Tides of War
Polemides reported that he had yarned several times with Socrates, when they chanced to be granted exercise at the same hour. What had they talked about? “Alcibiades, mostly. And a bit of conjecture on life after death.” He laughed. “I’m to be boxed on the Whore, did you hear?”
He had learned he would be executed on the tympanon.
He asked what we prated about, who closeted all day about our master. Customarily I would not speak of this, yet now…“We talked of the law and adherence to it in the face of death.”
Polemides considered this gravely. “I would like to have heard that.”
I watched as the assassin scripted his valedictory. His hand was firm and sure. When he paused periodically, seeking a word, one could not but be struck by the recollection of Alcibiades, possessed of the identical trait, so charming when he spoke, of drawing up until the proper phrase presented itself.
In the lamplight the prisoner looked younger than his seasons. His trim waist, product of years of campaign, made it no task to envision him as a lad at Lacedaemon, with such hopes, more than thrice nine years gone. I was struck by the irony, the inevitability, of his passage, and Socrates’, to this enclosure and this end.
Might I importune him for the conclusion of his tale? Did it matter? Surely no longer to mount a defense. Yet that wish persisted to hear what remained, from his lips, to its period.
“You must tell me first,” he replied. “A horse trade. What Socrates said today about the law…in return for my tale to its end.”
I resisted, for much of our master’s matter was commendatory to me.
“Of course it was, Jason! Do you think I muster with any but the noblest?”
I told him then. It had gone like this:
Our circle had gathered in Socrates’ cell. A number continued to urge escape. I added my voice. With an escort at arms our master need fear nothing on the highway. He could travel to any sanctuary we, or his friends of other nations, could provide him.
I had been foolish enough to look to a direct answer. Of course the philosopher accorded none. Rather he addressed himself to Crito’s son, youngest among us, who sat at his knee along the wall.
“Advise me, Critobulus, may one make distinction between justice and the law?”
A groan escaped my lips of such violence as to evoke mirth from all, not least Socrates. Again I put my case. The time for philosophical debate was over! This was life-and-death. One must act!
It was not Socrates who admonished me, but Crito, his oldest and most devoted friend. “Is that what philosophy is to you, my dear Jason? A pastime for the parlor, with which we divert ourselves while fate clasps us in clemency, but in the hour of extremity cast aside?”
I told them to chastise me all they wished, only heed that course I exhorted. Socrates regarded me with patience, which infuriated me the more. “Do you remember, Crito,” he continued, still not addressing me, “the oration our friend Jason put to the people during the trial of the generals?”
“Indeed I do. And a fire-breather it was!”
Please, I urged our master, do not mock me. For the issue of that day proved my point precisely.
“And how is that, my friend?”
By miscarrying justice! By putting good men to death in madness. “The demos may summon you back from Elis or Thebes, Socrates, but not from hell.”
“Yes, there’s the fire, Jason! The flame you showed that day and the brightest you have burned in all your life. I was proud of you then as of few others before or since.”
This abashed me. I fell silent.
“You spoke of law and charged the people not to despoil it, following Euryptolemus, who had made such an intrepid speech in defense. This was the crime you charged the people with, if memory serves: you declared that jealousy drove the meaner man to destroy the better. Is this correct? I only wish to reiterate precisely, that we may examine the matter and perhaps gain illumination.”
I acknowledged that it was, desiring, however, to return to the matter of escape.
“I believe what distresses you now,” our master resumed, “is that you feel such miscarriage recurring. My own conviction, you warrant, has arisen not from merit of the case, but from hatred felt by men toward one who styles himself their better. Is this correct, Jason?”
“Is this not exactly what has happened?”
“Do you believe the people capable of ruling themselves?”
I replied in the negative, emphatically.
“And who would govern best, in your view?”
“You. Us. Anyone but them.”
“Let me phrase the question differently. Do we believe that the law, even an unjust law, must be obeyed? Or may the individual take it on himself to decide which laws are just and which unjust, which worthy of obedience and which not?”
I protested that it was not justice which Socrates had received, and thus its disallowance was legitimate.
