The Last of the Wine

by Mary Renault

  I said, It's a figure, I suppose. His voice was always high and clear; I thought, from Anytos' back, that he had overheard.

  A bad one then; for it is a figure of what is not. There is no People here. There are twenty thousand bodies, imprisoning each a soul, the centre of a cosmos no other sees. Here they pause, and in each other's company trifle a little time away, before each takes up again the labour of his solitude, by which alone his soul will live or die, his long journey home to God. Who can do good, without knowing what it is? And how will he find it, except in thought, or prayer, or in talk with a few truth-seeking friends, or with the teacher God has sent him? Nor will it come in some catch-phrase that can be shouted in the Agora, meaning the same to all who hear; but by long learning of the self, and of the causes of error, by bridling desire, and breaking it like a hard-mouthed horse, and coming in submission to the truth again, only at last by long labour it will be refined like gold. None of these things will happen in a crowd; but rather bending like a reed before the wind of wrath, or fear, or ignorant prejudice, catching by infection a false conceit of knowledge, or at the best a true opinion, not weighed and sifted out. What is the People, that we should worship it? Shall we worship the beast in man before the god?

  I saw Anytos look round, and almost speak. He was now very clearly angry; but seeing me he held his peace, thinking, no doubt, that I was a proper person to deal with the matter.

  But, I said, men must come together to make laws, and for war, and to honour the gods; they must learn to act for the common good. For such proper purposes, they must feel themselves a Demos, surely, as seamen feel themselves a crew.

  Yes; but let them beware of the lie in the soul. Men worship such words; and then, feeling themselves a part of what can do no wrong, swell up in hubris, thinking only how much higher they are than another set of men, not how much lower than the gods. What is the Demos but as a wave of the sea, that changes substance a thousand times between shore and shore? What is its archetype? Let us allow that the divine mind may contain, as well as the ideas of justice, holiness, and truth, an idea of Man embodying them all, in every proportion perfectly tuned and true, as Zeus the Creator first conceived us. You may say that a man so made would be nearer to a god; still, there is room in the order of the universe for such a concept. But how can there be an idea of People? Who can conceive it, let alone love? Were you in love with it, Alexias, when you went to Phyle? No. You were in love with liberty, and have logic enough to know that what you love would perish in your sole embrace. May I speak of Lysis, since today we have remembered him? He loved justice, being a true child of Zeus; and wished to share it, as he would have shared any good thing he had. Why should he love the Demos, he who was great enough of heart to love men? Even if Zeus the All-knowing were to put on earth this perfect man we have postulated, would he love the Demos? I think not. He would love knight and commoner, slave and free, Hellene and barbarian, even perhaps the wicked, for they too are the prisons of God-born souls. And the Demos would join with the tyrants, to demand that he be crucified.

  There was a sound of music in the Stadium below, and a troop of lads came in, with helmets and shields, some holding spears in their hands and others torches, to dance for Zeus, Phaedo got up and said, Finish the argument between you; but before the race begins, I want a word with Sokrates.

  Let us all go, said Plato. But as we were rising, Anytos, who had turned right round this time, said, I thought as much!

  Sir? said Plato pausing. Anytos said, So you are a pupil of Sokrates, are you? — No, sir, said Plato, lifting his brows and bringing them down hard. I am proud to be his friend. Excuse me. He walked away after Phaedo, who had not heard.

  I was following, when Anytos reached out and plucked my mantle. He had a way of grasping, and slapping, and tapping those he conversed with, being an enemy of all aloofness and reserve, which smelt to him of oligarchy. I felt the respect that was due to his record; so out of civility I sat down again.

  I wonder at you, Alexias, he said, you who have been crowned this very day and honoured by the Demos as a friend, that you can listen to this reactionary stuff and keep your temper. I thought you at least would have ceased to be fooled by Sokrates, now you are a man. — Why, Anytos, I have fought as a democrat, here and in Samos, only because Sokrates taught me to think for myself. And Plato forsook the tyrants, though some were his kin, for Sokrates' sake. He sets each man seeking the truth that is in him.

