The Last of the Wine: A Novel

3

WHEN I AND THE other boys of my age became ephebes, it was sometimes said of us that we lacked respect for age and custom, took nothing on trust, and set up as judges of things on our own account. A man can only speak for himself. My recollection is that I believed most grown men to be wise, until a day when I was fifteen years old.

My father was expecting his club to supper, and needed crowns for the guests. I had told him the day before that I should get the best flowers by going early, before school. He laughed, knowing that I wanted an excuse to run about without my tutor; but he gave me leave, knowing too that at such an hour I should not meet many temptations. It is well known that he in his young day was called Myron the Beautiful, just as one might say, Myron son of Philokles. But he thought, like all other fathers, that I was younger and sillier than himself at the same age.

He was right that day in supposing that all I wanted was to look at the fleet assembling for the war. “The war” we boys called it, as if there had not been war from our birth; for this was a new venture of the City, and this great armament really looked to us like war. In the palaestra, all round the edges of the wrestling-ground, you could see men drawing little maps for each other in the dust: of Sicily, which the army was going to conquer, the friendly and the Dorian cities, and the great harbour of Syracuse.

My father was not going, which surprised me. Not that the horsemen had been called up; but many of the knights, not to be left behind, had volunteered as hoplites. It was true that he was not long back from campaign, having sailed with Philokrates to the island of Melos, which had refused us tribute. The Athenians had triumphed, and the Melians been utterly put down. I had waited for the story, to say to the boys at school, “My father says so, who was there.” But he grew short-tempered when I questioned him.

Now, rising at the second cock, while the stars were still bright, I took care not to wake the household, which I knew would anger him, for we had been disturbed in the night. The dogs had made a great noise, and we had got up to make sure of the bolts and bars; but after all no one had tried to break in.

I waked the porter to lock up after me, and went out. In my youth I always went barefoot, as every runner ought. Coming from the forecourt into the street, I trod on something sharp; but my soles being as tough as oxhide, it drew no blood, and I did not pause to look at it. That year I had entered for the boys’ long-race at the Panathenaic Games; so as I ran I kept my mind on my trainer’s precepts. My steps felt light on the thin dust of the street, after the heavy sand of the practice track.

Early as it was, in the Street of the Armourers the lamps were burning, and the smoke was red in the mouths of the stumpy chimneys beside the shops. All along the way the hammers were clattering; the big ones flattening the plates, the lesser closing the rivets, and the little ones tapping at the gold ornaments which had been ordered by those who liked them. My father was against them; he said they often held a spear-point instead of glancing it off. I should have liked to go in and watch the work, but had only just time to climb to the High City and look for the ships.

I had never been there quite so early. From below, the walls looked huge, like black cliffs, with the great cyclops stones at the bottom still stained with the fires of the Medes. I passed the watchtower and the bastion, and climbed the steps to the Porch. Being for the first time alone there, I felt awed by its height and breadth, and the great spaces lost in darkness; I seemed really to be treading the threshold of the gods. The night was thinning, like a dark wine when clear water is mixed in; I could just see the colours painted under the roof, changed and deepened in the dusk before dawn.

So I came into the open, beside the Altar of Health, and saw the wings and tripods upon the temple roofs, looking black against a sky like grey pearl. Here and there a little smoke was rising, where someone was offering or a priest taking the omens; but no one was in sight. High above me, great Athene of the Vanguard looked out from her triple-crested helm. There was a smell of frankincense on the air, and a smell of dew. I walked to the south wall and looked towards the sea.

The distance was dim as mist; yet I saw the ships, for all their lights were burning. Those at moorings had lit them for the watchmen, and those at anchor for safety, so many they were. You might have thought that Poseidon had won his old contest with Athene, and set the City upon the sea. I began to count them: those clustered about Piraeus, those on the curved shore of Phaleron, those out at anchor in the bay; but I soon lost count.

I had never sailed further than to Delos, where I had gone with a boys’ chorus to dance for Apollo. I felt full of envy for the men of the Army, going out to drain the cup of glory and leave none for me. So must my great-grandfather have seen the fleet gather at Salamis, where the bronze beak of his trireme swooped like Zeus’ eagle on the ships of the long-haired Medes.

There was a change in the sky; I turned and saw dawn smoulder behind Hymettos. The lights went out one after another, and the ships themselves appeared, sitting the water like grey birds. When the spearhead of Athene flashed a spark of fire, I knew I must go or be late for school. The painting on the statues and friezes was brightening, and there was warmth in the marble. It was as if order had that moment been sung up out of chaos and night. I felt my heart lift within me. Seeing the ships so thick on the waters, I had said to myself that these had made us what we were, the leaders of all the Hellenes. Now I paused, and looking about me, thought, “No, not so; but we alone have given godlike things to the gods.”

Now dawn unfolded a wing of flame, but Helios was still beneath the sea. All things looked light and incorporeal and the world was still. I thought I would pray before going, but did not know which altar to turn to; for the gods seemed everywhere, all saying the same word to me, as if they had been not twelve but one. I felt I had seen a mystery, yet knew not what. I was happy. Wishing to praise all gods alike, I stood where I was and lifted my hands to the sky.

