The Mask of Apollo

by Mary Renault

  Eager as I was to be gone, I lingered, to learn if Plato was leaving. Surely he would go; but if he were delayed, he would need Speusippos with him; and, parted from Dion without a moment’s warning, he must have things to write, unfit for the Archon’s courier. I knew where he was lodging, at the house of a Pythagorean up on Achradina. But it seemed unwise to be seen there; I was now a caller who would be noticed. So I hung about the wineshops for Speusippos, thinking that if he wanted a word with me he would seek me there.

  On the third day of this, I met by chance a most charming person, who came up to commend my performance in the theater. Our talk lasted till bedtime, and one thing led to another; so it was morning when I got back to the house of Menekrates. He greeted me with the news that Plato had been murdered.

  “The soldiers did it,” he said quite cheerfully. “Everyone knows they’ve been spoiling for a chance. They said Dion was their best general, before this windbag turned his head. Why, Niko, what’s the matter? I thought you couldn’t bear the man.”

  I said, “This news will kill Dion. And I shall have to bring it.” This made enough sense for Menekrates. To tell the truth, I was surprised myself at what I felt. I had not understood a word of his lecture on the One; where I did know what he was saying, about the theater, I had thought him dangerous, as men with half a truth can be. Yet, little by little, he had stamped his mark upon my mind, like some great actor beside whom one has played extra. I recalled how his eyes had said to me, What are you? and had seemed to know the answer. He was gone now, and the answer with him.

  I was overcome with the guilt men feel, with reason or without, at such a time, because I had spent the night in pleasure. Presently I began to ask Menekrates who had told him, and where the body was; the bones ought to be sent to Athens, and Speusippos might be alive or dead. From the replies I got, I soon realized it was all street talk, nothing first-hand. This gave me some hope, knowing what Syracuse is for rumors. So I went up to the house to see.

  There was no sound of mourning. I knocked and asked for Plato, making up some errand. Without going inside, the slave answered at once that I should find him in Ortygia. He was now the Archon’s guest.

  He must have read my face (this was no doubt a house where people talked freely) for he added that the gentleman had come to no harm so far; I could count on that, for his nephew was here upstairs, packing up his books.

  Before I had time to ask for him, Speusippos came running out. If he had looked strained before, he now looked ill. “Niko! I knew that was your voice. Don’t stand in the street, come in.”

  He hurried me through the inner court, and upstairs to Plato’s room, now in confusion and full of smoke. The floor was Uttered with open book-boxes and scrolls. In the middle was a charcoal brazier, where Speusippos had been burning papers. I coughed, and went over to the window. An actor has to be careful of his throat.

  “A god sent you,” he said. “Are you going back to Athens?”

  “Yes or no, according to what help you need.”

  He clasped my hands, then turned away, wiping his eyes and cursing the smoke. Any small kindness will move a man who is overwrought, but philosophers are not supposed to weep.

  “What happened? Where’s Plato? In the quarries?”

  “God forfend! No, what you heard at the door is true, he’s an honored guest—while it lasts, for he’s a prisoner too, of course. Dionysios has given him a house in the palace park. No one leaves the inner citadel, by land or sea, without a pass. We were half-packed to go home, when a squad of Gauls brought the invitation. I’ve just come from there. You should see the place. Bronzes, books, lyre-players, boy-slaves—as full of toys as a jackdaw’s cage. It’s as if some bandit had captured a chaste lady and were ashamed to rape her, so kept laying his loot at her feet and begging for a word of love. One could laugh. But how will it end?”

  “In the end,” I said, “he must let him go. Where Plato is, the world is watching—the learned world, at least. Think of the scandal. The second Dionysios is not the first.”

  “But you know what he wants. He wants Plato to side with him against Dion. Before he will do that, Plato will sit in Ortygia till he dies. And it might come to that. He’s past sixty, Niko; this climate doesn’t suit him; he’s not been well. Besides, Dionysios is as fitful as a woman. It needs only some open quarrel, or public slight; then the soldiers, or Philistos’ faction, will take their chance.”