  I could see him waiting for me to cease, to say what he had ready to say, exactly as if I had not spoken. I had felt easy with him, liking the way he treated every man as an equal; but it is strange to speak with someone one's thoughts do not reach. Of a sudden it was as if a great desert surrounded me; I even felt the fear of Pan, driver of herds, as one does in lonely places.

  That man, said Anytos, ever since I remember, has been seen about with rich young idlers, flaunting their privilege of leisure, and frittering away their best years when they might have been mastering an honest trade. Can you deny that Kritias was his pupil? Or perhaps you would rather say his friend? What is more, ever since the democracy was restored, he has mocked at it, and undermined it.

  I don't think so, I said. Indeed I don't know what you mean, unless that Sokrates thinks it foolish to choose archons and judges by lot. He says no man chooses a doctor by lot, when his son is sick. Would you?

  His face darkened, and I saw I had stirred some thought that vexed him. Take my advice, he said, and don't stay till he corrupts your mind, and leaves you without principle or religion or reverence for anything, as he has other young men. — Corrupts me? Before I talked with Sokrates, I did not know what religion meant. It would be late to leave him now, Anytos. Since I was a child he has been as a father to me, and much more.

  I saw a vein swell in his forehead; and when he spoke again, I perceived he had passed beyond logic, and was delivered up entirely to himself. More than a father! You have said it. There is the root of the evil. Who can guide a lad better than his own father, I should like to know? — It depends, I said. A pilot might, don't you think, if he were at sea? Or a physician, if he had fever? The City seems to think even I can do it better, when the boy is learning to run. And I began to speak of those who were competing in the torch-race, thinking to calm him. But he was angrier than before.

  Quibbles! he said. Everlasting quibbling, eating away the decent principles every man's instinct should tell him are true. How does he get this hold over young men? By flattering them, of course; making them think they have a mission in life to be something out of the way, like that head-in-air young fellow who was sneering at the Demos just now; teaching them that to work at a good trade, where they could learn the meaning of true democracy in give-and-take with their mates, is a waste of their precious souls; that unless they can dawdle about with him all day in the colonnades, talking away everything sacred, they will turn to clods—just like their poor fathers, who have only sweated blood that they might live as citizens and not as slaves. — He was brought up to a trade himself, and is proud of it. All the City knows that. — Don't speak to me of Sokrates. If young men don't pay for his lessons, by the Dog, their fathers pay.

  I followed his eyes, knowing beforehand, now, what I should see. His son, Anthemion, a youth of about eighteen, was sitting a little way further on, in a group of tradesmen's sons, who were gazing at him admiringly. From the sound of their laughter, he had just told a very dirty tale; and as I looked, he beckoned back the wine-seller, as I had seen him do already two or three times. Crude as the stuff was, he was drinking it unmixed, as men do who cannot be without it, a youth with pale hair and brows, a flushed quick-moving face, and desperate eyes.

  He is taking more than is good for him, I said. All his friends are sorry for it. In the days when he was coming to Sokrates, I never saw him drink at all. I don't think he is happy. Not, I am sure, from thinking himself too good to work in your tanyard, but perhaps because it keeps him from using something in him
self, as it might be with a bird, if you caged it when its wings were growing — Twaddle! he said. What does he think he is? He will serve his apprenticeship like anyone else. I fought for equality between man and man. No one shall say of me that I brought up my son to be better than his fellow citizens.

  Must we forsake the love of excellence, then, till every citizen feels it alike? I did not fight, Anytos, to be crowned where I have not run; but for a City where I can know who my equals really are, and my betters, to do them honour; where a man's daily life is his own business; and where no one will force a lie on me because it is expedient, or some other man's will.

  The words seemed, as I spoke, to be my own thoughts that I owed to no one, only to some memory in my soul; but when I looked beyond the Stadium, to where they were kindling the lights on the High City in the falling dark, I saw the lamps of Samos shine through a doorway, and the wine-cup standing on the table of scoured wood. Then the pain of loss leaped out on me, like a knife in the night when one has been on one's guard all day. The world grew hollow, a place of shadows; yet none would hold out the cup Of Lethe to let me drink.

