The Last of the Wine: A Novel

I went, and he unlocked one of the stables. The door creaked with rust. Inside was a chariot, covered with dusty cobwebs. The work was very grand in the old style, painted with figures from Homer, the carvings gilded. A bleached and withered garland hung on it, with faded ribbons; Lysis pulled it off, and spiders ran out. “That must be from the Pythian Games,” he said. “It’s ten years or more since we kept up the stud to race it; it ought to have gone long since. When I was a boy, our charioteer used to take me up at practice sometimes, and let me put my hands on the reins and believe I was driving. I had great notions of winning one day with myself up, as my grandfather Lysis did. I don’t want Father to see this before it has been cleaned. We’re selling it tomorrow.”

  Not very long after this, I was brought at last the news of my father’s death.

  It was Sokrates who prepared me for what I was going to hear, and led me to Euripides’ house. For he had one, like anyone else, in the City, not far from ours, though one hears everywhere lately a silly tale that he lived in a cave. This has grown, I suppose, from his having had a little stone hut built on the shore, where he went to work and be quiet. As to his being a misanthrope, I think the truth is that he grieved for men as much as Timon hated them, and had to escape from them sometimes in order to write at all.

  He greeted me with gentleness but few words, looking at me with apology, as if I might reproach him, for having no more to say. Then he led me to a man whom, if I had not been forewarned, I should have taken for some beggar he had washed and clothed. The man’s bones were staring from his skin, the nails of his hands and feet broken and rilled with grime; his eyes were sunk into pits, and he was covered with festering scratches and with sores. In the midst of his forehead was a slave-brand done in the shape of a horse, still red and scabby. But Euripides presented me to him, not him to me. He was Lysikles, who had commanded my father’s squadron.

  He began to tell me his tale quite clearly; then he lost the thread of it, and became confused among things of no purpose till Euripides reminded him who I was, and who my father was. A little later again he forgot I was there, and sat looking before him. So I will not relate the story as he told it then.

  My father, as I learned, had been working in the quarries at the time of his death. That was where the Syracusans took the public prisoners after the battle, and where most of them ended their lives. The quarries at Syracuse are deep. They lived there without shelter from the scorching sun or the frosts of the autumn nights. Those who could work quarried the stone. They all grew grey with the stone-dust, which only the rain that sometimes fell on them ever washed away. The dust filled their hair, and the wounds of the dying, and the mouths of the dead whom the Syracusans left rotting where they lay. There was nowhere in the rock to dig them graves, if anyone had had the strength to do it; but because a fallen man takes up more room than one on his feet, they piled them into stacks; for the living had scarcely space to lie down and sleep, and in this one place they lived and did everything. After a time not much work was demanded of them, for no overseer could be got to endure the stench. For food they were given a pint of meal a day, and for drink half a pint of water. The guards would not stay to give it out, but put down the bulk and let them scramble for it. At first the people of Syracuse used to come out in numbers to look into the quarry and see the sight; but in time they grew weary of it and of the smells, all but the boys who still came to throw stones. If any citizen was seen from below, those who were not already resigned to death would call out to him, begging to be bought into slavery and taken anywhere. They had nothing worse to fear than what they suffered.

  After about two months the Syracusans took away the allied troops from among them, branded these in the forehead, and sold them off. They kept the Athenians in the quarry; but at this time they removed the dead, among whom was my father. His body had then been lying there some weeks: but Lysikles had recognised it while it was still fresh.

  On this he paused and drew his brows together, as if trying to recall what it was he had omitted. When his forehead wrinkled, the legs of the horse, which was branded on it, seemed to move. Then he remembered and offered me a condolence on the loss of my father, such as a man of breeding makes to a friend’s son. You might have thought it was I who had given the news to him. I thanked him, and we sat looking at one another. I had made his memory live for him, and he had made it live for me. So we stared, both of us, with an inward eye, seeking blindness again.

