The Mask of Apollo: A Novel

17

IT WAS NOW SOME WEEKS PAST MIDSUMMER. We were in the west, in an Olympic year; it would be stupid to linger in Sicily when we could take in the Games on our homeward way.

I had had to miss the last festival, and Thettalos had never been at all; his father had believed in attending to business, not jaunting about. I was nearly as eager as he; at my last visit, eight years before, I had been little older than he was now. One’s life takes long strides, between Olympics.

I still knew my way about, well enough to buy stores at Elis and hire a pack mule, which costs less than being skinned by the traders on the spot. We bought our own tent; if one sells it later it’s as cheap as hiring and much cleaner. There is a bank at Elis where one can leave spare cash before going on. All the great festivals are holy to Hermes the Light-fingered.

Having thus saved time and temper, we got on ahead of the crowds, in time to pitch our tent in a cypress grove with good shade, so that we would not come back tired at evening to lie in a bake-oven. On the best sites near the Altis, which are bespoken by important visitors far ahead, servants were already putting up pavilions, to be ready when their masters came. The athletes who for two months had been training here were still walking about like men with the place to themselves: thick hulking wrestlers, lean runners, broken-nosed boxers, and some most lovely boys, their proportions not yet spoiled, like the men’s, with lopsided exercise for one event.

The crowds were coming. Every road had a dust cloud ten feet high for as far as one could see. The first market was opening, for food, cook-pots and oil, blankets and tent ropes, fire grids and knives. Next day, when visitors are settled in, is the time for fairings, such as ribbons, gilt strigils, charms, cheap vases, painted figures of well-known actors in character (the comics sell best, but I found one or two of me). Last appear the costly goods for rich connoisseurs: wine cups with beautiful athletes drawn in the bowls, embroideries, small marbles, inlaid armor, books in fine calligraphy, goldwork from Macedon. There were women answering to all these classes, at prices to match. They had to keep on the far side of the river, but one could see their tents, from straw lean-to’s up to silk, skirting the banks, all ready for the athletes when they broke training, and the visitors loose from their wives.

Soon the quiet grove round our tent was a mass of squatters, putting up bivouacs, making cook-fires, or just spreading out the beds they would sleep on in the open. We hired a lad to guard our pitch, and went off sightseeing. In the Altis we met, of all people, Theodoros, without a roof for his head. He had been invited months before by a well-off Athenian sponsor; this man, as appeared later, had been taken suddenly ill, too late to get word to Theodoros, who was then in Corinth, and now looked in vain for his host’s pavilion. Of course, once his plight was known he would have had a score of offers, and we were flattered at his choosing to take potluck with us. He was a perfect companion for the feast, knowing who everyone was and what they had all been doing; no city in Greece held many secrets from Theodoros. At bedtime, when we were sitting round our fire, he did us his party tricks; he could imitate any animal or any thing with a sound. When he did his most famous turn, the creaking windlass, all the campers in hearing, who had to fetch water from the river, started up and began looking for the well. To explain would have brought us a crowd of hundreds; we had to smother our laughter and leave them searching.

Next morning was the formal opening of the Games; the air rang with trumpet calls from the heralds’ contest; presently the winner, who would give out all the victories, sounded for the dedication. We saluted Zeus and Pelops from a distance; the crowd round the Great Altar was as thick as porridge, and as hot.

By now the sleepy valley was like a city, and all the side shows were on. In the recital hall some political philosopher, from the school of Isokrates, I think, was delivering an endless lecture, instructing the world’s leaders on how to conduct their state affairs for their own good and that of Greece. All the envoys, sophists and politicians were there; the hall was packed and they were standing in the stoa, even out in the sun. Theodoros pointed out to us the secret agents, who, indifferent to what the expert insisted should be done, were moving among his auditors to learn what was really happening. We noticed too a knot of bright-haired Macedonians, loaded with massive jewelry (I admit they can wear it and it is exquisitely made) all listening just like Greeks. Though they make wildly enthusiastic theater audiences (every actor has a stock of stories about Pella) this sophistication surprised me. Theodoros, however, said he noticed a change each time he went there; they were getting more and more involved with the southern states; not, he added, that it would come to much until one of their kings could contrive to stay alive for two Olympiads running. It was remarkable, he said, that the role was still so much sought after. He wondered how the lecturer would shape in it.

We walked on, visiting a booth of dancing dwarfs, a concert in the mixolydian mode for double-flute, aulos and kithara; a diviner who foretold the winner of the stade race by casting pebbles (the morrow proved him wrong), and even, briefly, a lawyer’s exposition of how he could win his client’s case when justice, law, public opinion and all the evidence were on the other side. Then we walked back the way we came. In all this time, the political philosopher had only just stopped talking. The street crowd had dispersed, and the audience was coming out, discussing as keenly as if all these words might engender some real event.