  No, I thought, I would not drink it. For here he lives in the thing we made: the boys down there, dancing for Zeus; people watching in freedom, their thoughts upon their faces; this silly old man speaking his mind, such as it is, with none to threaten him; and Sokrates saying among his friends, 'We shall either find what we are seeking, or free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know.'

  I looked down the benches, and saw him in conversation with the wine-seller, from whom Chairophon was buying a round. The flambeaux had been kindled ready for the race, showing me his old Silenos mask, and Plato and Phaedo laughing. I touched the ring on my finger, saying within me, Sleep quietly, Lysis. All is well.

  The voice of Anytos, some while unheeded, came back into my ear. He taught you a new religion, too, you say. I can believe it. Even the holy Olympians are not good enough for him. He must have his own deity to give him oracles, and sets it above the gods of the City. He is impious; he is anti-democratic; in a word, he is un-Athenian. I am not the only one who has had enough of it. Only influence in high places has kept him from getting his deserts long since. But this is a democracy.

  I turned to look at him, and saw his eyes. Then I knew what it was in his voice that had caught my ear. It was the feel of power. A cold wind blew up the stream of the Ilissos, and swept along the Stadium. It flattened the flame of the torches, and the black night leaned down.

  Someone reached from above and touched my shoulder. “Aren’t you coming, Alexias? Your boys are looking for you. It is getting near starting-time; the dance is over already, and they are going to sing the hymn.

  As he spoke, the choregos raised his wand, and the young boys' chorus rose into the fading sky, like a flight of bright birds, invoking Zeus the King, the All-Knowing, giver of wisdom, and of justice between man and man. I rose to my feet, the voice of Anytos running on beside me; and before me in the torchlight Sokrates talking to Phaedo, with the cup in his hand.

  This book I found among the papers of my father Myron, which came to me at his death. It must be, as I suppose, the work of my grandfather Alexias, who died suddenly in the hunting-field, I being then a young child, and he about fifty-five years old. I have bound it up as it was, being able to find no more of it. Whether my grandfather had finished the book, I do not know.

  ALEXIAS, son of Myron, Phylarch of the Athenian horse to the divine Alexander, King of Macedon, Leader Supreme of all the Hellenes.

  NOTES ON SOME OF THE CHARACTERS

  Alexias and his family are all fictional persons.

  Lysis appears in Plato's eponymous dialogue on Friendship, as a lad of about fifteen. Plato quite commonly draws youthful portraits of people (e.g. Charmides, Alkibiades) who were in fact considerably his elders. The family details there given of Lysis suggest he was a real Athenian; but no more is known of him, beyond a comment of Diogenes Laertius that by conversing with Sokrates, Lysis became an excellent person. Even this may well be only a gloss upon Plato.

  The account here given of Phaedo's origins is from Diogenes Laertius. He calls him an Elian; but Grote points out that the Melians, not the Elians, were enslaved at a consistent date. After Sokrates' death Phaedo lived in Elis, founding the Eleatic School, noted for its severe negative dialectic, derived from Sokrates' elenchos. Athenaeus says that Phaedo used to disclaim the opinions Plato attributes to him. But the Phaedo attributes none; which strongly suggests that Plato, from delicacy, made Simmias and Kebes the spokesmen of a scepticism meant for his. Perhaps he had abandoned it; perhaps he thought his own dialectic would have been less easily demolished. It seems clear that a widening intellectual gulf separated the two friends.

  No history of Xenophon's youth has come down to us, beyond the anecdote of his first meeting with Sokrates, in Diogenes Laertius. His Memorabilia, and his handbooks on Hunting, Riding, the Command of Cavalry and Estate Management, supply his social and psychological background. The tradition that he was captured by the Thebans offers a likely origin for his friendship with Proxenos, whom he would have difficulty in meeting otherwise because of the war. In his own vivid account of the Persian Expedition, he relates how Proxenos was treacherously murdered. Xenophon himself was exiled for serving under Cyrus, and never saw Sokrates again.