  “I doubt it. It’s not a chance I’d care to take, after seeing them together even once. I told you before, the poor antic is in love. And so vain—he wants to be in the histories as Plato’s favorite pupil, not his murderer. Tell me, when did you last eat, or sleep?”

  Luckily, soon after, his host sent a tray up with wine and cakes. We got rid of the stinking brazier, and cleared two chairs. Books were piled on everything; Plato must have brought a small library along. Even then, as I remembered, he had written to Archytas asking for more.

  Speusippos looked better for the food, and started scrambling about among the litter for things he wanted sent home. The books, to my relief, were going along to Plato; but, muttering to himself or me, Speusippos picked out some notes for a lecture on the nature of the universe which Plato wanted Xenokrates to give for him; a scheme for a future book, which he was afraid of losing in Syracuse; and a rare work of Pythagoras for the Academy library. After looking under everything in sight, he found a pack of paper with dead flowers pressed in it. I supposed it must be some old love-token, till he reminded me he was a botanist. “If you can get them to the Academy uncrushed, I shall be much beholden to you. There is a lad who came to us this year from Stagyra, a promising boy, who helps me with my collection; he will look after them … By the dog, I’ve been so harassed, it’s put his name from my mind.” He clutched his brow, then remembered and wrote it down, Aristoteles. I promised to see to it.

  All this concluded, he went to the door and window before taking from his girdle a little scroll. Softly he said, “This is the thing, Niko. The rest could go by a courier. Not this. That’s why I said a god had sent you.”

  I took it. It had no superscription. He said, “I see you understand.”

  Now that I was charged with the errand I had come to do, I did not stay much longer, either in that house or in Syracuse: just long enough to give my company a farewell party, and bid adieu to my friend of the night before. I do not name him; he is now the head of a very ancient house, and I have never been one to kiss and brag.

  There were two letters in the scroll, the inner one for Dion, the outer for Archytas of Tarentum. I pondered the best hiding place, in case I should be searched. Opening the mask-box, I said, “My lord Apollo, two of your servants want help. If you value this man Plato as much as people say, you will look after his affairs. I leave this in your care.”

  Just before the ship cast off, some of the Romans came aboard, and searched the ship, as they said, for treasonable matters. They never looked inside the mask, though they stared right at it. The god’s face must have overawed them. I concluded therefore that he did take Plato seriously, and it should be borne in mind.

  Though we had a fair wind to Tarentum, the rumor of Plato’s murder had got there first. Ships cross almost daily between Messene and Rhegium, whence news spreads overland. Sighting a ship with the paintwork of Syracuse, every Pythagorean in Tarentum came to the dock to ask if the tale were true. Some knew me, so came to me first. In their relief they made as much of me as if I had saved his life myself.

  I was taken straight to Archytas. Like a good host, and a true philosopher, he offered me refreshment before talking business, and sat quiet as a statue by one of his model machines, though I saw his toes twitch under his robe. I told him all I had heard from Speusippos, and gave him his letter from Plato. Then I asked whether Dion had passed this way, and where he was.

  He said, smiling, “Two questions, my friend, with easy answers. Yes to the first. To the second: In the room next door.” Then he said wit
h his soldier’s dignity, “Where else would Dion go?”

  He questioned me a little longer. I was surprised Dion should have stayed outside, till I remembered he had only just heard that Plato was not dead. Philosophers understand each other, as actors do; of course he had to be given time to compose himself.

  Just then through the window I saw him pacing in the orchard. He was tired of waiting, and had come out to show he was ready.

  I found him on a marble seat under a plum tree bowed with fruit. I remember the limewashed bark, the heavy-sweet scent of windfalls in the long grass, the wasps humming round their juicy caves.

  He was haggard, and had lost more weight than one would think possible in so few days; but the good news had pushed his griefs aside, he was calm and smiling.

  I told him all I knew, adding that I did not believe the Archon would ever give countenance to Plato’s death, Rather, it seemed to me he even had some excuse, and perhaps a fair one, for taking him into the citadel, because of this danger from the troops. “In Ortygia, everyone is accountable. Dionysios may have other motives; he is more devious than he knows himself. But that will be one, I think.”