“Let us hear your opinion, Jason. Is it better to perish through injustice inflicted upon one by others, or to live, having inflicted injustice on them?”
I had lost patience with this and remonstrated vehemently. Socrates inflicted injustice on no one by taking to flight. He must live! And by the gods, each of us would move heaven and earth to secure this!
“You forget one, Jason, upon whom I would be inflicting injustice. The Laws. Suppose the Laws sat among us now. Might they not say something like this: ‘Socrates, we have served you all your life. Beneath our protection you grew to manhood, married, and raised a family; you pursued your livelihood and studied philosophy. You accepted our boons and the security we provided. Yet now, when our verdict no longer suits your convenience, you wish to put us aside.’ How would we answer the Laws?”
“Some men must be set above the laws.”
“How can you strike this posture, my friend, who argued with such fervor, that day, the contravening course?”
Again abashment took me. I could not stand in the face of his conviction.
“Let me restore your memory, my dear Jason, yours and those of our friends who stood present that day, and bring to these here, who were then too young, enlightenment afresh.
“After Alcibiades’ banishment following the defeat at Notium, the city sent out Conon to assume command. That authority not be concentrated in the hands of one man, however, the Council compassed him within a corps of ten generals, among whom were our friends Aristocrates and the younger Pericles. Under this collegial command, the fleet engaged the enemy in a great battle at the Arginousai Islands, destroying seventy of their warships, including nine of ten Spartan vessels, while losing twenty-five of our own. You were there, Jason. Do I recite accurately? Correct me please if I miscarry.
“At this hour, the close of fighting, all fortune had favored the Athenians. But in battle’s aftermath a blow arose with terrible swiftness, as storms do in those seas at that time of year, so I am told, and the men in the water—our men, from those ships holed and sunk—could not be recovered. Those assigned by the generals, among them Thrasybulus and Theramenes, proven leaders, could not master the tempest. All in the water were lost. These comprised the crews of some twenty-five vessels, five thousand men. The city, when it learned of this, was riven in conflicting directions, the first in rage and horror clamoring for the blood of those who had failed to rescue the shipwrecked seamen, the second straining to absorb the calamity as one must all in war, acknowledging the severity of the storm, which was ratified by all reports, nor failing to recollect the greatness of the victory.
“It chanced, however—you who were there cannot but recall—that the Feast of the Apaturia fell proximately after the battle, that customarily joyous season when the brotherhoods assemble to rededicate their bonds and enroll the youths entering their fraternities. It happened, I say, that so many were the gaps in the ranks vacated by those sailors and marines lost at sea, that men broke down to behold the magnitude of the loss. And this despair, inflamed by the rhetoric of certain indiv
iduals, some of legitimate motive, others seeking to deflect blame from themselves, erupted to a conflagration. The city clamored for blood. Six of the generals were arrested (four received warning and fled first). The people proceeded against them at once, trying them not individually as the law prescribed, but in a block, as one. Pericles, Aristocrates, and the other four were made to defend themselves in chains, as traitors. Do I say true, Jason? And you, Crito and Cebes, who were there, draw me up if I narrate imprecisely.”
All concurred that Socrates’ depiction was faithful in spirit and fact.
“The generals were tried in open Assembly. My tribe held the prytany; the lot of epistates chanced to have fallen to me. I was president of the Assembly, the lone occasion of my life on which I have held so lofty a post, and for one day only, as the laws prescribed.
“The prosecutors spoke first; then the generals, one after the other in their own defense, but refused by the mob’s impatience the prescribed interval of the law. Only two spoke in their defense. Axiochus first, then Euryptolemus, nor did he or any of his family ever honor their name more than by his gallantry in that hour. He confined his arguments, shrewdly in the face of the mob, to an exhortation to give each general his day in court. ‘In this way you may be sure of exacting the fullest measure of justice, punishing the guilty to the maximum while avoiding the terrible crime of condemning those who are blameless.’
