by Mary Renault
He ran into the darkness towards the town, and we ran with him, as if it were the most reasonable thing in life. As we got to the gates they swung open; we went through into a street, where the leader of the plot ran breathless by Alkibiades, explaining the untimely call. I could just see the man bobbing up and down, and Alkibiades looking about, not listening. Just as we got to the Agora, with a great noise and clatter and calling to arms, the Selymbrians came tumbling out around us.
Lysis moved up to me and set his shield against my side. I wondered if the gates were shut behind us, and thought, “If we fall, Alkibiades will see we are buried together”; for he was not forgetful of such things. But I prickled with life, as a cat sparks in thunder; it is the man half dead who fears death. Then Alkibiades’ voice, as cool as if we were at exercise, said, “Herald, sound for a proclamation.” Our herald sounded the call. There was a pause in the dark streets, with much buzzing and muttering. “Give this out, Herald. “The people of Selymbria must not resist the Athenians. I will spare them on that condition.’”
He stood forth and proclaimed it. Silence followed. We did not breathe. Then a voice, shaken but still consequential, said, “So you say, General; but let us hear your terms first” Alkibiades said, “Then show me your spokesmen.”
His impudence had succeeded. They supposed us masters of the town already; and he held them in talk long enough to make it true. We used to say of him, in Samos, that he was a young man’s general.
At the end of the story, Euthydemos said, “So you and Lysis are still together?”—“How not? I left him at the dock, seeing the fitters. There’s no better trierarch in the fleet; if you think me partial, ask some of the others.”—“Indeed, you never praised him, Alexias, beyond his desert. I looked for you both when the squadron came into Piraeus; but the crowds were so thick to greet Alkibiades, that I saw nothing myself but garlands and myrtle-sprays flying through the air towards the crest of his helmet.”—“It’s a pity,” I said, “that some of this fortune that’s gone on festoons and choruses wasn’t handed him for ship-money instead. He’s been kept short for years. If he didn’t work a miracle every month, you’d have no Navy at all. Half our battles are fought for tribute; we’ve had to squeeze it out where it hurt sometimes, but what could we do?”—“Well,” he said, “I think the City is taxed to the limit as it is; let’s speak of something pleasanter. I see you have lost no time in getting to the bookshops, and have bought Agathon’s latest play.”
“He came into the shop,” I said, “and I got him to sign it. Not that I set much store myself by such trimmings; it’s to take back to Samos, as a present for my girl.”
Out of affection for her, I called her a girl even when she was not there. Euphro never made any great secret of her age, or of having been the mother of a son who had turned sixteen when he died. Indeed, I had met her first in the graveyard outside the city, where she had come with an offering-basket to set upon his tomb. She drew her veil on seeing me near her, out of a sense of fitness for the occasion; and this making her tread carelessly, as she leaned forward her foot slipped, and the basket spilled at my feet.
Like any man who goes much to sea, I was observant of omens; I did not care to have flung to me, in a manner of speaking, a gift meant for the dead. But when she begged my pardon, it seemed to me that her voice had a gentleness beyond the art of her calling; her dark eyes looked clear above her veil, and her brow was fair and white. I bent to pick up the oil-vase for her, and found that it had broken. It came into my mind to buy her another; so I followed her some way off, and learned where she lived. When I brought my gift, she came to the door unveiled and greeted me; not boldly, but as with an expected friend. I had never made love before with a woman who knew, or cared, what manner of man I was. I saw I had been like a man who dispraises wine, never having tasted anything but the lees.
Lysis was glad for my sake, when I told him I had found a woman to please me. When later he saw how often I went back, and how much I conversed with her, I don’t think it was quite so welcome to him. His own girl was pretty, but without any accomplishments save one; when he had thoughts to share, he came to me. He was much too generous to show any jealousy; but when I quoted any opinion of Euphro’s on tragedy or music he would often find occasion to disagree. With his usual goodness, he agreed to my proposal that we should entertain both our companions at a supper-room in the city; but I can’t pretend this party was a great success. Lysis, though Euphro was older than he cared for himself, was pleased with her mind, and quite ready to talk politics and poetry with her, if inclined, I felt, to be a little severe. But the girl cared nothing for such things, and being besotted on him saw rivals everywhere. Upon her interrupting a story of Euphro’s and saying those were days she was too young to remember, I could not forbear remarking that I, who was younger, could recall them very well. When Lysis and I met again after taking home the women, we were a little constrained at first and sat thinking it over; till suddenly we caught each other’s eyes, and started to laugh.
