The Road to Sardis

by Stephanie Plowman

  Alcibiades said, ‘Your voice, Socrates, would probably in no time at all have me caught by the ear, as you’ve had me during the past twelve years. And you watch out, young Lycius—he and his voice will be reaching out for you, too.’

  While the light, charming voice rattled on, I had been watching the subject of the conversation with great attentiveness. Nowadays people talk a great deal of Socrates’ phenomenal ugliness. Don’t I ever notice, they ask, as if there’s something wrong with my eyesight—haven’t I ever been shocked by it? The answer, of course, is no. In the first place, his face, ever since I have known him, has been the face of a friend, and I suppose you get a kind of blindness where a friend’s face is concerned, because you are so used to it. Secondly, when I met him I was a very young child, and young children don’t see ugliness as older people do. If his face had been hideously scarred, no doubt I would have been shocked; if his expression had been ugly, no doubt I would have whimpered with fright; if his face had been livid with ill-health, then I should have been repelled. As it was, however, though I thought him unusual-looking, I didn’t think him ugly, and though I’d heard Tecmessa saying his face was just like a comic mask, my only reaction to this had been, ‘What fun to know someone with a face like that!’

  So I sat watching him with the intent child’s gaze that most people find so disconcerting, though he only smiled broadly; and then I began to look thoughtfully from him to my cousin. Young as I was, I had seen and heard enough in that hour to realise what an oddly assorted pair they were. My stare must have been a speaking one, for he chuckled suddenly and, waving a stubby hand at the golden-haired, god-like Alcibiades, as much now in the centre of the lamplight as earlier he had stood in the centre of the sunlight, he remarked, ‘That poor fellow’s hardly done by in comparison, isn’t he? Deep-set eyes—not like mine that stick out so usefully that I can see in all directions; long, straight nose, quite unlike mine that’s been rubbed up the wrong way so that I can catch any smell that’s going.’

  I have often thought since that he might not have always been so cheerful about his grotesque looks: a child as young as myself would not notice them, but you can’t get any animal more cruel than a schoolboy, and many times I have wondered how he felt when his class companions remarked on his odd appearance.

  But at that time I wasn’t worrying about his early life; I was simply bothering my head as to why two such entirely different people should be friends. I remarked as much, and Socrates replied promptly, ‘Two people with such entirely different ideas about the meaning of friendship, too, Lycius!’

  ‘Meaning?’ said my cousin, blue eyes gleaming.

  Socrates smiled and said, ‘Aren’t there two ways of looking at friendship? To some people it’s loving, to the self-centred it’s merely being loved.’

  ‘You do like jabbing away at my self-esteem, don’t you?’ said my cousin. ‘It’s all mottled yellow and purple now, with bruises past and present.’

  At this moment a conscience-stricken Tecmessa rushed in, asking the gods to forgive her for forgetting my bedtime. My cousin, at his most charming, assured her that if I had shown the slightest signs of drowsiness, he would have put me to bed personally.

  ‘I’ve taken a great liking to my little cousin, you know!’ he assured her. He stooped to embrace me. ‘I’m coming again to see you, Lycius,’ he said. ‘You’re a delightful little fellow.’

  I thanked him, but next moment was gazing enquiringly past him. ‘Will he come too?’ I asked.

  My cousin grinned. ‘He’ll only come if he thinks you’re as beautiful inside as you are out,’ he said.

  Socrates said, ‘Bring him to see me; it will do the child good to be out in the open air. Bring him up on the Acropolis tomorrow morning, away from the crowded streets. I suppose that will be allowed?’

  He turned courteously to Tecmessa. She looked with great doubtfulness at my cousin, but then, turning to Socrates, made up her mind. ‘As long as he gets to you, he’ll be safe enough,’ she said dryly.

  Alcibiades showed no rancour; in fact he burst out laughing.

  ‘Have no fear!’ he said. ‘If I’m supposed to go to him and don’t turn up, he always tracks me down!’

  Before I fell asleep that night, I thanked the gods devoutly for letting me meet Socrates, who was so enormously reassuring. I couldn’t make up my mind whether I should thank them for bringing my cousin too—he was a very exciting person, but with Father and Uncle and Grandfather away and my brother dead, I stood horribly in need of reassurance And Alcibiades, I felt, could never exactly symbolise that.

