The Last of the Wine

by Mary Renault

  Work had still to go on; I rode out to the farm next day on a hired mule, and stayed overnight. Working stopped in the sun of early autumn, binding the vines, I was happy in spite of myself; the earth, and her fruitful gods, seemed all that was real, the rest as shadows of dreams. Coming home the day after, I went round by way of Dipylon, to return my mule; then, as I walked through the Street of Tombs, I felt a strangeness, and a fear, and knew not why. It seemed colder; the colours had altered on the hills; and looking on the ground, where the sunlight fell in bright rounds through the leaves, I saw that all these had changed their shape, and become as sickles. The heavens seemed turning to lead, and sinking on the earth. And lifting my eyes to the sun, I saw it so altered that I dared look no longer, lest the god strike me blind.

  Among the tombs, in the gloom of the eclipse, it was as one supposes the Underworld to be. The hair crept on my neck. Anaxagoras said it is only the dark shape of the moon crossing the sun. I can believe it any bright morning, walking in the colonnade.

  Then in the chill, and the livid shadow, I saw a funeral coming on the Sacred Way. It was a long one, as if of some notable person; it came slowly, in the deep silence of people oppressed both with grief and fear. Only behind the bier a young wife, blind with her own weeping, tore at her hair and cried aloud.

  I waited for the bier to pass me. It bore a heavy corpse; for six big men carried it, and yet their shoulders bent. Then, as they came nearer, I knew them all. For each was an Olympic victor, a wrestler, a boxer or a pankratiast. And on the bier, upon the brow of the dead, was an olive crown.

  I stood and gazed my last on the stern face of Autolykos, whom one seldom saw in life without a smile. Now he looked like some ancient hero, come back to judge us. The gloom thickened, till I could scarcely see his olive wreath and his mouth of stone. Behind him a catafalque was heaped with his trophies and his ribboned crowns. When this too had passed, I joined the mourners, and said to the man who walked next me, I have been in the country. How did he die? In the dusk he peered at me, with eyes of distrust and fear. He was walking about yesterday. That's all I know. He looked aside.

  The darkness had reached its deepest. Birds were silent; a dog howled in fear; the woman's weeping seemed to fill the earth and reach to the low heaven. I thought, Lysander pardoned him. Nor did Kallibios do it; for Spartans, even where they hate, obey. It was a present to Kallibios, to get his favour. Athenians did this.

  Then I said in my heart, Come, then, Lord Apollo, healer and destroyer, in your black anger, as you came to the tents at Troy, striding down from the crags of Olympos like the fall of night. I hear the quiver at your shoulder shake with your footfall, and its arrows rattle with the dry sound of death. Shoot, Lord of the Bow, and do not pause upon your aim; for wherever you strike the City, you will find a man for whom it is better to die than live.

  But the shadow passed from the face of the sun, and when we laid Autolykos in his tomb, already the birds were singing.

  It seemed to me then that the soul of Athens lay prone now in the dust, and could fall no lower. But a few days later, I called at the house of Phaedo. He was out; but he had some new books, so I read and waited. At last his shadow fell on the doorway, and I rose to greet him.

  He looked at me in passing, as if trying to remember who I was; then he walked on, and back again, up and down the room. His hands were clenched; I saw, for the first time in many years, the halt from his old wound catching his stride. After he had taken two or three turns, he began to speak. On the benches of a war-trireme I have heard nothing like it. While he was working at Gurgos's, I don't remember hearing him use any phrase that would not have passed at a decent supper-party. Now there came pouring out of him the silt and filth of the stews, till I thought he would never stop. After a time I did not listen, not because it offended me, but for fear of the news that was coming when he ceased. At last I put out my hand and stopped him in his walking, and said, Who is dead, Phaedo? — The City is, he said, and stinking. But corpse-loving Kritias keeps his mother above ground. They have passed a law forbidding logic to be taught.

  Logic? I said. Logic? It made no sense to me; as if he had said there was a law against men. Who can forbid logic? Logic is.

