The Last of the Wine

by Mary Renault

  He turned to the soothsayer, who had made the sacrifice, and now came forward, the sacred fillet on his head. He passed through us to the front as if he neither felt nor saw us. I knew by his eyes that Apollo possessed him. Be still, he said. The god gives victory; but first a man must fall. Till then stand fast. Then he called on the name of the god with a loud cry and said, It is I. And on the word he leaped forward, upon the line of shields below. For a moment, in the suddenness, they stood unmoving; then the spears thrust at him, and he fell. And the walls of Munychia echoed back Thrasybulos' voice, shouting the paean.

  We ran down the hill. The slope made our feet light, our purpose gave us wings. It was like the last lap of the race, when the Eros of victory lifts one. I know I killed and killed, yet I felt no anger, more than the priest who sheds the blood of the victim. Lysis and I fought side by side, pressing onward, feeling the line of the enemy bend before us, and give, and shatter to sherds. They were many; but their crust was thin, their centre was soft; they were men not at peace with the gods, or with their own souls. In a little while, if a man of them still stood firm, he was one with nothing to lose. It was while the battle hung so that I heard a voice, trying to rally the line; the voice of a speech-maker, not used to the talk of the field where a man speaks to man. I knew it; and leaping forth from Lysis' side (for till now we had gone forward step by step together) I made for it through the press.

  I came on him by the stall of a potter, which stood empty at the side of the square. In silence I had tracked him down, not calling his name, or any challenge, for I knew that many desired his company as much as I. Like a lover I sought him, keeping my rivals in the dark, feeling my way. Then he was before me, and through his helmet-slits I saw his eyes.

  As we leaned shield to shield, I said, You courted me once, Kritias. Now am I close enough? But he only gritted his teeth and panted; for I had been living hard, he softly, and his breath was short. I turned his shield with mine, and thrust at him, and wounded him in the leg. Do you know me? I said to him. I am Myron's son. I waited for his face to alter; but except when it jerked at the spear-thrust, it did not change; and I understood that this one name meant nothing to him, among the many he had sent to death. Upon this I felt a rage at him, so that my strength flared up like a torch; and leaning hard on him till I bore him backward, I hooked his knee with mine, as I had seen Lysis do it in the pankration; and he went back with a clatter of armour against the racks of the potter's stall.

  He clutched a shelf, and it came away; he rolled, and fell on his back, and I leaped upon him and pulled his helmet off. Then I saw his hair was streaked with grey; his face being drawn with fear looked shrivelled as with age, and my stomach turned at killing him; till I remembered he had forgotten my father's name, and thought, A beast is under my knees, and not a man. So I drew my sword, and thrust it through his throat, saying, Take this for Myron. He gasped, and died. Whether he heard me I do not know.

  When he was certainly dead, I leaped up, and saw the battle swaying all about me. I lifted my voice and shouted, Lysis! For I thought it long till I could tell him what I had done. I heard his voice rising above the din call, Alexias! I am coming! Then it seemed that a great rock fell on me; I was crushed and flung into darkness; the sounds of the battle reached me without meaning, as a child near sleep hears voices in another room. I came to myself in a courtyard, full of wounded men. In the centre was a fountain, playing into a basin lined with blue tiles, such as the Medes make. My head ached, and I felt very sick. I must have been struck down with a blow on the helmet, and stunned, but my head was not bleeding; the wound was in my hip, just below the corselet-rim. It was deep, and my blood lay all about me. I must have been speared when I fell. The stain was black and dry at the edges, where it had flowed over the marble tiles; so I knew I had been there some time.

  I was thirsty, and the sound of the water made my thirst more. Then when I wished to drink, I thought for the first time, Am I a captive, or free? And turning my head towards a man lying near me, I said, Have we won? He gave a great sigh, and rolled his head towards me. I saw he was near death. We lost, he said, and closed his eyes. Then I knew him, altered as he was; it was Charmides. I had seen him before the battle, down in the market-place among the knights. I called him by name, but he spoke no more.

