The Last of the Wine

by Mary Renault

  No, I said. He must have milk, Charis. I must take him away tonight, and find someone to feed him. — I think it's very dear, the midwife said so. Have we any money? — Not much. So we can't keep him for ourselves. We must find some rich lady, who has been praying to the gods to send her a child. She will be glad to get a fine baby like this. Perhaps she will pretend she is really his mother, and her husband will think he is really his son. They will give him a horse when he is older, and make a knight of nun; and some day he will be a general.

  She looked down at the cradle and said, I don't want a rich lady to have him. I want to keep him for company, Alexias, when you are out at work. — But he would have no mother here. You must be good, little one. I feared she would cry again; but her tears were spent. I gathered up the child, and wrapped him in the linen from the cradle. She said, That is not warm enough, and made me take the wool. We must give him something, she said, to know him by, when he is a man. Theseus had a sword. — I need my sword. But find him something quickly. She came back with a branch of red coral which was her own, and hung it round his neck. What shall we call him, Alexias? We haven't given him any name. — He must go to his mother, I said, and she will name him.

  I walked across the Agora, with my brother on my arm, and stopped at a potter's stall. As food grew dear, pots had grown cheap, and for two obols I got one big enough, round inside and with a wide mouth. Two obols was more than we could spare; but one must do what one can for one's own flesh and blood, and there were stray dogs running about the City as bold as wolves. At the foot of the High City, in the empty ground where the stones of the tyrants* fort lie scattered, I looked about me. Not very far away I could hear an infant crying among the rocks, but the sound was thin; if any knight's wife was seeking an heir for her husband, my brother would not have a rival long. But if in these three months she had not chosen yet, I thought, she must be hard to please.

  He had been quiet, lying in my arm; but now feeling the cold pot about him, he began to cry. It was a strong sound, for so young a baby. I saw him in my mind as a youth, tall like my father, with suitors seeking his favour; bearing a shield in battle, or crowned at the Games; then led with music to his wedding, and seeing his sons. Go in peace, I said to him; bear no ill-will to me, for Necessity yields to no man: and do not complain of me to our mother, for her blood is on your head as well as mine. If the gods had not forbidden it, my brother, I would put you to sleep before I left you, for night comes on; this is an empty place, and the clouds look dark upon the mountains. But the blood of kindred is not to be washed away; and when a man has once felt the breath of the Honoured Ones upon his neck, he will not bid them across the threshold. So forgive me, and suffer what must be. The clouds are heavy; if the gods love you, before morning there will be snow.

  It was dark already. For a long time as I walked away I could hear him crying; then from high on the rocks, about the bastions of the citadel, a dog began howling, and I heard it no more.

  We buried my mother in one of the gardens within the City, which had been turned over to this use since the siege began. I did not tell Lysis, thinking him too ill to be distressed with it; but he heard, and sent begging to let them have Charis to care for, and share whatever they had. He said this, though for two days now I had sent nothing, and they were living like the birds themselves. I sent the child, for she was falling into a melancholy. What we had left, I sent along with her; there was only myself left now, and I had my work to go back to.

  I went back to Chremon's next morning, feeling the wind cold on my neck, and thinking he would not be pleased to find I had cut off my hair, for, as I remembered, he had not finished the head. But that was no trouble; for when I stood in the doorway, I saw someone else stretched on the wooden dais, in the pose of Hyakinthos. I daresay he had only been waiting to find a model with the same build. Many no doubt who had thought themselves rich when the siege began, were not too proud now to pose for Chremon. I went away before he saw me, and took from him the pleasure of saying, Not today.

  Two days after this, the envoys returned. I did not myself go out to meet them; though I did not feel as hungry as the day before, everything tired me; when I heard shouting in the street, I went to the door to ask what it was, and then lay down again. But as my father told me later, all the City that stood still on its feet came to meet them, and led them straight to the Pnyx to hear their news.