Going down the steps I came to myself and knew I should be late. I ran for all I was worth to the market, and spending my father’s money quickly, bought violets made up already into garlands, and some stephanotis; the woman gave me a rush basket for nothing. At another stall they had dark-blue hyacinths, for which I had kept something by. A man who was there choosing myrtle smiled at me and said, “You should have bought those first, Hyakinthos.” But I raised my eyebrows and went on without speaking.

The market was crowded and people were full of talk. I am as glad as anyone to hear of something new; but I could see the man with the myrtle beginning to follow me, and besides, I did not want my father’s temper to give out. So I hurried as fast as I could without breaking the flowers, and, thus concerned, scarcely looked right or left till I reached home.

I had bought a myrtle-wreath for our guardian Herm, to dress him for the feast. He was a very old Herm, who had stood at the gate even before the invasion of the Medes; he had the face of the oldest images, with a closed smiling mouth like a new moon, a traveller’s hat on his head, and a beard. Yet having known him from my infancy I had a fondness for him, and thought no worse of him for his rustic looks. I walked, then, towards him, searching in my basket for the garland, and looked up with it in my hand. The clear sun of morning shone full upon him. I started back in fear, and made the sign against evil.

Someone had come in the night and hammered his face to pieces. His beard and his nose were gone, and the brim of his hat, and the phallus on the column; half his mouth was knocked away, so that he looked eaten with leprosy. Only his blue-painted eyes were left, staring out fiercely as if they wanted to speak. Chips were scattered everywhere; it must have been on one of them that, as I set out in the dark, I had hurt my foot.

In my first horror I thought the god himself must have done it, to curse our house for some frightful sin. But it seemed to me that a god would have split the image in two with one stroke of thunder; this was the work of men doing as much as they could. Then I remembered the dogs barking in the night.

I found my father dressed, going over some account-rolls. He began to rebuke me, for the sun was up; but when he heard my news he ran outside. First he made the evil-eye sign; then he was silent some time. At last he said, “The house will have to be purified. A madman must have done it.”

Just then we heard voices approaching. Our neighbour Phalinos, with his steward and two or three passers-by, all speaking at once, poured out the news that every Herm in the street had been profaned, and in other streets too.

When the clamour lessened, my father said, “This must be a conspiracy against the City through her gods. The enemy is behind it.”—“Which enemy?” said Phalinos. “You mean that impiety has conspired with strong wine. What man but one defies the law from insolence, and the gods for sport? But this is beyond everything, on the eve of war. The gods send that only the guilty suffer.”—“I can guess whom you mean,” my father said. “But you will find you are mistaken. We have seen wine make him extravagant, but not foolish; I have faith in the oracles of Dionysos.”—“That may be your opinion.” Phalinos never liked even the civillest disagreement. “We know that everything is forgiven to Alkibiades by those who have enjoyed his good graces, briefly though it might be.” I don’t know what my father eventually replied to this; for he noticed me standing by, and, turning angrily, asked if I meant to let the whole day pass while I loitered in the streets.

I got myself breakfast, called by tutor, and set off for school. You can imagine we had enough to talk about on the way. He was a Lydian called Midas, who could read and write; an expensive slave to use for a pedagogue, but my father did not hold with putting children in the charge of slaves who are good for nothing else. Midas had been saving some time to buy himself out, by copying speeches for the courts in his spare time; but he had cost a good deal, I believe as much as ten minas, so he had not got half yet. My father had lately promised him, however, that if he looked after me well till I was seventeen, he should have his freedom as a gift to the gods.

There were broken Herms in every street. Some people were saying an army must have been hired for the work. Others said no, it was a band of drunks rioting home after a party; and we heard Alkibiades’ name again.

Outside the school a crowd of boys stood gazing at the Herm there. It had been a good one, presented by Perikles. Some of the little boys, pointing, began to giggle and squeak; on which one of the seniors went up and told them to behave themselves. Recognising a friend of mine, Xenophon son of Gryllos, I called to him. He came over, looking serious. He was a handsome boy, big for his age, with dark red hair and grey eyes; his tutor stuck close to him, for he already attracted attention.

“It must have been the Corinthians,” he said to me, “trying to make the gods fight against us in the war.”—“They must be simple then,” I said. “Don’t they think the gods can see in the dark?”—“Some of the country people near our farm hardly know the god from the image he lives in. Now a thing like this could never happen in Sparta.”—“I should say not. All they have outside their dirty huts is a heap of stones for a Herm. Let your Spartans alone for once.” This was an old quarrel between us, so I could not keep from adding, “Or perhaps they did it; they are allies of Syracuse after all.”—“The Spartans!” he said staring at me. “The most godfearing people in Helas? You know quite well that they never touch anything sacred, even in open war, and now we’re at truce with them. Are you mad?”

Remembering that we had once drawn each other’s blood over the Spartans, I let it rest. He was only repeating what he heard from his father, whom he was very fond of, and whose views were the same as those my grandfather had held till his death. All the ruling houses of former days, who hated the intrusion of the commons into public affairs, wanted peace, and a Spartan alliance. This was true not only in Athens, but all over Hellas. The Spartans had not changed their laws in three centuries, and their Helots kept the station the gods had ordained for them. I had had enough of that myself, in the time of the Rhodian. But you could never be angry long with Xenophon. He was a good-hearted boy, who would share anything he had, and was never at a loss in a tight place.