  Look in the Agora. There is a notice in marble, making it a crime to teach the art of words. He burst out laughing; like a face in a dark wood, as Lysis had once said. Oh, yes, it's true. Did I teach you anything new, Alexias, just now? Learn it, write it down, it is the speech of a slave. I am starting a school in Athens; be my first pupil, and I'll take you free. His laughter cracked; he threw himself down upon his work-bench at the table, and laid his head in his arms among the pens and scrolls.

  Presently he sat up and said, I am sorry to make a show of myself. In the siege, when one felt one's strength drain out a little every day, one had more fortitude of soul. It seems the want of hope unmans one more than the want of food.

  I half forgot his news in his pain, for he was dear to me. Why, Phaedo, should you grieve so much? If the gods have cursed us, what is it to you? We shed the blood of your kindred; and to you we did the greatest of all wrongs. But he answered, It was the City of my mind.

  Go back to Melos, I said, and claim your father's land from the Spartans. You will find more freedom there then here. — Yes, he said, I will go, why not? Not to Melos; nothing would bring me to see it again. To Megara perhaps, to study mathematics, and then to some Doric city to teach. He stood up, and began sweeping his books together on the table. Then he smiled, and said, Why do I talk? You know I shall never leave Athens while Sokrates is alive.

  I smiled back at him; and then, in the same moment, the same thought came to both of us, and our smiles stiffened on our lips.

  When I called at Sokrates' house, he was out; it was to be expected so late in the morning, yet I was afraid. As I turned away, Xenophon met me, and I saw my own fear in his eyes. We forgot the constraint of our last meeting. He drew me into a porch; even he had learned at last to drop his voice in the street. This Government will never be worthy of itself, Alexias, while Kritias is in it. I voted against his election, I may say. — I don't suppose he got many votes from Sokrates' friends. — Except from Plato. One thing is certain, Kritias has never forgiven Sokrates in the matter of Euthydemos. This law is framed against Sokrates, personally. Any fool can see it.

  Oh, no, I said. It is against the freedom of men's minds, as Phaedo says. No tyranny is safe while men can reason. — Tyranny is not a word I care for, he said stiffly. I would rather say a principle is being misapplied. And then looking suddenly as I had known him since boyhood, If you don't remember Kritias' face that day, I do.

  At first it seemed absurd to me. I had seen the fair Euthydemos only lately; he had been drinking to the birth of his second son. It was natural that where Phaedo saw thought in chains, Xenophon should see one man's revenge; he had the more personal mind; yet there are times when feeling sees more than intellect. I said, You may well be right. We looked at each other, not wanting to say, like fools or women, What shall we do?

  Phaedo tells me, said I, that a saying of Sokrates' is running around the Agora: When hiring a herdsman, do we pay him to increase the flock, or make it fewer every day? — We shall delude ourselves, Alexias, if we expect him to study his safety before his argument. — Do we even desire it? He is Sokrates. And yet. . . — In a word, said Xenophon, we love him, and are only men. We were silent again. Presently I said, I'm sorry I was uncivil last time we met. You have done nothing contrary to your honour. — I don't reproach you, since Autolykos died, I myself . . . Then we saw Sokrates coming towards us.

  In our joy at seeing him alive, we both went running, so that people stared, and he asked us what the matter was. Nothing, Sokrates, said Xenophon, except that we are glad to see you well. He looked just as always, cheerful and composed. Why, Xenophon, he said, what a physician we have lost in you! One glance can tell you not only that my flesh and bones and organs are sound, but my immortal part too. He
was smiling, in his usual teasing way; yet my heart sank, and I thought, He is preparing us to bear his death.

  Hiding my fear, I asked if he had seen the notice in the Agora. No, he said. I have been spared the pains of reading it by a friend, who, lest I should offend through ignorance, was kind enough to send for me, and recite it to me himself. I think I may rely on his memory of it, since he is the man who drew it up.

  A dark flush rose from Xenophon's beard to his brow; from a child he had been made to control his features, but this he had never overcome. Are you telling us, Sokrates, that Kritias sent for you to threaten you? — Not everyone is privileged to have a law expounded to him by the lawgiver himself. It gave me the opportunity to ask him whether the art of words was being banned in so far as it produced false statements, or true. For if the latter, we must all refrain from speaking correctly, that is clear.

