The Mask of Apollo: A Novel

by Mary Renault

  I ought to have found a new second before he left. I had known this, but kept putting it off. With every day of missing him, I grew harder to please. I turned down a good offer from Macedon, and drifted, passing the time. It could not go on; I made up a short-term company, and went to Corinth for the Isthmia. Work made me more like myself; when the games were over, I stayed with old friends awhile, and went back to Athens resolved to get my life in order.

  Theodoros exclaimed that I was getting dreadfully thin, and gave a party for me at which he produced all the handsome youths he could think of who were free just then. Though they went as free as they came, I was grateful for the kindly thought, and sorry to disappoint him by leaving with Speusippos. But he had let me know he had things to tell me, which would not do in a crowd.

  As soon as we were alone, but for his linkboy walking ahead, I asked his news. He said, “The Academy’s by the ears. No one knows how it will end. Dionysios has written again for Plato.”

  “Does it matter? He wrote last year, and Plato told him to go and play with it, or whatever philosophers say instead.” I was still rather drunk.

  Speusippos, who had sobered quickly, said, “I think this time he may have to go.”

  “What? You mean Dion’s exile is rescinded?” Lately my mind had often turned to him. He was the man, after my father, who had taught me honor. Perhaps, I thought, it was he who had pointed out my way.

  “No,” said Speusippos, and closed his mouth.

  “But that was Plato’s condition. So he can stay at home.”

  “It is not so simple.” He looked like a man with warring thoughts. “To begin with, Dionysios has turned back to philosophy.”

  “My dear Speusippos! It’s ten days to Syracuse with a good wind. By then he will have turned on his other side.”

  “No, he’s had a year at it, really studying. He’s been writing to Plato and even making sense. So Plato has answered, and at a good deal of trouble too. The mind is there; it’s character makes it balk like a half-broken horse. That’s what teases Plato—the thought that if the beast could be trained, he’d run.”

  “Well, but since he got so frisky on the rein, he may study better alone.”

  “So it began to seem. But it was you, I think, who said he always wants to be crowned before the race?”

  “Don’t tell me,” I cried, “that he’s calling himself an Academician?” My laughter stopped when I saw Speusippos was not even smiling. Maybe, I thought, he had drunk himself sad, as some men do.

  “That is the least of it. Being a special case, he’s got his hands on something no other student of Plato’s owns—a written scheme of his oral teaching.” He saw my surprise, and said patiently, “Plato believes in the spark that kindles mind from mind. If your brand won’t burn, you carry it back to the hearth again. But he had to send it to Dionysios, since he couldn’t come and his fire kept smoking. By now it amounts to a thesis, almost. So, instead of using in quiet such disciplines as make the mind’s eye to see, he invites a philosophic concourse, and poses as a finished product of the school.”

  “Plato must be angry. But, surely, not angry enough to get him out to Syracuse?” There was a pause. “Who are these hangers-on?”

  “Kyrenians, mostly, from the school of Aristippos. Like him, they equate the good with pleasure, but define their terms less carefully. And he himself wasn’t careful enough. He was Plato’s fellow guest with old Dionysios; unlike Plato, he did very well out of it.”

  “Does the son deserve better company? Why can’t he leave Plato be? No, I can guess the answer. These are just rivals, flaunted to make the real love jealous. One could laugh, or cry.

  “I wish it may end in laughter.”

  The moon had set, and a watchdog howled in the dark. I thought of the cold bed at home. Whatever bad news he was holding back, I could do without it. But as one always does, I asked.

  “Dionysios is resolved to get Plato there. Persuasion having failed, he turns, like every tyrant at the pinch, to power. His last letter invited Plato to confer with him on the settlement of Dion’s estates in Sicily. As I suppose you know, the income from them has reached him every year. If Plato goes, everything can be arranged to Dion’s liking. If not, not. In other words—confiscation.”

  “So that’s it,” I said. “The wretched little blackmailer! He should know better the men he has to deal with.” Speusippos was silent. I thought, as we walked on, of Dion’s splendid progresses, how he had held court at Delphi, Delos, and Olympia, a beacon to every lover of justice. Of course spies must have brought word of all this to Syracuse, and one could picture Dionysios’ jealousy. The wonder was, I thought, that he had not sunk to this meanness sooner.

