“I’ve posted the Thracians over the hill,” he said. “We can do this business without them. Neither god nor man can hold a Thracian in a taken town; and I passed my word, if the City paid tribute, to shed no blood.” In necessity he killed without softness; but he killed without lust, and seemed always well pleased to get what he wanted without it. Whatever had moved him against Melos (I suppose he saw what the Athenians wanted) that one day, it seems, lasted him a lifetime.
We finished supper, and were mixing the last round of wine. Below us the fires twinkled on the shore; a stade or so away, just out of bowshot, were the dark walls of the town. Night was falling. Of a sudden Lysis pointed and said, “Did you say midnight, Alkibiades? What’s that?”
The torch burned red above the gate-tower. We leaped to our feet dismayed. The army was half a mile away; most of them naked by this time, oiling and scraping-down, or mending their armour before the action. Our eyes all turned to Alkibiades. The prize was dangling, while he watched helpless with only thirty men in arms. I for one was simply waiting to hear him curse. I had heard great accounts of it.
He stood with his large blue eyes fixed upon the torch, and his brows lifted. “These colonials,” he said. “People who turn up to a party while one is still dressing. Someone has gone white-livered, I suppose, and the rest daren’t wait. Pollis, run back to camp, fall in the men, and bring them up at the double. Company, stand to arms. Well, friends, there’s the signal, and here we go. Forward!”
He ran into the darkness towards the town, and we ran with him, as if it were the most reasonable thing in life. As we got to the gates they swung open; we went through into a street, where the leader of the plot ran breathless by Alkibiades, explaining the untimely call. I could just see the man bobbing up and down, and Alkibiades looking about, not listening. Just as we got to the Agora, with a great noise and clatter and calling to arms, the Selymbrians came tumbling out around us.
Lysis moved up to me and set his shield against my side. I wondered if the gates were shut behind us, and thought, “If we fall, Alkibiades will see we are buried together”; for he was not forgetful of such things. But I prickled with life, as a cat sparks in thunder; it is the man half dead who fears death. Then Alkibiades’ voice, as cool as if we were at exercise, said, “Herald, sound for a proclamation.” Our herald sounded the call. There was a pause in the dark streets, with much buzzing and muttering. “Give this out, Herald. “The people of Selymbria must not resist the Athenians. I will spare them on that condition.’”
He stood forth and proclaimed it. Silence followed. We did not breathe. Then a voice, shaken but still consequential, said, “So you say, General; but let us hear your terms first” Alkibiades said, “Then show me your spokesmen.”
His impudence had succeeded. They supposed us masters of the town already; and he held them in talk long enough to make it true. We used to say of him, in Samos, that he was a young man’s general.
At the end of the story, Euthydemos said, “So you and Lysis are still together?”—“How not? I left him at the dock, seeing the fitters. There’s no better trierarch in the fleet; if you think me partial, ask some of the others.”—“Indeed, you never praised him, Alexias, beyond his desert. I looked for you both when the squadron came into Piraeus; but the crowds were so thick to greet Alkibiades, that I saw nothing myself but garlands and myrtle-sprays flying through the air towards the crest of his helmet.”—“It’s a pity,” I said, “that some of this fortune that’s gone on festoons and choruses wasn’t handed him for ship-money instead. He’s been kept short for years. If he didn’t work a miracle every month, you’d have no Navy at all. Half our battles are fought for tribute; we’ve had to squeeze it out where it hurt sometimes, but what could we do?”—“Well,” he said, “I think the City is taxed to the limit as it is; let’s speak of something pleasanter. I see you have lost no time in getting to the bookshops, and have bought Agathon’s latest play.”
“He came into the shop,” I said, “and I got him to sign it. Not that I set much store myself by such trimmings; it’s to take back to Samos, as a present for my girl.”
Out of affection for her, I called her a girl even when she was not there. Euphro never made any great secret of her age, or of having been the mother of a son who had turned sixteen when he died. Indeed, I had met her first in the graveyard outside the city, where she had come with an offering-basket to set upon his tomb. She drew her veil on seeing me near her, out of a sense of fitness for the occasion; and this making her tread carelessly, as she leaned forward her foot slipped, and the basket spilled at my feet.
Like any man who goes much to sea, I was observant of omens; I did not care to have flung to me, in a manner of speaking, a gift meant for the dead. But when she begged my pardon, it seemed to me that her voice had a gentleness beyond the art of her calling; her dark eyes looked clear above her veil, and her brow was fair and white. I bent to pick up the oil-vase for her, and found that it had broken. It came into my mind to buy her another; so I followed her some way off, and learned where she lived. When I brought my gift, she came to the door unveiled and greeted me; not boldly, but as with an expected friend. I had never made love before with a woman who knew, or cared, what manner of man I was. I saw I had been like a man who dispraises wine, never having tasted anything but the lees.
Lysis was glad for my sake, when I told him I had found a woman to please me. When later he saw how often I went back, and how much I conversed with her, I don’t think it was quite so welcome to him. His own girl was pretty, but without any accomplishments save one; when he had thoughts to share, he came to me. He was much too generous to show any jealousy; but when I quoted any opinion of Euphro’s on tragedy or music he would often find occasion to disagree. With his usual goodness, he agreed to my proposal that we should entertain both our companions at a supper-room in the city; but I can’t pretend this party was a great success. Lysis, though Euphro was older than he cared for himself, was pleased with her mind, and quite ready to talk politics and poetry with her, if inclined, I felt, to be a little severe. But the girl cared nothing for such things, and being besotted on him saw rivals everywhere. Upon her interrupting a story of Euphro’s and saying those were days she was too young to remember, I could not forbear remarking that I, who was younger, could recall them very well. When Lysis and I met again after taking home the women, we were a little constrained at first and sat thinking it over; till suddenly we caught each other’s eyes, and started to laugh.
Now, back in Athens, while the City feted Alkibiades, we had time to meet friends, and see our homes again.
My father I found looking younger and better than when I left; and pleased, in the way of fathers, that I had got myself attached to a not inglorious corps. He for his part, having come forth boldly with Theramenes against the tyrants, and helped with his own hands to tear their traitors’ gatehouse down, was enjoying some deserved consequence in the City. My mother, on the other hand, had aged more than I expected. She had miscarried of a child not long before. But since it was another girl, one could not but feel it was for the best.
Sokrates I found in the Agora, standing in Zeus’ porch. His beard had more white in it, for he was past sixty now; but except that he wanted to know all that had happened to me, I might never have been away. Within a few minutes, I was neck-deep in the argument that had been going on before I got there: whether the holy is whatever the gods love, or if they love it because it is holy; whether a thing can be holy that is sacred to one god and hateful to another, or only if all the gods love it alike; what things they all love, and why. Before the end some orthodox person, who had inspired the conversation, went away scandalised, muttering to himself; which was a relief to everyone, for he was one of those who only want to prove themselves right. As for me, it was wonderful to hear again Sokrates saying, “Either we shall find what we are seeking, or at least we shall free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know.”