At the height of the pass through the mountains, he looked west toward the bay where the Athenian fleet waited. He couldn’t see the ships, of course, not from about a hundred stadia away, but he looked anyhow. If anything had gone wrong with them, he would end up looking just as stupid as those Spartans who’d tried to slow down the Athenian phalanx.
He lost a few men on the journey down to the seashore. One or two had their hearts give out, and fell over dead. Others, unable to bear the pace, fell out by the side of the road to rest. “We wait for nobody,” Alkibiades said, over and over. “Waiting for anyone endangers everyone.” Maybe some soldiers didn’t believe him. Maybe they were too exhausted to care. They would later, but that would be too late.
Where was Sokrates? Alkibiades peered anxiously at the marching Athenians. The dear old boy could have been father to most of the hoplites in the force. Had he been able to stand the pace? All at once, Alkibiades burst out laughing once more. There he was, not only keeping up but volubly arguing with the younger soldier to his right. Say what you would about his ideas—and Alkibiades, despite listening to him for years, still wasn’t sure about those—but the man himself was solid.
As the Athenians descended the western slopes of the Taygetos Mountains, they pointed, calling, “Thalatta! Thalatta!”—The sea! The sea!—and, “Nêes! Nêes!”—The ships! The ships! Sure enough, the transports and the triremes protecting them still waited there. Alkibiades allowed himself the luxury of a sigh of relief.
Then sand flew up under his horse’s hooves. He’d reached the beach from which he and the Athenians had set out early the morning before. “We did our part,” he called to the waiting sailors. “How was it here?”
“The Spartans’ triremes stuck their noses in to see what we had,” a man answered. “When they saw, they turned around and skedaddled.”
“Did they?” Alkibiades had hoped they would. The sailor dipped his head. Alkibiades said, “Well, best one, now we shall do the same.”
“And then what?” the fellow asked.
“And then what?” Alkibiades echoed. “Why, then we head back to our polis, and we find out just who ‘the people of Athens’ really are.” The sailor grinned. So did Alkibiades.
Down in the hold of his transport, Sokrates could see very little. That being so, he spent as little time as he could down there, and as much as he could up on the narrow strip of decking that ran from bow to stern. “For is it not unreasonable, and clean against nature,” he said to a sailor who grumbled about his being up there, “for a man to travel far, and see not a bit of where he has gone?”
“I don’t care about unreasonable or reasonable,” the sailor said, which made Sokrates flinch. “If you get in our way, we’ll chuck you down where you belong.”
“I shall be very careful,” Sokrates promised.
And so he was…for a while. The fleet had come back into the Saronic Gulf, bound for Athens and home. There was the island of Aigina—Athens’ old rival—to the left, famous Salamis closer to the port of Peiraieus, with the high headland of Cape Sounion, the southeastern corner of Attica, off to the right. The sun sparkled from myriads of little waves. Seabirds dove for fish and then robbed one another, for all the world as if they were men.
Sokrates squatted on the decking and asked a rower, “How is your work here, compared to what you would be doing in a trireme?”
“Oh, it’s a harder pull,” the fellow answered, grunting as he stroked with the six-cubit oar. “We’ve only got the one deck of rowers, and the ship’s heavier than a trireme would be. Still and all, though, this has its points, too. If you’re a thalamite or a zeugite in a trireme—anything but a thranite, up on the top bank of oars—the wide-arsed rogue in front of you is always farting in your face.”
“Yes, I’ve heard Aristophanes speak of this in comedies,” Sokrates said.
“Don’t have to worry about that here, by Zeus,” the rower said. His buttocks slid across his leather cushion as he stroked again.
Up at the bow of the transport, an officer pointed north, toward Peiraieus. “Look! A galley’s coming out to meet us.”
“Only one, though,” a man close by him said. “I wondered if they’d bring out a fleet against us.”
“They’d be sorry if they tried,” the officer said. “We’ve got the best ships and best crews right here. They couldn’t hope to match us.”
“Oh, they could hope,” the other man said, “but you’re right—they’d be sorry.” Now he pointed toward the approaching trireme. “It’s the Salaminia.”
