“I had hoped to be called in evidence for the defense, since my witness was relevant to the charge; or at least, if we could not get remission, to have the sentence commuted to a fine. But he would not appeal for this. When he saw it meant disowning the truth he lived by, he replied in words something like these: ‘It would be strange, Athenians, if I who stood my ground in the line of battle, facing death at my commander’s order, should desert the station where God posted me, from fear of death, or any fear. For what death is, we do not know; and no man can tell whether this which is feared as the greatest evil, may not really be the greatest good. But injustice, and disobedience to our betters, of whom God is best of alclass="underline" these I know to be dishonor. So, if you say to me, This time we will let you go, on one condition, that you do not ask such questions any more, then I shall answer, Men of Athens, I honor you and love you. But I shall obey God, rather than you.’”
He must have seen me move, for he turned to me, saying, “You have heard these words?”
“Yes,” I said, seeing Dion’s face above the broken wine cup. “Yes, indeed.”
He spoke some while with Thettalos, who told me after that he would remember it all his life. He was amazed my mind could have wandered; but it had concerns of its own. Soon I remembered that time was passing; whether with Plato or without him, we must be away. As I waited for a chance to say this, I recall Thettalos saying (for he had talked as well as listened), “And yet, sir, men’s souls put me in mind of scattered seeds, which may fall in cracks of the earth, or at a stream’s edge, or where a stone rolls over them, so that each has to find its own path to the light and rain. Can one seed know it for another?”
Plato cast a look of longing at him, not for his body, though he had found that pleasing, but because he had to let him go with their dialogue scarcely begun. “You are standing,” he said, “at the very threshold of philosophy. What do we know, and what only guess? We know that without sun the shoot will not grow green, and without water it will die, just as we know that numbers cannot lie to us, but have the constancy of God. These things we can prove. Where proof ends, knowledge ends. Beyond, we must test each step, learning never to love opinion more than truth; never forgetting that men see as much truth as their souls are fit to see; always, till we pass through death and go forth to know ourselves, ready to go back to the start and look at all our premises, and begin again.”
I said it was time to be on our way, and asked if there were not some service we could do him. “Indeed there is,” he said. “You can tell Speusippos how I am placed, and ask him to send word to Archytas at Tarentum, or go himself if he can. Dionysios guaranteed my safety to Archytas, who can therefore ask formally for my release. If that is refused, Dionysios will have to answer for me to Archytas or anyone else whom it may concern—even to himself, a thing which in his case should never be overlooked. If you will do this, I and my friends will be much beholden to you.”
The back-door guard was still absent. On the way to the gatehouses, we picked up some draggled wreaths shed by homebound revelers, and put them on. We were let through, in return for a good account of the party at each gate. When we were past the last and had turned the corner, Thettalos stopped, threw his wreath in the gutter, and dragged the back of his hand across his brows.
“Well,” I said to him, “some of them wanted to rescue Phyton. I shall sleep better tonight for knowing that.”
“Niko, take those filthy twigs off your head, you don’t know what you look like.” He removed my wreath, and stroked down my hair with his hand. “Well, you have won, you monster; I shall have to reconsider Thersites.”
He was a great success. Whether the troops would have recognized themselves I am not sure, but the audience left them in no doubt. Chairemon, terribly put out, said it would have been as much as any judge’s life was worth to give the play a prize; and we thought it better to leave the city before dawn next day.
While finishing our tour in other towns, we heard three pieces of news. The first was that Herakleides had kept ahead of Dionysios’ search party and crossed the border into the Carthaginian province, to take ship for Italy; the second, that a state galley had come from Tarentum to ask for Plato, and that the Archon had let him sail. The third was that Dionysios had declared he could endure no longer to have his sister Arete joined in marriage to an exiled traitor who was his open enemy. Without her consent, in his authority as heirophant, he had pronounced her divorce from Dion, and had given her hand to a certain Timokrates, his favorite drinking companion.
17
IT WAS NOW SOME WEEKS PAST MIDSUMMER. We were in the west, in an Olympic year; it would be stupid to linger in Sicily when we could take in the Games on our homeward way.
I had had to miss the last festival, and Thettalos had never been at all; his father had believed in attending to business, not jaunting about. I was nearly as eager as he; at my last visit, eight years before, I had been little older than he was now. One’s life takes long strides, between Olympics.
I still knew my way about, well enough to buy stores at Elis and hire a pack mule, which costs less than being skinned by the traders on the spot. We bought our own tent; if one sells it later it’s as cheap as hiring and much cleaner. There is a bank at Elis where one can leave spare cash before going on. All the great festivals are holy to Hermes the Light-fingered.
Having thus saved time and temper, we got on ahead of the crowds, in time to pitch our tent in a cypress grove with good shade, so that we would not come back tired at evening to lie in a bake-oven. On the best sites near the Altis, which are bespoken by important visitors far ahead, servants were already putting up pavilions, to be ready when their masters came. The athletes who for two months had been training here were still walking about like men with the place to themselves: thick hulking wrestlers, lean runners, broken-nosed boxers, and some most lovely boys, their proportions not yet spoiled, like the men’s, with lopsided exercise for one event.
The crowds were coming. Every road had a dust cloud ten feet high for as far as one could see. The first market was opening, for food, cook-pots and oil, blankets and tent ropes, fire grids and knives. Next day, when visitors are settled in, is the time for fairings, such as ribbons, gilt strigils, charms, cheap vases, painted figures of well-known actors in character (the comics sell best, but I found one or two of me). Last appear the costly goods for rich connoisseurs: wine cups with beautiful athletes drawn in the bowls, embroideries, small marbles, inlaid armor, books in fine calligraphy, goldwork from Macedon. There were women answering to all these classes, at prices to match. They had to keep on the far side of the river, but one could see their tents, from straw lean-to’s up to silk, skirting the banks, all ready for the athletes when they broke training, and the visitors loose from their wives.
Soon the quiet grove round our tent was a mass of squatters, putting up bivouacs, making cook-fires, or just spreading out the beds they would sleep on in the open. We hired a lad to guard our pitch, and went off sightseeing. In the Altis we met, of all people, Theodoros, without a roof for his head. He had been invited months before by a well-off Athenian sponsor; this man, as appeared later, had been taken suddenly ill, too late to get word to Theodoros, who was then in Corinth, and now looked in vain for his host’s pavilion. Of course, once his plight was known he would have had a score of offers, and we were flattered at his choosing to take potluck with us. He was a perfect companion for the feast, knowing who everyone was and what they had all been doing; no city in Greece held many secrets from Theodoros. At bedtime, when we were sitting round our fire, he did us his party tricks; he could imitate any animal or any thing with a sound. When he did his most famous turn, the creaking windlass, all the campers in hearing, who had to fetch water from the river, started up and began looking for the well. To explain would have brought us a crowd of hundreds; we had to smother our laughter and leave them searching.