“I daresay you’re right,” I said, “if their King is an example. Have you heard about King Agis’ wedding? The bride was in bed and he was just crossing the threshold, when the earth happened to shake. So, obedient to the omen, he turned round, went straight out again, and vowed not to go back for a year. If that’s not piety, what is?” I had hoped to make him laugh, for he liked a joke; but he saw nothing comic in it.

Just then the headmaster, Mikkos, came out angrily to call us in. He was taking us for Homer. What with the public disorder, and ours, he was in a fine temper and soon got out his thong.

After the music-lesson which came next, we could hardly wait to hang up our lyres and run out to the gymnasium. While we were stripping we saw the colonnade full of people; now we should hear the latest news. Our trainer had commanded a company at Delion, but today he could hardly make himself heard, and the flute for the exercises was quite drowned; so taking some of the best wrestlers to coach, he set the rest of us to practise. Our tutors bustled up, seeing us listening to the men in the colonnade; but they were all talking politics. One could always tell this some way off; when they were quarrelling over one of the boys, they kept their voices down.

Everyone seemed to know for certain who was guilty, and no two agreed. One said the Corinthians wanted to delay the war; “Nonsense,” said another; “this was done by people who knew the City like their own courtyards.”—“How not? Some of our foreign metics would sell their old fathers for five obols.”—“They work hard and make money. Crime enough for the unjust.” And so people who were rivals in love or politics, but had kept it quiet, were all at once openly reviling each other. It had never happened to me before to be surrounded by frightened men, and I was too young not to be shaken by it. I had not thought till then that such great impiety might bring a curse on the whole City, if it had been done by someone within.

Beside me some young men were blaming the oligarchs. “Only wait; they will try to fix this on the democrats, and then ask to carry arms for protection. Pisistratos the Tyrant’s trick. But at least he wounded his own head, not a god’s.” Naturally the oligarchs called this a piece of filthy demagogy, and voices rose, till a new one said, “Don’t blame the oligarchs nor the democrats, but one man alone. I know a witness who has taken sanctuary, fearing for his life. He swears that Alkibiades …”

Upon the name, there was a greater hubbub than ever. People began telling tales of his erotic feats, not very edifying to us boys, who listened attentively; others spoke of his extravagance, his seven chariots at Olympia, his race-horses, flute-girls, and hetairas; of how when he promoted a play or a chorus, he outdid everyone else in elegance and splendour by three to one. “It was for gold and loot that he began the Sicilian war.”—“Then why should he do this to hinder it?”—“He would do better still out of a tyranny.” The City never tired of gossip about Alkibiades. Tales twenty years old came up, about his insolence to his suitors when he was a boy.

“He has kept the war going for his own glory,” someone said. “If he had not fooled the Spartan envoys when they came to make peace, we should have it now.” But an angry voice, which had been trying a long time to be heard, cried out, “Shall I tell you the sin of Alkibiades? He was born too late into a City of little men. Why did the mob banish Aristides the Just? Because they were sick of hearing his virtue praised. They admitted it. It shamed them. Now they hate to see beauty and wit, valour and birth and wealth, united in one man. What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence; the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?”

“Not so, by the gods. It is justice, the gift of Zeus to men.”—“Justice? If the gods give a man wisdom, or forethought, or skill, must he be brought down as if he had got them by theft? We shall be laming the best athletes soon, at the demand of the worst, in the name of justice. Or some citizen with pockmarks and a squint will lay a complaint against such a boy as this” (here he pointed suddenly at me) “and his nose will be broken, I suppose, for justice’s sake.”

At this laughter broke up the argument. The better-bred of them, seeing me confused, looked away, but one or two kept on staring. I saw Midas pursing his mouth, and walked away from them.

Of the few boys who had made some attempt to exercise, Xenophon was one. He had finished his bout, and came over to me. I thought he would say there would be less noise in Sparta. But he said, “Have you been listening? I’ll tell you an odd thing. Those who blame the Corinthians or the oligarchs all say it stands to reason, or that everything points to it. But those who blame Alkibiades all say that someone told them in the street.”—“So they do. Then perhaps there is something in it?”—“Yes; unless someone is putting it about.” He had an open face and quiet manners; you had to know him well to learn he had a head on his shoulders. He stood looking about the colonnade, then laughed to himself. “By the way, if you want to study with a Sophist when you leave, now’s the time to choose one.”

One could not blame him for laughing. I had forgotten, till he reminded me, that the Sophists were there. On any other day, each would have stood forth among his pupils like a flower among bees; now, seated on the benches or pacing the colonnade, they were questioning like the rest anyone who professed to know something; some with more seemliness than those around them, some not. Zenon was expressing fiercely his democratic opinions; Hippias, who was accustomed to treat his young men much as if they were still at school, had let them start a quarrel among themselves and was red in the face from calling them to order; Dionysodoros and his brother, cheapjack Sophists who would teach anything from virtue to rope-dancing at cut rates, were screaming like market-women, denouncing Alkibiades, and flying in a rage when people laughed, for he was well known to have taken them on together and refuted them both in half a dozen responses. Only Gorgias, with his long white beard and golden voice, though a Sicilian himself, looked as calm as Saturn; he sat with his hands folded in his lap, surrounded by grave young men whose grace of posture announced their breeding; when a word or two came over, you could hear that they were wholly engaged with philosophy.