  It was this; that the Spartans and their allies' spokesmen had met all together, to vote upon our fate. Then had stood forward the Theban envoy, a man who, as it appeared later, spoke not so much for his own city as out of that pride in public office which makes a man think himself a god. Serve them, he said, as they served the Melians, or the city of Mykalessos when they loosed the Thracians on it. Sell them into slavery, lay waste the City, and give the ground to sheep. And this being said, the Corinthian supported it.

  But if there is not much grace in Sparta, there is reverence for the past. When from time to time they are great, that is the core of their greatness. Curtly and bluntly, after their custom, they answered that Athens was part of Hellas; and they were not for enslaving the City that had turned the Medes. The debate was at a stand, when a man from Phokis stood up, and sang. It was the chorus of Euripides that begins,

  Electra, Agamemnon's child,

  I come Unto thy desert home . . .

  What the Spartans thought of it, no one knows; but after a long silence the allied spokesmen cast the vote for mercy.

  So these were the terms they sent us, to lift the siege: Pull down a mile of your Long Walls; receive your exiles back into citizenship; hand over your ships; and as subject ally follow the rule of Sparta, leaving her to lead in peace and in war.

  I am told one or two voices were still heard to cry out against surrender. As to the others, I am not the man to despise them. For if, the day before, Chremon had still had work for me, I cannot swear I would not have gone, without any pay, for the sake of a bowl of soup.

  Lysander sailed across from Salamis; King Agis came within the gates he had watched so long; but for the first days I kept my bed, and my father cared for me as for a little child. He was good to me, setting aside his own grief; and in return, silly with weakness, I forgot he could not know, finding her absent, that Charis was alive. He went a full day thinking her dead, before I perceived his error. Even then he was not angry; but I saw tears stand in his eyes. Then it seemed to me that at last the Honoured Ones were appeased; and on the thought I slept.

  We ate from the first day of surrender; for before the gates were open, people who had a little left were sending to their friends, now they knew their children would not starve. So on the third day, I got on my feet again, and walked out, and saw the ramparts of the High City covered with Spartans, pointing out to each other the mountains of their homes. I thought, Thus it is to be the conquered, but my mind was empty and light and I could feel nothing.

  They were throwing down the Walls already. I heard the thud and crash of the falling stonework, mixed with the twitter of flutes. Who began it I don't know; it was not very like the Spartans, and I should guess at the Corinthians; but they had collected all the flute-girls, those who were left, given them wine and a handful of food, and made them play. It was one of the first days of spring, when the light is hard and keen; the girls stood in the road, between the Walls, their faces painted awry, or sometimes, if they were Athenian born, striped red and black with tears; wearing their tawdry finery fit only for the lamplight, piping away; the foreign girls, and some others too, setting themselves to rights after their haste, and making eyes at the victors. And from time to time, as they played, there crashed down one of Themistokles' great ashlars; and the Spartans cheered. This truly, I said to myself, is defeat. But it was as a dream to me.

  So I walked to the house of Sokrates; but outside I met Euthydemos, who said, He has gone up to the Temple of Erechtheus, to pray for the City.

  While we stood talking, Plato came up, and greeted u
s; but when he heard Sokrates was not there, he did not stay. I looked after him, and thought that in the end even the rich had felt it. His eyes were hollow, and the bones of his wide shoulders stood out like knuckles beneath the skin.

  I said to Euthydemos, It was noble in him to give to others, when he was in such want himself. He answered, No one has filled his belly these last weeks. I don't think Plato starved; when things got tight in his home, Kritias helped them; though I can't endure the man, it seems he has his share of family feeling. Plato was keeping up quite well until a little while ago. But he went downhill in a matter of days after his friend died.

  I put out my hand, and set it upon stone; it was the column of the Herm, that Sokrates had made. It was solid, and upheld me easily. I said, Which friend?

