I got myself breakfast, called by tutor, and set off for school. You can imagine we had enough to talk about on the way. He was a Lydian called Midas, who could read and write; an expensive slave to use for a pedagogue, but my father did not hold with putting children in the charge of slaves who are good for nothing else. Midas had been saving some time to buy himself out, by copying speeches for the courts in his spare time; but he had cost a good deal, I believe as much as ten minas, so he had not got half yet. My father had lately promised him, however, that if he looked after me well till I was seventeen, he should have his freedom as a gift to the gods.
There were broken Herms in every street. Some people were saying an army must have been hired for the work. Others said no, it was a band of drunks rioting home after a party; and we heard Alkibiades’ name again.
Outside the school a crowd of boys stood gazing at the Herm there. It had been a good one, presented by Perikles. Some of the little boys, pointing, began to giggle and squeak; on which one of the seniors went up and told them to behave themselves. Recognising a friend of mine, Xenophon son of Gryllos, I called to him. He came over, looking serious. He was a handsome boy, big for his age, with dark red hair and grey eyes; his tutor stuck close to him, for he already attracted attention.
“It must have been the Corinthians,” he said to me, “trying to make the gods fight against us in the war.”—“They must be simple then,” I said. “Don’t they think the gods can see in the dark?”—“Some of the country people near our farm hardly know the god from the image he lives in. Now a thing like this could never happen in Sparta.”—“I should say not. All they have outside their dirty huts is a heap of stones for a Herm. Let your Spartans alone for once.” This was an old quarrel between us, so I could not keep from adding, “Or perhaps they did it; they are allies of Syracuse after all.”—“The Spartans!” he said staring at me. “The most godfearing people in Helas? You know quite well that they never touch anything sacred, even in open war, and now we’re at truce with them. Are you mad?”
Remembering that we had once drawn each other’s blood over the Spartans, I let it rest. He was only repeating what he heard from his father, whom he was very fond of, and whose views were the same as those my grandfather had held till his death. All the ruling houses of former days, who hated the intrusion of the commons into public affairs, wanted peace, and a Spartan alliance. This was true not only in Athens, but all over Hellas. The Spartans had not changed their laws in three centuries, and their Helots kept the station the gods had ordained for them. I had had enough of that myself, in the time of the Rhodian. But you could never be angry long with Xenophon. He was a good-hearted boy, who would share anything he had, and was never at a loss in a tight place.
“I daresay you’re right,” I said, “if their King is an example. Have you heard about King Agis’ wedding? The bride was in bed and he was just crossing the threshold, when the earth happened to shake. So, obedient to the omen, he turned round, went straight out again, and vowed not to go back for a year. If that’s not piety, what is?” I had hoped to make him laugh, for he liked a joke; but he saw nothing comic in it.
Just then the headmaster, Mikkos, came out angrily to call us in. He was taking us for Homer. What with the public disorder, and ours, he was in a fine temper and soon got out his thong.
After the music-lesson which came next, we could hardly wait to hang up our lyres and run out to the gymnasium. While we were stripping we saw the colonnade full of people; now we should hear the latest news. Our trainer had commanded a company at Delion, but today he could hardly make himself heard, and the flute for the exercises was quite drowned; so taking some of the best wrestlers to coach, he set the rest of us to practise. Our tutors bustled up, seeing us listening to the men in the colonnade; but they were all talking politics. One could always tell this some way off; when they were quarrelling over one of the boys, they kept their voices down.
Everyone seemed to know for certain who was guilty, and no two agreed. One said the Corinthians wanted to delay the war; “Nonsense,” said another; “this was done by people who knew the City like their own courtyards.”—“How not? Some of our foreign metics would sell their old fathers for five obols.”—“They work hard and make money. Crime enough for the unjust.” And so people who were rivals in love or politics, but had kept it quiet, were all at once openly reviling each other. It had never happened to me before to be surrounded by frightened men, and I was too young not to be shaken by it. I had not thought till then that such great impiety might bring a curse on the whole City, if it had been done by someone within.
Beside me some young men were blaming the oligarchs. “Only wait; they will try to fix this on the democrats, and then ask to carry arms for protection. Pisistratos the Tyrant’s trick. But at least he wounded his own head, not a god’s.” Naturally the oligarchs called this a piece of filthy demagogy, and voices rose, till a new one said, “Don’t blame the oligarchs nor the democrats, but one man alone. I know a witness who has taken sanctuary, fearing for his life. He swears that Alkibiades …”
Upon the name, there was a greater hubbub than ever. People began telling tales of his erotic feats, not very edifying to us boys, who listened attentively; others spoke of his extravagance, his seven chariots at Olympia, his race-horses, flute-girls, and hetairas; of how when he promoted a play or a chorus, he outdid everyone else in elegance and splendour by three to one. “It was for gold and loot that he began the Sicilian war.”—“Then why should he do this to hinder it?”—“He would do better still out of a tyranny.” The City never tired of gossip about Alkibiades. Tales twenty years old came up, about his insolence to his suitors when he was a boy.
“He has kept the war going for his own glory,” someone said. “If he had not fooled the Spartan envoys when they came to make peace, we should have it now.” But an angry voice, which had been trying a long time to be heard, cried out, “Shall I tell you the sin of Alkibiades? He was born too late into a City of little men. Why did the mob banish Aristides the Just? Because they were sick of hearing his virtue praised. They admitted it. It shamed them. Now they hate to see beauty and wit, valour and birth and wealth, united in one man. What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence; the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?”
“Not so, by the gods. It is justice, the gift of Zeus to men.”—“Justice? If the gods give a man wisdom, or forethought, or skill, must he be brought down as if he had got them by theft? We shall be laming the best athletes soon, at the demand of the worst, in the name of justice. Or some citizen with pockmarks and a squint will lay a complaint against such a boy as this” (here he pointed suddenly at me) “and his nose will be broken, I suppose, for justice’s sake.”
At this laughter broke up the argument. The better-bred of them, seeing me confused, looked away, but one or two kept on staring. I saw Midas pursing his mouth, and walked away from them.