  I began to crawl towards the fountain, the knowledge of victory giving me heart; but a man who could walk, and use one arm, brought me some water in a helmet. I drank, and thanked him, and asked if the battle was long over. An hour gone, he said, and they have declared a truce to gather up the dead. I was there myself till lately. The Thirty have fled; and before I left, the people taking up the bodies were talking together, men of both sides.

  He told me more, but I was too weak to heed it. I looked at my blood on the floor, and trailed my hand in it, and thought, Well spent. For a while I rested; an old woman came out and tied a cloth over my wound; then I opened my eyes and felt better, and began to look about me, and to feel impatient for someone to come and carry me to my friends.

  I heard the feet of men bearing a burden, and turned to call to them. But they were carrying a dead body on a shield. The head hung back, and the legs dangled from the knees, and a horseman's cloak was thrown over all, so that the face was hidden. I did not know the cloak, and was turning away, when I saw the two men look at me, and then at one another. Then I felt my heart turn to water, and my wounds grow cold. The feet were showing beneath the cloak, and one of the sandals was mended.

  I found a voice, and called to the men, who at first pretended not to hear me. But they stopped when I called again. I said, Who is it? Each of them waited for the other to speak; but presently one said, I am sorry, Alexias. And the other said, He died very well. Twice after he was struck he got upon his feet, and again after that he tried. We must go on, Alexias, for he is heavy.

  I said, Do not carry him any further. Leave him here with me.

  They looked about the courtyard, which was crowded by this time, and then at each other again; and I saw what was in their minds, that wounded men do not like to be with the dead. So I said, I will go with you, then, and got up from where I lay, and followed after them. In the porch I found a spear with a broken head, and took it to lean on. We went a little way, and came to a small pavement before an altar. There was a broken wall beside it, and dust upon the stones; but I could not walk any longer, so I said, This place will do.

  They put him down, and, excusing themselves to me, took away the cloak and the shield, for they had other bodies to fetch. He had been wounded between neck and shoulder; it was the bleeding that had killed him. He was so drained of blood that his flesh was not discoloured as one sees it in the dead, but like a clear yellow marble. There was blood on his armour, and in his hair. His helmet was off; his open eyes looked, as he lay, straight upward at the sky, as if they asked a question. I had to press my hand over them a long time, before they would close.

  His body had not stiffened yet, but his skin was growing cold. He lay already as one of the unnumbered dead. Always, from my first remembrance, whether he rode, or walked, or ran, or stood talking in the street, as far as I could see him I knew him apart from all other men; nor was it possible, in the darkest night, to mistake another's hand for his. Now the flies were beginning to come, and I had to drive them away.

  I was weak as a young child, in mind and body, and yet I could not weep. That is well, you may say; for when a Hellene dies commendably, even a woman ought to restrain her tears. I too from my first youth had been taught what is proper to be felt on such occasions; nor had I been ignorant that what I loved was mortal. Yet now I was as a stranger to the earth, and to my own soul. For it said to me that if there be any god who concerns himself with the lives of men, the god himself must suffer with me. And when I thought that the Immortals live far off in joy, holding eternal festival, then it seemed to me that the gods were not.

  After I do not know how long, the men who had carried him came back, to see
how I was. I said I was well enough, and asked if they had seen him fall. They said no, but they had heard him praised by those who had; and one said he had been there later, when he died. I asked him if he had spoken to anyone.

  Yes, said the man, he spoke to Eukles, whom he knew better than me, and asked about you; he seemed afraid you might be dead. He said you had cried out for help to him; and I think he got his wound trying to reach you. We told him you had been carried off the field, but not hurt mortally, and he seemed content, and rested a little. By that time his mind was growing clouded, and he was beginning to yawn, as I have seen other men do when bleeding to death. Then he said, 'He will care for the child.' Had he one, then? But I suppose you know what he meant. I answered, Yes. Did he say anything else?

  Seeing he was nearly gone, Eukles asked if he wished to leave you anything for remembrance. He said nothing, but smiled. I daresay he had not heard. But when Eukles asked again, he said, 'Whatever there is.' Eukles showed him he had a ring on, and he tried to draw it off, but it had been there a long time and from weakness he could not. Eukles has it for you; he got it off after he was dead.

