The Last of the Wine: A Novel Read online

  I listened sick at heart, waiting for the name that always came up before long. It was common knowledge, people said, that Sokrates had been in love with the youth, and wanted to make a greater Perikles of him; would follow him to his loose revels, rebuke him in front of his friends, and drag him off like a slave, out of jealousy, unwilling to have the boy an hour out of his sight. I felt the disgrace as if it were my own. Since I could not silence the men, I spoke to Xenophon. We were scraping each other’s backs after wrestling; as I worked on him with the strigil, I said I could not see any crime in trying to make a bad man good. He laughed at me over his shoulder. “Scrape harder; you never scrape hard enough. I will say for you, Alexias, you stick to your side. Well, let’s be fair to him; all these people were taken in by Alkibiades themselves and want a scapegoat. But a man like Sokrates, who goes about all day tripping people up and setting them right, can’t afford to make a fool of himself. Do you know that when Alkibiades was a youth he once used his teeth in a wrestling-bout, when he was losing? If that had happened in Sparta, they would have beaten not only him, but his lover as well, for not teaching him to be a man.”

  I had not spirit enough even to rise to the Spartans. “Look into the scent-shop,” he said, “and you will see Sokrates’ young men lolling about by the hour, word-splitting and discussing their souls; like Agathon, who, if you mistook him for a girl, I should think would be delighted.”—“He is a crowned tragedian,” I said. “Why laugh at a man who will be immortal, when no one remembers you or me? Have you seen Sokrates in the scent-shop? I never have.”—“It will be some time, I should say, before we see him anywhere. Ten knucklebones to one I’ll lay you, that he doesn’t show himself in the colonnade for a week at least. Do you take me?”—“Yes.” He noticed then that I had stopped scraping, and looked round. “Pax,” he said smiling, “or we shall be having to clean-off all over again.”

  Someone had said that Autolykos the athlete was wrestling in Taureas’ palaestra, so we asked our tutors if we could watch. They agreed to pass through but not to stop. We found that Autolykos had finished his bout and was taking a rest; the place was full of people admiring his looks and waiting for him to wrestle again. A statuary, or a painter, was sitting and making a sketch of him. He was used to all this and took no notice of it. We were edging our way through the press, when from the other end came a hush, and then the muttering of an angry crowd. My hands felt cold. I knew who had come in.

  He was alone. It did not occur to me that he had not sought for company; I thought they had all deserted him. Kriton, who had been watching the wrestling, came over at once to walk with him; and to everyone’s surprise, Autolykos himself saluted him, but being naked and covered with dust did not leave the wrestling-ground. Everyone else drew away as he passed, or turned their backs; as he drew nearer, I heard someone laugh.

  As for me, I was neither brave enough to go forward, nor coward enough to go back. When others withdrawing left me in sight of him, I could scarcely bring myself to look. The best I hoped for was to see him staring them all out, as they say he did the enemy at Delion in the retreat. But as he passed me he was saying as if conversing at home, “But his contention is that the method can be taught, not the power of apprehending it. If it were a question of mathematics …”

  I did not hear any more. As Midas was calling me, I turned to go: then I saw that Xenophon was standing just behind. At first he did not see me, for he was following Sokrates with his eyes. I waited for him to pay up his bet, for he was always a good loser. But still looking past me, he said, “On the day when the gods send me trouble and danger, may they send me also that man’s courage.”

  On the way home, we climbed to the High City and looked out at the harbour. A ship was leaving; the day being clear, we saw a blue device upon the sail. “That will be the Salaminia,” we said, “with her blue owl.” She stood away quickly, making haste to Sicily.