  * The most beautiful suburb of Athens, where the public sepulchre was situated.

  5

  Meeting on the Acropolis

  He might not be reassuring, but he was certainly magnificent when he came to call for me next day. He wore a white and gold tunic, with a great purple cloak over it, so that, despite his height, it trailed on the ground. The slave who ran in to announce his coming, gave us all the details.

  ‘Very fine, no doubt,’ said Tecmessa. ‘I wonder if it’s all paid for?’

  ‘Paid for? But there was plenty of money coming to him when he came of age.’

  ‘And plenty’s gone away from him since. All the talk in the market-place is that he’s out to snap up an heiress—heaven help her!’

  Alcibiades set me on his shoulder and we started off for the Acropolis. He attracted immense attention—he always did, of course, but a seven-year-old perched on his shoulder made tongues wag even more than usual.

  ‘Hello, Alcibiades!’ drawled one would-be exquisite youth who aped his leader by also wearing a very big cloak—and even I could see it looked all wrong on him. ‘Another variation on the dog’s tail idea?’

  ‘This is my cousin,’ said Alcibiades brusquely. ‘Not your side of the family, thank God! We’re going to join Socrates.’

  ‘Oh, a further variation still!’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Well, everyone knows perfectly well you only go round with that horrible looking creature in order to make people talk—and also, of course, because his quite ghastly appearance sets off your beauty so well!’

  Alcibiades said in a pleasant voice, ‘Watch out for your own beauty, my dear Adeimantus!’ To me he said matter-of-factly, ‘Hold hard, Lycius—cavalry charge—’ and then, with me clinging to his red-gold hair, he strode over to his relative and, with a series of tremendous clouts, boxed his ears in no uncertain manner. ‘Occasionally,’ he said between his teeth, ‘I like a little intelligent conversation, but you wouldn’t understand that.’

  We left the wretched fellow sobbing and cursing; I released my grip of Alcibiades’ hair, steadied myself by putting my skinny arm about the strong brown neck. He turned his head and flashed a smile at me. ‘All right up there?’ he queried. ‘There are the makings of a cavalryman in you, young fellow. Can you ride yet?’

  ‘Only on the donkey,’ I said. ‘But when my father comes back from Plataea . . .’

  ‘Well, if he’s not back soon, I’ll start you with your riding lessons,’ said Alcibiades. He went on, more serious than I had ever seen him, ‘The sooner you become a first class horseman the better—you’re half an Alcmaeonid, remember, and everyone knows about our horses, while your father’s family haven’t done badly either.’

  ‘Father won the chariot race,’ I nodded.

  ‘Ah, yes!’ he said, his eyes gleaming, ‘I remember that well!’ And he launched into the most thrilling description of the race, how the chariots pitched and rolled, leaping into the air when stones drove up under the wheels, the thunder of the horses’ hooves, the grating noise of wood and metal when two collided, the dreadful sound of the maddened, terrified horses screaming, the wild swing round into the level stretch in such a cloud of dust that it was impossible to see who led, and then, finally, my father riding superbly clear, leaning forward, calling his horses by name, laughing into the wind as he clattered past the finishing line.

 
Not even Theron or my father himself had ever described the victory so clearly; I remember thinking this was a trifle odd, but before I had framed any comment, a new thought banished the earlier one.

  ‘Why did that stupid Adeimantus talk about a dog’s tail?’ I demanded.

  Alcibiades gave a sudden shout of laughter.

  ‘Oh, that! I had a dog a couple of years ago—a Molossian hound.’

  ‘A big dog,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes, size of a young calf—a beauty too. I had his tail cut off.’

  This, more than his assault on his crony, caused me nearly to fall off his shoulder.

  ‘Why?’ I asked. We had had some Molossian hounds; I remembered my father and Theron, hunting spears in hand, looking over their points and remarking on the importance of the length of the tail.

  ‘Oh,’ said Alcibiades airily, ‘to give people something to talk about. They were so damned keen on gossiping about me, I thought I’d provide ’em with a topic that wouldn’t really hurt me.’

  ‘It hurt the dog,’ I said, feeling suddenly and abysmally downcast.