  His own story he did not tell me, but I heard it later. He had passed himself off as an Argive, having picked up some of their Doric, and having been branded with them was sold. He had been bought for a small price by a rough master; and at last, preferring to starve in the woods, he had run away. When too weak to go further, he had been found by a Syracusan riding out to his farm. This man guessed he was an Athenian, yet gave him food and drink and a place to sleep; then, when he was somewhat recovered, asked him whether any new play by Euripides had lately been shown in Athens. For of all the modern poets, it is he whom the Sicilians value most. And living so much out of the way, they are the last to hear of anything new.

  Lysikles replied that the year before they sailed, Euripides had been crowned for a new tragedy upon the sack of Troy, and the fate of the captive women. Whereon the Syracusan asked him if he could repeat any of it.

  This is the play Euripides wrote just after the fall of Melos. I did not hear it myself; for my father, having thought his former work unorthodox, did not take me. Phaedo once told me that he heard it. He said that from the moment when he was struck down in battle, through all he saw on the island, and while he was a slave at Gurgos’s, that was the only time he wept. And no one noticed him, for the Athenians were weeping on either side. Lysikles had both heard the play and read it; so as much as he knew, he taught the Syracusan, who in payment gave him a bag of food and a garment and set him on his way. This was not the only case of the kind; Euripides had several visits from Athenians who came to tell him that one of his choruses had been worth a meal or a drink to them. Some, who had been sold as house slaves at the beginning, were promoted to tutors if they knew the plays, and at last saw their City again.

  But for my father, who had liked to laugh with Aristophanes, there was no returning. I did not even know if a handful of earth had been sprinkled over him at last, to put his shade at rest. We performed the sacrifice for the dead at the household altar, my uncle Strymon and I; and I cut off my hair for him. In only a little while, when I became a man, I should have been offering it to Apollo. This was the god my father had always honoured most. As I laid the wreath on the altar, with the dark locks of my hair tied into it, I remembered how his had shone in the sunlight like fine gold. Though he had turned forty when he sailed for Sicily, the colour had scarcely begun to fade; and his body was as firm as an athlete’s of thirty years.

  I told Strymon that my father had died of a wound in the first days of his captivity; for I could not trust his tongue, and this was the story I had given my mother.

  Soon I was back in the field again; and this, I found, was as good a consolation as any. For however little sense there may be in it, while risking one’s life one feels that one makes an offering, and that the gods who afflict men with remorse are appeased.

  Now that spring was here, the shipyards worked all day; ribbed keels stood everywhere on the slipways; here and there you could see a vessel ready, with torches burning half the night to light the fitters. It was a fine sight and put heart into you, till you saw what was ready to take the sea. Only one piece of news was dreaded now whenever a ship came in, that the island allies were in revolt.

  All this while, I was waiting to go before the gymnaisiarchs when they picked the entrants for the Isthmian Games. If I could have entered as a boy, I could have been fairly sure of it; but I should have turned eighteen by then so must enter as an ephebe. Yet, at the trial runs, the gods gave me in swiftness what I lacked in art, and I found myself among the chosen.

  I stood tr
ansported with joy, till the public trainer came up and said to me, “Your body is now dedicated to the god; report to your officer that you are freed from military service till after the Games, and be here tomorrow morning.” I walked with dragging feet through the porch into the street; I had not thought ahead, nor known that separation would come so hard. It troubled me; there seemed something excessive in it; I should have been ashamed to confess it, even to Lysis himself. I was walking to his house, resolved to put a sensible face on it, when Xenophon met me in the street and said laughing, “Well, when you and Lysis celebrate tonight, don’t forget to take plenty of water with it; you’re both in training now.”

  I was getting to an age when people stare if you run in the street; but I did not pause till I found him. It was true; he had been chosen along with Autolykos to fight the pankration. He had not even told me he was going before the selectors, for fear of its coming to nothing. We embraced each other laughing like children.

  Next day our training began in earnest: practising all morning, a walk after supper, two parts of water always to one of wine, and to bed with the dark. Another knight had taken over the troop from Lysis; till after the Games, we should only take up arms if the enemy attacked the walls.

