I suppose you must be some kind of criminal.’

‘
What?
’

He didn’t expect that. I gestured to the soldiers spread around the chamber. ‘You must be dangerous, if it takes so many men to guard you. I only need two.’

A short, barking laugh. ‘Very good – and quite right. I am dangerous. They told me you’re quick.’

He waited for me. After eight days in that cave, I was in no rush to say anything.

‘If I was in your position, I’d be on my knees begging for mercy,’ he suggested.

‘If I was in yours, I’d already have freed me.’

The words seemed to come from somewhere outside me, like an unfortunate echo that had just happened to bounce out of my mouth. How else could I be mad enough to speak to the tyrant of Syracuse like that?

‘I hear you knew Socrates.’

How did he know that?
From the moment his men captured me on the mountain, I hadn’t told them anything. Nobody asked.

‘In fact, didn’t you write an account of his trial? I’m sure I’ve read it.’

My courage fled. Suddenly, I wasn’t an anonymous prisoner with nothing to lose. I was known.

‘I wrote it,’ I admitted.

‘Then you know what happens to philosophers who speak out of turn when they’re on trial for their lives.’

‘Am I on trial? I thought we must have skipped that when I ended up in prison.’

‘You can go back there if you like.’ He jumped down from his chair and advanced until we were face to face. My guards, anticipating a hit, tightened their grip on my arms.

Dionysius opened his fist and thrust it out – but he didn’t touch me. A thin gold cylinder on a gold chain lay cupped in the hollow of his fat hand.
Was that why he brought me here?

‘What is this?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where did you get it?’

‘A friend gave it to me.’

‘Where did he find it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What was his name?’

‘Agathon.’

I assumed the name would mean nothing to him. If I’d had any inkling he knew Agathon, I’d have lied. But Dionysius’ face lit up in recognition.

‘You’re a friend of Agathon? What a shame he didn’t know you were coming. You’ve just missed him.’

Horror. ‘Agathon was
here
?’

‘I’m a famous patron of the arts. Every philosopher, poet, artist and playwright comes through here eventually.’

I didn’t believe him. Agathon hated tyranny; he was more likely to pop up in a Kerameikos whorehouse than here – unless it was with a knife to slit Dionysius’ throat. Or, if he had no choice in the matter.

I’d tried to follow Agathon to Rhegion. Perhaps I’d followed his footsteps all too well. ‘Did you kidnap him like you kidnapped me?’

Behind the throne, the guards smirked.

‘He came of his own free will.’

‘Why?’

‘The same reason everyone else does. For my money.’

Agathon didn’t care about money.
In all the time I knew him, I never saw him touch an obol. We often had to buy him bread to make sure he didn’t starve, or new boots when winter came. But the gleam in Dionysius’ face said he was telling the truth – to a point.

‘He wanted the money to buy a book.’ A guess, but I was right. That was why Agathon went to Rhegion – to find Dionysius and beg his patronage. Or maybe Timaeus lied, and Agathon came straight here. How badly must he have wanted that book?

‘Did you give him the money?’

Dionysius studied his fingers. I remembered the temple at Locris, Timaeus’ babbling in the heat.

– Who bought the book?

– A Lydian trickster, a sorcerer, with golden hair and perfumed locks, and the flush of wine on his face.

He’d told the truth, I realised bitterly, and I’d been too stupid to notice. He’d been quoting Euripides. The Lydian trickster was the disguised god – Dionysus.

‘You found out why Agathon wanted the money and bought the book for yourself.’ One more reason to hate the smiling tyrant in front of me. ‘Where did Agathon go?’

Dionysius’ face was innocence itself. ‘He disappeared.’

He put the gold chain over his head and hung the locket around his neck. It seemed to signal an end to something – but he wasn’t in any rush to send me back to the cave. He lifted two fingers, and the guards stepped away. I could hardly carry my own weight, let alone the manacles. I fell hard on my knees.

‘You don’t think much of me.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘Are you one of those democrats who thinks everyone should decide everything?’

The conversation had become unreal. I looked for evidence that it wasn’t a dream, and couldn’t find any. But I understood the rules. Worse to retreat in front of a tyrant than to stand your ground.

‘Democracy’s a charmingly chaotic form of government. It treats all men equally, whether they deserve it or not.’

He was clever enough to catch the sarcasm. He liked it.

‘Don’t you value liberty?’ The last word came out coated with a fur of distaste.

