The Last of the Wine: A Novel

by Mary Renault

  Lysis got out to his farm whenever he could. It was years since he had seen it, and the bailiff, though fairly honest, had had his own way too much. My father liked to see himself to what was left of ours. So I had time to walk with Sokrates, and to go about the City seeing what was new.

  One day I turned into the colonnade at Mikkos’s palaestra to see if my old trainer was still there. But as I entered I heard cymbals, flute and lyre, and found the boys instead of exercising were practising a dance in honour of Apollo. It was nearing the time when the sacred ship goes to Delos to celebrate his birth. Having once danced for him myself, I stayed to watch. The senior boys seemed, as one always finds, much younger than those of my day. They had just come forward to rehearse their part of the dance, some of them carrying baskets, water-pitchers and so forth to represent the sacred objects, others green branches to wave as laurel boughs.

  Upon a clash of cymbals the first line fell back, and through it leaped the second line to lead the dance in turn; and in the centre, hidden from me till then, I saw a boy. So one begins, when one means to describe someone: but while I have looked at the paper, making ready to write, the shadow has moved upon the wall. For the sake of saying something, I will note his eyes, which were of a blue more like the night sky than the day, and his clear wide brows. Mention ought also to be made of a defect he had, that his hair was grey, almost to whiteness. Some fever he had suffered had left it so; this I learned later, I forget from whom.

  It was, as it seemed, a late rehearsal; for instead of the gymnasium flute-player they had the real musicians who would play for them before the god. As I looked at the face of the boy dancing, I saw it filled with the music. He was, perhaps, himself a player of some instrument, or a singer. One saw the other boys taking their time from him, for he was never off the beat, and when they danced in single file he was set to lead them. He was not, however, given any solo to perform, being perhaps not counted perfect enough in his body to please Apollo, because of his hair. But then, I thought, they should have kept him altogether away; for he being there, what god, or what man, could have eyes for any other?

  The small boys next came on and the elder ones stood back; but on the face of this lad I saw the same look, calm yet sparkling, as when he had been dancing himself. I think they had not rehearsed with the music before, and the dance came to him as a picture seen by daylight, after the light of lamps. When one of the others spoke to him, he did not hear at first; then he answered smiling, without moving his eyes, watching the dance.

  I stood gazing, leaning upon a column, I do not know how long, time having grown still for me, like a pool deeper than it is wide. Then during a pause for rest, one of the musicians moved as if to go; I awoke to the flux of things, knowing the practice must end soon and the boy be gone. Now for the first time I looked about the colonnade, in search of someone I knew; and, a short way along from me, I saw Plato standing alone. I greeted him, and talked a little about the dance. Then, as easily as I could, I asked him the name of this boy or that, starting with those who had danced the solos. He told me, where he knew; presently I said, “And the grey-haired lad, the file-leader there, do you know his name?” He answered, “His name is Aster.”

  His voice was quite low; yet the boy, who all this while had not once glanced my way, lifted his head upon his name, and turned towards us his sea-dark eyes. Upon this moment my memory hangs transfixed; I do not know if they smiled at one another. As, while the lightning leaps between sky and sea, the shape of cloud or wave is indistinguishable, so with their joy.

  Walking away through the City, I saw I had been foolish not to watch the dance through to the end, and have the memory. For one can bear more than one supposes; and in Thrace once, when an arrow broke in me and they cut down for the barb, from having fixed my eyes on a mere bird in a tree I can see every feather still. But I had walked too far to turn back. As the pines that girdle Lykabettos touched me with their shade, I wondered what had brought me there. Then, a little higher up the mountain, where the rock feeds nothing but a few small flowers, a voice in me said, “Know yourself.” And I perceived the truth, that one does not feel such grief for the loss of what one never had, however excellent; I grieved rather for what had once been mine. So I did not sit down upon the rocks as I had meant to do, but climbed to the peak of the mountain, where the little shrine stands against the sky. There, remembering what is due to the gods and to the soul through whose truth we know them, I lifted my hand to Zeus the Father, and vowed him an offering, because he had given Sokrates in due time his sons.

