Soon afterwards the new Ephors, having consulted together, called an Assembly, and Kritias addressed it. He spoke as usual very well. His voice was elegantly trained, pitched to carry, without any of those mannerisms that make a man tiresome and human. He had the voice of knowledge advising honest simplicity without despising it. It was a voice to set you at ease, if you liked your thinking done for you.
He proposed a Council of Thirty, to draw up a constitution upon the ancient code, and govern meanwhile. When he read the list, starting with the five Ephors themselves, the people listened at first as children to a teacher. Then there was a murmur; then a roar. The Assembly had awakened, and heard the names. The core of the Four Hundred, the traitors from Dekeleia, every extreme oligarch who hated the people as boar hates dog. The Pnyx echoed with the outcry. Kritias listened, it seemed unmoved; then he turned, and made a gesture, and stepped aside. The shouting died like a gust of wind. Lysander stood on the rostrum, in his armour. His eyes swept slowly over the hill. There was a dead hush.
His speech was short. The breach in the Walls, he said, was two stadia short of the mile; the time-limit was up. If he did not declare the treaty void, and wipe out the City, it was an act of mercy. We had best deserve it.
So the people slunk down from the Pnyx like slaves caught stealing by the master. Our tongues were getting, now, the taste of defeat.
But the new government was quick to get the public services in order, and people spoke well of it. On the day they appointed a Senate, people met me in the street with congratulations; my father, it appeared, had been named a Senator.
I wished him well. Considering his views, no one could suspect him of time-serving. His work as envoy had brought him into the public eye, and Theramenes had not forgotten him. It was something that they were choosing Senators even as moderate as he.
At first he used to come home full of affairs. You could almost tell in the street which men held office in the new administration, however small. They looked like people who are getting the right food. When men have shared in the City’s business since they put on a long mantle, it comes strange to cease. You can watch something wither in them, like a fettered limb. One evening he said over supper, “Well, I think we shall hand over the City a little cleaner than we found it. In confidence, a rat-hunt is on for tomorrow, and high time too.”—“Rats, Father?”—“Those creatures who live off their betters, and bring filth in exchange. How else describe an informer?”
I congratulated him willingly. In the last year, when things were going badly and the people had war-fever, the informers had been a shame to the City. It was only with poor men that they simply laid information and took the reward. If he had a little, they took a bribe to keep quiet, and often informed in the end when he had nothing left. Some worked for themselves, some for rich blackmailers who made a business of it. “Good hunting, Father,” I said. “But they’re slippery game; they know every crack in the law, they always get away.”—“Not this time. Since the constitution is still upon the stocks, for once we can cut the law to their measure.”
He laughed as he spoke. I looked up, the sound taking me back to another City; I saw again Hyperbolos falling open-mouthed. “With the Four Hundred too,” I said, “that was how it began.”
“Nonsense,” he said; and I saw in his face the annoyance of a man who has been disturbed when he was at ease. “You will do far better, Alexias, to forget you were mixed up in that Samos affair. I don’t say it was any shame to you; too much discretion is unlovely in a youth of good blood; but the rough-and-ready faction fights of an overseas naval base are not understood here in the City. Keep that in mind, or you will do a great deal of harm, both to yourself and me.”—“Yes, Father. What trial are you giving these men?”—“A collective one, and too good for them.”—“Perhaps; but as a precedent?”—“That we have already, since the trial of the generals who left you to drown.”
The informers were rounded up next day, and condemned to death, no one dissenting. My father assured me afterwards that he had not seen a man in the dock whose name did not stink throughout the City. The week after, there was another arrest of informers. When I asked him how the trial had gone, he said, “There will be some delay. One or two cases were more than doubtful. We voted to try them separately.” He cleared his throat and added, “There was some attempt to influence the Senate against it. But for an interim government, that was going too far.”
There were no more mass trials, and the City was quiet some weeks. Then one morning a Spartan regiment was sighted on the Sacred Way. The Dipylon guard sent a runner to ask what should be done; and the Council sent back word to open.
They marched up to the gate with their tread of iron, between the tombs of our fathers. They crossed the Kerameikos, and the Agora, and marched on. People stood in the market, staring upward, while they climbed the ramp to the High City, and marched through the Porch into the precinct of the Maiden. There they stacked arms, and pitched their tents. At the feet of Athene of the Vanguard, and about the Great Altar, they lit their campfires and stewed their black broth.
In the courtyard I met my father, looking ill. I fancy he had hoped to avoid me. I said, “I think, sir, you did not know of this.”
“I have come from Theramenes. It appears the Council had word of a conspiracy to seize the citadel, and put the leading citizens to death.”—“I see, sir. Did he give you any names?”—“They will be published after the arrests are made.” We looked at each other, as father and son can, needing no words. He meant, “Don’t be troublesome if you want me to keep my temper; I have troubles enough,” and I meant, “You cannot face me and you know it. I could forgive you if you would own the truth.” I was about to turn from him when he said, “Theramenes can be trusted to watch events; he has always set his face against extremes. Remember, I expect discretion.” With that he went indoors.
Kallibios, the Spartan general, was undersized for one of his race. His eyes were bitter; you could see in them the beatings of his boyhood, and a black insolence, full of hatred. Beside it one remembered the insolence of Alkibiades like a child’s laughter. The Thirty fawned on him, and received him in their homes.
One got used to the sight of Spartans in the streets, staring open-mouthed at the shops, or walking in pairs looking scornfully before them. Some of the younger ones, I admit, seemed modest and mannerly. I saw one such, a fine tall youth, at Pistias’ doorway, watching the work, and talking armour with a friend. They looked less dour than most of their fellows; I even heard them laugh. As I passed, the second man turned round and said, “Good day, Alexias.” I stared, and saw Xenophon.
Turning my face from him I walked away; not so much concerned to affront him, as to believe that my eyes had lied. Next time I met him he was alone. He put out his hand to stop me, with his open smile. “Why are you angry with me, friend? What ails you?”—“Only what ails you too,” I said.
He looked at me gravely, like one who has a right to feel hurt, but will set it by. “See things as they are, Alexias. The City has to be policed; it is a measure against the mob, not people like ourselves. The Spartans respect a soldier and a gentleman, even if he has carried a spear against them. Young Arakos, whom you saw me with, is a splendid fellow. He and I nearly killed each other once in the hills near Phyle. If we don’t bear malice, who else should? One must gain by the company of a man of honour, whatever his City. Virtue comes first; hasn’t Sokrates always taught us so?” His clear grey eyes looked straight into mine; he spoke from his soul.
I was silent, thinking of schooldays, and the puppy-fights in the washroom. It had seemed hardly more than backing different chariots at the Games. He was looking at me, and I saw the thought in his eyes: “Do you do well to reproach me? Have I found a worse friend than Chremon?” But there are things a gentleman does not say. “There must be order,” he said, “in the City. Without order, how are men better than the beasts?”