  6

  THAT YEAR AT THE Dionysia, my father took my mother and me to the theatre. The poet was one he was very fond of, because he laughed at the sophists and the democrats and at everyone who wanted to upset the City with anything new. Kydilla came to attend my mother, and Sostias to carry the cushions; my father gave him two obols to see the show. It was a clear bright day; a few little cloud-shadows swept across the sunny theatre, and blew away towards the sea. My mother with Kydilla went off to the women’s seats. She had on a new pair of gold earrings my father had just given her, with little leaves hanging in them that trembled when she turned her head. The seats were already filling. The sheep-skins and undyed clothes of the working people at the top, and the bright colours on the lower benches, made the bowl of the theatre look like a great flower, lying against the flank of the High City in a calyx of dry leaves.

  Nowadays I often wonder that I still attend the plays of Aristophanes, whose hands are stained, if words can stain the hand that wrote them, with the blood dearest to me on earth. That day I went unwillingly, because his mockery of Sokrates was quoted everywhere, as indeed it stuck to him all his life. Yet in this comedy was a song about birds, so beautiful that it made the hair prickle on one’s neck. Indeed, while he is singing, he makes his own heaven and earth; the good is what he chooses, and where he sets their altars, there the gods alight. Plato says that no poet ought to be allowed to do this; and he is too distinguished now to be argued with any longer. I notice, however, that he goes himself. At all events, Aristophanes missed the prize that year. It went to a play called The Drunken Revellers, which roused the audience to great fury against Herm-breakers and blasphemers.

  We were waiting outside for my mother, when a man came up and said, “I stayed to tell you, Myron, that your wife has gone home. But don’t be anxious; my own wife has gone with her, and says it is nothing of consequence. You can trust her; she has had four of her own.” He smiled, and my father thanked him with more warmth than he had shown at first. “Well, Alexias,” he said, “let us go home then.”

  On the way he was in good spirits, and talked about the play. I don’t know how I answered him. He went through to see my mother and I was left alone. Without giving a thought to what I was about, or looking for my tutor, or asking leave, I ran out of the house and through the streets. Near the Acharnian Gate someone called to me, “Where are you going so fast, son of Myron?” I saw that it was Lysis, but I could not have spoken with anyone for my life; I turned my face to hide it from him, and ran on. I ran through fields and woods, and found myself at last on the slopes of Lykabettos.

  Climbing the steep rocks above with my hands and feet, I came out on a level place, where a few small flowers clung to the stone. Even the High City looked flat below me; beyond the shoulder of Hymettos shone the sea. I lay down panting, and said to myself, “What did I run for? One ought not to do things without a cause.” Then I turned my face and wept bitterly; yet I had not known when I ran that I wanted to weep.

  I said to myself that my grief was absurd; yet it filled my heart and even hurt my body. It seemed to me that my mother had betrayed me; having taken me up when I was wanted by no one, now she had leagued herself with my father to put another in my place. I hated him for it, though I knew it was impiety towards the gods. Better, I thought, that the Spartans had not come down on the day of my birth, and that long ago, in some such place as this, foxes had picked my bones and the wind scattered them.

  In time my tears were spent; the little flowers threw long shadows and I felt the evening chill. It put me in mind of how I climbed the roof on my father’s wedding day, to see the bride brought home. I had supposed in my simplicity, being only seven years old, that I should be allowed to come to the feast. My father had said that he was bringing me a mother; and as if he had promised me a dog or bird of my own, I thought she belonged already to me.

  It was not till the time of the lamp-lighting that I left my memories and came down from Lykabettos. I was hungry, for it was a sharp evening now the sun was down. I remembered that I had been gone some h
ours without my tutor, and wondered whether by good luck my father might be out. When I got in, however, he was in the living-room waiting for me.

  He was alone; and instead of begging his pardon, I said before he had time to speak, “Where is Mother?” for I was suddenly afraid that she was really sick. He got up from his chair saying, “All in good time, Alexias. Where have you been?”

  When he spoke as if I had no right to ask, anger rose in me. I stared him in the face with my mouth shut. I saw his colour rise, as no doubt mine had risen. At length he said, “Very well. If you have done what you are ashamed of, you have cause to be silent. But I warn you it will pay you better to tell me now, than to wait like a coward till I find it out.” At this a fire burned in my head, and I said, “I have been in the men’s palaestra, hearing the sophists, and meeting my friends.”