  “Well,” I said presently, “it’s good that Dion has always lived like a philosopher. With what he has, he’ll be as well off I daresay as you or I. His wife and son can’t come to harm, being the Archon’s kin; and though he’ll miss his travels, at the Academy he’ll have all he truly values—Plato, his books, his friends.”

  In the flickering torchlight, I saw Speusippos look at me, then look ahead. Still he said nothing.

  “Don’t think I make light of it,” I said. “Of course it will come harder to a man of rank, especially a Syracusan. But we know the man, and his love of honor. The greater the sacrifice, the higher his tribute to friendship and philosophy. That’s how Dion will see it. Depend on it, he will never let Plato go.”

  When still Speusippos did not answer, I began to be anxious, lest in some way I had offended him; but before I could ask him if this was so, he said drily, “You are mistaken. He has been urging it.”

  I got him to repeat this. When one sees two moons in the sky, one assumes that it’s the wine, not that they are there. Having heard it again, I said, “Why? I don’t understand.”

  “Ask a god why, who can read men’s souls.”

  “But,” I said, laboring it over, “even before Dion’s exile, Syracuse was not safe for Plato. Philistos’ faction hated him; the soldiers openly wanted his blood. Then he was kept there all winter against his will; he was sick; and he was younger then. As it was, he lost a year of work, at an age when every year counts. How can Dion ask him to go back there?”

  “We must be just,” said Speusippos, appealing to himself. “It is not simply the money. Dion hopes Plato will procure his recall.”

  I asked, “Does Dion himself say this?”

  “Certainly. He said it to me.”

  “How can he hope so for a moment? Dionysios was ready to believe the worst of him without any cause but jealousy. And now, for years, all Greece has been praising the Great Exile, every word of it at Dionysios’ expense, every word a stab to his pride. He must detest the very name of Dion. Besides, they couldn’t dare have him back; he is the hero of all the democrats in Sicily. Dionysios does not even offer it to get Plato there, for which he would offer nearly anything. Can Dion dream he would be recalled?”

  “It is man’s nature to believe what he greatly wishes.”

  “That’s true. But is it the nature of philosophy?”

  He stopped still in the street. The linkboy paused at the corner, missed us, and came running back to make sure we were still on our feet. Speusippos waved him on. “So, Niko, you were listening all the time. And back it comes, just when I run to you for comfort.”

  “I am sorry,” I said. “What do I know of philosophy? All that sticks in my mind is that Plato is his friend.”

  Speusippos said, “Yes, you have your own elenchos. I should have feared the logic of your heart.”

  Now both of us were silent. We walked on through the dark, following the bobbing torch; presently we reached the turn of the road before my house, and the boy ran ahead to light my door. We lingered, both thinking, I suppose, that there must be something cheerful to part upon, if we could lay hold of it in time.

  I said, “One thing I can’t believe is that Dion would do this only for the money. He has had all the luxuries of Syracuse at cal
l, just for clapping his hands, and has gone without from choice. Look at his style of living.”

  “I am sure he has no wish to change it. But there is one danger to a rich man in simple tastes: they enable him to be generous. Of course he has asked for no return; he would abhor the thought of buying sycophants. But, the world being what it is, there is a crowd about him—not all disinterested, I’m afraid. It has given him great consequence, without his having anything to be ashamed of. Now he is used to it. As you know, he has his pride.”

  We had come to the house. For form’s sake I asked him in; he thanked me and said he must be at work early tomorrow. We dawdled towards the porch, still seeking the hopeful word.

  “I can’t forget,” I said, “how nobly he used to speak of Plato, the first year of his exile. Of course, you were still in Syracuse … There is a book of Plato’s I read once—yes, truly, I read the whole of it. It was a supper party where they made speeches in praise of love. I daresay you know it?”

  “Yes,” said Speusippos. “Yes, I have read The Symposion once or twice. I reread it yesterday.”

