I told him I had heard of the speech but never read it; and he quoted me as much of it as he could remember. Since then I have read it many times. But since I never knew Perikles, to me it is always Lysis who is speaking; I see not the tomb and the rostrum, but the lamps of Samos through a doorway, his shadow thrown big upon the wall, the piled armour shining beside the pallet, the black glossy wine-cup, and his hand, with an old ring of plaited gold on it, touching the stem.
“Men are not born equal in themselves,” he said to me after, “so I think it beneath a man to postulate that they are. If I thought myself as good as Sokrates I should be a fool; and if, not really believing it, I asked you to make me happy by assuring me of it, you would rightly despise me. So why should I insult my fellow-citizens by treating them as fools and cowards? A man who thinks himself as good as everyone else will be at no pains to grow better. On the other hand, I might think myself as good as Sokrates, and even persuade other fools to agree with me; but under a democracy, Sokrates is there in the Agora to prove me wrong. I want a City where I can find my equals and respect my betters, whoever they are; and where no one can tell me to swallow a lie because it is expedient, or some other man’s will.”
Then the day’s weariness came down on us, and we slept. And next day, the Paralos set out to bring the good news to Athens, her prow garlanded, the rowers singing at the oar. When we had cheered them away, I went to the temple and offered a kid to Zeus, for saving my father in his own despite.
We had no more trouble with the oligarchs, whose only care now was to hide their traces and save their skins. After the Paralos sailed, we spent a very peaceful week; I mean to say that it was peaceful in Samos. I cannot say quite the same for myself; for within the next two days Lysis remarked to me, in the easy way he had at such times, that he had met a girl in the town who had taken his fancy, and was going that night to visit her. This was the first time it had happened, that I knew of, since things had changed between us; and I was surprised to find how much I minded it. You might almost have thought, from my vexation, that he had been caught by some youth who could seriously engage him. It was absurd, considering his fidelity.
I was oiling the straps of his armour and mine (leather perishes quickly in sea air) and I kept busy at it, to hide my thoughts. But he noticed I had got rather quiet, and asked whether I would like to come too, for he was sure his girl could find another one for me. I thanked him, and said I would come another night. He stood combing his hair into curl, and whistling to himself; then he looked round, and sitting down by me, urged me very kindly to come. He said among other things that I was my father’s only son, and should have one day to marry; and I should not know whom to choose, or how to make the best of her, if I had not got myself used to women first. I told him I liked them well enough, but not tonight. The truth was that his encouragement had rather missed its mark, reminding me that it would be he, in the natural course of things, who would get married first. People I knew seemed to take this lightly enough; I had seen them acting groomsman to their friends with perfect cheerfulness; it distressed me to think myself more given to extremes, and less capable of reason, than other men. Indeed, when I look back, I cannot understand myself at this time of my life.
When he had gone, I went out walking; for the god, having marked me down for punishment, spared neither my mind nor body, and I could not stay in bed. There was a young moon in the sky; I went up by the footpath to Polykrates’ castle, and sat looking out to sea. The place smelled of sheep, for the flock was in the fold; there was a smell too of thyme, and of green things in spring. I complained to the god that he was unjust to me, who had never insulted nor defied him; but with face averted he accused me, reminding me of my former unkindness to Lysis, who had shown nothing but kindness to me; and of how, long before that, I had cared nothing for Polymedes, or for a dozen others whose names, even, I had not kept in mind. He said too that by my own will I had become his bondsman; and that since he was the giver of more joy to men than any other deity, it was natural his chastisements should give more pain. So I acknowledged his justice, and at last went home; and when Lysis came back, I pretended to be sleeping.
As it turned out, he found the girl more pleasing than he had expected, and went back to her several nights running. I suffered at the time. Yet it has left less mark upon my mind than wounds which seemed slighter at first, where someone of small consequence has failed me in loyalty or honour. As the mould is broken and falls to dust, while the statue of bronze endures, I cannot call the pain to life again; yet remember like yesterday the scents of night, the Galaxy hanging like spray in the deep sky, the cresset burning on an anchored ship, and the cry of a waking lamb answered by the night-jar.
I don’t know how long all this would have gone on. The thing was getting a hold on me that was past all sense, and Lysis had even asked me whether I was ill. But serious matters broke in on us, and blew such follies away.
The trierarch of the Paralos arrived alone, in a trader from Aegina. The ship had reached Athens to find the oligarchs already in control. Made desperate by the loss of Alkibiades, they had not dared to await results in Samos, but moved at once. They had falsely reported the coup successful and Alkibiades on the way; and getting power on the strength of this, had stopped all payment for public office and dismissed the Senate. Between hired bullies and informers they were keeping the people down, and their own moderates quiet by promising an electoral roll of gentlemen, which was to come out shortly.
When they knew what news the Paralos brought, they dared not let the City hear it. They turned the whole crew off the ship of honour, where it was their right to serve, transferred them to a troopship just leaving port, and imprisoned those who refused to go. The trierarch, by luck, had seen what was happening from the dock, and slipping off among the shipping had escaped to bring back word. He added that any soldier had only to look at the new fort they were building on the harbour, to see what it was for: to hold the grain-store against the citizens, and made a bridgehead for the Spartans to land.
You might have supposed this news would have flung all Samos from triumph to despair. But our blood still glowed with victory, our souls with our just cause; we were like the men of Marathon when they marched straight off the field to take their stand before the City, knowing the gods were with them.
The day after we got the news, Athenians and Samians together, soldiers and seamen and citizens, trooped up together to their hilltop acropolis. There we took an oath of fellowship, to defend each other’s liberties, pursue the war, and make no terms with our enemies, at home or abroad. It is a great open field up there, girt with an ancient wall; larks flew up singing when we raised the hymn to Zeus, and the smoke of the offering rose straight to heaven.
I have never felt less like an exile. It was we who were the City now, a free Athens beyond the sea. We carried her sword too and her armour; it was the Navy, not the government at home, which levied the island tribute to finance the war. The sun shone; the sea like hammered silver flashed below us; we felt we were making a new thing on the earth.
Afterwards, down in the city, every Athenian found himself pulled into a Samian house and set in the guest’s chair, while they brought out the best wine and spiced figs and anything they had. I told the story of my life, or a good part of it, at three Samian hearths that evening; and when Lysis and I met in camp we were neither of us quite sober. But we were happy, and full of faith. He had forgotten all about the girl; and, what was more remarkable, so had I.