  After a while I thought I would go to the City and find him; he seemed always to know when one was fit to listen and not to speak. Then I saw from the mountain the road to Lysis’ farm. He had not asked me for help; yet he was short-handed, and perhaps he had only thought I would rather see friends in the City. There was always the chance, too, of a stray band of Spartans getting through the Guard. I was ashamed that I had let him go alone. So I went down, and borrowed a horse from Xenophon, and rode out to do what he might need.

  22

  WE SAW ALKIBIADES PROCLAIMED upon the Pnyx supreme leader of the Athenians, a place that only Perikles had held before him; we cheered him as he stood on the great stone rostrum, his bright hair crowned with a wreath of golden olive, looking over the City like a charioteer above his team. We saw the curse pronounced against him for impiety thrown on its lead tablet into the sea; and marched with him along the Sacred Way, escorting the Procession of the Mysteries to Eleusis in King Agis’ teeth; the first time since Dekeleia fell that the City had dared to send it by land. We saw him received into the great temple, like the Goddess’s favourite son.

  Even his enemies joined in the paean of praise, lauding his victories so that the people, who never tired of gazing, would send him off to get more. It was said in those days that he need only have whistled, and Athens might have had a king again. Had he not come when we were beaten to our knees, and oppressed with tyrants, and made us the masters of the sea? But he left for Samos again before three months were up; and when people marvelled at his modesty, we who had come with him only laughed.

  We thought for our part that we could guess his mind. Nothing would content him now but to win the war. He was not moderate in any of his desires, but above all he liked to excel. It would be a sweet day for him when King Agis came suing for terms of surrender. The war had lasted twenty-three years now; he had been engaged in it, on one side or another, since he was a young ephebe, whom a sturdy hoplite, one Sokrates, had pulled out wounded from under the spears at Potidea, giving him back his life to use as he chose.

  So we said goodbye to friends and kindred, and made ready to sail. Once, before I left, I went back to Mikkos’ school to watch the boys at exercise. But this time my old trainer was there, and kept me talking; so it was only for a moment that I saw the boy Aster, standing with the javelin poised at his shoulder, aiming at the mark.

  We sailed to Samos, and dined out with envious friends upon our news from the City, and settled down to the war again.

  But lately, over in the Spartan base at Miletos, we found that there had been a change. We had profited well in the past from their stupid old custom of changing admirals every year. Sometimes the man they sent had never even been to sea before. Just lately the time had come round again. The new man was called Lysander.

  It did not do nowadays, we found, to reckon on a Doric wit. He had contrived very soon to meet the young Prince Cyrus, Darius’ son, a heart of fire in whom Marathon and Salamis rankled as if they had been yesterday. The Spartans he forgave; no one had lived to boast of Thermopylae. It was the Athenians who had turned the host that drank the rivers dry. So he gave Lysander money enough to raise his rowers’ pay.

  Neither side owned slaves enough to row a fleet. Each used free aliens mostly, who worked to make a living. Ours, therefore, began at once slipping over to Lysander. He had moved his fleet from Miletos, where we had had it under our eye, north to Ephesos. The
re, where a deserter from us could reach him in a day, he sat at ease, drilling his men, choosing the best rowers, and spending Cyrus’ silver darics on timber and pitch.

  We had all been ready to push on to Chios, whose capture would have been decisive. None of us doubted it would fall to Alkibiades; after all, he had taken it before, when it was ours. But now, with Lysander’s fleet between, and not enough silver to bid against him for rowers, we must wait for money from Athens, or sail to squeeze tribute out. One does not expect a commander-in-chief to sail on such petty missions, when his mind is fixed on total victory. For the first time on Samos, Alkibiades was bored.