  At just this time, the troops of the City fell back altogether from the Agora, leaving us masters of the field; and Thrasybulos ordered the trumpet to sound for victory. He opened his eyes and said, 'Is that for us?' I told him yes, and he said, 'Then all is well, isn't it?' Eukles answered, 'Yes, Lysis; all is well'; and with that he died.

  I thanked him, and they went away. When they had gone, I lifted his hand, and saw how they had bruised it, pulling off the ring for me. Then I wept.

  Presently from the walls of Munychia I heard the victors singing a hymn of praise to Zeus. As I listened, my head swam, and my senses melted in darkness; for walking had opened my wound, and it had been bleeding again. Then men were lifting me upon a litter, and debating together whether I was alive. I did not speak, for it seemed no matter; but lay with closed eyes, listening to the triumph song.

  28

  A year later, on a warm day in spring, I went up to the High City, to receive an olive crown.

  It was only one of seventy, which the City had voted to Thrasybulos, and the men who went with him to Phyle. The civil war was over, and the tyranny crushed for good; for Lysander had over-reached himself in Sparta, intriguing for a kingship; King Pausanias had got wind of it, and moved to set him down. Seeking to sap his power everywhere, and thinking it policy besides, the kings had given us leave to set up a democracy again. So the City gave thanks to Zeus, and pledged itself to a rule of perfect justice between man and man,

  It was strange to stand again in the Maiden Temple, and feel the olive-twigs prick my brow. Many times in my youth I had prayed that Lysis and I might be crowned together; and he, I daresay, had prayed it too. Now it was I who received his wreath for him, and brought it home. I accepted it for Thalia, it being now my place to act for her in this and in all other things. But the mother of my sons has deserved better of me, these five and twenty years, than to be talked of at large, and already I have set down more than I ought.

  Afterwards there were speeches, praising the liberators, honouring the dead, and hailing the fair prospect before the City; for though we had lost empire, they said, we had found justice, the greatest gift of Zeus to man. Then there was a choral contest, a race in armour for men, and, as evening fell, a torch-race for the boys.

  I sat in the stadium, in the pause between the contests, thinking I would go down presently to see the lads I had trained for the race, and encourage those who might need it. But there was time yet. The water-sellers and the wine-sellers were busy, for the evening was warm and the runners had kicked up the dust. As you find at such times, friends saw each other from their seats (for it was hardly dusk) and came across, and others made room for them to sit together. Xenophon waved to me, and made his way over. We greeted each other warmly. The amnesty had given both of us a welcome excuse to heal our friendship. I said I had missed him lately in the City, and asked where he had been.

  To Delphi, he said, to consult Apollo, how I should sacrifice before a journey I mean to make. I asked if he was going far. A good way, he said. To Persia, to fight for Cyrus.

  I stared at him, too much surprised to speak. He said, Proxenos, my Theban friend, has written to me from Sardis. He is in Cyrus' service already, and tells me he has never met a finer soldier and gentleman. And Proxenos is a judge of such things. A force is needed, it seems, to clean some bandits out of the mountains; and Cyrus is open-handed, which is something to a man whose estate is encumbered like mine.

  It sounds like an odd business to me. Hire an army of Hellenes to clean out bandits? You can't trust a Mede's word; you might be in for anything. Didn't you ask the oracle, while you were about it, whether you should go at all? He laughed rather shamefacedly. That's what Sokrates said. Well, I admit I didn't want to change my mind. But I suppose if Apollo had been much against it, he would have given me a hint.

  I felt more concerned for him than I liked to say. Even in peacetime, he would do himself great harm at home by hiring his sword to the patron of Lysander. But he must know it; he was a soldier and no fool. And I thought to ask him why he was leaving the City, just when things were on their feet again; but I did not ask. For though he held himself still like a knight and an officer of horse, yet there had been something dimmed and quenched about him since the amnesty; he had looked like a man without a future. All through the troubles he had gone, as he saw it, step by step with his honour; in the end he had abhorred the tyrants as much as anyone; but his eyes had opened late; and it was true that the City had little use, at present, for men who had ever been loyal to the Thirty.