“Haven’t seen her since Sicily,” the officer said sourly. “I wonder if they’ve heard the news about everything we did. We’ll find out.”
The triremes traveled ahead of the transports to protect them, but the ship carrying Sokrates was only a couple of plethra behind the warships: close enough to let him hear shouts across the water. There in the middle of the line of triremes sailed Alkibiades’ flagship. The commander of the expeditionary force was easy for the men of the Salaminia to spot. His bright hair flashed in the sun, and he wore that purple tunic that had to be just this side of hubris. The ceremonial galley steered toward the Thraseia.
“Hail!” Alkibiades called to the Salaminia as she drew near.
“Alkibiades son of Kleinias?” someone on the other galley replied.
“Is that you again, Herakleides, who don’t know who I am?” Alkibiades answered. Sokrates couldn’t make out the other man’s reply. Whatever it was, Alkibiades laughed and went on, “Go on back to the harbor and tell those stay-at-home fools the gods have given their judgment. We conquered Syracuse, and a government loyal to Athens rules there now. And on the way home we burned Sparta down around the haughty Spartans’ ears.”
By the sudden buzz—almost a roar—from the crew of the Salaminia, that news hadn’t reached Athens yet. Even so, the spokesman aboard the ceremonial galley, whether Herakleides or another man, went on, “Alkibiades son of Kleinias, it seems good to the people of Athens”—the ancient formula for an Assembly decree—“for your men not to enter the city in arms, but to lay down their weapons as they disembark from their ships at Peiraieus. And it further seems good to the people of Athens that you yourself should enter the city alone before they go in, to explain to the said people of Athens your reasons for flouting their previous summons.”
A rumble of anger went up from all the ships in the fleet close enough for the crews to make out the spokesman’s words. “Hear that, boys?” Alkibiades shouted in a great voice. “I won the war for them, and they want to tell me to drink hemlock. You won the war for them, and they want to take your spears and your corselets away from you. Are we going to let ’em get away with it?”
“Nooooo!” The great roar came from the whole fleet, or as much of it as Alkibiades’ voice could reach. Most of the rowers and the officers—and many of the hoplites, who, being belowdecks, couldn’t hear so well—aboard Sokrates’ transport joined in it.
“You hear that?” Alkibiades called to the Salaminia as aftershocks of outrage kept erupting from the wings of the fleet. “There’s your answer. You can take it back to the demagogues who lie when they call themselves the people of Athens. But you’d better hurry if you do, because we’re bringing it ourselves.”
Being the polis’ state trireme, the Salaminia naturally had a crack crew. Her starboard rowers pulled normally, while those on the port side backed oars. The galley spun in the water, turning almost in her own length. She also enjoyed the luxury of a dry hull, having laid up in a shipshed most of the time. That made her lighter and swifter than the ships of Alkibiades’ fleet, which were waterlogged and heavy from hard service. She raced back toward Peiraieus.
The triremes that had gone to Sicily followed. So did the transports, though a little more sedately. A naked sailor nudged Sokrates. “What do you think, old-timer? We going to have to fight our way in?”
“I have opinions on a great many things,” Sokrates replied. “Some of them, I hop
e, are true opinions. Here, however, I shall not venture any opinion. The unfolding of events will yield the answer.”
“You don’t know either, eh?” The sailor shrugged. “Well, we’ll find out pretty cursed quick.”
“I thought I just said that,” Sokrates said plaintively. But the other man wasn’t listening to him anymore.
No triremes came forth from Peiraieus to challenge the fleet’s entry. Indeed, Athens’ harbor seemed all but deserted; most of the sailors and longshoremen and quayside loungers had fled. A herald bearing the staff of his office stood on a quay and shouted in a great voice, “Let all know that any who proceed in arms from this place shall be judged traitors against the city and people of Athens!”
“We are the city and people of Athens!” Alkibiades shouted back, and the whole fleet roared agreement. “We have done great things! We will do more!” Again, soldiers and sailors bellowed to back him up.