“My father told me,” Xenophon said, “that I could choose between Hippias and Gorgias. It had better be Gorgias, I think.” I looked round the palaestra and said, “They are not all here yet.”

I had not confided my own ambitions to him. He shared my father’s view that philosophers should dress and behave in a respectable way, suited to their calling. But Midas had found me out. He took his work seriously; and my father had ordered him, besides repelling suitors, to keep me away from all Sophists and rhetoricians. I was too young, my father said, to get anything solid from philosophy, which would only teach me to quibble with my elders and be wise in my own conceit.

Just then the trainer bawled out that we were there to wrestle, not to gabble like girls at a wedding, and that we should be sorry if he had to speak again. While we were all scrambling to find partners, I heard a loud commotion at the end of the colonnade. In the midst was a voice I knew. Why I did not stay where I was, I hardly know. A boy, like a dog, feels happier with the pack behind him. When his gods are mocked, down go his ears and tail. Yet I had to run to that end of the palaestra, pretending to look for a partner and avoiding anyone who was free.

Sokrates was arguing at the top of his voice with a big man who was trying to shout him down. As I got there he was saying, “Very well, so you respect the gods of the City. And the laws too?”—“How not?” shouted the man. “Ask your friend Alkibiades that, not me.”—“The law of evidence, for instance?” The man shouted out, “Don’t you try to confuse the issue.” At this the bystanders exclaimed, “No, no, that’s fair, you ought to answer that.”—“Very well, any law you like, and there ought to be one against people like you.”—“Good. Then if what you’ve been telling us seems to you to be evidence, why don’t you take it to the archons? If it’s worth anything, they would even pay you. You trust the laws; do you trust the evidence? Well, speak up.”

The man did so, calling Sokrates a cunning snake who would argue black white and was in Corinthian pay. I could not hear Sokrates’ reply; but the man suddenly hit him a swinging blow on the side of the head, rocking him over against Kriton, who was standing beside him. Everyone shouted. Kriton, who was very much put out, said, “You’ll regret this, sir. Striking a free citizen; you’ll pay damages for this.” Sokrates had by now recovered his balance. He nodded to the man and said, “Thank you. Now we can all see the force of your argument.” The man swore and raised his fist and I thought, “This time he will kill him.”

Hardly knowing what I did, I started to run forward. Then I saw that one of the young men who had been walking behind Sokrates had stepped out, and caught the brawler by the wrist. I knew who it was, not only from seeing him with Sokrates or about the City, but because there was a bronze statuette of him in Mikkos’s hallway, done when he was about sixteen. He was a former pupil, who had won a crown for wrestling, while still at school, at the Panathenaic Games. He was said too to have been among the notable beauties of his year, which one could still believe without trouble. I saw his name every day, since it was written on the base of the statue: Lysis, son of Demokrates of OExone.

Sokrates’ enemy was a great hulking man. Lysis was taller, but not so thick. I had seen him on the wrestling-ground, however. He bent back the man’s arm, looking rather grave and careful, as if he were sacrificing. The man’s fist opened and writhed; when he had leaned off balance, Lysis gave him a quick jerk which tumbled him neatly down the steps into the dust of the palaestra. He got a mouthful of it and all the boys laughed, a sweet sound to me. Lysis looked at Sokrates as if with apology for his intrusion, and drew back among the young men again. He had not spoken all this time. Indeed, I had seldom heard his voice, except at the mounted torch-race, when he was urging on his team. Then it carried over the cheers, the noise of the horses, and everything else.

There was a red mark on Sokrates’ face. Kriton was urging him to bring an action, and offering to cover the speech-writer’s fee. “Old friend,” said Sokrates, “last year an ass bolted in the street and kicked you; but I don’t recall your suing him. As for you, my dear Lysis, thanks for your kind intentions. Just when he was starting to doubt the force of his argument, you re-stated it for him with eloquence and conviction. And now, gentlemen, shall we return to what we were saying about the functions of music?”

Their reasoning became too hard for me; but I lingered, standing in the dust, and looking at them on the pavement above me. Lysis was the nearest, being a little behind the rest. I set him in my mind beside his statue in the hallway; the comparison was easy because his face was shaved; a new fashion then, which the athletes had lately begun setting. It seemed to me a pity that someone should not do another bronze of him, now he was a man. His hair, which he wore short, lay half-curled against his head, and being mingled fair and brown, gleamed like a bronze helmet inlaid with gold. Just as I was thinking about him, he looked round. It was evident he did not recollect having ever seen me before; he smiled at me, however, as if to say, “Come nearer, then, if you like; no one will eat you.”

