The Last of the Wine: A Novel

by Mary Renault

  They put him down, and, excusing themselves to me, took away the cloak and the shield, for they had other bodies to fetch. He had been wounded between neck and shoulder; it was the bleeding that had killed him. He was so drained of blood that his flesh was not discoloured as one sees it in the dead, but like a clear yellow marble. There was blood on his armour, and in his hair. His helmet was off; his open eyes looked, as he lay, straight upward at the sky, as if they asked a question. I had to press my hand over them a long time, before they would close.

  His body had not stiffened yet, but his skin was growing cold. He lay already as one of the unnumbered dead. Always, from my first remembrance, whether he rode, or walked, or ran, or stood talking in the street, as far as I could see him I knew him apart from all other men; nor was it possible, in the darkest night, to mistake another’s hand for his. Now the flies were beginning to come, and I had to drive them away.

  I was weak as a young child, in mind and body, and yet I could not weep. That is well, you may say; for when a Hellene dies commendably, even a woman ought to restrain her tears. I too from my first youth had been taught what is proper to be felt on such occasions; nor had I been ignorant that what I loved was mortal. Yet now I was as a stranger to the earth, and to my own soul. For it said to me that if there be any god who concerns himself with the lives of men, the god himself must suffer with me. And when I thought that the Immortals live far off in joy, holding eternal festival, then it seemed to me that the gods were not.

  After I do not know how long, the men who had carried him came back, to see how I was. I said I was well enough, and asked if they had seen him fall. They said no, but they had heard him praised by those who had; and one said he had been there later, when he died. I asked him if he had spoken to anyone.

  “Yes,” said the man, “he spoke to Eukles, whom he knew better than me, and asked about you; he seemed afraid you might be dead. He said you had cried out for help to him; and I think he got his wound trying to reach you. We told him you had been carried off the field, but not hurt mortally, and he seemed content, and rested a little. By that time his mind was growing clouded, and he was beginning to yawn, as I have seen other men do when bleeding to death. Then he said, ‘He will care for the child.’ Had he one, then? But I suppose you know what he meant.” I answered, “Yes. Did he say anything else?”

  “Seeing he was nearly gone, Eukles asked if he wished to leave you anything for remembrance. He said nothing, but smiled. I daresay he had not heard. But when Eukles asked again, he said, ‘Whatever there is.’ Eukles showed him he had a ring on, and he tried to draw it off, but it had been there a long time and from weakness he could not. Eukles has it for you; he got it off after he was dead.

  “At just this time, the troops of the City fell back altogether from the Agora, leaving us masters of the field; and Thrasybulos ordered the trumpet to sound for victory. He opened his eyes and said, ‘Is that for us?’ I told him yes, and he said, ‘Then all is well, isn’t it?’ Eukles answered, ‘Yes, Lysis; all is well’; and with that he died.”

  I thanked him, and they went away. When they had gone, I lifted his hand, and saw how they had bruised it, pulling off the ring for me. Then I wept.

  Presently from the walls of Munychia I heard the victors singing a hymn of praise to Zeus. As I listened, my head swam, and my senses melted in darkness; for walking had opened my wound, and it had been bleeding again. Then men were lifting me upon a litter, and debating together whether I was alive. I did not speak, for it seemed no matter; but lay with closed eyes, listening to the triumph song.

  28

  A YEAR LATER, ON a warm day in spring, I went up to the High City, to receive an olive crown.

  It was only one of seventy, which the City had voted to Thrasybulos, and the men who went with him to Phyle. The civil war was over, and the tyranny crushed for good; for Lysander had over-reached himself in Sparta, intriguing for a kingship; King Pausanias had got wind of it, and moved to set him down. Seeking to sap his power everywhere, and thinking it policy besides, the kings had given us leave to set up a democracy again. So the City gave thanks to Zeus, and pledged itself to a rule of perfect justice between man and man.

  It was strange to stand again in the Maiden Temple, and feel the olive-twigs prick my brow. Many times in my youth I had prayed that Lysis and I might be crowned together; and he, I daresay, had prayed it too. Now it was I who received his wreath for him, and brought it home. I accepted it for Thalia, it being now my place to act for her in this and in all other things. But the mother of my sons has deserved better of me, these five and twenty years, than to be talked of at large, and already I have set down more than I ought.

  Afterwards there were speeches, praising the liberators, honouring the dead, and hailing the fair prospect before the City; for though we had lost empire, they said, we had found justice, the greatest gift of Zeus to man. Then there was a choral contest, a race in armour for men, and, as evening fell, a torch-race for the boys.

  I sat in the stadium, in the pause between the contests, thinking I would go down presently to see the lads I had trained for the race, and encourage those who might need it. But there was time yet. The water-sellers and the wine-sellers were busy, for the evening was warm and the runners had kicked up the dust. As you find at such times, friends saw each other from their seats (for it was hardly dusk) and came across, and others made room for them to sit together. Xenophon waved to me, and made his way over. We greeted each other warmly. The amnesty had given both of us a welcome excuse to heal our friendship. I said I had missed him lately in the City, and asked where he had been.

  “To Delphi,” he said, “to consult Apollo, how I should sacrifice before a journey I mean to make.” I asked if he was going far. “A good way,” he said. “To Persia, to fight for Cyrus.”

  I stared at him, too much surprised to speak. He said, “Proxenos, my Theban friend, has written to me from Sardis. He is in Cyrus’ service already, and tells me he has never met a finer soldier and gentleman. And Proxenos is a judge of such things. A force is needed, it seems, to clean some bandits out of the mountains; and Cyrus is open-handed, which is something to a man whose estate is encumbered like mine.”

