The slave began to massage my legs.
I said, “Did you socialize?”
“As I said, he was a metic.”
It occurred to me that Sophocles preferred the company of his peers.
“What about Lakon?” I asked.
“Lakon’s a citizen,” Sophocles said. “And I’ve known him a very long time.”
“Then how does he come to be an actor?” I asked.
“You have it the wrong way round,” Sophocles said. “Most actors are citizens. The exceptions are the metics.”
I asked, “In the play, with the original cast, was Phellis the only man to use the machine?”
“Both the first and second actors flew on the machine. Lakon played Zeus in a later scene.”
“What about the third actor?”
“Third actors never play a god. They’re not important enough.”
“How does that work?” I asked. “Does importance matter?”
“Not the way you’re thinking, but consider the scene casting,” Sophocles said. “There’s only one machine. There can never be two gods onstage at the same time.”
“Oh, I see. Is there much squabbling over the parts?” I asked.
“Constantly,” Sophocles said.
His tone alone was worth a day of explanation.
“You said you’d used Romanos previously?”
“Several years ago, when another actor failed me-the poor fellow had been beaten by brigands as he traveled the country roads-I needed a quick study. Someone suggested I look at Romanos. Well, I was desperate, I would have hired a donkey if it could speak the lines. But Romanos was everything the recommender had said.”
“Then you knew Lakon first?”
“Citizen actors start when they’re boys. They come up through the chorus. Throughout the year there are festivals and choral performances where we need children to sing. I and the other directors choose from among the sons of respectable citizens.”
I knew that part all too well, because when I was a boy I had volunteered, but had never been chosen. I remembered standing nearby while someone told my father it was because I couldn’t sing. My little brother Socrates had never been chosen because they said he was too ugly.
“Most of the boys are talentless, of course,” Sophocles said, not knowing my own history. “Perhaps a quarter of the boys can sing passably well. We directors notice the ones who sing well. We choose the cream from throughout the year to fill the choruses for the Dionysia. Of the cream, a handful can also dance. From each year, perhaps one or two of the best will like the stage well enough that they stick with it when they grow to men.”
I was astonished. “Do you mean to say you hired Lakon when he was a boy?”
“How old do I look?” Sophocles demanded. I’d insulted him. Lysanias tittered.
“Sorry, Sophocles, but I don’t understand.”
Sophocles rolled over so the slave could massage his front. He added, “That’s something Lakon and I have in common. We both got our start in the chorus.”
“You were an actor, Sophocles?” I said, surprised.
“I was passable, in my day,” he allowed, in the tone of voice a man uses when what he means is that he’s too modest to say he was the best.
Sophocles continued, “I was selected by Aeschylus to perform in the chorus. These days Aeschylus is my friend, but back then he was my director. Lakon too, when he was a boy, was selected by Aeschylus. By that stage I was a young man, serving as an elder member of the chorus. I remember standing in the same chorus line with Lakon.”
“In a sense you grew up together,” I said.
“No. Lakon returned with his parents to their home town, Rhamnus. He didn’t play again until he returned to Athens more than a decade later, as a young but fully grown man. By then I had given up acting. A man can’t be both an actor and the writer, and the writer is of more service to the state.”
“He is?”
“Certainly he is,” Sophocles said. “I’m surprised you even question it. Tell me, young man, why do you like tragedies?”
I didn’t like tragedies. I’d always preferred the comedies. But this didn’t seem the moment to mention it.
“Well,” I said, desperately trying to think of something. “Tragedies are very … er … tragic-”
Lysanias laughed.
Sophocles frowned. “Of course you know the purpose of our plays-”
“To entertain people,” I said at once. “That’s why more people go to see the comedies than the traged …” I trailed off.
Sophocles stared at me openmouthed, and I suddenly realized I’d blundered.
“Er … that is …” I groped for the right words.
Lysanias was rolling on the floor, tears running down his face.
“I’m sorry, Sophocles,” I said.
Sophocles sighed.
“Don’t bother trying to talk yourself out of it,” Sophocles said. “Now listen closely, young man. The whole point of tragedy is to teach people the difference between right and wrong.” He glared at me.
“It is?”
“It is. In tragedy a great man makes a mistake. He does wrong when the Gods gave him the power to do right. Then we see his downfalclass="underline" the consequences of his mistake. This teaches the people that right might not always be rewarded, but wrong is always punished. A tragic writer has the greatest responsibility to the people, because we are the teachers of morals. If we produced plays that praise bad behavior, then the people would copy the behavior of their onstage heroes and the state would collapse.”
“I see.”
“We must hope that as you grow older you acquire some taste for both the tragedies and the comedies. I despair when I look at the stuff that passes for comedy these days. How anyone could think it’s funny to watch people hitting each other with pigs’ bladders is beyond me.”
Sophocles clearly didn’t frequent the same circles I did.
“Tell me about the noose,” I said.
Sophocles said, “It was my idea to hang the god of death. The noose is joined to the machine’s rope on a stretch that is longer than the remaining rope to the actor’s harness. The difference is only a hand’s length, but it’s enough.”
Sophocles demonstrated with his hands.
“You see the effect?” Sophocles said, warming to his subject. “I thought, since it was impossible to hide the rope from which Thanatos hangs, I may as well make it work as a part of the play. The real remaining length of rope is painted blue to match the sky. The noose seems to be the only rope up there. To the audience they see the god of death appear as a hanged man.”
“It was certainly realistic from where I sat during rehearsals,” I said. “Everyone was terrified.”
Sophocles beamed. “It’s always nice to hear that an effect worked.”
“Perhaps a little too well?” I suggested.
“That’s not my fault.”
I was frustrated. I’d hoped to learn something of Romanos. But other than that he was a good actor, which I already knew, I’d learned nothing. It seemed odd that the man should be such a cipher. He’d seemed perfectly open when Diotima and I had spoken to him in the rain. I said as much to Sophocles, who shrugged.
But Lysanias poked up his head from the massage and said, “Have you talked to his sponsor?”
“Who?” I said. “What sponsor?’
“Didn’t you know? All metics are required to register with the state, and they must have a sponsor.”
“I never knew,” I admitted. It occurred to me, with some surprise, that except for Diotima, who had been a metic before we married, I too had never socialized with metics.
“Who was the sponsor of Romanos?”
“You must ask the Polemarch,” Lysanias said.
“Did the Polemarch know Romanos?” I said.
“I doubt it. But the Polemarch is responsible for all metic affairs. If anyone would know who the sponsor of Romanos was, it’ll be him. You probably need to do it anyway. The sponsor must be informed that his client is dead.”