  One day when we met after exercise, Lysis said “Do you remember that young cousin of Kritias’, Aristokles, the wrestler? You gave him a message from me once, in the Argive’s palaestra.”—“Oh, yes; Ariston’s son, the lad who talks like a prince. I’ve not seen him since.”—“You’ll be seeing him soon; he’s going to the Games with us, to wrestle in the boys’ class.”—“You were right, then, when you said he would be heard of again.”—“Yes, and I fancy his chances too, unless another city puts up someone outstanding. He was born for a wrestler; it’s stamped all over him, too clearly indeed for grace. They have a nickname for him now in the palaestra; they call him Plato.”—“How does he like that?” I asked. I remembered the boy gazing at my face; as if he were putting it up against some notion of beauty in his mind which for a moment I satisfied. “If his proportions are bad,” I said, “he looked the kind of lad who wouldn’t need reminding of it.”—“Probably not; he practises running in armour, to keep himself in balance. I daresay a little teasing won’t hurt him; he is inclined to be solemn. He takes it very well; at least they learn manners in that family, and it’s a pleasant change to see one of them in the palaestra instead of on the rostrum.”

  I meant to go and watch the boy at practice if I could find time; but just then something happened which drove trifles from my head. I came home, and met in the court my little sister Charis weeping. She was always tumbling about and bruising herself, for she was just learning to run. I picked her up; being only two years old, she went bare unless it was cold, and her body was as sweet as fresh apples. When I had made her laugh I looked for her hurt but could find none; so I carried her in. There I saw my mother, seated in talk with my uncle Strymon. She had pulled her veil across her face. I thought it modest of her to take this trouble with so old a man; yet something in it disturbed me. I set down the child and went in. On this my mother dropped her veil, and turned to me, as a woman to the man under whose protection the gods have placed her. I went over and stood at her side. Then looking up I met the eyes of Strymon and thought, “This man is an enemy.”

  I greeted him, however, in the usual way. He said, “I have been pointing out to your stepmother, Alexias, and not for the first time, the unfitness of her staying here alone, now that your worthy father is gone, in a household without a man at its head. The gods have given me means enough to take care of such obligations; kindly assure her of it, since she seems to fear being a burden in my house.”

  I considered this. Being almost eighteen, I should soon be of age and her legal guardian. Still, he was, in the meantime, head of the family; his proposal was correct, if rather officious. At first I was chiefly concerned lest he might want me to go too. Then I saw her eyes flinch before his; and I understood.

  He was a man of only five-and-sixty, in good health. Without doubt he would have offered her marriage, and many women in her place would have thought themselves well off. The extreme of horror I felt was no doubt the effect of my youth. Like one deprived of sense, I put forward none of the reasonable objections I might have made to her going, but cried out, “She will stay here, by Zeus, and let me see who will take her away!”

  He rose from his chair. We stood eyeing one another; I have met kinder looks across the top of a shield. Never destroy without thought your enemy’s pretences; they are usually your best weapon against him. We were both drawing breath to speak again, when my mother said, “Alexias, be silent. You forget yourself.”

  I felt as if she had stabbed me in the back while I defended her. Turning round, however, and seeing her face, I understood that she was afraid. This was natural enough; for an open breach with him would have made our lives very unpleasant. Her sharpness recalled me partly to myself. I begged his pardon, and began to say some of the things I should have said at first. He replied, “Pray don’t trouble yourself, Alexias, to apologise. I imagine that in your own circle of friends, what we have heard is nothing out of the way. Where the teacher does not even worship the immortal gods, but sets them aside for new divinities, one can hardly expect in the pupil much reverence for age and kinship in mere men.”

  It had been a way of mine since childhood to throw back my head when I was angry. I did this now, and felt a strangeness; I was used to the weight of my hair, and it had gone. It was as if a hand had been laid on me to say, “Remember you are a man.”