Now, back in Athens, while the City feted Alkibiades, we had time to meet friends, and see our homes again.
My father I found looking younger and better than when I left; and pleased, in the way of fathers, that I had got myself attached to a not inglorious corps. He for his part, having come forth boldly with Theramenes against the tyrants, and helped with his own hands to tear their traitors’ gatehouse down, was enjoying some deserved consequence in the City. My mother, on the other hand, had aged more than I expected. She had miscarried of a child not long before. But since it was another girl, one could not but feel it was for the best.
Sokrates I found in the Agora, standing in Zeus’ porch. His beard had more white in it, for he was past sixty now; but except that he wanted to know all that had happened to me, I might never have been away. Within a few minutes, I was neck-deep in the argument that had been going on before I got there: whether the holy is whatever the gods love, or if they love it because it is holy; whether a thing can be holy that is sacred to one god and hateful to another, or only if all the gods love it alike; what things they all love, and why. Before the end some orthodox person, who had inspired the conversation, went away scandalised, muttering to himself; which was a relief to everyone, for he was one of those who only want to prove themselves right. As for me, it was wonderful to hear again Sokrates saying, “Either we shall find what we are seeking, or at least we shall free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know.”
I found, as you might expect after so long, some new faces about him, and one half-familiar one that puzzled me at first. It belonged to a young man of, I thought, about my age, broad and strong-looking, with intent deep-set eyes in a powerful face. I was sure he was strange to me, yet something stirred my memory; I wondered if I could have met some kinsman who resembled him. As soon as he saw me looking, he smiled at me; I returned it, but still could not place him. In stillness he had a somewhat chilling dignity; his smile however was modest, almost shy. He did not often intervene in the debate, but whenever he did, he changed the course of it; and I was struck with Sokrates’ manner at such times. Not that he seemed to make much of the young man, nor treated him with that tenderness he used to show Phaedo; but he seemed to grow more than ever himself. Perhaps it was because he found his thought so quickly followed; they had to go back sometimes to let others catch up with them. While I was still puzzling my memory, he said, “Yes, I know, Plato; but if you always take the steps in threes, one day you will miss a cracked one.”
As soon as Sokrates had gone, he strode over and grasped my hand, asking how I was and if Lysis was with me. “I’ve scarcely seen you, Plato,” I said, “since the Games. But I can see I ought to say Aristokles now.”—“None of my friends do. If you were not still one, Alexias, I should be very sorry.”
We walked off together talking. The old-time formality which had sat on him oddly as a boy, now fitted him like good armour. I use the comparison purposely; he
is a man, I think, easily wounded, but very unwilling to have it known. People meeting him first in manhood seldom suspect it, for he is very well able now to give blow for blow. You would have taken him for at least as old as I; I had seen that most of the young men about Sokrates were afraid of him.
I asked if he was still wrestling. He said, “No, except for a friendly bout. The Isthmus cured me of that ambition. One exercises to be a whole man, not a creature bred like a plough-ox to do one thing.” He had grown much taller, and this with the change of exercise had greatly improved him; he was big, but not out of balance for his build. It was one reason for my not having known him. “In any case,” he said, “the Twins claim one now oftener than the palaestra.” On his arm was a spear-thrust hardly healed; since Euboea fell, the raids had got worse again.