  His little bulging eyes laughed at us. Often he would recount to us blow by blow a set-to he had had in the palaestra or the shops with some opinionated passerby. Now he described to us this colloquy, in which ten to one he had talked his life away, in just the same style. By the way, how old are you, Xenophon? And you, Alexias? — Twenty-six, we both said.— By the Dog, what has become of my memory? I must be getting old. For I have only just now been forbidden to converse with anyone under the age of thirty. This was too much; we burst into wild and angry laughter. That, at the end of our conversation, was how Kritias interpreted his new law to me. I am the subject of a special amendment; a singular honour.

  Afterwards, going back through the Agora, we heard one householder say to another, One thing we can say for the Government, it has taken some abuses in hand. It is time someone put down these Sophists, who trip a man up and twist him round till he can't tell right from wrong, and give young fellows a back answer to anything you say. When we had passed, Xenophon said to me, Those, Alexias, are the people you want to be governed by. — The many rub off one another's extremes, I said, like pebbles on a beach. Would you rather have Kritias? But we parted friends. Even today, when we meet, it is much the same with us.

  From that time, Sokrates' friends were bound in a conspiracy. Someone would arrive at his house very early each morning, bringing some question for advice. While he talked, and put off going out, others would turn up, and get a full discussion going. We kept an eye on the street; there was a back way out, at need, over the roof-tops. Usually we managed to keep him in at least while the Agora was full.

  I remember the little whitewashed room full of people; the first-comer sitting on the foot of Sokrates' bed; the next perched on the window-sill; most of us on the floor; and Xanthippe grumbling loudly inside that she had no chance to sweep house. Plato would come in, silently, and sit down in the darkest corner. For he came now every day; no more was heard of his legal studies. His absent fits were over; you could see him following every word and running ahead; but he seldom spoke. His soul was in strife, and we all pitied him, as far as men can pity a mind much stronger than their own. I except Xenophon: for he knew, I think, that Plato was wrestling with matters he himself did not wish to question; and it made him uneasy.

  Those of us who were going used to gather at the shop of Euphronios the Perfumer. It was not so fashionable that everyone went there, so not full of strangers who might be informers for all one knew. We would arrive and go through the civilities a scentmaker expects, sniffing the latest oil he was compounding, pronouncing it too heavy or too light or too musky, or sometimes, to keep him sweet, praising and buying. Sokrates when we got to his house used to wrinkle his snub nose, and tell us a good reputation smelt better.

  But one morning, the man who had gone early met us in the doorway (it was Kriton's son, Kritobulos) and said, He's not at home.

  In the silence, Euphronios was heard saying, Just try this, sir. Real Persian rose attar. The flask's Egyptian glasswork. For a special gift . . . — I've been everywhere, Kritobulos said, about the City. Yes, send me two, Euphronios. — Two, sir? That comes to . . . Kritobulos came over and dropped his voice. Someone said he went to the Painted Porch.

  Young people who go now to see the picture gallery will scarcely imagine it as a place where men walked in by daylight and came out at night feet first. The Thirty questioned suspects there. They used it, of course, for other business too; but the graceful columns, the painted capitals and the goldwork, stank of death like the warren of the Minotaur.

  Someone always says that, said Lysis presently. People who would sooner run about with bad news than none. He may have got up early to sacrifice. — Father is trying to find out. If we learn anything, I'll come back.

  Men in a common trouble draw naturally together; yet for a moment, each sat stricken in a grief that seemed all his own. Xenophon, hands upon knees, stared at the wall. He always looked out of place at Euphronios'. If he was offered a free sample, he would say, Not for me. Have you something for a girl? Apollodoros was twisting his big red hands till the knuckles cracked. He had joined us lately, and was something of a trial to us, being so simple that his company had the inconvenience of a child's without its charm; he was ugly too, with a bald brow and wide ears. Some of us had amused ourselves at his expense at first, till Sokrates had taken us aside and made us ashamed. It was true, indeed, that the young man had no false conceit of knowledge, but came with modesty seeking the good he knew not how, as cattle go seeking salt. However, having no self-command, he had now got Euphronios uneasy. Serious gatherings were unwelcome at that time in any shop. Lysis and I, who had had our training in Samos, managed to cover him, pretending he was distraught with some love affair.