  As men make light of the first signs of sickness, so did we of the change we began to find. We were angry with the Athenians at home, for plaguing him with despatches about the delay; the injustice put us on his side. “Let him be merry sometimes,” we said; “by Herakles he has earned it.” If when we wanted orders the street of the women had swallowed him up, we laughed, and saw to it for him, and said that when he had work worth while he would be there soon enough. If he was drunk, he was not silly drunk; and we put up with a good deal of insolence from him because he had a way with him even then. But we seldom saw him on the ships. The rowers we had were a rough lot, the remnant when Lysander had picked the market over; if their pay was behind, they would grumble and curse even in his hearing, knowing we dared not pack them off. He would make a joke of it, or would not hear; but I think it burned his soul, even from scum like these. He was in love with being loved, as some people are with loving.

  From this cause, I fancy, more than from indolence, he came less and less aboard, and used to send his friend Antiochos instead.

  I can’t pretend that I disliked this man as much as some did. On the Siren Lysis always offered him a drink, saying to me that it was a pleasure to hear anyone talk who knew his work so well. If he was vain of his seamanship, he was a fine seaman, bred to it from childhood; he could both sail a ship and fight it, and the most villainous rowers cringed before his eyes. As things were, he was much fitter for the harbour drill than Alkibiades; he had humour too, or you may be sure they would not have been friends so long. But if he got on a ship where the trierarch stood on his dignity at getting his orders through a pilot, or would not be told anything, he lost patience quickly, and was not very careful of his tongue. He had come from the people; if he did not expect to have it thrown at him in a city like Samos, I do not blame him; however, he was very much resented. The more so because Alkibiades, whose fortunes he had shared through all the years of exile, would never hear a word against him.

  Presently money got so tight that Alkibiades decided he would sail out himself to collect arrears of tribute. He was taking half the fleet north to the Hellespont, and leaving the rest behind to hold the Spartans. He roused himself to inspect the ships of his squadron; then he went back to his girls again; and the news broke that he was leaving Antiochos at Samos in supreme command.

  Our hut was full half the night of men standing about and swearing, drinking our wine, and saying what they would do, with the heat of men who know they can do nothing. At length some of them decided upon a deputation to Alkibiades, and invited Lysis to lead it. “Good luck to you,” said he, “but count me out. I came to Samos as a lieutenant; my men promoted me by vote. I didn’t equip my ship, nor fit her, nor do I pay my pilot’s wage. Dog doesn’t eat dog.”—“Don’t compare yourself with that fellow,” someone said; “a gentleman is another matter.”—“Tell Father Poseidon so next time he blows a gale. Old Bluebeard is the first democrat. And if you’re calling on Alkibiades, bear in mind that he’ll have all the company he needs, by this time of night.”

  Some cooled off at this; but the angriest urged one another on, and went. They found him, I believe, with his favourite girl, a new one called Timandra, and in no mood to be disturbed. He told them shortly that he had been appointed to lead a democrat army, and, not having heard of any change, had given command of the fleet to the best seaman in it. This, with the blue open stare that made his insolence bite like a wind off the mountains, sent them home with flattened hackles. He sailed next day.

  He called a council of the trierarchs just before he left; not to explain himself, but to tell us we were only to fight defensive actions while he was gone, and none that were in any way avoidable. We were only half a fleet; and all of Lysander’s was in port.

  I was busy just then. The Samians were about to hold the Games of Here, and learning I was a crowned victor, called me in to help train the boys. I found I liked the work; there were some fine youngsters there, whom it was a pleasure to give advice to; so I listened with half an ear when people complained of Antiochos, and of the blunt way he told the trierarchs that they were letting the mastery of the sea slip through their fingers. Now Alkibiades was gone he got us out twice as often on manoeuvre. Lysis, and some other keen young captains who wanted to learn, did not mind it; but some of those who owned their ships were so angry at being run here and there at a pilot’s orders, that they could have eaten him raw. Before long he decided that we needed an observation post at Cape Rain, across the strait, in case Lysander should try to slip north and take Alkibiades in the rear. So he took a score or so of ships, and stood across to Ionia.