  “It sounds like an odd business to me. Hire an army of Hellenes to clean out bandits? You can’t trust a Mede’s word; you might be in for anything. Didn’t you ask the oracle, while you were about it, whether you should go at all?” He laughed rather shamefacedly. “That’s what Sokrates said. Well, I admit I didn’t want to change my mind. But I suppose if Apollo had been much against it, he would have given me a hint.”

  I felt more concerned for him than I liked to say. Even in peacetime, he would do himself great harm at home by hiring his sword to the patron of Lysander. But he must know it; he was a soldier and no fool. And I thought to ask him why he was leaving the City, just when things were on their feet again; but I did not ask. For though he held himself still like a knight and an officer of horse, yet there had been something dimmed and quenched about him since the amnesty; he had looked like a man without a future. All through the troubles he had gone, as he saw it, step by step with his honour; in the end he had abhorred the tyrants as much as anyone; but his eyes had opened late; and it was true that the City had little use, at present, for men who had ever been loyal to the Thirty.

  “Any man,” he said, “wants to leave his name on record somewhere about the earth. Even a boy feels it, who carves a tree. I have dreamed sometimes of founding a city; but that is with the gods.” The wine-seller came round, and he stood me a cup; the usual rough stuff they sell at the games. “Besides,” he said, “I want to study Cyrus. They call him a man born to rule, and I want to know how such a man is made. One hears a great deal from this faction or that, how they are fit to govern, rather than anyone else. As Sokrates always says, a mason, or a smith, can tell you clearly how he qualifies for a job; but no one has defined the qualifications of a ruler; or, rather, no two agree on the definitio
n. Trouble always comes of not defining your terms; but more trouble than most, it seems, of not defining this one.”

  “Good luck, then,” I said, “with your definition. But bring it back here, for your friends to share.” I looked at him, tipping down the coarse wine like a man who expects to put up with worse. I felt I was looking my last at the lad I still remembered. I was right. When I saw him again, it was five years later, and not in Athens. He was tanned like the thong of a javelin, and as tough as the shaft, a soldier who looked to have been cradled in a shield; but the oddest change, I think, was to see in one always so mindful of convention that careless outlandishness you find in irregular troops of great renown; men who seem to say, “Take it or leave it, you who never went where we have been. We are the only judges of one another.”

  He went off to some other friends; and I, seeing someone sign to me, stood up, and recognized Phaedo, and went over. Plato was with him, and, a few benches lower, Sokrates in talk with his old friend Chairophon, who was back from his exile with the democrats. They did not see me, coming behind; but Plato made me sit beside him. When we meet in public places, he has never ceased to show me courtesy. But he does not ask me to his house. Though I never came forward as the killer of Kritias (no man will boast of what he has bought too dear) yet it was known to a few; and no doubt it will be a bad day for the City, when men are so lost to piety that they play host to the shedder of a kinsman’s blood.

  We talked of indifferent things, and watched the juggler who was tossing torches in the Stadium, for twilight was falling. On the bench just below ours, Anytos was talking with some friends. He too had been crowned that day for his work in the resistance, and no one had deserved it better. He had laboured in exile almost as hard as Thrasybulos, and fought well at Piraeus though no longer young. He was a man who had never done anything by halves. Long before, when all the City was in love with Alkibiades, Anytos’ passion had been notorious above all the rest, thriving on scorn and even on public insult. He had given a banquet once, it was said, to which the youth had refused to come. But Anytos did not cease his importunities, begging him almost on his knees to come on any terms. Alkibiades went off laughing; when the guests arrived, he was not there; but halfway through he appeared, standing in the doorway. Entreated to come in, he said nothing, but sent his servant to pick up the silver wine-cups on the table, and walked away with them, still without a word. This happened in the days when he was running after Sokrates; who, never asking anything for himself, I daresay had made the youth more contemptuous than before of his troops of slaves.

  Nowadays, however, Anytos was being hailed everywhere as a saviour of democracy; and had become the very type and pattern of a democrat. He made it a pride to go about with his right shoulder bared, like a workman, instead of the left; this though he was very well off, and employed in his tannery both freemen and slaves. He was making a name for himself in politics; this evening one saw him interrupted by many greetings, as he conversed with his friends.

  “Well,” he was saying, “we fought for this, and now we see it. Here sit the people, come into their own; the simple folk, met in brotherhood to proclaim their triumph, to honour the old virtues, to share their pride and feel their happiness. A day of scorn for the half-hearted, the triflers and equivocators, and any who did not feel their struggle as his own. Theirs is the future; this is their day.”

  His friends applauded. But Plato turned impatiently to Phaedo, saying, “What does the man mean, with all these booming words? Who are these people? Which persons? Who are the simple—Phaedo, what about you? Do you feel your happiness, Alexias? … Forgive me. You are free to ask me the same.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  His face darkened, and I saw I had stirred some thought that vexed him. “Take my advice,” he said, “and don’t stay till he corrupts your mind, and leaves you without principle or religion or reverence for anything, as he has other young men.”—“Corrupts me? Before I talked with Sokrates, I did not know what religion meant. It would be late to leave him now, Anytos. Since I was a child he has been as a father to me, and much more.” I saw a vein swell in his forehead; and when he spoke again, I perceived he had passed beyond logic, and was delivered up entirely to himself. “More than a father! You have said it. There is the root of the evil. Who can guide a lad better than his own father, I should like to know?”—“It depends,” I said. “A pilot might, don’t you think, if he were at sea? Or a physician, if he had fever? The City seems to think even I can do it better, when the boy is learning to run.” And I began to speak of those who were competing in the torch-race, thinking to calm him. But he was angrier than before.