  He said, “I wish Plato were in better health,” and fell silent, his look of care returning. Presently he said, “You see me, Nikeratos, a man exiled for no crime; fallen from high estate, like the characters you portray.” He smiled slightly. “It is said that while Sokrates was awaiting death, his wife lamented that it was the injustice of it she could not bear. He answered, “Why, my dear, you would not rather I had deserved it?” But if Plato should die in Syracuse, I shall admit that though men have been unjust to me, the gods have not … A man more precious than empires, both to us and to men still unborn, with who knows what wisdom yet undistilled in him. He is clear of all misjudgment, except his faith in me. He had not seen Syracuse for twenty years; Dionysios he had known only as a child who rode upon my shoulder. For no living man but me would he have gone again to Sicily. And I sent for him—this is the irony the gods themselves must laugh at—for this very thing which has made and broken all: his charm that can make discourse beautiful and catch the soul through the heart. Was Oidipos himself more blind?”

  I said, “You had only seen the son in the father’s shadow.”

  He shook his head, then looked at me. “Nikeratos. Is it true, as I am told, that you refused a talent of silver from Philistos, because of a certain mask?”

  “Yes. It was sent without my knowledge; I saw it first on stage.”

  “Well, it is rightly said that there is good in every state of man. In misfortune, one can count one’s friends.” Of course he had been new to exile and disgrace when this news had come, so it had touched him. Instead of shutting his door to me forever, he had opened even his heart.

  I wondered if he was in need, and how one could go about offering help to so proud a man. But he now told me he would be taking a house in Athens. From policy, or decency, or just because he could never have faced Plato otherwise, Dionysios had had clothes and money put in the exile’s boat, and not landed him at Rhegium like a castaway. He had been told, too, that his goods and household slaves would be sent him. This would enable him to live like a gentleman, by the standards of Athens; but one can’t ship land abroad, and unless his yearly revenues came too, he would not be rich, or not as Sicily understands it.

  His wife Arete, Dionysios’ half-sister, had written confirming that his money and movables would follow; but it was clear, since he said nothing of it, that she was not coming to share his exile. He spoke of her, as it seemed to me, with pity rather than longing. It was said to be a state alliance, which had never warmed up in the marriage bed. I recalled his study, so like Plato’s, a man’s room well-kept by men.

  “Dionysios will not harm her,” he said. “But I am most anxious for my brother Megakles. He has never concerned himself with philosophy; but he is a man of honor, who would revenge an insult to our house, as Philistos knows very well. If he is wise, he must be in flight from Syracuse already, before he meets a knife in the dark. And above all, there is my son.”

  I said that if Dionysios had been ashamed to offer the father violence, he would scarcely harm so young a lad, his own kindred too. Dion said, “Not in his body, I daresay. But my wife will go back to her brother’s house, and take him with her. I would wish him anywhere else on earth. He is restless, easily led, impatient of correction; he shows no bent to philosophy.”

  “He must be young,” I said, “for that?” I suppose a man of Dion’s life and standards would expect a good deal from his son.

  He was staying on a while, he said, at Tarentum, to await news of his brother and to enjoy the company of his friends. “I had forgotten,” he said, “that such peace as this existed.” His goods and servants would be shipped here; he would have a good deal of business; so he accepted my offer to take his letters to Athens. My ship was loading cargo, and would be there until next day.

  I called next morning. He was sitting at his window, which overlooked the orchard, listening to the chorus of the birds, late and sleepy with autumn. The air smelled of the turning year, and in the eaves a dove was cooing. He told me that yesterday, after I left, he had had good news. His brother Megakles had been hidden by family friends as soon as they knew of Dion’s exile. He had boarded a ship at Katana, which had just touched at Tarentum on its way to Corinth. He had sailed straight on there, where he had friends, but had called to tell Dion he was safe, and had managed to bring a good deal of money with him. They would meet again in Athens.