  Any man, he said, wants to leave his name on record somewhere about the earth. Even a boy feels it, who carves a tree. I have dreamed sometimes of founding a city; but that is with the gods. The wine-seller came round, and he stood me a cup; the usual rough stuff they sell at the games. Besides, he said, I want to study Cyrus. They call him a man born to rule, and I want to know how such a man is made. One hears a great deal from this faction or that, how they are fit to govern, rather than anyone else. As Sokrates always says, a mason, or a smith, can tell you clearly how he qualifies for a job; but no one has defined the qualifications of a ruler; or, rather, no two agree on the definition. Trouble always comes of not defining your terms; but more trouble than most, it seems, of not defining this one.

  Good luck, then, I said, with your definition. But bring it back here, for your friends to share. I looked at him, tipping down the coarse wine like a man who expects to put up with worse. I felt I was looking my last at the lad I still remembered. I was right. When I saw him again, it was five years later, and not in Athens. He was tanned like the thong of a javelin, and as tough as the shaft, a soldier who looked to have been cradled in a shield; but the oddest change, I think, was to see in one always so mindful of convention that careless outlandishness you find in irregular troops of great renown; men who seem to say, Take it or leave it, you who never went where we have been. We are the only judges of one another.

  He went off to some other friends; and I, seeing someone sign to me, stood up, and recognized Phaedo, and went over. Plato was with him, and, a few benches lower, Sokrates in talk with his old friend Chairophon, who was back from his exile with the democrats. They did not see me, coming behind; but Plato made me sit beside him. When we meet in public places, he has never ceased to show me courtesy. But he does not ask me to his house. Though I never came forward as the killer of Kritias (no man will boast of what he has bought too dear) yet it was known to a few; and no doubt it will be a bad day for the City, when men are so lost to piety that they play host to the shedder of a kinsman's blood.

  We talked of indifferent things, and watched the jugg1er who was tossing torches in the Stadium, for twilight was falling. On the bench just below ours, Anytos was talking with some friends. He too had been crowned that day for his work in the resistance, and no one had deserved it better
. He had laboured in exile almost as hard as Thrasybulos, and fought well at Piraeus though no longer young. He was a man who had never done anything by halves. Long before, when all the City was in love with Alkibiades, Anytos' passion had been notorious above all the rest, thriving on scorn and even on public insult. He had given a banquet once, it was said, to which the youth had refused to come. But Anytos did not cease his importunities, begging him almost on his knees to come on any terms. Alkibiades went off laughing; when the guests arrived, he was not there; but halfway through he appeared, standing in the doorway. Entreated to come in, he said nothing, but sent his servant to pick up the silver wine-cups on the table, and walked away with them, still without a word. This happened in the days when he was running after Sokrates; who, never asking anything for himself, I daresay had made the youth more contemptuous than before of his troops of slaves.

  Nowadays, however, Anytos was being hailed everywhere as a saviour of democracy; and had become the very type and pattern of a democrat. He made it a pride to go about with his right shoulder bared, like a workman, instead of the left; this though he was very well off, and employed in his tannery both freemen and slaves. He was making a name for himself in politics; this evening one saw him interrupted by many greetings, as he conversed with his friends.

  Well, he was saying, we fought for this, and now we see it. Here sit the people, come into their own; the simple folk, met in brotherhood to proclaim their triumph, to honour the old virtues, to share their pride and feel their happiness. A day of scorn for the half-hearted, the triflers and equivocators, and any who did not feel their struggle as his own. Theirs is the future; this is their day.

  His friends applauded. But Plato turned impatiently to Phaedo, saying, What does the man mean, with all these booming words? Who are these people? Which persons? Who are the simple—Phaedo, what about you? Do you feel your happiness, Alexias? . . . Forgive me. You are free to ask me the same.