  Why, the same, said Euthydemos. Plato is not one to change lightly. After the youth was left alone (for he had some old father or kinsman who died during the winter) Plato took charge of him entirely. While he had a crust, you may be sure the boy wouldn't starve; he had quite a good colour, and nothing worse than a cough such as half the City suffered from. But one day, as they climbed up to the High City, suddenly he choked and brought forth a flow of blood; he fell down where he was, upon the steps of the Porch, and gave up his spirit. Plato buried him; and now is as you see.

  My soul was alone, neither hearing nor seeing, encompassed by chaos and black night, forgetful of its name. A voice reached me, saying, Drink this, Alexias, and, my eyes clearing, I saw the face of the Herm above me, and Euthydemos leaning over me with a little wine in an earthen cup. I thought, when first I saw you, you had walked too far. I thanked him, and after resting a little went home. Then I remembered I had not asked where the tomb was.

  I sought some days for it, and came on it at last in an old garden at the foot of the Nymphs' Hill, where there were other graves. Places such as this, being within the walls, were emptied later; and I could never learn afterwards where he lay. But the grave, when I saw it, was under an almond tree, which was all in flower, for spring had broken; and there was a brier in bud beside it.

  Most of the graves had steles of wood, or an urn of clay to mark the place; but this tomb had a stone. The work was undistinguished; and, remembering Plato's fine taste, I saw the measure of his grief in his not having overseen the sculptor. A branch of the brier had covered the inscription; bending it back, I read the words:

  Lightbringing dawn star, kindled for the living;

  Bright torch of Hesperos, sinking to the dead.

  I looked again at the relief, which showed the youth standing as in thought, and a mourning man with his face hidden. The work was, as we say, sincere, but of so old-fashioned a simplicity that you might have thought the sculptor had scarcely picked up his chisel since Pheidias' day. I stood gazing till, a thought coming to me, I knelt down and found the place where the statuary puts his mark; and I understood, when I saw the name.

  26

  there are draughts that do not yield their taste with the first sip; but drink them, and their bitterness wrings the mouth.

  The stones still crashed from the Long Walls after the flutes were silent, and the victors who had helped for sport had wearied of the game. The Athenians, half-starved, wearied much sooner; but Lysander used to watch the work, a big man, square-jawed and blond, with a mouth of iron.

  Meanwhile, in the public places one saw the exiled oligarchs, making themselves at home. Some had entered as soon as the gates were opened; they had been with King Agis' army, sitting before the walls.

  Presently the Spartans invited the oligarch clubs of Athens to choose five Ephors, as they called them, to draw up proposals for a government. My father attended these consultations. The upshot was that Theramenes was one of the five, and Kritias another. I believe my father voted for both. But I did not hold it against him. Regarding Theramenes, though he ate while we starved, I daresay it cost us nothing. If he had come back and owned to failure, the people would have been angry with him. It was said that he had employed the time in plotting with Lysander to put his friends in power; but this was gossip and guesswork. Of Kritias my father said to me, I can't think what makes you so prejudiced against him. One of our ablest men; a true orator, untainted with demagogy, from whom one can be sure of scholarship and logic. And in his writings, no one sets a higher moral tone. He had been good to me when I was sick; so I swallowed my answer.

  Plato asked me to supper about this time. I went doubtfully, knowing I could not say to him what a friend should. But he singled me out for kindness, even to sharing his supper-couch, though there were others with more claim to the compliment. Whether Euthydemos had gossiped to anyone, no doubt I shall never know.

  He was always a graceful host, if rather a formal one; if his mind went wandering, he was quick to cover it. While the rest were talking of events, he said to me, I believe this success will be just the thing for my uncle Kritias.

  I had long given up arguing politics with Plato. His mind was the master of mine; and his motives were pure. It was not in him to despise a man for poverty or low birth. But he despised fools wherever he found them, horse or foot; and finding more of them than of the wise and just, he thought that rule by the people must debase the City. Lysis used to say that government was an exercise ennobling to the base, as good soldiering makes cowards brave. Plato, when I quoted this, praised its magnanimity, and disagreed. As for Kritias, the man was his kinsman, and he was my host.