  Being now very angry, he paused before he spoke; then without raising his voice he said, “With whom, then, were you there?”—“With no one more than another,” I said; “though your friend Kritias asked me to go home with him.”

  I tried to keep my anger between me and fear. He was a very big man. I set my teeth and resolved that if he killed me, he should not see me flinch. But he only said in a low voice, “Go to your room, and wait for me there.”

  The evening was cold and I was hungry. My little room was dark at evening, for it looked upon the fig-tree. I walked to and fro, trying to get warm. At last he came in, with his riding-whip in his hand. “I have waited,” he said, “because I would not lay my hand to you while I was in anger. Rather than please myself, I wanted to do what was just. If you grow up to be worth anything, you will have me to thank for correcting your insolence. Strip.”

  I doubt if I gained as much as he did by his self-command, for that was the worst beating of my life. Towards the end I could not quite keep silent; but I kept from crying out aloud, or asking him to stop. After he had done I kept my back to him, wanting for him to go. “Alexias,” he said. I turned then, lest he thought I dared not show my face. “Well,” he said, “I am glad to see you not so wanting in courage as in sense. But courage without conduct is the virtue of a robber, or a tyrant. Don’t forget it.” I was feeling very sick, and if I was going to faint now in his presence I would as soon have died outright, so to get rid of him I said, “I’m sorry, Father.”—“Very well,” he said, “that is the end of it then; goodnight.”

  When I was alone I lay on my bed and felt, as one does when young, that my present misery would last without relief as long as my life. I determined that I would go to the shore, and throw myself from a rock into the sea. I lay resting, only waiting to get back enough of my strength to go, and seeing in my mind the streets I should pass through as I left the City. Then I remembered Lysis meeting me in the road and saying, “Where are you going so fast, son of Myron?” I tried to imagine myself replying to him, “I am going to leap in the sea, because my father beat me.” At this thought, I knew that I was being absurd. So I covered myself in bed, and at last fell asleep.

  Later I learned that my father had sought me about the City, and must have known that I had not been to the palaestra, but had punished me for my disrespect, as any father would. I have never beaten my own boys so hard; but for all I know, they are the worse for it.

  Next day I was slow to seek my mother at her loom; but she called me to her. “When you were little, Alexias, were you angry at hearing you were to have a stepmother? I am sure you were; for in the tales they are always wicked creatures.”—“Of course not. I have often told you how it was.”—“But surely someone said to you that when a stepmother has a son of her own, she grows unkind to her husband’s child? Slaves are full of tales like that.” I turned my face away and said “No.”

  She rattled her shuttle through the loom. “Old women are much the same. With a young bride, they love to croak about the trials of a second wife; making sure she will be frightened not only of her husband, which will happen in any case, but of his slaves, and even his friends who will know no more of her than her cooking and weaving. More than anything, she is certain her stepson already hates her, and looks to her coming as the worst misfortune of his life. And when, expecting all this, she finds a good son with hands stretched out in welcome, nothing is so long remembered; no child can grow dearer than the first.” She ceased, but I could not answer her. “You were a boy fond of your own way,” she said, “yet when you saw that I was afraid of seeming ignorant, you told me the rules you had to keep yourself, and even how you were punished for breaking them.”

  Her voice trembled and I saw she was going to cry. I knew I should have to run away without speaking; but as I went, I caught her arm in my hand to let her know we parted friends. Her bones felt small, like a hare’s.

  After this I grew used to the thought of the baby, and even told some of my friends. Xenophon gave me advice on how I ought to train it. At times it seemed he wanted me to bring it up as a Spartan; at others, as a horse.