  ‘It hurt me too!’ he said, still laughing. ‘Seventy minas that dog cost me—no hope of getting the money back if I sold it.’

  We approached Socrates in silence. He seemed quite absorbed, fingering affectionately the twenty fluted channels of one of the Parthenon columns.

  ‘Let’s make him start!’ whispered Alcibiades, stalking his friend like a hunter stalking his quarry, but when we were still a few yards away, Socrates said, without turning his head, ‘Edges still sharp as a razor.’

  Thwarted in his attempt to surprise him, Alcibiades asked, ‘Prophetic sense at work so early, Socrates?’

  ‘No,’ replied Socrates, ‘only the quite humdrum sense of hearing. I caught a distant yell of anguish, then the sound of swearwords run together, and so guessed you were on your way. Ever since I first knew you as a boy, your approach has been heralded with shouts of pain and anger!’

  ‘It was that fool Adeimantus; you know, my cousin on my father’s side!’ said Alcibiades, flushed with rage. ‘He deserved all he got!’

  I piped up, ‘He said my cousin liked being seen with you just to get talked about.’

  Instead of getting annoyed too, Socrates merely looked amused.

  ‘So Adeimantus, like better men, is suffering from the truth,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not true!’ said Alcibiades violently. ‘You know it’s not true.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s not true now, but it was once, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I’m sure it never was, sir,’ I said earnestly.

  Socrates reached up arms quite disproportionately long in relation to the rest of his body, and plucked me down from my cousin’s shoulder.

  ‘Lycius,’ he said confidentially, ‘I’ll tell you a secret—he hasn’t known this till now, either! The first time I set eyes on him was when he was lying down in the road defying a wretched cart driver who was trying to drive along the street where Alcibiades was playing knuckle-bones in the dust; we had a talk after that, and he hung around me for the rest of the day. The second time I saw him—’

  ‘Was after the row when the idiots said I’d won the wrestling match unfairly by biting—’

  ‘Biting?’ I was shocked. ‘Did you?’

  ‘Of course. The biting didn’t matter—the winning did. They couldn’t get away from that—he had to let go his hold.’

  He gave another of his shouts of laughter. ‘You should have seen his face—he was nearly in tears—and all the solemn faces around us, when I said I was just doing what a lion-cub would do; even Socrates was looking disapproving, weren’t you, Socrates? And you can’t deny you were there!’

  ‘I’m not attempting to deny it, I’m only saying that wasn’t the second time I saw you.’

  ‘Of course it was,’ said Alcibiades rudely. ‘I’d remember seeing you; you know how people do notice you, somehow!’

  Socrates said, ‘The second sight you had of me isn’t necessarily the second sight I had of you, you know. I’d seen—and heard you—a few days after our first meeting, but you hadn’t eyes for me. You were, my dear Alcibiades, far too intent in describing me—like a pelican, you said I was, among other things, and that was the most flattering comparison—and you were mimicking my pot-bellied waddle, as you put it, and your friends, your cousin Adeimantus among them, were laughing till the tears ran down their cheeks.’

  ‘Where?’ said Alcibiades, very quiet now.

  ‘Why, here on the Acropolis. Hearing half a dozen boys laughing, I couldn’t help leaving my work and strolling across.’

  A little pulse was beating at the corner of my cousin’s jaw. He looked oddly white. ‘That was a dozen years ago,’ he said. ‘You know that now I—I feel differently.’

  ‘So I flatter myself, but does that luckless beaten-up youth know as much? And here’s your other cousin staring big-eyed at us, and wishing we’d remember that he came here at my invitation, eh, Lycius?’

  I clutched at his arm, gestured with my free hand at my beloved House of the Maiden and said, with a grin of delight, ‘Did you help build this, Socrates?’

  He said he had helped his father, who was a trained stonecutter, and the particular column he had been examining when we came up had been the first he had worked upon.

  I looked thoughtfully up at the slender columns. ‘Helping in any way with the House of the Maiden must have been fine!’

  ‘One of the best things,’ said Socrates, smiling, ‘was the way we all worked together, freemen and slaves . . .’

  ‘Now don’t,’ interrupted Alcibiades, rousing himself from his sulks, ‘start giving the child your lecture on freedom and slavery.’