I took courage at this, and a step forward. But Midas, who never idled for long, saw me and came bustling over. He even seized me by the arm; so to save myself from more indignity, I went with him quietly. Sokrates, who was talking to Kriton, took no notice. I saw Lysis looking after me as I went; but whether approving my obedience, or despising my meekness, I could not tell.

On the way home Midas said to me, “Son of Myron, a boy of your age should not need watching every moment. What do you mean by running after Sokrates after all I have told you? Especially today.”—“Why today?” I said.—“Have you forgotten that he taught Alkibiades?”—“Well, what of it?”—“Sokrates has always refused to be initiated into the holy Mysteries; so who else, do you suppose, taught Alkibiades to mock at them?”—“Mock at them?” I said. “Does he?”—“You have heard what all the citizens are saying.” It was the first I had heard of it; but I knew that slaves tell things to one another. “Well, if he does, it’s absurd to blame Sokrates for it. I’ve not seen Alkibiades go near him for years, or speak to him beyond a greeting in the street.”—“A teacher has to answer for his pupil. If Alkibiades left Sokrates justly, then Sokrates gave him cause and is to blame; or if unjustly, then Sokrates did not teach him justice, so how can he claim to make his pupils better?”

I suppose he had picked up this argument from someone like Dionysodoros. Though still untrained in logic I could smell a fallacy. “If Alkibiades broke the Herms, everyone agrees it’s the worst thing he has done. So when he was with Sokrates he must have been better than he is now, mustn’t he? You don’t even know yet if he did it at all. And,” I said, becoming angry again, “as for Lysis, he only wanted out of kindness to put me at ease.” Midas sucked in his cheeks. “Certainly. Why should anyone doubt it? However, we know your father’s orders.”

I could think of no answer to this, so I said, “Father told you I wasn’t to hear the Sophists: Sokrates is a philosopher.”—“Any Sophist,” said Midas sniffing, “is a philosopher to his friends.”

I walked on in silence, thinking, “Why do I argue with a man who thinks whatever will earn him his freedom in two years? He can think what he likes then. It seems I can be more just than Midas, not because I am good, but because I am free.” He walked a foot behind my elbow, carrying my tablets and lyre. I thought, “When he is free he will grow his beard and look, I should think, rather like Hippias. And if he chooses, he can strip for exercise then, with other free men; but he is getting old for that, and might not care to show his body, soft and white as it must be.” I had not seen him naked in all these years; he might as well have been a woman. Even when he was free he would still be no more than a metic, an immigrant, never a citizen.

Once long before, I had asked my father why Zeus made some men to be Hellenes living in cities with laws, some barbarians under tyrants, and others slaves. He said, “You might as well ask, my dear boy, why he made some beasts lions, some horses, and other swine. Zeus the All-Knowing has placed all sorts of men in a state comformable with their natures; we cannot suppose anything else. Don’t forget, however, that a bad horse is worse than a good ass. And wait till you are older before you question the purposes of the gods.”

He met me in the courtyard when I got home, with a myrtle wreath on his head. He had got together what was needed for the purification of the house, water from the Nine Springs, frankincense and the rest, and was waiting for me to serve at the rites with him. It was a long time since we had needed to perform them, and then it was only because a slave had died. I bound the myrtle round my head and helped him with the lustrations, and when the incense was burning on the household altar, made the responses to the prayers. I was glad to finish, for I was hungry, and the smell from inside told me that my mother had cooked something good.

I ought to write my stepmother for clearness’ sake; but I not only called her Mother, but so thought of her, having known no other. Her coming had, as I have explained, saved me from much misery; so it seemed that such and not otherwise a mother ought to be. It made no difference in my mind that she was only about eight years older than I was, my father having married her when she was not quite sixteen. I daresay it might have seemed to other people, when she came, that she behaved to me more like an elder sister who has been given the keys; I remember that often at first, being uncertain about the ways of the house and not wanting to lose authority with the slaves, she would ask me. Yet because when unhappy I had dreamed of a kind mother, and she was kind, she seemed to me the pattern of all mothers. Perhaps this was why at my initiation into the Mysteries, having been shown certain things of which it is unlawful to speak, I could not be as much moved by them as the candidates I saw around me. The Goddesses pardon me, if I have said amiss.

Even in looks she might have been my sister; for my father had chosen a second wife not unlike the first, being, it appears, fond of dark women. Her father had fallen at Amphipolis with a good deal of glory; she kept his armour, in an olive-wood chest, for he had no sons. I think for this reason he must have been in the habit of talking to her with rather improper freedom; for when she first came to us, she used often to ask my father questions about the war, and events in the Assembly. About the first he would sometimes speak; but if she became persistent about business or politics, as a kindly reproof he would walk over to the loom, and praise her work. So now, when I smelt the good food cooking, I smiled to myself, thinking, “Dear Mother, you have no need to coax me, who for a bowl of bean soup would tell you all they are saying in the City.”

After the meal, then, I went up to the women’s rooms. She had been weaving for some time a big hanging for the supper-room; scarlet, with a white ship in the centre on a blue sea, and a border of Persian work. She had just finished the centrepiece. At a smaller loom one of the maids whom she had taught was weaving plain cloth; the sound went smoothly on, while the noise of the big loom would change its pace with the pattern.