  “The blame is mine, sir,” I said. “He would have rebuked me sooner than you. Thank you for your offer; but I don’t wish my mother to leave this house, where I shall be master so shortly.”—“In a few years,” he said, “when you bring home a bride, your stepmother will have little cause to thank you.”—“Sir, when I choose a bride, it won’t be one who does not honour my mother.” He said, “You have no mother, and this woman is your father’s wife.”

  I had to fix my eyes on his white beard, or I could not have answered for myself. I have seldom been so roused in battle. When my mother spoke I seemed at first scarcely to hear. She said, as a woman speaks to a slapped child, “That is enough, Alexias. Bid your uncle goodbye, and go.”

  I had not even answered him. Her injustice stung me; but it sobered me too. After a moment I said, “Well, sir, I am sure neither of us cares to parade family business in a lawsuit. I should be of age too by the time it was heard, and your case would fall away. We have kept you long enough from your affairs; may we offer you something before you go?”

  When he had left, I was reluctant to go in again. I suppose I felt I had mishandled the matter, and feared my mother’s reproaches. I went out into the street instead; and now I found only one thought in my mind. Whenever I met with an acquaintance, I asked if he had seen Lysis anywhere. Someone told me he was still at the gymnasium. He was not on the wrestling-ground; but I found him on the sand-track, throwing the disk. He had just got it poised, and was starting the swing-back, when he saw me, and checked his arm, and made a bad cast. The others laughed at him, seeing the cause; then he took up the disk again, and made a good one. Soon afterwards he finished, and came out to clean-off. It seemed to me that I had never beheld him with such joy; I could scarcely greet him. When he had dressed and we were walking away, he said, “What is it? You don’t look like yourself, is anything wrong?”—“No, Lysis. But sometimes I wonder how I got along before I knew you; for it seems now that if I clung to life at all, it was only through ignorance of what I lacked. And if you were not going to Corinth too, I would withdraw my name, rather than we should be parted so long.”

  He stared at me half laughing. “Withdraw? What, from the Games? That wouldn’t earn me much credit in the City. I see now what it is; you’ve been training too hard, and are getting nervous. Take my advice, and don’t waste time fretting in case another city sends a faster man. You can’t know, nor he
lp it if you did. As Sokrates said to me years ago, you can only make your body as acceptable to the gods as you can. If we didn’t know they give the crown to the best man, we might as well save ourselves the hard work, and sit drinking at home. So be at peace with yourself, my dear, for there is measure in everything. Shall we go swimming? Or watch the horse-race? Or talk in the colonnade?” He gazed at me, his brows drawn in thought. “Autolykos says he generally has a girl halfway through his training. It’s not what the trainers say, I know, but he recommends it.”

  “I think I’ll stick to the training,” I said, “and wait till I get to Corinth.” I knew what that city is famous for, and thought this sounded manly enough. In the end we went to the horse-race. Whatever had been in my mind when I sought him out, I went home in the evening feeling like someone who has shaken off a fever.

  A few weeks later I turned eighteen, and went up for the scrutiny. My uncle Strymon went with me, for decency’s sake. When I had verified my age and parentage, the strategos swore me in. He said with a straight face that he supposed I was eager to start my military service; then he held up one of my arms, and looked at my scars, and laughed.

  At home I found laid out on my bed my man’s mantle, which my mother had woven ready a long time back; it smelt of the sweet herbs she kept her dresses in. Lysis had taught me already how to drape it. I put it on, and went in to show myself. “Now, Mother,” I said, “let me see you smile; from this time on you have nothing to fear.” She smiled at me and tried to speak; then suddenly the tears stood in her eyes. It is natural in women to give way like this upon joyful occasions. I came forward with open arms to comfort her; but she cried out that it would be unlucky to sprinkle my mantle with tears at its first wearing; and so avoiding me went away.

  17

  ON THE DAY APPOINTED, we assembled at Piraeus: the priests and important citizens who were to lead the procession; two trainers; and the athletes, men and boys. The lad Aristokles greeted me on the dock with his old-fashioned courtliness. His nickname had stuck; boys, trainers and everyone called him Plato now. He took it cheerfully, and I soon got in the way of it like the rest.