  It seemed to me a folly. Samos has high mountains inland, from whose tops one sees a great space of sea all mixed with sky, and the isles like dolphins swimming in cloud. We kept lookouts up there, who could very well tell us what Ephesos was up to. It was one of these very men, indeed, who rode his mule down into Samos some days later, to say that a sea-fight was going on just outside Ephesos harbour.

  It had taken him some hours to get down from the mountain. We stripped for action, and stood by. Then another scout came from the hills to eastward, and reported a great smoke-plunge rising from Cape Rain, as if someone were putting a trophy up.

  We were not left uncertain long. Hard on this news, south through the straits limped the crippled ships, those that were left, with ragged oar-banks and started timbers, the men bone-tired with baling, the decks full of the hurt and half-drowned, picked up from the sinking wrecks. We helped the wounded to disembark, and sent out for wood to burn the dead.

  After three years of victory unbroken, we had forgotten the feel of a defeat. We were the army of Alkibiades, for whom, when we entered a tavern, all other troops made way, or left, if they had lately shown their back in battle; for we were choice about whom we drank with, and made no secret of it.

  Ship after ship came in, confirming the tale which at first we had disbelieved. Antiochos had sailed out of port that morning, on patrol as he said, with a couple of ships, dropped sail outside Ephesos harbour, and rowed right into it, across the prows of Lysander’s beached warships, shouting insults, till the readiest put out in chase of him. The Athenians at Cape Rain, seeing an engagement going on, sent some ships to help; the Spartans reinforced their own; and this went on till both fleets were fully engaged, all piecemeal and haphazard; with such result as, considering the difference in numbers alone, might have been foreseen.

  Already an ugly crowd was gathering on Samos waterfront, waiting for Antiochos to come in. If he had been stoned, I don’t think some of the trierarchs would have stirred to stop it.

  As for Lysis and me, though we had lost good friends in the action, it had got beyond that with us. We saw that this man, who had been loyal to Alkibiades through every change of fortune for five and twenty years, would now be his ruin. After these months of idleness, his credit in Athens would never hold through this. His enemies would get at last all they had needed. So we two waited, a little ashamed perhaps of our curiosity, to see how a man would look who had done such a thing to his friend, and had yet to bring him news of it.

  “Did he run mad?” I said. “He could close-haul anyone; a planned assault, even against odds, would have given him a chance.”—“How many trierarchs do you think would have followed him, clean against orders, if he had asked them first?”—“They sa
y,” I answered, “that he has been at Alkibiades for years to give him a command. For his friend’s sake, I suppose, he gave it the look of accident, not to flout his orders openly.” Lysis shook his head. “Everyone is to blame,” he said. “Alkibiades for giving in to him, from laziness, or out of softness for the man because he saw him slighted. The trierarchs who goaded him till he flaunted, like a green lad new to arms, to prove himself as good as they. But he himself most of all, for buying his pleasure with what was not his to spend. The trierarchs hated him, yet they stood by him in his folly; the worst of them, in the event, have shown themselves his betters. All these three years it has been our honour to stand together, to obey a sudden order without question, never to leave a hard-pressed ship without support. All this, which he held in trust, he spent in his own quarrel; and that, though I pity him, I can’t forgive. For it will be flawed henceforward, as you will see.”

  Just then his ship rounded the point, water-logged, dragging on splintered oars. She came in and beached, and the crowd growled and waited. The wounded were helped or carried off, and still Antiochos did not show himself. Then they brought ashore a dead body, lying on a plank. The breeze lifted the sea-cloak and showed the face. I daresay that when he saw what the end would be, he had not been very careful of his life. He had never feared death, or any man living, except Alkibiades.

  The fleet was sighted a few days later, returning from the Hellespont. There was a great crowd round him when he came ashore, and I was far back in it; but he was so tall that one could see his face over other men’s heads. I saw him stare, wondering at the silence; and, when he had the news, I could have told you to the moment when he said, “Send Antiochos to me,” and got his answer.