I was saying this to Theodoros, when at the far end of the street I saw someone coming, whose walk I knew at a glance. It was Plato. Speusippos was with him, as well as Xenokrates, and a group of friends and well-wishers. I was glad to see him back where he belonged, among people fit for him, and pointed him out to the others. Thettalos remarked that he was looking better, but that Syracuse had left its mark. Theodoros, who had been watching intently, said, “From the people greeting him, it seems he has only just arrived.”

“Yes,” I answered. “He’ll have come straight from Tarentum.”

“Then, my dears, let us wait where we are, for unless I’m wrong we shall see a memorable bit of theater. In a moment he will meet with Dion.”

“Are you sure?” For some reason I wished to doubt it. “There were none of his men working on the pavilions.”

“Niko, my dear, you don’t suppose Dion has to bring his own tent like common people? He’ll be at the state hostel, the Leonideion, with the other lions. Look, here he comes now.”

He came out into the sunlight, with a train about him, among them Herakleides and his Athenian friend Kallippos. They were conversing, and well out in the street before they noticed anything. Plato saw Dion first. He slowed down; those with him all fell silent. As he came on, people round them became aware. He must have felt it; but he had had practice lately in keeping his thoughts to himself, if he had needed it. I saw, or fancied, a searching in his face, either of the man down the street, or the man within.

Now Dion had noticed the stares. He scanned the street, stopped dead, strode forward. Thettalos’ hand closed round my wrist.

They met. Dion clasped Plato’s hands, took his arm, and drew him aside. The gesture was explicit, dismissing both their retinues; all fell back, and stood looking after them as they walked our way. I saw Kallippos pour out words to Herakleides. I don’t know what they were looking for; as for me, I had seen what I had seen: the perfect seemliness with which Dion had greeted Plato and asked after his health, and his impatience showing behind it like fire round a furnace door. It was something to be got through, before he could ask for news.

Of all places on earth, I should think none offers less privacy than Olympia in Games Week. One can’t even relieve nature in the presence of fewer than a dozen; one would need walk a mile into the country to find oneself alone. Dion was a Council guest; Plato no doubt was sharing a tent with friends. Neither was one for creeping into a corner. What Plato had to tell Dion, he told him in the Street of Victors, upon the marble seat under the statue of Diagoras the Runner. Standing between two plinths nearby, we saw it all.

No doubt Dion must have heard something about the selling-up of his properties; but I think he must have supposed the capital still intact, if Dionysios could be made to send it. In any case, I could tell the truth had taken him by surprise. One could guess just how it was going: Plato leading in with the loss of the money, as the least of the evils, Dion swallowing that without too wry a face, his calm just setting hard, then asking after his son. I knew that from Plato’s pause. He told, I suppose, as much truth as he had to. Dion swallowed, his mouth clenched; this touched him closer. Plato offered some consolation; I don’t know how much he heard of it. He was watching Plato’s face, which told him something unguessed was still to come. I could tell just the moment when he cut him short to ask.

Plato did not keep him waiting. After that, there was silence. It seemed to spread from Dion all along the street. It was like one of those great mute build-ups in Aischylos, for Achilles or for Niobe. But no big speech followed. Dion just clenched his fist and brought it quite slowly down upon his knee. His face said all the rest. Looking round, I saw Kallippos grasp Herakleides’ arm; Speusippos turned to Xenokrates, triumph in his eyes. Dion saw it too, a man used to living in public, who had said the thing he meant; no going back now. Then, as if pulled against his will, he turned again to Plato.

Plato said something, a handful of words, and slowly shook his head. For a moment he seemed quite alone, like a man watching a ship out of sight. Somewhere she may make port; but not the harbor he faced the storm for. He commends her to heaven, and turns away.

When they had gone, Theodoros, who without knowing what we knew had known well what he was looking for, said, “Did you see their faces? There will be war.”

I said that it seemed so to me. We talked; but Thettalos was quiet. At last he turned to me and said, “Did he love his wife? You said not.”

“That was my guess. But he would hardly tell me.”

“In any case,” said Theodoros, “think of the affront. Could there be a greater?”

Looking at me again, Thettalos said, “Well, not to him.”

I understood him. I remembered Speusippos’ little flute-girl, whose father had died in the quarries, one of thousands in these long years. I had seen, just now, her story and his anger still burning in Speusippos’ face. I thought of Plato, thrown to the wolves of Ortygia, barely scraping out with his life. Through all these things, Dion had remembered the maxims of Pythagoras and the teachings of the Academy. But there is a limit to what the just man can bear.

We walked on towards the temple. I lifted my eyes. There on the west gable stood Apollo, stern and beautiful among the Lapiths, shedding victory from his lifted arm.

I thought, Perhaps it is impossible for a philosopher to be a king—at any rate, to be both at once. Perhaps that is only for the god. There at his side stand Theseus and Pirithoos, the heroes who will win his battle. We are weary of ourselves, and have dreamed a king. If now the gods have sent us one, let us not ask him to be more than mortal.