I laid it on the grave; then heard behind me a movement, and turned swiftly, my knife in my hand. But it was Lysis standing there. I perceived he had been some time waiting, in silence, while I finished the rites. He came forward and took the knife from me and cut off a lock of his hair in token of respect, and laid it on the grave. Then he held out his hand to me, and, when I took it, said, “Come, my dear, get together what you have. We are going to Thebes.”
“No, Lysis. I must go back to the City. I have a matter to settle there.”—“From Thebes it can be settled better. So Thrasybulos writes. I should have come out tomorrow to talk of it; but I had word they were coming for me tonight.” He smiled and said, “Two men warned me, neither knowing of the other. Manhood may be sleeping in the City, but it lives. It has slept in me too, Alexias. I should have gone long since, and tried to do what Thrasybulos has been doing. Weakness held me. It is hard to watch over the green shoot, and then when the flower opens to go away.”
We set forth within the hour upon the mountain road, going on foot, for we had sent back our hired mounts to the City. At first we were silent; he because the parting he had come from was a wound that still bled in him, I because I seemed only now to know myself, when what had pressed my soul into its mould was gone. But in a few hours, with the good air and clear light, and the movement of walking, and seeing places all about where we had fought in the Guard, sorrow lifted from us; and Lysis told me about the force Thrasybulos was raising to free the City. The road climbed high; the air grew sweet and thin; we saw the stone fort of Phyle on its steep hill watching the pass, and left the road lest the guard come out to challenge us. We had a hard scramble over the mountain, but made good going after, and were out of Attica by fall of dark.
So we turned aside, and in sheltered place between rocks we made a little fire, and ate what we had. It was like the days on campaign; we sat recalling old fights and old comrades, till sleep made us heavy. Then we fell to disputing, as we had years back, whether the thicker of our cloaks should be spread to lie on, or above to keep out the cold. When one, which of us I can’t remember, had given way grumbling to the other’s view, we came to spread them, and found there was not a bit to choose between them for thickness; so we laughed, and lay down to sleep.
We were tired, and slept late. I opened my eyes to find a blush of dawn already on the peaks; then I heard a voice say, softly, “One of them is awake.”
I touched Lysis to rouse him without noise, and felt for my dagger. Then I turned my head; and saw two youths, or boys rather, sitting on their heels and smiling. They were dressed for hunting, in leather tunics and belts and shin-guards; one was sturdy and fair, the other long-limbed, and dark. The fair one said, “Good morning, guests of the land. Can you eat a hunter’s breakfast?”
We greeted them, and they led us off to the place where their horses were. There was a fire, and a hare wrapped in clay and leaves baking in the embers. The lads got it out, burning their fingers and swearing and laughing, and cut it up, and handed us choice pieces on the points of their knives.
After they had asked the latest news from the City, “Tell me pray,” said the dark one, “how a man can converse with another whom he doesn’t see or hear?” Something in the way he put his question told me he studied philosophy; so I said smiling, “Enlighten my ignorance, best of men.”—“He can now if he’s a Theban; for our new law is that when we meet you Athenians crossing the hills to take up arms against the tyrants, we don’t see you or hear you; and quite right too.”—“However,” the fair one said, “coming on you asleep, we forgot for a moment you were invisible, and said, ‘These two like us are old friends, and for friendship’s sake we ought to entertain them.’ Kebes and I took the vow of Iolaos, you see, a year ago today. My name is Simmias.”
We introduced ourselves, with compliments on their long association. You could not have told which was the elder, except that Kebes, the dark one, had his boy’s hair still. The sun rose as we ate, round and red above the valley mists. Simmias said, “Our teacher, Philolaos, the Pythagorean, considers the sun to be a great round mirror, reflecting back the central fire of the universe, like a polished shield. But why the fire grows red at sunrise, and white at noon, we cannot determine to our satisfaction; can we, Kebes? How do the Athenian philosophers explain the sun?”—“In nearly as many ways,” said Lysis, “as there are philosophers. But our teacher says that the nature of Helios is a secret of the god; and that a man’s first business is to know himself, and seek the source of light in his own soul. We don’t eat everything we see, but have to learn what our bodies can turn to good. So with the mind.”
“That is reasonable,” said the dark Kebes. “Man’s intellectual soul is a chord struck from all his parts, as the music of the spheres is the chord of the heavenly bodies. If the intervals have no measure, it can make no more sense of anything than a lyre untuned. So Philolaos taught us.”—“But,” Simmias said, “he is soon going back to Italy, and then we shall have no teacher, for we can’t be satisfied with any of the others here. But our fathers won’t let us go to Athens while the tyrants are in power there; so you see we have our own reasons for wanting them gone. Tell us more about this teacher you go to. Has he anything new to say upon the nature of the soul?”
In the end they put our knapsacks on their horses, and walked with us, talking, all the way to Thebes. That night we slept on supper-couches in the guestroom of Simmias’ father. He was putting up two or three other Athenians, and the house of Kebes’ father was already full. Everywhere one met with friendship; it was hard to believe in the bitterness of former days. They had seen enough, they said, of Lysander’s oligarchies, the worst men ruling by the worst means for the worst ends; the friends of liberty were not Thebans and Athenians now, but Hellenes all alike.
Next day the lads wanted to carry us off to hear Philolaos; but we excused ourselves till we had seen Thrasybulos first. It was like old times to go into a plain little wine-shop, and see him pull in his long legs from under the table and come striding over, his brown eyes warm and straight in his lean dark face. “Samian men!” he said. “The best news today.”
It was about a week after this that we left Seven-Gated Thebes; but not alone.
We set forth in the red light of sunset, a band of seventy men. Our shields were covered, our armour brazed, and smeared with dark oil. We were all heavy-armed, however we had come from Attica; the Thebans had armed us. Crossing the border we made an altar, and sacrificed victims to Pallas Athene, and to Zeus the King. The omens were good.
The sun sank, but a little moon was up, enough to save our necks on the hills. It would set later, which was well. By its dipping light, we came to the place where the pass hugs the side of the mountain; opposite is a hollow and a rise, and on the rise the stone fort of Phyle, backed against the drop of a great gorge, its face to the Theban road.
We dropped into the valley, going single file by a little path; at the bottom is a stream, from a source in the hill above, very clean and good to drink. There we waited, while a scout stole up under the walls. He had been stationed there, and knew it like his home. He was back within the hour. They were only a peacetime garrison, glad to be easy now the Spartans had gone. They had given each other the countersign, he said, as loud as a good-day in the Agora.