That sailor came back to Sokrates. “Aren’t you going to arm?” he asked. “That’s what the orders are.”
“I shall do that which seems right,” Sokrates answered, which sent the other man off scratching his head.
Sokrates went below. Down in the hold, hoplites were struggling into their armor, poking one another with elbows and knees, and cursing as they were elbowed in turn. He pushed his way through the arming foot soldiers to his own leather duffel. “Come on!” someone said to him, voice cracking with excitement. “Hurry up! High time we cleaned out that whole nest of polluted catamites!”
“Is it?” Sokrates said. “Are they? How do you know?”
The hoplite stared at him. He saw that he might as well have been speaking Persian. The soldier fixed his scabbard on his belt. He reached around his body with his right hand to make sure he could draw his sword in a hurry if he had to.
Up on deck, the oarmaster shouted, “Oöp!” and the rowers rested at their oars. Somebody said, “No one’s here to make us fast to the pier. Furies take ’em! We’ll do it ourselves.” The ship swayed slightly as a sailor sprang ashore. Other sailors flung him lines. They thumped on the quays. He tied the transport to the side of the pier.
A moment later, the gangplank thudded into place. Up on deck, an officer shouted, “All hoplites out! Go down the quay and form up on dry land!” With a cheer, the soldiers—almost all of them now ready for battle—did as they were told, crowding toward the transport’s stern to reach the gangplank. Duffel over his shoulder, Sokrates returned to Athenian soil, too.
This wasn’t the first transport to disembark its men. On the shore, red-caped officers were bellowing, “Form a phalanx! We’ve got work to do yet, and we’ll do it, by Zeus!” As the battle formation took shape, Sokrates started north toward Athens all by himself.
“Here, you!” a captain yelled. “Where do you think you’re going?”
He stopped for a moment. “Home,” he answered calmly.
“What? What are you talking about? We’ve got fighting to do yet,” the man said.
Sokrates tossed his head. “No. When Athenian fights Athenian, who can say which side has the just cause, which the unjust? Not wishing to do the unjust or to suffer it, I shall go home. Good day.” With a polite dip of the head, he started walking again.
Pounding sandals said the captain was coming after him. The man grabbed his arm. “You can’t do that!”
“Oh, but I can. I will.” Sokrates shook him off. The captain grabbed him again—and then, quite suddenly, found himself sitting in the dust. Sokrates kept walking.
“You’ll be sorry!” the other man shouted after him, slowly getting to his feet. “Wait till Alkibiades finds out about this!”
“No one can make me sorry for doing what is right,” Sokrates said. At his own pace, following his own will, he tramped along toward the city.
He was going along between the Long Walls, still at his own pace, when hoofbeats and the rhythmic thud of thousands of marching feet came from behind him. He got off the path, but kept going. Alkibiades trotted by on horseback in his purple chiton. Catching Sokrates’ eye, he grinned and waved. Sokrates dipped his head again.
Alkibiades and the rest of the horsemen rode on. Behind them came the hoplites and peltasts. Behind them came a great throng of rowers, unarmored and armed with belt knives and whatever else they could scrounge. They moved at a fine martial tempo, and left ambling Sokrates behind. He kept walking nonetheless.
“Tyrant!” the men on the walls of Athens shouted at Alkibiades. “Impious, sacrilegious defiler of the mysteries! Herm-smasher!”
“I put my fate in the hands of the gods,” Alkibiades told them, speaking for the benefit of his own soldiers as well as those who hadn’t gone to Sicily. “I prayed that they destroy me if I were guilty of the charges against me, or let me live and let me triumph if I was innocent. I lived. I triumphed. The gods know the right. Do you, men of Athens?” He raised his voice: “Nikias!”
“Yes? What is it?” Nikias sounded apprehensive. Had he been in the city, he would surely have tried to hold it against Alkibiades. But he was out here, and so he could be used.
“You were there. You can tell the men of Athens whether I speak the truth. Did I not call on the gods? Did they not reward me with victory, as I asked them to do to show my innocence?”