‘Liberty’s all very well. But the more people have of it, the more they want. In the end, they resent anything that remotely circumscribes their freedom: laws, customs, even social conventions. It’s anarchy.’

‘But you don’t approve of rule by one man either?’

‘In a democracy, everyone’s appetites run amok. In a tyranny, it’s just one man’s. Neither makes for a well-ordered state.’

He liked that less. For a man who claimed absolute power, he was sensitive to criticism.

‘Homer says, “We can’t all be kings: one man must be supreme.”’

‘Homer says a lot about chariot-driving too – lean to the left, drive on your right-hand horse with shouts and the whip and so forth. Does reading Homer train you to be a charioteer?’

His lip curled. ‘So you don’t want the people and you don’t want a tyrant. Who do you want? Some sort of committee of nobles and worthies?’

‘That just breeds factions.’

‘Who, then?’

I took a deep breath and forced myself to stand tall. My head spun with the effort; the chains threatened to break me. I gathered up my strength and tried to remember a sentence from the pamphlet I’d been working on before I left Athens.

‘Until philosophers are kings, or kings and princes are philosophers, we’ll never cure our states – or indeed the human race – of its evils.’

Dionysius burst out laughing.

Of course, I didn’t think I’d change his mind at once. Even so, I was disappointed. Dionysius was no fool. I’d hoped he might at least engage with the argument.

‘We’re both the same,’ he told me. ‘Great men think great men should be in charge, philosophers think philosophers should run things, and anyone with no other qualifications believes in democracy.’

‘I don’t want to be a tyrant. I want the world to be a just place.’

‘Don’t you think I’m just?’

‘Justice isn’t a trait. It’s a discipline. It needs constant exercise.’

I thought he’d laugh me off again. Instead, he changed the subject.

‘Do you know what Euripedes says?’

‘“Dionysus is in the building – get down on your knees!”’

‘Very quick. And you know what Dionysus does to the man who doesn’t recognise his power?’

I nodded. In the play, King Pentheus scorns Dionysus. The god lures him to a mountaintop where he’s torn to pieces by women and eaten. His own mother brings his head back to the palace like a football.

‘I was thinking of a different tag,’ said Dionysius. ‘“Tyrants are wise when they associate with the wise.”’

It must have been a favourite phrase – it almost gleamed with polish. I thought of repeating what I’d said about taking advice from poets, but decided against.

‘You’re a wise man, so tell me this. Would keeping you here be a wise thing for me to do?’

A satisfied smile. He was cleverer than I thought, and he knew it – like the god in the play, who gives King Pentheus all the rope he needs to hang himself.

‘Socrates was wiser than I am,’ I said carefully. ‘And he said he was only wise because he knew how little he knew.’

Dionysius frowned. ‘Does that mean you’re not wise?’

He was toying with me.

‘If you were wise, you’d judge for yourself.’

‘You want philosophers to be kings.’

‘Or kings to be philosophers.’

‘Do you think you can make me a philosopher?’ The question yawned open, a wide and dangerous trap.

‘Socrates said he never taught anyone anything. He merely helped them find the knowledge waiting to be brought out from inside them.’

‘I don’t care what Socrates said. I want to know what
you
say.’ Dionysius crossed the room and took a scroll out of an alcove. He skimmed through it. There’s a knack to reading quickly, getting the motion of the wrist so that the scroll flows from one spindle to the other without creasing or tearing. Dionysius did it with an educated turn, not the clumsy fumbling of an illiterate. They say he was a scribe before he turned his hand to politics.

‘“Anyone who really cares about justice, and wants to stay alive for any length of time, needs to keep out of public life,”’ he read aloud.

The scroll was my little pamphlet on Socrates’ trial. I wrote it to defend his memory. Now it was a weapon in the hands of a tyrant.

‘Are you still minded to sit out public life?’

‘My thinking’s developed since then,’ I admitted.

‘How convenient.’

I’d bent so far that the sap was squeezing out of me. Dionysius knew it. If I broke, he’d throw me onto the fire without another thought.

‘Philosophy is about life,’ I improvised. ‘Politics, commerce, war – they’re all part of it. It would be strange to divorce one from the other.’

I think I got it more or less right from what Archytas said.

Dionysius scratched his chin. I waited to see if he believed me or not.

‘So if I gave you the chance to make your model ruler, would you take it? Or is it all just so much
theory
?’

‘You want me to teach you?’ It would be like being locked in a cage with a lion. Some of that sentiment must have told in my tired voice. Dionysius snapped around.