“The people listened, and even carried his motion, but then Menecles lodged an objection on a technicality and the motion was about to be put to a second vote, that vote which in fact overturned Euryptolemus’ plea and doomed Pericles and the others. Before this ballot could be taken, however, you arose, Jason. I, as chair, recognized you, though many attempted to shout you down, knowing the fellowship you bore for the younger Pericles, not to say your own record of valor with the fleet. Will you permit me, friends, to attempt to recapture the character, if not the text, of our comrade’s plea? Or shall I quit this line of recital?”
The others desired most ardently that our master continue. He glanced once in my direction, then returned to them in sober mien.
“You spoke as follows, Jason:
“‘You are impatient, men of Athens, to conclude this matter. Allow me then to propose a course. As you have determined already that these men are guilty, sparing the state expense of trial or deliberation, let us so name them. Let us agree that in violation of the ordinances of gods and men, they forswore their duty to their comrades in peril. Are we agreed? Then let us advance upon them in a pack now and tear their throats out with our bare hands!
“‘You howl at me, gentlemen. We must do it by law, you cry. Which law is that: the one you overturn at your whim or the one you make unto yourselves? For tomorrow when you awaken, defiled with these innocent men’s blood, no canon or statute will cloak your wickedness.
“‘But you will contend, and those prosecutors speaking in your name have so contended, These accused are murderers! You will paint, as your indictors have painted, the soul-rending portrait of our shipwrecked sons crying for that aid which did not come, until, strength at last failing, they gulped the salt element that overwhelmed them. I have fought upon the sea. We all have. God help us, to perish on that field is the most piteous death a man may suffer, where not his bones, nor the shreds of his garment, may be restored to find rest beneath his native soil.
“‘Yes, our sons’ blood cries for retribution. But how shall we exact it—by dishonoring the very law they gave their lives for? In my family we call ourselves democrats. Within my father’s vault reside commendations inscribed by the elder Pericles, father of one who stands here accused today, and my friend, as all know. These artifacts rest revered beneath our roof, talismans of our democracy. Now in holy assembly we gather, Athenians, as our fathers and theirs before them. But do we deliberate? Is that what you call this? My heart perceives a darker spawn. I peer into your faces and ask, Where have I seen this aspect before? I will tell you where I have not seen it. I have not seen it in the eyes of warriors facing the enemy with fortitude. That is another look entire, and you know it.
“‘What unholy imperative, men of Athens, compels you against all reason and your own self-interest to strike down those who are best among you?
“‘Themistocles preserved the state at her most imperiled hour; yet him you exiled and condemned. Miltiades brought you victory at Marathon, yet you bound him in chains and ravened to cast him into the Pit. Cimon, who won you empire, you hounded to the grave. Alcibiades? By the gods, you didn’t let his feet warm the very pedestal you had set him upon before dragging it and him to earth and jigging with glee upon the sundered stones. Acid and bile are mother’s milk to you. You would rather see the state ground to dust by its enemies than preserved by your betters and be compelled to acknowledge this to their faces. This is the most bitter fate you can imagine, men of Athens. Not vanquishment at the hands of them who hate you, but accepting grace from those who seek only your love.
“‘When I was a boy, my father took me to the yard at Telegoneia, where his cousin, a master shipwright, constructed a boat. The hull had been founded and within her bowl we reclined, enjoying our dinner and anticipating the pleasure of seeing the craft rise to completion. In sober tone my father’s cousin remarked of the necessity, now, to remain with the vessel even at night. Perceiving my perplexity, he set a hand upon my shoulder: “Beware the saboteur.”
“‘“Men are jealous,” the ship’s master instructed my innocent heart. “Of all affairs beneath heaven, they may bear least success in a friend.”
“‘Our enemies watch us, men of Athens. Lysander watches us. If he could slay in battle all ten of his enemy’s generals, how wouldn’t his countrymen honor him? Yet we propose to do this for him!
“‘What madness has seized you, my countrymen? You who claim above all peoples to oppose tyranny; you yourselves have become tyrants. For what is tyranny but the name men give to that form of governance which spurns justice and acts by might alone?
