While we stood talking, Plato came up, and greeted us; but when he heard Sokrates was not there, he did not stay. I looked after him, and thought that in the end even the rich had felt it. His eyes were hollow, and the bones of his wide shoulders stood out like knuckles beneath the skin.
I said to Euthydemos, “It was noble in him to give to others, when he was in such want himself.” He answered, “No one has filled his belly these last weeks. I don’t think Plato starved; when things got tight in his home, Kritias helped them; though I can’t endure the man, it seems he has his share of family feeling. Plato was keeping up quite well until a little while ago. But he went downhill in a matter of days after his friend died.”
I put out my hand, and set it upon stone; it was the column of the Herm, that Sokrates had made. It was solid, and upheld me easily. I said, “Which friend?”
“Why, the same,” said Euthydemos. “Plato is not one to change lightly. After the youth was left alone (for he had some old father or kinsman who died during the winter) Plato took charge of him entirely. While he had a crust, you may be sure the boy wouldn’t starve; he had quite a good colour, and nothing worse than a cough such as half the City suffered from. But one day, as they climbed up to the High City, suddenly he choked and brought forth a flow of blood; he fell down where he was, upon the steps of the Porch, and gave up his spirit. Plato buried him; and now is as you see.”
My soul was alone, neither hearing nor seeing, encompassed by chaos and black night, forgetful of its name. A voice reached me, saying, “Drink this, Alexias,” and, my eyes clearing, I saw the face of the Herm above me, and Euthydemos leaning over me with a little wine in an earthen cup. “I thought, when first I saw you, you had walked too far.” I thanked him, and after resting a little went home. Then I remembered I had not asked where the tomb was.
I sought some days for it, and came on it at last in an old garden at the foot of the Nymphs’ Hill, where there were other graves. Places such as this, being within the walls, were emptied later; and I could never learn afterwards where he lay. But the grave, when I saw it, was under an almond tree, which was all in flower, for spring had broken; and there was a brier in bud beside it.
Most of the graves had steles of wood, or an urn of clay to mark the place; but this tomb had a stone. The work was undistinguished; and, remembering Plato’s fine taste, I saw the measure of his grief in his not having overseen the sculptor. A branch of the brier had covered the inscription; bending it back, I read the words:
Lightbringing dawn star, kindled for the living;
Bright torch of Hesperos, sinking to the dead.
I looked again at the relief, which showed the youth standing as in thought, and a mourning man with his face hidden. The work was, as we say, sincere, but of so old-fashioned a simplicity that you might have thought the sculptor had scarcely picked up his chisel since Pheidias’ day. I stood gazing till, a thought coming to me, I knelt down and found the place where the statuary puts his mark; and I understood, when I saw the name.
26
THERE ARE DRAUGHTS THAT do not yield their taste with the first sip; but drink them, and their bitterness wrings the mouth.
The stones still crashed from the Long Walls after the flutes were silent, and the victors who had helped for sport had wearied of the game. The Athenians, half-starved, wearied much sooner; but Lysander used to watch the work, a big man, square-jawed and blond, with a mouth of iron.
Meanwhile, in the public places one saw the exiled oligarchs, making themselves at home. Some had entered as soon as the gates were opened; they had been with King Agis’ army, sitting before the walls.
Presently the Spartans invited the oligarch clubs of Athens to choose five Ephors, as they called them, to draw up proposals for a government. My father attended these consultations. The upshot was that Theramenes was one of the five, and Kritias another. I believe my father voted for both. But I did not hold it against him. Regarding Theramenes, though he ate while we starved, I daresay it cost us nothing. If he had come back and owned to failure, the people would have been angry with him. It was said that he had employed the time in plotting with Lysander to put his friends in power; but this was gossip and guesswork. Of Kritias my father said to me, “I can’t think what makes you so prejudiced against him. One of our ablest men; a true orator, untainted with demagogy, from whom one can be sure of scholarship and logic. And in his writings, no one sets a higher moral tone.” He had been good to me when I was sick; so I swallowed my answer.
Plato asked me to supper about this time. I went doubtfully, knowing I could not say to him what a friend should. But he singled me out for kindness, even to sharing his supper-couch, though there were others with more claim to the compliment. Whether Euthydemos had gossiped to anyone, no doubt I shall never know.
He was always a graceful host, if rather a formal one; if his mind went wandering, he was quick to cover it. While the rest were talking of events, he said to me, “I believe this success will be just the thing for my uncle Kritias.”
I had long given up arguing politics with Plato. His mind was the master of mine; and his motives were pure. It was not in him to despise a man for poverty or low birth. But he despised fools wherever he found them, horse or foot; and finding more of them than of the wise and just, he thought that rule by the people must debase the City. Lysis used to say that government was an exercise ennobling to the base, as good soldiering makes cowards brave. Plato, when I quoted this, praised its magnanimity, and disagreed. As for Kritias, the man was his kinsman, and he was my host.
“Till now,” Plato said, “he has never filled an office worthy of his gifts. Sometimes I have feared it would make him bitter. I can’t tell you half his kindness during the siege. I shall not forget it easily; not only on my own behalf, but … but that is over.”
I answered, “It is said, ‘If Fate were moved by tears, men would offer gold to buy them.’”
“‘… Yet grief still puts them forth, as the tree puts forth its leaves.’ Speaking of my uncle, Charmides and I called to congratulate him; Charmides, you know, takes his career seriously, since Sokrates rebuked his idleness. Kritias urged both of us to come forward in the City’s service. Unless, he said, the better sort of people are prepared to do what they can to remedy democracy’s abuses, the City will fall into an apathy, or the dissipations of defeat, and lose the memory of her greatness. Though my ambitions till now have lain elsewhere, I confess he moved me.”
I told him, in sincerity, that men of his kind were needed. He had begun, I think, by seeking an escape from his grief, but ambition was stirring in him. I said to myself, “I am prejudiced. The enmities of youth lack proportion. Perhaps Kritias might have seemed to me a gentleman, if I had met Chremon first.”
One heard Chremon’s name everywhere that week. Pasion, the banker, had just bought for a great price his latest work. Half the City trooped into Pasion’s courtyard to see it, and brought back the news that the marble breathed, or at least seemed scarcely to have ceased breathing.
For three days I avoided meeting Lysis. On the third he called. He was walking quite well now, hardly using his stick. We talked for a little; but he would fall silent, and look at me. I sought words at random; in my heart I thought, “I should have fallen on my sword. Once I would not have waited for this.” I could find no more talk, and was silent also. Presently Lysis said, “I have been to the High City, to sacrifice to Eros.”—“Yes? Well, he is a powerful god.”—“And cruel, it is said. But to me, noblest of all the Immortals; ‘the best soldier, comrade, and saviour’ as poor Agathon used to say. It was time to give thanks to him.”