She asked me first how I had done at school. To tease her I said, “Not very well. Mikkos beat me, for forgetting my lines.” I thought she would at least ask what made me forget them, but she only said, “For shame.” Seeing her look round, however, I laughed, and she laughed too. The tilt of her head made one think of a slender bird with bright eyes. As I stood beside her I saw I had been growing again; for whereas our eyes had been level, now mine looked upon her brows.

I told her all the rumours that were going about. When she was in thought, her eyebrows lifted at the inner ends, making a hollow between them in her forehead, which was very white. “Who do you think did it, Mother?” I asked. She said, “The gods will reveal it, perhaps. But, Alexias, who will command the Army now, instead of Alkibiades?”

“Instead?” I said, staring. “But he must command. It’s his own war.”—“A man charged with sacrilege? How can they put the Army under a curse?”—“I suppose not. Perhaps they won’t go to Sicily, then, at all.” My face fell, thinking of the ships, and all the great victories we had looked forward to. My mother looked at me and, nodding her head, said, “Oh, yes, they will go. Men are like children who must wear their new clothes today.” She wove a couple of lines and said, “Your father says Lamachos is a good general.”—“He has been laughed at rather too much,” I said. “He can’t help being so poor; but when he indented for his own shoe-leather last time, Aristophanes got hold of it, you know, and started all these jokes about him. But Nikias will consult him, I suppose.”

She stopped weaving and turned round, the shuttle in her hand. “Nikias?” she said.—“Of course, Mother. It stands to reason. He has been one of the first of the Athenians ever since I remember.” And indeed, a citizen of my father’s age could still have said this.

“But he is an old sick man,” she said. “He ought to be taking soup in bed, not crossing the sea. And he had no stomach for the war from the very first.” I saw she knew something of events already; no doubt every woman who had the use of her legs had been running from house to house, under excuse of borrowing a little flour or a measure of oil. “Still,” I said, “he would be a good man if the gods are angry. They’ve never lost him a battle all his life. No one has paid them more attention than he has. Why, he has even given them whole shrines and temples.” She looked up. “What is it worth to the gods,” she said, “to be feared by a man who fears everything? How should he lose battles? He never took a risk.”

I looked round anxiously. Luckily my father was out.

“I myself have seen him in the street,” she said, “when a cat crossed his path, waiting for someone else to pass to take off the bad luck. What kind of man is that for a soldier?”—“No one doubts, Mother,” I said laughing, “that you’d make a better one.” She blushed, and turning to the loom said, “I can’t waste any more time in talking. Your father’s club is coming tonight.”

The club was called the Sunhorses. It was, in those days, moderate in politics, but though it served the usual purposes of that kind, good talk was its chief function, and they never let the number get above eight, to keep the conversation general. All the foundation members, of whom my father was one, had been knights of moderate wealth; but the war had brought a good many changes of fortune. They tried nowadays, as between gentlemen, to overlook the fact that they had become a mixture of rich and poor; the dinner subscriptions had always been moderate, with no costly additions expected from the host. But lately things had reached a point where some men could not afford the extra lamp-oil and condiments for a club supper, and, ashamed to charge them to the common account, had dropped out on some excuse. One man, who was easy in matters of pride but well liked, had more than once had his share paid by a whip-round among the rest.

“Where are you off to?” my mother asked me.—“Only to see Xenophon. His father’s given him a colt to train for himself, to ride when he joins the Guard. I want to see how it’s coming on. He says you must never train a horse with a whip; it’s like beating a dancer and expecting grace, and a horse ought to move well out of pride in itself. Mother, isn’t it time that Father got a new horse? Korax is too old for anything but hacking: what am I going to ride, when I’m ready for the Guard?”—“You?” she cried, “silly child, that’s a world away.”—“Only three years, Mother.”—“It depends on next year’s harvest. Don’t stay late at Xenophon’s. Your father wants you in tonight.”—“Not tonight, Mother; it’s club night.”—“I’m aware of it, Alexias. And your father’s order is that you are to go after supper, and serve the wine.”—“Who, I?” I was much affronted; I had never been asked to serve tables, except at public dinners where lads of good family do it by custom. “Are the slaves sick, or what?”—“Don’t show your father that sulky face; you ought to feel complimented. Run away, I have work to do.”

When I went to the bath that evening I found my father just finishing, with old Sostias rinsing him down. I looked at his fine shoulders, flat and wide without being too heavy, and resolved to spend more time with the disk and javelin. Even now, though the rising generation seems to think nothing of it, I cannot bear to see a runner gone all to legs, looking as if he would be fit for nothing, when off the track, except to get away from a battlefield faster than anyone else.

When Sostias had gone my father said, “You will serve us the wine tonight, Alexias.”—“Yes, Father.”—“Whatever you may hear in the guest-room, nothing goes out. You understand?”—“Yes, Father.” This put another colour on it. I went off to make myself a garland; I chose hyacinths, I believe.