  “I just meant that Plato has lived up to it.”

  “I see. I misunderstood. I thought perhaps you knew for whom it was first written.”

  Our eyes met. I exclaimed, “This must be a passing mood with Dion. Good actors have days when they can do nothing right; no doubt good men do, too. Now he knows how Plato feels, he will remember himself and think no more of such a thing. I daresay we are troubling ourselves over very little.”

  Dawn was breaking. Birds sang in the willows, the same that had wakened me when the house was warm within. In the gray light, I saw Speusippos’ face creased like a monkey’s which has bitten a sour fig. He said, “I see I must tell you everything. As early as last year, Dion wanted Plato to accept the Archon’s invitation. Since he refused, nothing has been quite the same between them. Then, when this latest summons came, Dion called to discuss it, walked out in anger, and has not been near Plato since. Plato has written, I know. But there has been no answer.”

  A cloud had caught the hidden sun, and glowed pink above us. Looking up to the High City, I saw the gilded ornaments on the temple roofs glitter in the first shafts of day. Before the house stood the lad with the torch waiting for leave to quench it. Something stirred in my memory; a shudder like a cold finger rippled up my backbone. I began to speak, and ceased.

  “What?” asked Speusippos, roused from his thoughts.

  “No, nothing,” I answered. “I forgot you missed the play.”

  15

  IN EARLY SUMMER, THETTALOS GOT BACK FROM his tour. I had awaited this with more pain than hope. Days are long for the young; the past is soon crowded out. But like a homing kingfisher, he came flashing straight back to his bough beside the stream.

  All the spoils of his voyage, the theaters, cities, triumphs and troubles, his many scrapes (he was more adventurous than wild) he flung before me. He talked half the night—about the plays they had done, how Miron had directed them, and how he could have done it better. He was just at the age when one must let out one’s new thoughts or burst. Now he was free to tell them all. When he jumped out of bed at midnight to show me how he would have done an upstage entrance if Miron had let him, I saw beyond the open door the mask smiling down on us, amused and kind.

  We went everywhere together, a joy to those who wished us well, a grief to the backbiters whose meat is broken friendship, and who had been busy when he left.

  One day, when we were sitting with friends in the scentshop, I slipped away to Sisyphos the goldsmith’s to order a ring for him as an anniversary gift—a sardonyx, carved with Eros on a dolphin. While Sisyphos did his sketches, I idled round the shop, and heard some merchant ask if it was true a ship was in from Syracuse. Someone said yes, but not a trader. This was a state trireme, sent by the Archon to fetch Plato the philosopher.

  I had been taken up with my own happiness. This news so shook me that I dropped all my morning business, fetched Thettalos from the scentshop, and told him I must go out to the Academy. Though he knew nothing of Plato but what I had told him, he was quite concerned.

  “Yes, do go,” he said. “I’ll walk with you. It is wicked to treat the poor old man like this. I suppose he’ll listen to no one but Dion (whom you know I never took to) and his philosophic friends. But one should at least take notice. We owe him a happy evening.” He was remembering a supper for two at home, when we had read The Symposion together. I said that Plato would have enough to do without my troubling him, and I would just ask for news.

  “I would like some day, Niko, to talk theater with that man. I doubt all his notions are as silly as you think. It’s time they stopped turning every play on the gods. Half the modern writers don’t believe in them; the rest think like you and me, that they are somewhere or everywhere, but in any case not sitting in gold chairs on Mount Olympos, feuding and meddling like a brood of Macedonian royalty, ready to chop down any virtuous man who forgets to flatter or bribe them.”

  Though myself not much above thirty, I often found the talk of the new generation standing my hair on end. At his age we whispered such thoughts; in my father’s day they were a hemlock matter. Yet Plato had said something not unlike it, and he was seventy.