I did not ask him how he came to Sokrates: it seemed as silly as asking an eagle how it came to fly. It was he who opened the matter to me. “At Corinth,” he said, “you listened so kindly to my youthful nonsense, that I probably told you I had notions of myself as a poet, and was writing a tragedy.”—“Yes, of course; upon Hippolytos. Did you finish it?”—“Indeed I did, and revised it again last year. I showed it to my uncle, who has often been generous in putting his good judgement at my service; he approved of it, and other friends were kind, so on their advice I decided to enter it for the Dionysia. I was so zealous about it that I got there before the bureau was opened for competitors, and stood waiting in the portico of the theatre, with my roll in my hand. Sokrates was standing there too; not in impatience, as I was, but lost in thought. I had heard of him from my uncle, who saw him often at one time, but parted company with him, I understand, upon a point of philosophy. I am speaking of course of my uncle Kritias.”
Recollecting myself, I said, “Of course. But what about Sokrates?”
“Seeing him there, oblivious of my presence, I took the occasion to look at him. What he was meditating on, I have never asked him. But as I gazed on his face, a strange, indeed a painful quickening seized me, like a child before the birth-cry. While I was still trying to understand myself, he came out of his meditation, and looked straight at me. He walked over, and asked me if I was entering a tragedy, and what the subject was. Then he asked me to read him some. You may be sure I obliged him very willingly. At the end I paused for praise, which I had not so far been disappointed in; and, indeed, he praised it highly. Then he asked me the meaning of a simile. I had thought it clear to any lettered person, for one does not write for fools; but as I began to explain, I became aware all at once that I had meant very little by it, and the little was not very true. He asked, in the gentlest way, to hear some more; this time he said he was in full agreement, and told me why. But much more than his irony, his praise revealed me to myself; he had seen in the passage something so much beyond my own conception, that the whole work, thus regarded, fell to pieces in my hands. I had not the shamelessness to accept his praise. I told him he had opened my eyes; that I could not be satisfied with the work as it was, but should take it home and re-write it. We had now gone down from the portico and were walking together, and had come to the central meaning round which the play was framed: the dealing, I mean, of Theseus and Hippolytos with the gods, and the gods with one another. All morning we talked, and at the time of the noonday meal I went home. In the afternoon I read my tragedy again, and my other verse. Some of the lines were not unhappy, and the choruses did not limp in the foot. What would you say, Alexias, of an embroidered mantle made to clothe a god, whose image was still unshaped in the marble, scarcely the drill-holes made? I saw that to take pleasure in this stuff was to load my soul with chains, when wings had been offered me. So I called for a brazier, and burned it all.” Whatever it was I said to him, he did not seem put out by it; so I suppose it was without offence. There met and wrestled in me love and envy of an excellence beyond my reach. For a moment, I think, I was a child at the music-class again, and jealous as a child. But presently I remembered some of the lessons Sokrates had taught me, and that I was a man. So I asked Plato if he remembered any of his burned play.
I saw him hesitate. He was a poet after all, and not much above twenty. At last he said, “Well, there was one passage he seemed not to think unsound. You must suppose Hippolytos has just died; the young men’s chorus invokes Aphrodite, the author of his fate.”
He repeated it. I was long silent, my soul freed of its folly, humble before the Immortals. At last, afraid I had seemed uncivil, I spoke, but could only say, “You burned this, and you kept no copy?”
“When one offers to the gods, one brings a whole beast to the altar. If it was an image of what is not, then it was false and ought to be destroyed; and if of what is, then a little fire will not destroy it. It is nearly noon; won’t you come home and eat with me?”
I was about to accept, when just as in old days the trumpet-call shuddered across the City. “They are getting insolent,” he said. “Forgive me, Alexias; I shall look forward to it another day.” He went off to arm himself, but not without pausing to say that the troops in Ionia had long taken the brunt of the war. His manners were always good, and I suppose he knew I had no horse now.