  ‘Oh, I know all about that,’ I said.

  ‘My dear little cousin, you don’t know Socrates’ version! He keeps telling me I’m a slave!’

  I rocked with laughter. ‘Socrates,’ I said appreciatively, ‘is funny!’

  But Socrates’ eyes, as he looked at my cousin, showed only sadness. However, all that he said was, ‘Very well, I shan’t run the risk of boring you.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Alcibiades, who by this time was sulking harder than ever, ‘you were helped tremendously by the inspiring words with which my guardian urged you on!’

  The odd sadness remained in Socrates’ eyes.

  ‘Pericles’ ideal of beauty,’ he said abruptly, ‘didn’t consist only of material things made by our hands—he dreamed that the very way we acted, lived, could be monument enough. He still thinks we’re capable of all that’s fine and beautiful.’

  ‘Well, aren’t we? If you’ve power, you can do everything—anything and everything.’

  ‘But that’s not the same thing.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but it’s a damned sight more sensible!’

  ‘Is acknowledging the truth the same thing as being sensible?’

  Alcibiades shrugged. ‘It depends upon what you mean by common-sense. I know the meaning of it.’

  Socrates smiled wryly. ‘And I’m trying to find the meaning of truth.’

  I asked, ‘What does it mean, Socrates? I know what it’s not—it’s not telling lies—but what is it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Socrates. ‘I don’t know whether I shall ever know. But I think, Lycius, we can put it this way: truth is something that no man and no god should ever fear.’

  6

  The Journey Begins

  Alcibiades said morosely as he took me home, ‘I hope when you’re older you’ll have more sense than to be a friend of Socrates, Lycius.’

  ‘Why did he say you were a slave?’ I asked, still puzzled. ‘Who owns you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m a slave to myself, I suppose,’ said Alcibiades, turning on his heel.

  Tecmessa stared reflectively after his retreating figure. ‘If I’d known he was feeling like that, I’d never have let you out of my sight,’ she said. ‘Still, no harm’s done, thank Heaven.’

  The harm, in fact, came the
way of an unhappy schoolmaster that afternoon. Alcibiades went back to Socrates, to find him discussing Homer with three or four of my cousin’s contemporaries. Alcibiades tried to monopolise the conversation, was defeated, started airing certain wild theories in order to claim attention, was asked for quotations to support his contentions. Unable to cite anything offhand, he stormed into a neighbouring school and demanded a copy of Homer from the master. The master did not have one, so Alcibiades boxed his ears as furiously as he had boxed the ears of the wretched Adeimantus earlier in the day. After this, it was not surprising that Pericles, who, though no longer his guardian, was still very much the god ruling his destiny, took action, and when next I saw Alcibiades he was looking consciously heroic in armour, going off for a spell of very dull garrison duty in one of the Black Sea forts that guarded the corn routes.

  He went away, my uncle had already gone away, everyone I knew seemed to have left Athens. But in the early summer the Spartans returned, and something else also came to Athens. The plague.

  That summer we had no Etesian winds.* If you have not lived in Athens in the summer, you can never appreciate the importance of these winds, which spring up after the Spring has gone, and take the edge off the heat. You can stand by the shore without noticing the faintest ripple on the sea, but your whole body feels what your eyes cannot see, that most blessed breath of coolness. Life in the City would have been quite unbearable without the Etesians, and in that dreadful burning, windless summer when the Etesians failed us, we did indeed learn the grim truth that without these unseen winds, life might be literally impossible.

  And this, I believe, meant that Pericles’ great strategic plan eventually failed; he could foresee almost every eventuality, and make provision for dealing with it, but he could not know that the Etesians would fail.

  The Spartans could not get at us behind the Long Walls, but something else could.

  With the old farmer I went up on the Walls to watch the glittering snake of the Spartan invasion force moving across the plain from the direction of Eleusis, the countryside all spring green before them, all black behind. After that he resolutely kept away from the Walls, and we resumed our long walks down to Piraeus. He did not have much breath left for talk, but once we were comfortably seated near the harbour, and he had made his preliminary lamentation that he hadn’t had a sprig of thyme to chew on the journey down—he missed having sprigs of thyme to chew as much as anything—he would start on his usual Cassandra theme.