  Euphronios cheered up, and began setting out his new stock. Presently he looked round. Why, Aristokles, sir, you came in so quietly I never heard you. And I've good news for you. That oil of rosemary you used to order last year, at last it's in again. The very same pressing, sweet and dry, I'm sure you recall it. He smeared a bit of linen and held it out. Plato after a moment's silence said, Thank you, Euphronios, but not today. — I assure you, sir, you'll find it equal to last year's in every way. — No, thank you, Euphronios. He strode to the door and said, Shall we go? Phaedo came over to him and said quietly, Not yet, Plato. Sokrates isn't in. — Not in? said Plato slowly. He drew his brows together, as a man does whose head is aching, if you ask him to think.

  Phaedo was beginning, Kritobulos says . . . when he himself appeared in the doorway, coming in from the colonnade. He was a handsome young man, dressed to make the most of it. His mantle had embroidered borders, his sandals were studded with coral and turquoise, and his face was the colour of bleached hemp. They did send for Sokrates. They were making up a posse for an arrest. For Leon of Salamis, people say. They sent for Sokrates to join it.

  We turned towards the door, to hide our faces from Euphronios and his slaves. I saw Xenophon's lips move silently, cursing or praying. This was the Thirty's newest method, with anyone known to be critical: to force him into sharing one of their crimes, so that shame might silence him. Those who refused did not live very long.

  Kritobulos said, Sokrates went to the Porch, when he was summoned, and asked what the charge was. When they wouldn't tell him, he said, 'No,' and went home.

  The silence was broken by Apollodoros, who gave a loud sob. Xenophon took him by the shoulders, and marched him outside. I turned to Plato. He stood still in the shop doorway, staring straight before him at a hetaira who had come buying scent. She pulled her silk dress tight across her buttocks and smiled over her shoulder; then, as his eyes did not move, went shrugging off. I had been going to speak to him; but there are doors at which one does not knock.

  At last he turned, and touched Phaedo's arm, and said, Don't wait for me. Phaedo paused, and looked at his face, and said, Go with God. I was surprised, but too disturbed to feel it much. Just then Apollodoros running forward cried out, Oh, Plato, if you are going to Sokrates, do let me come with you. At this moment his clumsiness was too much; two or three of us exclaimed in anger. But P
lato took hold of him and said, gently and clearly, Don't go to Sokrates now, Apollodoros. He will be settling his affairs, perhaps, and speaking to his wife and children. I am not going to Sokrates; I am going to Kritias.

  He walked off along the colonnade. Watching him go, I recalled how the old Attic dynasty had ended; when King Kodros rode out alone to challenge the Dorians, because the omens had promised victory if the king were slain. They thought it impious to give him a successor; they set a priest on his throne, and dedicated it to the gods. I thought, A man may leave sons behind him, and yet not live long enough to see his heir.

  What passed that day between Plato and his kinsman, none of us ever knew. If you ask how a man of twenty-four could put shame into one of five-and-forty, when Sokrates himself could not, I have nothing to say, except that Sokrates defied the Thirty, and lived. It was a saying of his, which all his young men knew by heart, that when you assume the show of any virtue, you open a credit account, which one day you will have to meet or go broke. It may be that what Kritias had seemed to his nephew was worth something to him. No man is all of a piece. If I had myself to choose someone who should find me out in a lie, Plato would come very low upon my list.

  Nowadays, as in my boyhood, I went much to Piraeus, but for a different cause. One breathed the air of the sea there; and the quiet was not the quiet of the City above. They were quiet like seamen who have got a bad captain, and are all of one mind. One day the yard will fall from the block, or a hawser be stretched ankle-high on a dirty night.