The Last of the Wine

by Mary Renault

  We introduced ourselves, with compliments on their long association. You could not have told which was the elder, except that Kebes, the dark one, had his boy's hair still. The sun rose as we ate, round and red above the valley mists. Simmias said, Our teacher, Philolaos, the Pythagorean, considers the sun to be a great round mirror, reflecting back the central fire of the universe, like a polished shield. But why the fire grows red at sunrise, and white at noon, we cannot determine to our satisfaction; can we, Kebes? How do the Athenian philosophers explain the sun? — In nearly as many ways, said Lysis, as there are philosophers. But our teacher says that the nature of Helios is a secret of the god; and that a man's first business is to know himself, and seek the source of light in his own soul. We don't eat everything we see, but have to learn what our bodies can turn to good. So with the mind.

  That is reasonable, said the dark Kebes. Man's intellectual soul is a chord struck from all his parts, as the music of the spheres is the chord of the heavenly bodies. If the intervals have no measure, it can make no more sense of anything than a lyre untuned. So Philolaos taught us. — But, Simmias said, he is soon going back to Italy, and then we shall have no teacher, for we can't be satisfied with any of the others here. But our fathers won't let us go to Athens while the tyrants are in power there; so you see we have our own reasons for wanting them gone. Tell us more about this teacher you go to. Has he anything new to say upon the nature of the soul?

  In the end they put our knapsacks on their horses, and walked with us, talking, all the way to Thebes. That night we slept on supper-couches in the guestroom of Simmias' father. He was putting up two or three other Athenians, and the house of Kebes' father was already full. Everywhere one met with friendship; it was hard to believe in the bitterness of former days. They had seen enough, they said, of Lysander's oligarchies, the worst men ruling by the worst means for the worst ends; the friends of liberty were not Thebans and Athenians now, but Hellenes all alike.

  Next day the lads wanted to carry us off to hear Philolaos; but we excused ourselves till we had seen Thrasybulos first. It was like old times to go into a plain little wine-shop, and see him pull in his long legs from under the table and come striding over, his brown eyes warm and straight in his lean dark face. Samian men! he said. The best news today.

  It was about a week after this that we left Seven-Gated Thebes; but not alone. We set forth in the red light of sunset, a band or seventy men. Our shields were covered, our armour brazed, and smeared with dark oil. We were all heavy-armed, however we had come from Attica; the Thebans had armed us. Crossing the border we made an altar, and sacrificed victims to Pallas Athene, and to Zeus the King. The omens were good.

  The sun sank, but a little moon was up, enough to save our necks on the hills. It would set later, which was well. By its dipping light, we came to the place where the pass hugs the side of the mountain; opposite is a hollow and a rise, and on the rise the stone fort of Phyle, backed against the drop of a great gorge, its face to the Theban road.

  We dropped into the valley, going single file by a little path; at the bottom is a stream, from a source in the hill above, very clean and good to drink. There we waited, while a scout stole up under the walls. He had been stationed there, and knew it like his home. He was back within the hour. They were only a peacetime garrison, glad to be easy now the Spartans had gone. They had given each other the countersign, he said, as loud as a good-day in the Agora.

  We crept up to the main gate, just before the guard was due to change again. The moon was down. Someone gave the countersign; when the gate opened, we held it while others thrust in. By good luck, the postern over the gorge, where the rubbish is thrown out, had been left unguarded; the drop is steep, but some of our mountain men climbed in there.

  I never saw a garrison so confounded. They hardly resisted, once they understood who and what we were. The officer in charge, thinking of his reputation, put up a fight; but Thrasybulos took him on, and, holding him off without wounding him, asked him across their shields why he was concerned to maintain his honour before rulers who had none themselves, when he might be earning himself a liberator's undying fame. In the end not only he, but half the garrison took the oath with us, and looked, I thought, five years younger and gayer. The rest we held in bonds till it was light, and we could see where they went; then keeping their arms we let them go.