  Among the olives of the Academy we greeted Axiothea, but did not linger, since she was not alone. She seldom was, now that Plato had accepted another girl. Lasthenia of Mantinea wore women’s dress, feeling, I suppose, that this suited her soul; she was small and slim, with a kind of serious liveliness. They walked with their heads together, their hands sketching the argument to and fro. It had been a good day for Axiothea that brought her here. For the woman whose mind and body both need men, there is the life of the hetaira; it was not for her. She would have starved and turned sour if Plato had not been above convention. I was glad for her, and wished her joy.

  When we reached our destination, Thettalos, who had much delicacy about serious things, said he did not know Speusippos well enough to intrude on him just now, and went to stroll in the gardens.

  At Speusippos’ door, I could hear a girl inside crying and pummeling her breast, and wailing, for the hundredth time by the sound of it, “I may never see you again!” Not having the face to knock during this scene, I walked off into the grove. I had heard what I came to know, but, longing to know more, persuaded myself I might be of help if I came back later.

  Presently I was aware of two men ahead of me on the path between the trees. It was Plato, with Dion. I stopped, meaning to turn back; but just then Plato caught sight of someone beyond (no doubt he was full of business) and went over there, leaving Dion to wait.

  He sat down on a shady bench. I could easily have slipped off unseen. But without pausing even to wonder at myself, I walked straight up to him.

  It was impossible I could be welcome, and indeed he returned my greeting less coldly than I expected; perhaps I seemed a good omen, a harbinger of Sicily. At any time up till now, I would have walked on without presuming further. But I sat down beside him.

  I conversed, I forget of what—of course, nothing to the purpose. I could see Plato deep in talk; he would be some time yet. Dion was quite civil. I could feel him thinking that when Plato came back, I had manners enough to go; meantime, what with one thing and another, it was his duty to put up with me. My awe, I suppose, had first begun to spill away in Syracuse, with the wine from his broken cup. Since then, too, I had advanced in my calling; and, which perhaps made the more difference, also in love.

  Awe was gone; yet I had come to recover something. The noble beauty of this face was like a splendid mask I had long been used to live with. I studied it now again. So many men of his age (he must now be rising fifty) have faces getting fat, or loose, or drawn with petty cares, or bitter. But his outlines had kept their shape; if his skin had aged, it was a healthy weathering. A royal face—one of those classic masks made of good hardwood that carves like stone.

  I forget how we came to talk of
Delphi; but I recalled The Myrmidons, and how seldom it was done in Athens. Whichever of us it was who referred to Homer, it was I—as I am not likely to forget—who said, “Aischylos has departed from him here and there. Take Patroklos, for instance. In the Iliad, his father reminds him he is the elder of the friends, while Aischylos makes him the youth beloved. But in any case,” I went on, following my thought, if you can call it that, “I suppose he would still be a man in the flower of his strength, when Achilles sent him into battle.”

  It was not till these words were out of my mouth that I perceived what I had been saying. If you ask how such stupidity is possible in a man able to get about and earn his bread, I can only suppose that my soul borrowed my tongue before I knew it. Had it been my own reflection, it was bad enough. But an actor’s memory is like a jackdaw’s nest; it came from Plato’s Symposion.

  Even before Dion’s face went dark and cold as a winter mountain, I knew what I’d done, and had lost the look of innocence. To have begged his pardon would have made it ten times worse; nor indeed did I feel the wish. I can’t remember with what form of words he let me know he was not at leisure. He could not have wished me gone more heartily than I did.

  One must be prepared sometimes to make an exit when one is upset. Thinking only of what was at my back, I started at running into Thettalos, who made me sit down and tell him what was the matter. At the end he said, “Nonsense. You could have said much more than that. Only wait till you are seventy, and see if I treat you as he does Plato.”

  Laughing did me good, but it was not till next day that I felt fit to call on Speusippos.

  I found him in his garden, talking with the old Persian slave who tended it, and with the young man Aristoteles to whom he had consigned his specimens before. The place was full of small shelters for delicate plants, rock terraces, wind screens and potting sheds. Seeing him busy, I would have withdrawn, but he said he would be glad of a break, and was only fidgeting there from restlessness. “I must remember,” he said, “to enfranchise old Oitanes in my will, in case I don’t come home. It would break his heart to lose the garden; it would be too much to be sold himself as well.”