They finished their business concerns early; while they were still eating my father commanded me to fetch my lyre and sing. I gave them the ballad of Harmodios and Aristogeiton. Afterwards my father said, “You must forgive the boy’s hackneyed choice; but it is while these old songs come fresh to them, that they can learn something from them.”—“Don’t beg our pardon, Myron,” Kritias said. “I fancy I am not the only one here who felt, on hearing it tonight, that he understood it for the first time.” The slaves were clearing the tables, which gave me an excuse to pretend I had not heard.

After mixing the wine, I went round the couches, quietly as I had been taught, without drawing attention to myself; but one or two of my father’s old friends held me back for a few words. Theramenes, who had given me my first set of knucklebones, remarked how I was growing, and told me that if I did not idle my time in the bath-house or scent-shop, but remembered the Choice of Herakles, I might be as handsome as my father. One or two other guests had a word for me, but when I got to Kritias, I took care to be as brief as if it were a mess-table in Sparta.

He was not much above thirty then, but already affected the philosopher in mantle and beard. He had a hungry-looking face, with the skin stretched tight on the cheekbones, but was not bad looking apart from his thinness, except that his eyes were too light, the skin being dark around them. He had not belonged to the club very long, and was considered something of a prize to it, for he was extremely well-born, wealthy, and a wit. No one, as you may suppose, had asked for my opinion. As it happened, I had met him rather earlier than my father had. I had noticed him first in Sokrates’ company; which had disposed me so well to him, that when he came up afterwards while Midas’ back was turned, I let him speak to me.

I was old enough to have received some attentions from men, while still young enough to think them rather absurd; as, for that matter, the kind of person who chases young boys usually is. But I had never been inclined to laugh at Kritias.

When I reached him with the wine, he was all graciousness, and remarked, as if we had never spoken before, that he had watched me on the running-track and noticed my style improving; and he named one or two victors my trainer had taught. On my replying as shortly as I knew how, he praised my modesty, saying I had the manners of a better age, and quoting Theognis. I could see my father listening with approval. But as soon as he turned his head away, Kritias moved his cup a little, so that the wine spilled down my clothes. On this he apologised, said he hoped it would leave no stain, and put his hand under the hem of my tunic in such a way that, to everyone but me, he would have seemed to be feeling the cloth.

I don’t know how I refrained from bringing the pitcher down upon his head. He knew I should be ashamed to call attention to him, before my father and his friends. I withdrew at once, though without saying anything, and went over to the mixing-bowl to fill the jug. I thought no one had noticed; but when I got round to Tellis, the man who had been too poor to pay his own subscription, he spoke to me with a certain gentleness which told me that he knew. Looking up, I saw Kritias watching us together.

When the garlands had been brought in and the slaves had shut the door and gone, one or two people invited me to sit beside them; but I sat on the foot of my father’s couch. They had been capping verses, a diversion in which Kritias had shone; but now being alone they glanced round at each other, and there was a pause. Then Theramenes said, “Well, every dog has his day, and today is the demagogues’.”

To this several voices assented. He went on, “They think with their ears, their eyes, their bellies or what else you like, except their minds. If Alkibiades has been insolent to them, he must be guilty. If he has spent money at the shop, and remembered to smile, he could walk the City with a smashed Herm under his arm and still be as innocent as this boy here. But remind them a little of expediency, point out to them that he is a strategist of genius such as Ares sends once in a century; their eyes glaze over; what do they care? They’ve not set foot on a battlefield in three generations; they have no armour, no, but they can give us our marching orders, and choose the generals.” Kritias said, “And we, who carry the burden of the City, are like parents with spoiled children: they break the roof-tiles, we pay.”

“As for justice,” Theramenes said, “they have as much notion of it as the guts of a mullet. I tell you, my dear Myron, this very night I could raise a drunken brawl here, strike you before all these witnesses, wound your slaves; and if you would only come to court looking and behaving like a gentleman, I undertake you would lose your case. I, you see, should put on the old tunic I wear on my farm, and have a speech written for an honest poor fellow, which I should con till it came like nature to me. I should bring my children along, borrowing some little ones as the youngest is ten; and we should all rub our eyes with onion. I assure you, in the end it would be you who would pay the fine, for plying your simple friend with stronger stuff that he could afford at home, and trying to profit by it. They would spit on you as you left.”

My father said, “Well, I agree, they are often like children. But children can be taught. Perikles did it. Who does it now? Now their folly is tended and fanned for gain.”—“Whoever complains of them,” said someone, “it shouldn’t be Alkibiades. He invented demagogy. Just because he practises it with a certain grace, don’t let us close our eyes to that.”—“Let us credit him with the invention, if you wish,” said Kritias, “but not with perfecting the art. He should have known better than to insult his strongest ally. He will pay for it.”

“I must be slow tonight,” Tellis said. “What ally do you mean?” Kritias smiled at him, not without contempt. “Long ago,” he said, “there lived a wise old tyrant. We do not know his name or city, but we can infer him. His guards were sufficient, perhaps, to protect his person, but not to rule with. So out of the stuff of mind he created twelve great guardians and servants of his will: all-knowing, far-shooting, earth-shaking, givers of corn and wine and love. He did not make them all terrible, because he was a poet, and because he was wise; but even to the beautiful ones he gave terrible angers. ‘You may think yourselves alone,’ he said to the people, ‘when I am closed in my castle. But they see you and are not deceived.’ So he sent out the Twelve, with a thunderbolt in one hand and a cup of poppy-juice in the other; and they have been excellent servants ever since, to whoever knew how to employ them. Perikles, for instance, had them all running his errands. You would have thought it might have taught Alkibiades something.”