  Later Lysis and I, standing the morning watch upon the walls, saw the sunrise. It came red and purple, for winter drew on, and up there one felt already the nip of frost. Then gold touched the heights; but below us the great cleft of Phyle, which they call the Swallower of Chariots, was a river of unfathomed mist. Light spread; the mist dispersed; far out through the gorge we saw the Acharnian Plain, threaded with a little road; and at the road's end, dimly shining, the walls and roofs of Athens. In the midst the High City, like an altar, lifted her offerings to the gods. For a long time we gazed in silence; then Lysis said to me, I think we are seeing the dawn indeed.

  27

  on the second day after, we saw from our walls the army of Athens advancing.

  The sky was cloudless, of a thrush-egg blue. Horse and foot they wound along the road, like beads stitched on a ribbon, hardly seeming to move; then the mountains hid them. A little before sunset, we saw them close at hand, upon the pass. We watched the line of men thrown round us, first a thread, then a cord, then a great cable, thick as the girdle of a ship. Five thousand men, I believe, sat down that evening before Phyle. The baggage-train streamed over the bridlepath, bringing their food. When it was finished, more would come. We had only what had been laid in for a force of fifty, and that part-eaten.

  They lit their fires, and bivouacked for the night, and pitched tents for the leaders. The Thirty themselves were there. All of us now saw how it was likely to end. But not one, I think, would have exchanged Phyle for Athens. Under our eastern wall, so deep that the pines on its sides looked as small as brush, was the Cleft of the Chariot. There was a door open still to freedom, when the food was gone.

  All night the stars shone bright above us, the watch-fires bright below. The dawn was clear. It brought a herald, who bawled at us to surrender to the Council. We laughed, and answered as each man thought good. At the foot of the hill, some of the knights were watching their horses being groomed; rich young men, campaigning like gentlemen. One or two came forward and, with taunts, shouted to us to come down. No, we called, you come up. Honour the house. Make us happy. Suddenly a score or so jumped on their horses, and put them at the hill; perhaps from bravado, perhaps hoping that if they could reach it, they might force the gate.

  Phyle was well off for javelins. From the walls I marked down a man who was coming up just below. One or two others would have done as well, but I chose this one to punish his insolence: a well-built fellow, sitting his horse as if he had grown there, showing its paces.

  He too was armed with the javelin. He got ready as he rode up the hill; but downward one throws harder. He had seen me; we took aim together: then, in the moment before we both let fly, he checked with a great start, as if I had hit him already. His horse felt it, and reared, spoiling my aim. Struggling with his mount he got his helmet twisted, and thrust it back in order to see. It was Xenophon. For a moment, as he sat the prancing horse with his head flung up, we stared into each other's eyes. Then he rode round the side of the wall, and I saw him no more.

  The knights were beaten off, and several wounded. There was no more righting that day. Thrasybulos counted the stores. Then he assembled us, all but the lookouts, and asked us to pray all together to Zeus the Saviour, that, as he loved justice, he would not let it perish out of Hellas along with us. We prayed, and sang a hymn. The evening came down, solemn and red, the air cold, not a breath stirring. And in the night, Zeus the Saviour leaned out to us, and opened his hand.

  His hand opened; and, from a sky filled till then with great white stars, came a fall of snow. Cold as the breast of Artemis, and stinging like her arrows, al
l night it fell, and when day broke it was still falling. The mountain heights stood in the snow-whirl like a world of white marble veined with black. Down below were the thin tents of the besiegers; and the many who had no shelter, huddled round smoking, damp fires, beating their bodies, stamping their feet to keep them from freezing, wrapping up the starved horses in blankets they needed themselves. An army of beggars gazed up in envy of our wealth. We called down to them, inviting them to visit us, and we would see that they were warm.

  All day it snowed; but by noon they had had enough. The Thirty, used by now to comfort, were the first to go. Then the knights had pity on their shivering horses; then the hoplites marched off; and then, strung out below us, a banquet spread as it were by heaven, the long cumbrous baggage-train, creeping half-foundered in the snow. We flung the gates open. Yelling the paean, as men for whom the gods are fighting, we charged down the hill.

  We left red snow that day; and carried up to Phyle food and fuel and blankets to keep us like kings for a year.