I had other friends to see about the City. Phaedo, when I called on him, ran up and embraced me. I was glad of this not for my sake alone. Ever since he left Gurgos’, I had never known him touch anyone of his own accord; I inferred some later happiness to have been his physician. But his chief love, I found, was still philosophy. It was evident his mind had increased in power and keenness; and, after a little talk, I learned that its whetstone had been Plato. Antagonism of ideas, mixed with respect, had drawn these two together. Perhaps in the real substance of their souls, they were not so very unlike. The higher the dream betrayed, the deeper the bitterness; if the man survives, he will be on guard against dreams as a shepherd watches for wolves. Phaedo said, “He tells me that if I don’t take care, I shall spend my life clearing the ground, and never come to build. I say, of course, that he’s one to start building before the foundations have settled. He’s certainly nimble at meeting an objection; still, I think he’ll admit to you that I’ve cracked his logic here and there.”
My next visit was to Xenophon. He was as much changed as anyone, yet more than ever the same. It was as if I had been acquainted before with an outline sketch of him, which the artist was now filling in as he had always intended. He was every inch the old-style Athenian knight; soldierly, well-bred, the sort of cavalryman who breeds his own horse, schools and doctors it; who prides himself on being quick in war, and in talk at the supper-table, but says he has no time for politics, meaning that his politics are set and that’s the end of it. Not being one to run after new fashions, he had grown his beard. It was a curly chestnut one, as dark as his hair; smartly clipped, with the upper lip shaved after the Spartan manner. He was quite as handsome a man as he had been a boy.
He was pleased to see me, and congratulated me on having seen so much action. He himself was not long back in the City, the poorer for his ransom-money; he had been taken prisoner by the Thebans, and kept some time in chains. When I commiserated with him, he said it would have been much worse but for a friend he had made there, a young Theban knight called Proxenos. Learning that they had both studied with Gorgias, this young man visited him in prison, talked philosophy with him, went surety for striking off his fetters, and did everything possible to ease his captivity. Since he had been ransomed, they still exchanged letters when they could. He spoke so warmly of Proxenos, that with almost anyone else I should have thought they were lovers; but you would be very rash to assume such a thing of Xenophon.
Our talk turning to Sokrates and his friends, I soon came naturally to speak of Plato. But I noticed at once a touch of frost upon the air. When I had time to observe and consider, I did not find this very hard to understand.
I am sure it was not mere envy. Man or boy, I have never found in Xenophon anything mean or base. He was always a practical man, honourable, religiou
s, with a set of fixed ethics, not wrong but circumscribed. Point out to such a man a clear and simple good, and he will follow it over the roughest country you like to show him. Sokrates had taken him as he found him, loving his good heart, and not teasing his mind with formal logic beyond what one needs to detect a lie, nor with sublimities he could not soar to. He loved Sokrates: and, loving too to be settled in his mind, he liked to think the Sokrates he knew was all the man. But within Sokrates’ soul, I think, was a temple in a solitude, where no one had visited him from youth to age, save his daimon who warned him of evil, and the god he prayed to. Now a foot was on the threshold. Xenophon had decided long since that Sokrates thought divine speculations better let alone; when he found he had deceived himself, it grieved him.
As for Plato, he was the last man to be insensible of dislike, or to turn it off easily. When Xenophon was there, he withdrew into his citadel, which looked like arrogance and partly was. I don’t think his friendship with Phaedo went to help matters. Xenophon had always shown Phaedo courtesy, but that was as far as it went. His sense of propriety was strong; he could never quite get Phaedo’s past out of his mind, nor feel quite easy in his presence. But Plato swept all this aside with the largeness of his royal blood; he preferred the aristocracy of minds. Moreover, as if these things were not enough, one never saw Xenophon paying court to a youth, nor Plato to a woman; and such extremes of nature tend naturally to discord.
As the days passed, I saw my father was a happier man than before. Here and there I heard hard things said of Theramenes; that he had consented to a good deal of tyranny and violence in the beginning, and broke away to be on the winning side when he felt the turn of the wind. Some malicious person had nicknamed him Old Sock, meaning that he would fit on either foot. I knew from his table-talk that he valued his own shrewdness; but he had been good to me, and I did not believe his detractors. Of course the oligarch leaders had called him a traitor; but since these persons were mostly skulking at Dekeleia, joining the Spartan raids into Attica, their censure was nearly as good as praise.