My father, having at this time concerns of his own, seldom brought me into remembrance. But sometimes he would call to mind that he had a son, and set himself to do his duty by me. There was, for example, the day when our steward caught me stealing corn to throw to the doves, and took it away from me, for corn was scarce that year. With the kind of manners I had learned from my nurse, I stamped my foot at him, and said he had no right to forbid me, being only a slave. At this my father, who had overheard, stepped into the room. He sent out the man with a civil word, and called me to him. “Alexias,” he said, “my shield is over there in the corner. Pick it up, and bring it to me.”
I went over to where the shield was leaning on the wall; and, getting hold of it by the rim, began to roll it along, finding it too heavy for me to lift. “That is not the way,” he said. “Put your arm through the bands, and carry it as I do.”
I put my arm through one of the bands, and managed to stand it upright, but I could not lift it; it was nearly as tall as I. He said, “Surely you can hold it up? Do you know that when I fight on foot I have not only that to carry, but a spear too?”—“But,” I said, “Father, I am not a man.”
“Put it back in the corner, then,” he said, “and come here.” I obeyed him.
“And now,” he said, “pay attention to me. When you are man enough to carry a shield, you will learn how it happens that men are sold into slavery, and their children born in it. Till then, it is enough for you to know that Amasis and the rest are slaves, not through any merit of yours, but by the destiny of heaven. You will refrain from hubris, which the gods hate, and behave yourself like a gentleman. And if you forget this, I myself will beat you.”
Such signs of interest in my father were hateful to the Rhodian; she began to see both buck and kid slipping through her broken net. As soon as she could she found occasion to turn a small fault of mine into a great one, and make me look a liar when I denied it. But she over-reached herself a little. My father said it was high time I went to school, and sent me forthwith.
He went on campaign soon after, so she did not go for a couple of months. I have lived in hard days and taken my share of them, but those are nearly the worst that I remember. How I should have borne it, I do not know, if it had not been for a friend I made at school, at a time when I had grown silent and furtive, and had no friends at all.
I arrived one morning to find the music-class laughing and nudging each other, and giving the master a new name, the Old Man’s Teacher. And, in fact, there in the classroom on one of the benches sat a man who, being about forty-five with a grizzled beard, looked certainly rather old to be studying the first thing children learn. I could see at once that I, who was always alone, was the one who would be made a fool of by having to share his bench; so I pretended not to mind, and sat there of my own accord. He nodded to me, and I stared at him in wonder. At first, this was simply because he was the ugliest man I had seen; and then it was because I thought I recognised him, for he was the image of the Silenos painted on the big wine-mixer at home, with his snub nose, wide thick mouth, bulging eyes, strong shoulders and big head. He had seemed friendly, so sidling up the bench to him, I asked softly if Silenos was his name. He turned to answer me; and I felt a kind of shock, as if a bright light had been shone upon my heart; for he did not look as most people do at children, half thinking of something else. After telling me what his name was, he asked me how he ought to tune his lyre.
I was pleased to show off my little knowledge; and, feeling already at home with him, asked why an old man like him wanted to come to school. He replied, not at all put out, that it was much more disgraceful for an old man not to learn what could make him better, than for boys, since he had had time to know the worth of it; “and besides,” he said, “a god came to me lately in a dream, and told me to make music. But whether with the hands or in the soul, he did not say; so you can see I ought not to neglect either.” I wanted to hear more of his dream, and tell him one of my own; but he said, “The master is coming.”
I was so curious that next day, instead of creeping to school, I ran, so as to be early and talk with him. He was only just in time for the lesson; but he must have noticed me looking out for him, and next day came a little earlier. I was at an age when children are full of questions; at home my father seldom had time to answer them, the Rhodian would not and the slaves could not. I brought them all to my neighbour at the music-class, and he never failed to give me answers that made sense, so that some of the other boys, who had mocked our friendship, began craning to listen. Sometimes, when I asked what makes the sun warm, or why the stars do not fall down on the earth, he would say he did not know, and that no one knew except the gods. But if anything frightened one, he had always a good reason not to be afraid.
One day I noticed a bird’s nest in a tall tree near the school. When my friend arrived, I told him I was going to climb up after lessons, to see if there were any eggs. I did not think he was listening, for that morning he had seemed occupied with his thoughts while I ran on; when suddenly he stared at me intently, so that I was startled, and said, “No, child; I forbid you to do it.”—“Why?” I asked; for with him it came naturally to ask a reason. He told me that since he was a child as young as I, whenever he or his friends were about to do what would come to no good, something had made a sign to him, and had never told him wrong. And again he forbade me. I was overawed, feeling for the first time the force of his nature, and never dreamed of disobeying him. Not long afterwards, the branch with the nest on it fell to the ground, being rotten all through.
Though he never played as well as I did, his fingers not being so supple, he learned his notes quickly, and the master had no more to teach him. I missed him greatly when he left. It may be that I had thought, “Here is a father who would not think me a disgrace to him (for he is ugly himself) but would love me, and would not want to throw me away on the mountain.” I do not know. Whoever came to Sokrates, no matter by what absurd chance, felt afterwards that he had been directed by a god.
Not long after this my father married his second wife, Arete, the daughter of Archagoras.
3
WHEN I AND THE other boys of my age became ephebes, it was sometimes said of us that we lacked respect for age and custom, took nothing on trust, and set up as judges of things on our own account. A man can only speak for himself. My recollection is that I believed most grown men to be wise, until a day when I was fifteen years old.
My father was expecting his club to supper, and needed crowns for the guests. I had told him the day before that I should get the best flowers by going early, before school. He laughed, knowing that I wanted an excuse to run about without my tutor; but he gave me leave, knowing too that at such an hour I should not meet many temptations. It is well known that he in his young day was called Myron the Beautiful, just as one might say, Myron son of Philokles. But he thought, like all other fathers, that I was younger and sillier than himself at the same age.
He was right that day in supposing that all I wanted was to look at the fleet assembling for the war. “The war” we boys called it, as if there had not been war from our birth; for this was a new venture of the City, and this great armament really looked to us like war. In the palaestra, all round the edges of the wrestling-ground, you could see men drawing little maps for each other in the dust: of Sicily, which the army was going to conquer, the friendly and the Dorian cities, and the great harbour of Syracuse.