  We were snowed up for a time. Then volunteers began to come. Most were proscribed exiles: democrats; or gentlemen too touchy in their honour to please the Government; or simply people whose estates one of the Thirty had fancied for himself. But one or two came from the army that had besieged us; even before the snow they had thought it looked better up the hill. Their soothsayer came, a burning silent man; Apollo had warned him, through the aspect of the sacrifice, not to serve men hateful to the gods.

  We were a hundred strong; then two; then three. All Attica, and Megara, and Thebes, heard of the Men of Phyle. We were seven hundred. When bad weather drove us all indoors, there was hardly room to sleep.

  The Thirty set a guard on the pass, to keep us from the farms; but we had our own ways across the mountains. We were never short of stores. Some we were given for love, some we took from necessity. Our best sport was raiding our own estates. There were scores of us who had had land stolen by the tyrants. They looked after it well, as I found when we raided mine. I had never seen it so thriving and well-stocked since I was a child.

  When the work was well on, I found a slave hidden in a grain-bin. Get out, I said, and tell me who farms this land. Then you can run free, for all I care. This if you lie. I showed my dagger. By the Arrow of Bendis, my lord (he was a Thracian) my master's name is Kritias.

  I let him go, and went up between the vineyards, with a white cock in my hand. On my father's grave I killed it, to comfort his shade, and as an earnest of things to come, and to show Kritias who had called.

  Within a short time the Thirty had had many such reminders; and up at Phyle we were a thousand men. Though only a few could bring armour and weapons with them, all the news was that the tyrants hardly trusted Lysander, even, to protect them now.

  It was still deep winter; but hope was strong in us, hard and firm as the buds furled up in the armoured trees. We had no slaves, and were all servants of one another, cooking and cleaning and fetching water in. I never tasted such cold sweet water as it is in the spring at Phyle. There was a gladness in us, such as I have seldom known. I remember tramping a windy hill-track, laden with fuel, singing, and talking of the future when the City was free. Lysis said he was going to get a son; though if a daughter comes first, no matter; little girls make me laugh. — I shall write, I said, to those Theban lads, Simmias and Kebes. We owe them some hospitality. They are longing to hear Sokrates. — Their famous Philolaos, Lysis said, is rather too mathematical for me. — Yes, but I shall introduce them to Phaedo. I am sure he would enjoy hearing them talk.

  One morning early, we fell on the guard who held the pass, caught them on one leg at getting-up time, and chased them down into the plain. Soon we heard news of panic among the Thirty. Even the Three Thousand, once the core of their support, did not trust them since Theramenes had been struck off the roll. We rejoiced to hear it; but not when we got the proof of how deeply they feared.

  After hubris, nemesis; but madness lets her in. They needed a refuge now, to fortify against extremity; and they chose Eleusis, because at the worst they could fly from it by sea. But having deserved good of no one, they did not trust the Eleusinians not to give them up. So on pretence of an Army exercise, they marched them through a narrow gateway, and had each one seized as he passed beyond. Every man and grown youth of Eleusis they murdered; but not with their own hands, taking like men their guilt before the gods. They dragged them to Athens, and charged them before the Senate as perilous to the City, not deigning to offer any further charge. The voting was open; guilty this side, innocent that; and the Senate was packed with Spartans in heavy arms.

  The Senate voted death. So low they had gone, it was only one step lower. But it was the last. They were at the bottom of the pit; and some still had eyes to see it. When the news came up to the mountains, we knew that in the sight of gods and men our time had come.

  All next morning we made ready. At noon we ate and rested, for we should not sleep that night. When Lysis and I had seen to our arms, he said to me, We look rather too much men of Phyle. Let us make ourselves fit to be seen in the City. We trimmed each other's hair, but were in two minds whether to part with our beards or not; we had good ones by now, and were at home with them. But Lysis said laughing, I want my wife to know me again. We both shaved in the end, and were glad when it was done; it made us feel we were going home. When the light was changing on the mountains, we sacrificed a ram, and poured libations. The soothsayer told us the signs were good, and we stood and sang our paean. Soon after we fell in, to begin our march, for we had a good way to go across the hills.