  I was now turned sixteen and had finished my schooling with Mikkos. Some of my friends were already studying with sophists. I was careful not to open this subject with my father, for after recent events I knew he would not let me go to Sokrates and might commit me to someone else. I meant to approach him when the scandal had faded somewhat from his mind. A good part of my spare time I spent at our farm, carrying out his orders and keeping an eye on things when he was busy; and sometimes Xenophon and I hunted hares together. He had his own leash of harriers, which he had bred from his father’s dogs; he had trained them well to follow the line, and not be drawn off by foxes and other vermin.

  I had almost forgotten the Salaminia when she returned. Everyone flocked to the harbour, to see how Alkibiades would look, and if he would show any fear. Most people’s anger had cooled by now; they were wondering what sort of defence he would make, and saying it would certainly be better than anything by a hired speechmaker.

  The two ships came nearer; but he was not to be seen. Then the trierarch of the Salaminia came ashore, looking like a man who has lost a bag of gold and found a rope. His news was overheard and flew from mouth to mouth. Alkibiades had agreed very civilly to come, and had sailed with them as far as Thurii in Italy. While they stopped for water, he and Antiochos had gone ashore to stretch their legs; and when it was time to start again, their ship lacked both trierarch and pilot. No one blamed the Salaminia’s trierarch much. Once the voyage began, Alkibiades had had as many men to defend him as the trierarch to make an arrest, which moreover he had been told not to do.

  The dikastery sat in the absence of the accused, and the full indictment was presented. The verdict was confiscation of all his goods, and death. His house was cast down, and the site given to the gods. His young son was dispossessed. The auction of his goods lasted four full days. Almost everyone in the City bought something. Even my father came back with a gold-edged mantle; the hem was frayed, from Alkibiades’ habit of trailing the end behind him, and I daresay my father thought it a bad bargain, for he never wore it.

  Some time after, a ship came in from Italy, carrying letters from the colonists to their friends. Somebody had one from an Athenian called Thukydides, a former general who had bungled the relief of a town earlier in the war, and was living in exile. Having no occupation he travelled here and there, and wrote a good deal to pass the time. He told his friend he had been there when the death-sentence was brought to Alkibiades. Onlookers had waited to hear some high-spirited eloquence. But it seems he only said, “I shall let them know I am alive.”

  Before long we heard that he had crossed from Italy in a fishing-boat to Argos, and it was supposed he had settled there. But a few days later a trader docked in Piraeus and we learned the truth. I ran all the way to Xenophon’s, to be first with the news, for I longed to see his face. First he stared at me, then he threw back his head and laughed aloud. “Is life really as dear to him as that? Alkibiades in Sparta! The gods must have crazed him, to make him work out their curse himself. What the Athenia
ns would have done to him would have been nothing to this.”

  All over the City, angry as people were, you could hear laughter. They painted the scene to one another: Alkibiades seated on a wooden bench in a barn, at the public mess (if any mess would have him) drinking filthy black broth from a wooden bowl, he who had kept Lydian cooks and lain on couches stuffed with down; his hair growing down uncombed, his body un-bathed unless he cared for a swim in the cold Eurotas; no more scented oil for him, nor jewelled sandals; rushes for his bed, and no one to share it. “It will kill him,” they said, “and less gently than the hemlock.” Someone would add, “No praise for his wit either; they like theirs short and dour.” No one quoted, it seems, his words when he heard his sentence.

  The winter winds had dropped, the sea was blue, the gulls like kites on a string lay rocking with spread wings; it was sailing weather. One morning I saw a big trireme being loaded up at Munychia harbour and wondered where she was bound. When I got home I found our living-room all strewn with baggage and gear, and my father in the midst of it, his armour spread about him, oiling the straps.

  I must have stared like a fool, for he called out impatiently to me either to go out or come in. I came over, asking if he was going to war. “Oh, no,” he said, raising his brows at me. “Don’t I always wear armour to ride to the farm?” He sounded like a young man. I suppose when I came in his mind had been far away. “What has happened, sir?” I asked. “Are the Spartans coming?” He pulled an old thong from his corselet and threw it away. “Not that I know of; if they do, my son, they will be your affair, so good luck to you. I am going to Sicily.”