It was the first time in my life that I had heard talk of this kind. My mind went back to the dawn of this same day, when I had stood in the High City; it seemed a small thing to have kept my body to myself, when this had no defence from his filthy hands.

My father, who clearly thought that my presence might have been better remembered, sent me round with the wine as a reminder. Then he said, “For that matter, nothing is proven yet. Reason asks a motive, no less than the law. Nothing could profit him so much as to conquer Sicily; the difficulty, I imagine, would be to stop the people crowning him king. If any Athenian broke the Herms, look for one who has his own eyes on a tyranny, and fears a rival.”

Kritias said, “I doubt whether anyone will look so far, when the story of the Eleusis party gets about.”

At this, there was a sound all round the room, of men filling their lungs to speak, and emptying them in silence. My father said, “The boy is an initiate.” But they had thought again, and no one spoke.

It was my father in the end who broke the pause. “Surely,” he said, “even our heavy-handed friends of the Agora will hardly be solemn over that, after so long. Any good speech-writer … One knows what young men are who begin to reason, and think themselves emancipated. A procession with torches round the garden; new words to a hymn-tune; a surprise in the dark and some laughter; and the end nothing worse than a little love-making, perhaps. It was the year we … He had scarcely grown his beard.”

Kritias raised his brows. “Why no. I don’t imagine that would raise much dust today. Did he get the notion so long ago? I was speaking of this winter’s party. He will hardly pass that off as a boyish romp, I am afraid. They raided the store, you know, for the ritual objects. It will take a very good speech-writer to explain that away. They did everything. The prayer, the washings, the Words; everything. Did you not know, Myron?” My father put his wine-cup from him and said, “No.”

“Well, those who were there will have taken care to forget it by this time, no doubt. Unluckily, as it was late and some confusion prevailed, the slaves were overlooked and remained till the end. Some were uninitiate.”

At this I heard, all round the couches, an indrawn breath. Kritias said, “They did the Showing, too. They brought in a woman.” He added something, which it is unlawful to write.

There was a long silence. Then a man in the far corner said, “That is not only blasphemy. It is hubris.”

“It is more dangerous than that,” Kritias said. “It is frivolity.” He picked up his cup and set it down again, to remind me it was empty. “He will destroy himself because he cannot keep his mind on serious things. His capacity is excellent; he begins a business of some gravity, knowing himself capable of success, and discounting the results of failure. Then something crosses his path: a quarrel, a love-affair, a practical joke that he can’t resist. He enjoys dangerous improvisations. He has the soul of an acrobat. Recall his public debut, to contribute to the war fund. No one knows better the value of an entrance. But he won’t leave his fighting quail at home; and this when the ban is on. It gets out of his mantle; in the event, people are tickled, and tumble about the Theatre trying to catch it for him. Ignoring all who might be useful later, he receives it from a nobody, the pilot’s mate of a warship; they go home together, and the man is about him to this day. Another time, entering on affairs, he will take a course in debate. He goes to Sokrates; not a discreet choice, but far from a foolish one, for the man, though mad, is a most accomplished logician; I have profited from him myself and don’t care who knows it. His processes, of course, all lead towards a rationalism which he himself refuses to accept; one knows these eccentrics. But Alkibiades, who by this time has tasted everything beautiful in the City, of all three sexes, is taken by the man’s extraordinary ugliness, and suffers him to extend the lesson in all directions. Before very long, he has caught his lover’s vagary for reforming the gods, and, by a simple syllogism, infers that unreformed gods are fair game. Hence the dangerous little mummery you spoke of, Myron. Nowadays he has given up improving the Olympians, though in matters of love he could probably instruct them. And danger, like wine, has to be strong now to quicken his blood.”

I stood beside the wine-mixer, the jug in my hand, looking at Kritias. I was wishing him dead. I remember thinking that if I could make him meet my eye, my curse would be more effectual; but he did not look.

Then Tellis, who had not spoken for some time, said in his quiet voice, “Well, we began by discussing the Herm-breaking. If we can be sure of anything, I should say, we can rule improvisation out. A couple of hundred men could scarcely have done it, all round the City in a night. Were they knocked up here and there by drunks, and no one remembers? None of these chance people refused, and denounced them? No, Myron is right; it was planned to a hair, and not by Alkibiades.”

Kritias said smoothly, “No one, I am sure, will think worse of Tellis for supporting his host.”

The men had been drinking, and were full of their affairs. But I, who was watching, saw Tellis’ face stiffen, as at the first bite of a sword-thrust. When you have thought yourself among good friends, who have given the best proof of their liking for your company, it strikes hard to be called a sycophant for the first time. I knew he would never sup with the club again. I went over to him and filled his cup, knowing no other way to show what I felt; and he smiled at me, trying to greet me as he always did. Our eyes met above the wine-cup, like men’s who have picked up the sound of a lost battle before the trumpet blows the retreat.