  Just before the trumpet, Lysis and I stood on the walls, and looked down the Cleft of the Chariot, to see Athens shine, clear gold picked out with shadows, in the slanting winter sun. I turned to him and said, You look sad, Lysis. It has been good here, but we are going to be better. He smiled at me and said, Amen, and so be it. Then he was silent for a time, looking out at the High City, and leaning on his spear. What is it? I said; for my mind was full of memories, which I felt he shared. I was thinking, he said, of the sacrifice just now, and of how one ought to pray. It is right for men setting out on a just enterprise to commend it to heaven. But for oneself . . . We have entreated many things of the gods, Alexias. Sometimes they gave, and sometimes they saw it otherwise. So today I petitioned them as Sokrates once taught us: 'All-Knowing Zeus, give me what is best for me. Avert evil from me, though it be the thing I prayed for; and give me the good which from ignorance I do not ask.'

  Before I could reply to him, the trumpet sounded, and we went down to the gate.

  The turn of the year was past; the light saw us through the mountains, and when we reached the plain of Eleusis, dusk hid us on the road. No enemy met us. The Thirty were watching the pass, to guard the farms. A little after midnight, skirting the shore, we came into Piraeus.

  At first all was silence. Then the town awoke; but not to outcry or confusion. We had come as a good long watched for, in the sullen patience of men born to the sea. The rumour ran along the streets, and the houses opened. Men came out with swords, with knives, with axes or with stones; women came, decent wives rubbing shoulders with hetairas, bringing cakes or figs, and bold with the darkness thrust them into our hands. The metics came out: Phrygians and Syrians and Lydians and Thracians, whose kin the Thirty had killed and plucked, with no more pity than the farmer's wife choosing a cockerel for the pot. When the dawn broke, we knew that all Piraeus was ours, as far as feeling went. But feeling does not pierce heavy armour; nor do stones. The stand was taken, but the battle was still to come.

  The frosty sun peered over Hymettos; the day grew bright; and from the roofs we saw the enemy coming, the horses first, and then the hoplites, advancing from the shadow of the Long Walls, into the sunlight of Lysander's breach. When it was pretty clear we were outnumbered five to one, and had no hope of holding the outer defences, we fell back upon the old fortress of Munychia, where the ephebes train. On the rocky road that climbs from
the market to the citadel, we took our station, those of us who were heavy-armed, to hold the passage. Behind us, swarming on the rocks, were the men of Phyle who had light arms or none, and the people of Piraeus with cleavers, knives and stones.

  Then, as one finds in a war, there was a pause. The army of the City was sacrificing, and making its dispositions. Behind us the people shouted to each other; over the harbour, the gulls wheeled and called; down below one heard an order, a horse neighing, the rattle of grounded shields. We fell to the idle-sounding talk of soldiers who wait. I remember saying, When did you mend your sandal, Lysis? What a botch you have made of it. Why didn't you ask me, for you know I do it better? And he said, Oh, there was no time; it will last the day. Then came a trumpet, and the march of armour, and the enemy came into the market-place below.

  It looked very wide, emptied of its traffic, with bare stalls; there had been no trading in Piraeus that day. The troops marched in, filling it from side to side, and, as line followed line, almost from end to end. I think their shields were fifty deep. I know that ours were ten.

  As they deployed, we began to know them. It was no place for horses; the knights were on foot, but you could tell them by the gold on their armour, their crests of worked bronze. One could do more than pick out a man here and there, yet I thought, Xenophon is not with them, and was glad. Then to the left we saw the standard; and Thrasybulos called in his great voice, The Thirty are there.

  He spoke to us, as he used to do in Samos, of our just cause; reminding us of the gods' favour, when they saved us with the snow. Fight, each man of you, he said, so that the victory will feel like yours alone. You have everything to win: your country, your homes, your rights, the sight of your lovers and your wives; joy if you live, glory if you die. There stand the tyrants; vengeance is ours. When I strike up the paean, take the note from me, and charge. We wait upon the gods.