It was the seventh of the month, Apollo’s day, and the Tarentines were offering a choral dance to the god. I just had time to hear it before we sailed. The music was very fine, all strings though, for Pythagoreans think that flutes confuse the cosmic order (or some such matter) and disturb the soul. Young boys dressed in white, and crowned with bay-leaves, circled an altar of honey-colored marble wreathed with a garland of gilded bronze. The lyre answered the kithara; a light breeze blew from the sea. The last sight I had of Dion, he was standing like a marble hero on the steps before the temple porch, tall and straight among tall straight columns, the cool autumn sunshine on his face. It seemed to me that once Plato was safe and free, he could even be happy.
13
ON MY VOYAGE OUT, ARCHYTAS HAD PROMISED to reward me if I brought useful news from Syracuse. Among all my concerns this had slipped my mind; but he himself was not one to forget such things, and he made me a most handsome present, saying it was partly a good-tidings gift, no man having ever brought him better. What with this, and the profit from the tour, I might not be as rich as Philistos would have made me, but I would get along well enough.
Plato was in Syracuse all that winter.
Sometimes I surprised myself by the trouble I took to get news of him. Once it would just have been for Dion’s sake, or perhaps Axiothea’s. Even now, as was natural, I still resented him sometimes, but found I could not indulge it without feeling small. When I had seen him sitting with young Dionysios, seeing all through him, yet patient as a shepherd with a sickly lamb, and fearless of the wolves around, I had known the man was noble. The day stuck in my mind, when I had brought Dion’s letter urging him to go. Actors are vain; it’s true even of the best; but one does not feel one’s talent, even when most pleased with it, as a burden one must bear in trust for other men. It was not pride in him; he knew. I thought of it often.
Megakles, Dion’s brother, was living in Corinth, a city where Syracusans feel at home; but Dion himself had bought an estate near the Academy, beyond the olive groves. The house was just the proper size for someone of his rank in Athens; his Syracusan one would have looked hubristic. But with his beautiful things set up there, it seemed just the same. He asked me to supper once or twice when he was entertaining poets and their friends, though not, of course, on his philosophic evenings.
Speusippos having stayed with Plato, the Academy was being run by Xenokrates, so, knowing what he thought of actors, I did not intrude. When news of Plato came in, Axiothea would send me a message to meet her in the olive grove, or by some hero-tomb in the Sacred Way. If the news was short, and would have gone into her note, we did not notice it. We had become fond of one another; though she liked the calm spare life of the Academy, she liked, too, to hear of the world outside, from someone who did not disapprove. She was setting into a strange archaic beauty. I have seen such faces in old shrines; there is an Artemis at Aigina very like her.
The Messene strait being so narrow, ships cross all winter in any but the worst of weather, so the Syracusan Pythagoreans could keep their brethren posted. They were in touch with Speusippos, who came and went somehow from Ortygia; no doubt Dionysios, who had always been jealous of him, would have been well pleased if he had slipped off. But he put up with the snubs and slights, which I could well imagine, to be with Plato and to link him with his friends.
At first the news was good; Dionysios was heaping him with honor, entertaining him, deferring to his advice. He had been able to realize Archytas’ dearest wish by recommending a peace treaty with the Tarentines, which was already signed.
Archytas’ letters were full of this; Speusippos’ own were a good deal franker. He made them cryptic with false names, and, for greater safety, addressed them to people outside the Academy, sometimes to me. When he got home, he was at pains to get them back and burn them, in case Plato ever saw them; but I kept this one. The device was his usual one, of someone gossiping about a fashionable hetaira.
Everyone is amazed at the conduct of young Damiskos. When first he courted Heliodora, he vowed no price would be too high. [The price meant accepting Plato’s precepts.] Having now drawn back, one would think he might have more pride than to hang about her door and keep sending flowers. Lately she asked him why, if he still desired her friendship, he did not pay up like a man, since he could afford it. And his answer? That his friends had advised him her price would encumber his estate; he wanted to beat her down. How absurd, to someone of her fame and reputation! She is generous in conversing with the youth, whose manners can do with polishing; but that he should presume to be jealous is as vexatious as it is laughable.
The other day there was an absurd but painful scene. She was spending a quiet hour at her music when he rushed in and offered her the direction of his whole inheritance—a gift more to himself than her, for she would do it to his advantage. By now she knows him better than to be transported; she waited to hear more. Can you guess the rest? His condition was that she should shut her door to Dikaios, her friend of twenty years, and proclaim this coxcomb as her favorite. She behaved, as I need not tell you who know her, with the greatest dignity. He left, I think, ashamed. But the folly and the turmoil made her feel ill, and she made no more music that day. I am sorry to say that she is not well, and this did nothing to improve things.
A few days later, the fears this letter had raised were realized. Archytas wrote that Plato was very sick, perhaps to death; for so concerned was Dionysios, he had sent his own wife to nurse him.
Speusippos’ code-letters ceased; nothing mattered but Plato’s life, and he wrote openly to Xenokrates. Just when things looked worst, news stopped for nearly half a month, because the winter storms had cut off Tarentum from Korkyra.
Dion had made many friends in Athens. They called to express sympathy and ask for news; when he had company I did not like to trouble him. At first he seemed glad to see me; I was the only one who had been there, and could picture, nearly as well as he could, what was going on. He was too proud to show his feelings among his new acquaintances as he had to me at Tarentum. After a while he grew withdrawn even with me, and I left him in peace, asking news from Axiothea.
At last, a ship got through. Archytas wrote, enclosing back letters from Speusippos. Plato was on the mend. The Archon’s wife had tended him like a daughter. Perhaps she had been sent to watch that no one poisoned him, or laid the pillow on his face. At all events, it did not seem Dionysios himself could have been better cared for.
It was with an easier mind, therefore, that I went into rehearsal for the Lenaia. I had been chosen early in the draw and offered the lead in a new play by Aphareus, Atalanta in Kalydon.
I liked the play. It had fine acting roles, both for Atalanta and Meleager. His part was most tempting, with a lovely scene where he lies dying, while his stern mother Althaia burns the magic faggot that holds his life. I could have used in it all those effects which had made such a hit in Orpheus. The fact was that I could see more in the Atalanta, which had much subtlety and truth, but did not want to own it. In a female lead, I would be measured against Theodoros.
He had been chosen at once by the sponsor who drew first pick, with such alacrity that there must be some perfect role for him; no knowing what, for new plays are well-kept secrets. Though still fairly young, he was at the height of his powers; if women, which the gods forbid, were allowed to play in tragedy, I am sure the best of them could not have spoken for her sex more movingly, or with more fire, than he. It would be wise to take Meleager, and make the best of it.