The theater was empty. Even the caretaker and cleaners had gone off, leaving it unlocked. The streets had been full of people in their working clothes. I went in, and felt better for it, more myself. As I had expected, there was too much of the best of everything—colored marble, gilding, painting, over-decorated statues—a place designed to make one think, “I am playing at Syracuse,” rather than, “I am playing in Sophokles.” I had never seen such machinery as there was backstage and under it Dionysios must have turned his war engineers loose there when they had nothing else on hand. One huge device of wheels and levers left me quite at a loss; later I found it was to raise the stage or lower it by pumping water in or out of chambers below.
However, as I had guessed I would, from here I knew where to go next. I went down into the street and found the theater tavern.
One could tell it at a glance, as one always can: a barber’s stand in one corner; a set of the tragic masks on one wall; on another a scene from the Agamemnon, with actors’ names written in. Though the theater had been empty, this was cram-full; the noise came out to meet me, the sort which, in cities all over Hellas, makes an artist feel at home. No muttering and whispering, as in the streets. An actor always knows that if one city gets too hot, there are others.
The barber’s chair was free, so, having shaved that morning, I asked to be pumiced, a good long talkative job. News buys news.
The barber was a Corinthian, as every barber in Syracuse is, or claims to be. When he asked me whence I came, and so on, I told him everything, except that I knew Dion; there seemed no sense in hiding the rest. While he spread his towels he passed on the news over his shoulder; presently, to save him trouble, people got up and sat around. Some of them offered me wine. It was as unlike as possible to the city outside. Here one could feel one’s footing. Actors understand actors, as dogs do other dogs.
No one was surprised that, having come so far for nothing, I should stay to see the city before going home. The barber, who owned the tavern, introduced me to the leading actors who were there, and to some old ones who I expect sat there all day. Then he remembered that Dionysios’ chorus-trainer, who would have worked on Hectors Ransom, lived nearby, and sent someone to fetch him. Meantime, everyone told me about Dionysios’ fatal party, some adding that by habit he was a sober man, and might have lived if he had been better seasoned to it. They talked of the plays he had put on; there was a good deal of smooth backbiting among the leading men, far more than at Athens, which came, I should say, from their having had to compete for the tyrant’s favor. The man I took to most was a second-role tragedian called Menekrates. As he seemed talkative, and I had learned nothing useful yet, I asked him whether young Dionysios would be as good a patron as his father.
For a moment everyone glanced round in search of eavesdroppers; even here one was still in Syracuse. But they seemed satisfied. Menekrates smiled, flashing his white teeth; he was dark almost to blackness, with a high-bridged Numidian nose. “My dear Nikeratos, that is the riddle of the Sphinx. No one knows anything, about theater or anything else. If you want my opinion, the man who would most like to know what young Dionysios is like is the man himself. Since he left off playing with his toys, he’s not dared to be anything that a man of rank could take seriously. He won’t even laugh at a comedy till every one round him has laughed first. He cries more easily. I made him cry once. That’s as much as anyone knows. He may be sitting at this moment, like an actor without a mask, waiting for someone to write him a part.”
“Or,” said a man with a flute-player’s flat-topped fingers, “he may be taking off the mask he’s been playing in all this time, to make his bow and show his face.”
Just then the chorus-master came in, a little bouncing man who knew artists all over Greece and demanded news of them, and I had to talk theater. After all, it was the center of these men’s lives, and it was only chance that was making me any different.
What next? I was no nearer knowing than when I landed. If I had been anyone else, I could just have walked to Dion’s house and asked how I could be of service. But what kind of entrance could I make which would not seem to say, “Here I am, stranded without work after coming all this way. You hired me; now look after me.”
The barber had done, and it was noon. But Menekrates would not let me order food, and shared with me a good fish stew. Then, when we had eaten, he said that since I had come to see the sights, he would be happy to show me Syracuse, and to offer me the spare bed at his lodging.
Here was an omen at the crossroads. I had taken to the man; he liked gossip, too, and might have some useful knowledge. All over Hellas, a web of guest-friendship binds the artists of Dionysos; it went without saying that when next he came to Athens I would return his hospitality. So I could accept it without loss of pride—a great piece of luck, with my passage home to think about.
“It will have been worth your visit,” he said, “just to see the funeral. There is always a big show for an important man; but this should be the sight of a generation.”
“Of two,” said the chorus-master. “Dionysios has ruled for two, by the common reckoning.”
I asked who would arrange the rites. “Why, the heir,” he answered. “Young Dionysios.” Plainly no one doubted who the heir was. I wondered what was going on in the island stronghold. There was not much chance of my ever knowing.
After this Menekrates took me to the small street where he lodged, in a good clean room with whitewashed walls opening to a courtyard. He showed me my bed, lay down upon his own and slept at once, as everyone does there at that hour. Even so early in the year, it was getting warm. Not being used to it, I lay thinking, looking out through the window at the court with its green shade of palms and gourds.
When the shadows started lengthening, he woke up. As we splashed well-water on our faces, he said, “Let us go and see if my cousin Theoros has got home yet. He should have been purified from the death chamber by this time. We shall learn something at first hand from him.”
As we slipped along a crooked alley where two could not walk abreast, I asked who this Theoros was. He answered, “Oh, he is the great man of our family. He works for Leontis the physician, puts on his poultices and so on. For three days now he and his master and the other leading doctor, Iatrokles, have been locked up in Ortygia. My cousin (he is really my cousin’s husband) has been at her wits’ end, poor girl. She said if the Archon died they would all be executed. I told her not to fret; there was no one the old man’s life was as precious to as it was to him.”
Apollo, I thought, you have not forsaken your servant.
“He does not approve of me,” said Menekrates. “He thinks I should have had foreknowledge of so dignified a person marrying into the family, and chosen another calling. But we’ll hear something from him; he is too self-important to keep it in.”
Some children playing in the street told us he was back. We went on, and found a small room fast filling up with kindred and acquaintance. The women had hidden inside, but the door-curtain bulged with them; two little boys ran about underfoot like chickens. There was no room to sit down. Theoros, a weighty fellow with a long combed beard and a manner copied from his master, held forth beside the hearthstone. He received me civilly, but condescended to Menekrates. I saw that all the family, except for him, was quite fair and Greek. This often happens in Sicily.