  It was the seventh of the month, Apollo’s day, and the Tarentines were offering a choral dance to the god. I just had time to hear it before we sailed. The music was very fine, all strings though, for Pythagoreans think that flutes confuse the cosmic order (or some such matter) and disturb the soul. Young boys dressed in white, and crowned with bay-leaves, circled an altar of honey-colored marble wreathed with a garland of gilded bronze. The lyre answered the kithara; a light breeze blew from the sea. The last sight I had of Dion, he was standing like a marble hero on the steps before the temple porch, tall and straight among tall straight columns, the cool autumn sunshine on his face. It seemed to me that once Plato was safe and free, he could even be happy.

  13

  ON MY VOYAGE OUT, ARCHYTAS HAD PROMISED to reward me if I brought useful news from Syracuse. Among all my concerns this had slipped my mind; but he himself was not one to forget such things, and he made me a most handsome present, saying it was partly a good-tidings gift, no man having ever brought him better. What with this, and the profit from the tour, I might not be as rich as Philistos would have made me, but I would get along well enough.

  Plato was in Syracuse all that winter.

  Sometimes I surprised myself by the trouble I took to get news of him. Once it would just have been for Dion’s sake, or perhaps Axiothea’s. Even now, as was natural, I still resented him sometimes, but found I could not indulge it without feeling small. When I had seen him sitting with young Dionysios, seeing all through him, yet patient as a shepherd with a sickly lamb, and fearless of the wolves around, I had known the man was noble. The day stuck in my mind, when I had brought Dion’s letter urging him to go. Actors are vain; it’s true even of the best; but one does not feel one’s talent, even when most pleased with it, as a burden one must bear in trust for other men. It was not pride in him; he knew. I thought of it often.

  Megakles, Dion’s brother, was living in Corinth, a city where Syracusans feel at home; but Dion himself had bought an estate near the Academy, beyond the olive groves. The house was just the proper size for someone of his rank in Athens; his Syracusan one would have looked hubristic. But with his beautiful things set up there, it seemed just the same. He asked me to supper once or twice when he was entertaining poets and their friends, though not, of course, on his philosophic evenings.

  Speusippos having stayed with Plato, the Academy was being run by Xenokrates, so, knowing what he thought of actors, I did not i
ntrude. When news of Plato came in, Axiothea would send me a message to meet her in the olive grove, or by some hero-tomb in the Sacred Way. If the news was short, and would have gone into her note, we did not notice it. We had become fond of one another; though she liked the calm spare life of the Academy, she liked, too, to hear of the world outside, from someone who did not disapprove. She was setting into a strange archaic beauty. I have seen such faces in old shrines; there is an Artemis at Aigina very like her.

  The Messene strait being so narrow, ships cross all winter in any but the worst of weather, so the Syracusan Pythagoreans could keep their brethren posted. They were in touch with Speusippos, who came and went somehow from Ortygia; no doubt Dionysios, who had always been jealous of him, would have been well pleased if he had slipped off. But he put up with the snubs and slights, which I could well imagine, to be with Plato and to link him with his friends.

  At first the news was good; Dionysios was heaping him with honor, entertaining him, deferring to his advice. He had been able to realize Archytas’ dearest wish by recommending a peace treaty with the Tarentines, which was already signed.

  Archytas’ letters were full of this; Speusippos’ own were a good deal franker. He made them cryptic with false names, and, for greater safety, addressed them to people outside the Academy, sometimes to me. When he got home, he was at pains to get them back and burn them, in case Plato ever saw them; but I kept this one. The device was his usual one, of someone gossiping about a fashionable hetaira.

  Everyone is amazed at the conduct of young Damiskos. When first he courted Heliodora, he vowed no price would be too high. [The price meant accepting Plato’s precepts.] Having now drawn back, one would think he might have more pride than to hang about her door and keep sending flowers. Lately she asked him why, if he still desired her friendship, he did not pay up like a man, since he could afford it. And his answer? That his friends had advised him her price would encumber his estate; he wanted to beat her down. How absurd, to someone of her fame and reputation! She is generous in conversing with the youth, whose manners can do with polishing; but that he should presume to be jealous is as vexatious as it is laughable.