“‘I had come to this platform fearing you. In my wife’s bed last night I trembled and required her gallant heart, and those of my comrades this day, even to mount the stand to address you. Yet now hearing you howl, I feel no terror whatever, save that gravest of all: terror for you and for our nation. You are not democrats. Turn to the fleet for those. You will find none there who condemns these men. They saw that storm. I saw it. The men in the water were dead already, God help them. Yet that is not the crime for which you prosecute these commanders. They are guilty of another. They are your betters and for that your craven hearts may never acquit them.
“‘Yes, bay at me, men of Athens, but know yourselves for yourselves. Don’t be hypocrites. If you intend to overthrow the law, then by Chiron’s hoof, do it like men. You there, tear down the steles of ordinance. And you, seize chisel and mawl and efface the constitution stones. On our feet, all! Let us march as the mob we are to Solon’s tomb and there cast to hell his holy bones. That is what you do, to condemn these men against all law and precedent.’
“These words, my dear Jason, or others very like them, you spoke that day. You heard the mob roar at you then, as they did at me moments later, when I refused as president of the Assembly to put to the vote their unconstitutional motion. They cried for my head, threatened my wife and children. Such rancor I have never heard, even in battle from the blood-mad foe. But I had sworn my prytane’s oath and could act in no way contrary to law. It availed nothing, as you know. The people simply waited one day, till my term expired and the new presiding officer acceded to their will.
“The point, however, my dear Jason, is that in neither case—the conviction of the generals or my own—were the laws to blame. Rather the people overturned the law. Wherefore I believe you were right to defend the law then, and I am right to adhere to it now. Please, my friends, may we at last set aside the issue of flight or evasion?”
I yielded, chastened. Socrates placed his hand kindly upon my shoulder. He s
poke to me, but addressing all.
“Can the demos rule itself? It may perhaps ease your mind to recall, my friend, that those ideals to which the lover of wisdom aspires—the precedence of soul over body, the inquiry after truth, the mastering of the passions of the flesh—are to the common herd not only abhorrent but absurd. The main of men seek not to govern their appetites, but to gratify them; to them justice is an impediment discommoding their cupidity and the gods but vacant tokens, invoked to mask their own actions taken out of fear, expediency, and self-interest. The demos may not be elevated as the demos, but only as individuals. In the end one may master only himself. Therefore let us leave the throng to its own.
“What distresses me far more, Jason, is your despair and its issue: estrangement from philosophy. It is as if you could endure all, holding fast to our calling, but this blow, the loss of myself, your heart cannot bear. Nothing could cause me greater grief or make me fear more that my endeavor, and in fact my life, have been in vain.”
I wept now, yet could not command myself to subscribe to his posture.
“Do you remember when the trial of the generals was over,” Socrates resumed, “how we gathered, friends of the younger Pericles, outside the precinct of the Barathron, the Dead Man’s Pit, and claimed his corpse from the officers?
“Pericles’ kinsmen Ariphron and Xenocrates had arranged for a carriage to bear his body home. His wife Chione, ‘Snow,’ overruled them. She dispatched her sons to the harbor to fetch a public handbarrow. You know these, my friends. They may be found on any quayside, two and three in a bunch, set out as a courtesy to returning sailors, to truck their gear to waiting carts or cabs. The barrows are marked Epimeletai ton Neorion—Property of the Admiralty.
“Upon this simple seaman’s cart we bore our friend’s corpse home. We were twenty, in a body, as we felt we must be in fear of the mob. None molested our way, however; their lust for blood had been sated. Pericles’ son Xanthippus was the bravest. Only fourteen, he strode before the party erect and dry-eyed. He dressed his father’s corpse, in apprehension yet that the Eleven may order it expelled from Attica, and that night sheared his mother’s hair and bound her in the cowl of mourning. The order had already been served, confiscating Pericles’ property. Do you remember? We gathered to take into our own homes whomever and whatever we could. Yet what fell out was this: within two days the people had come to themselves and discovered their derangement. Collective contrition seized the city, as men discerned the outrage they had wrought and lamented bitterly their own passion and overhaste.