A lie here would make Alkibiades’ life much more difficult. Nikias had to know that. Alkibiades would have been tempted—more than tempted—to lie. But Nikias was a painfully honest man as well as a painfully pious one. Though he looked as if he’d just taken a big bite of bad fish, he dipped his head. “Yes, son of Kleinias. It is as you say.”
His voice was barely audible to Alkibiades, let alone to the soldiers on the walls of the city. Alkibiades pointed their way, saying, “Tell the men of Athens the truth.”
Nikias looked more revolted yet. Even so, he did as Alkibiades asked. Everybody does as I ask, Alkibiades thought complacently. Having spoken to the defenders of the city, Nikias turned back to Alkibiades. In a low, furious voice, he said, “I’ll thank you to leave me out of your schemes from now on.”
“What schemes, O best one?” Alkibiades asked, his eyes going wide with injured innocence. “All I asked you to do was tell the truth to the men there.”
“You did it so you could seize the city,” Nikias said.
“No.” Alkibiades tossed his head, though the true answer was of course yes. But he went on, “Even if no one opens a gate to me, I’ll hold the advantage soon enough. We draw our grain from Byzantion and beyond. I hold Peiraieus, so nothing can come in by sea. Before too long, if it comes to that, Athens will get hungry—and then she’ll get hungrier. But I don’t think we need to worry about that.”
“Why not?” Nikias demanded. “The whole polis stands in arms against you.”
“Oh, rubbish,” Alkibiades said genially. “I’ve got at least half the polis here on the outside of the city with me. And if you think everyone in there is against me, you’d better think again. You could do worse than talk with Sokrates about the whole and its parts.” As he’d expected, that provoked Nikias again. Alkibiades hid his smile and looked around. “Where is Sokrates, anyway?”
A hoplite standing close by answered, “He went into the city, most noble one.”
“Into the city?” Alkibiades and Nikias said together, in identical surprise. Recovering first, Alkibiades asked, “By the dog of Egypt, how did he manage that?”
The hoplite pointed to a small postern gate. “He told the soldiers on guard there that he didn’t intend to fight anybody, that he thought it was wrong for Athenians to fight Athenians”—as most men of Athens would have, he took a certain cheeky pleasure in reporting that to Alkibiades—“and that he wanted to come in and see his wife.”
“To see Xanthippe? I wouldn’t have thought he’d been away from home that long,” Alkibiades said; Sokrates was married to a shrew. “But the gate guards let him in?”
“Yes, sir. I think one of them knew him,” the hoplite replied.
; Nikias clucked like a hen. “You see, Alkibiades? Even your pet sophist wants no part of civil war.”
“He’s not my pet. He’s no more anyone’s pet than a fox running on the hills,” Alkibiades said. “And he would say he’s no sophist, either. He’s never taken even an obolos for teaching, you know.”
Nikias went right on clucking. Alkibiades stopped listening to him. He eyed the postern gate. That Sokrates had got into Athens only proved his own point. Not all the soldiers defending the city were loyal to the men who’d tried to execute him under form of law. A little discreet talk, preferably in the nighttime when fewer outside ears might hear, and who could say what would happen next?
Alkibiades thought he could. He looked forward to finding out whether he was right.
Quietly, ever so quietly, a postern gate swung open. At Alkibiades’ whispered urging the night before, the guards who held it had anointed with olive oil the posts that secured it to the stone lintel above and the stone set into the ground below. A squeak now would be…very embarrassing, Alkibiades thought as he hurried toward the gate at the head of a column of hoplites.
“You shouldn’t go first,” one of them whispered to him. “If it’s a trap, they’ll nail you straightaway.”
“If it’s a trap, they’ll nail me anyhow,” he answered easily. “But if I thought it were a trap, I wouldn’t be doing this, would I?”
“Who knows?” the hoplite said. “You might just figure you could talk them around once you got inside.”
He laughed at that. “You’re right. I might. But I don’t. Come on. It’s the same with a city as it is with a woman—once you’re inside, you’ve won.” The soldiers laughed, too. But Alkibiades hadn’t been joking, or not very much.
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