  Plato was credited by later generations with having won crowns for wrestling at all the principal Hellenic Games; but it seems unlikely that he devoted so much time to it after reaching manhood. He is generally believed to have contended at the Isthmus; and, owing to the exigencies of the war, 412 seems the likeliest year. Frequent allusions to wrestling in his Dialogues all show an expert grasp of its principles. His trainer is said to have given him his nickname.

  In his Seventh Epistle he has described his change of heart during the tyranny, and disgust at the treatment of Sokrates. That he intervened with Kritias is only a conjecture; it seems not unlikely that Charmides did so too. Xenophon relates the incident of Euthydemos, Sokrates' public rebuke, and his interview with Kritias during the tyranny. If Plato did save Sokrates, it would not be remarkable to find no mention of it in Xenophon, whose only reference to Plato, throughout his memoir of Sokrates, occurs in passing, during a derogatory judgement on a younger brother. Plato never mentions Xenophon at all. The cause is unknown.

  Plato's famous epitaph on Aster ends with the word phthimenois , which can refer to the waning or setting of a star, to extinction in general, or, specifically, to death from phthisis. The poem opens with a word-play; there may or may not be one at the end. It is full of heavily-charged, evocative words, only a part of whose feeling can be rendered in any translation.

  Regarding Sokrates, I have leaned on the whole to Xenophon's account of his life and teaching, without considering that it discredits the evidence of Plato, who probably met him on a very different plane. A tradition is preserved that his temper was naturally violent and that on the rare occasions when it escaped his control his language was uninhibited: which Xenophon's story seems to confirm. Diogenes Laertius says that enraged citizens sometimes assaulted him in the street, and quotes his comment about the donkey.

  In the year 399 b.c., shortly after this story closes, Sokrates was indicted by Melitos, Lykon the father of Autolykos, and Anytos, as follows: Sokrates is guilty of refusing to recognise the gods recognised by the City, and of introducing other new divinities. He is also guilty of corrupting the youth. The penalty demanded is death.

  It may well be that Lykon held Sokrates responsible for forming the character of Kritias, and felt himself to be avenging the murder of his son. But according to Xenophon's account, Sokrates himself after his trial seems to have regarded Anytos as his principal enemy, I told him it became him ill to bring up his son in a tanyard. (Xenophon adds that the young man soon became a chronic alcoholic and so died.) Plato represents Sokrates as making a fool of Anytos in argument; Diogenes Laertius adds that Anytos could not
endure ridicule and never forgave it. It is to Plutarch that we owe the anecdote about Alkibiades, who seems always to have left, from youth till death, an enduring impress on the imaginations of those whose lives he crossed.

  I have generally preferred the Greek spelling of names to the Latin, because it is more Greek, and because in particular the substitution of soft c for k produces such gross distortion of the sound. Here and there, however, to avoid disturbing the reader who is fond of them, I have kept some Latinisms specially hallowed by association; such as Plato for Platon, Phaedo for Phaidon, and a number of common place-names.

  CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

  B.C.

  431 (Nehemiah rebuilding Jerusalem. Rome completes conquest of Volscians.) Outbreak of Peloponnesian War. Siege of Potidea. Sokrates, then aged 38, saves in battle the life of Alkibiades, aged 18, and gives up in his favour the prize for valour.

  430 Spartans invade Attica. The plague at Athens. Xenophon born about this time.

  429 Death of Perikles. Plague continues.

  428 Spartans in Attica. Probable year of Plato's birth.

  427 Fall of Mitylene. Reprieve of the Lesbians. Spartans in Attica.

  425 Demosthenes' victory at Pylos. Spartans in Attica. Athens doubles tribute of the subject allies.

  424 Battle of Delion. Athenians defeated by the Thebans, with their corps d'élite of friends afterwards known as the Sacred Band. Alkibiades rescues Sokrates during the retreat. Thucydides exiled.

  423 One year's truce. Aristophanes presents The Clouds in which Sokrates is represented as an anarchic influence on young men.

  422 Assault on Amphipolis. Kleon and the Spartan general Brasidas both killed. Autolykos, aged about 17, wins his first crown at the Panathenaic Games; the occasion of the party described in Xenophon's Symposium.