  Till now, Plato said, he has never filled an office worthy of his gifts. Sometimes I have feared it would make him bitter. I can't tell you half his kindness during the siege. I shall not forget it easily; not only on my own behalf, but... but that is over.

  I answered, It is said, 'If Fate were moved by tears, men would offer gold to buy them.'

  '. . . Yet grief still puts them forth, as the tree puts forth its leaves.' Speaking of my uncle, Charmides and I called to congratulate him; Charmides, you know, takes his career seriously, since Sokrates rebuked his idleness. Kritias urged both of us to come forward in the City's service. Unless, he said, the better sort of people are prepared to do what they can to remedy democracy's abuses, the City will fall into an apathy, or the dissipations of defeat, and lose the memory of her greatness. Though my ambitions till now have lain elsewhere, I confess he moved me.

  I told him, in sincerity, that men of his kind were needed. He had begun, I think, by seeking an escape from his grief, but ambition was stirring in him. I said to myself, I am prejudiced. The enmities of youth lack proportion. Perhaps Kritias might have seemed to me a gentleman, if I had met Chremon first.

  One heard Chremon's name everywhere that week. Pasion, the banker, had just bought for a great price his latest work. Half the City trooped into Pasion's courtyard to see it, and brought back the news that the marble breathed, or at least seemed scarcely to have ceased breathing.

  For three days I avoided meeting Lysis. On the third he called. He was walking quite well now, hardly using his stick. We talked for a little; but he would fall silent, and look at me. I sought words at random; in my heart I thought, I should have fallen on my sword. Once I would not have waited for this. I could find no more talk, and was silent also. Presently Lysis said, I have been to the High City, to sacrifice to Eros. — Yes? Well, he is a powerful god. — And cruel, it is said. But to me, noblest of all the Immortals; 'the best soldier, comrade, and saviour' as poor Agathon used to say. It was time to give thanks to him.

  Soon afterwards the new Ephors, having consulted together, called an Assembly, and Kritias addressed it. He spoke as usual very well. His voice was elegantly trained, pitched to carry, without any of those mannerisms that make a man tiresome and human. He had the voice of knowledge advising honest simplicity without despising it. It was a voice to set you at ease, if you liked your thinking done for you.

  He proposed a Council of Thirty, to draw up a constitution upon the ancient code, and govern meanwhile. When he read the list, starting with the five Ephors th
emselves, the people listened at first as children to a teacher. Then there was a murmur; then a roar. The Assembly had awakened, and heard the names. The core of the Four Hundred, the traitors from Dekeleia, every extreme oligarch who hated the people as boar hates dog. The Pnyx echoed with the outcry. Kritias listened, it seemed unmoved; then he turned, and made a gesture, and stepped aside. The shouting died like a gust of wind. Lysander stood on the rostrum, in his armour. His eyes swept slowly over the hill. There was a dead hush.

  His speech was short. The breach in the Walls, he said, was two stadia short of the mile; the time-limit was up. If he did not declare the treaty void, and wipe out the City, it was an act of mercy. We had best deserve it.

  So the people slunk down from the Pnyx like slaves caught stealing by the master. Our tongues were getting, now, the taste of defeat.

  But the new government was quick to get the public services in order, and people spoke well of it. On the day they appointed a Senate, people met me in the street with congratulations; my father, it appeared, had been named a Senator.

  I wished him well. Considering his views, no one could suspect him of time-serving. His work as envoy had brought him into the public eye, and Theramenes had not forgotten him. It was something that they were choosing Senators even as moderate as he.

  At first he used to come home full of affairs. You could almost tell in the street which men held office in the new administration, however small. They looked like people who are getting the right food. When men have shared in the City's business since they put on a long mantle, it comes strange to cease. You can watch something wither in them, like a fettered limb. One evening he said over supper, Well, I think we shall hand over the City a little cleaner than we found it. In confidence, a rat-hunt is on for tomorrow, and high time too. — Rats, Father? — Those creatures who live off their betters, and bring filth in exchange. How else describe an informer?