“Yes,” said the man, “he spoke to Eukles, whom he knew better than me, and asked about you; he seemed afraid you might be dead. He said you had cried out for help to him; and I think he got his wound trying to reach you. We told him you had been carried off the field, but not hurt mortally, and he seemed content, and rested a little. By that time his mind was growing clouded, and he was beginning to yawn, as I have seen other men do when bleeding to death. Then he said, ‘He will care for the child.’ Had he one, then? But I suppose you know what he meant.” I answered, “Yes. Did he say anything else?”
“Seeing he was nearly gone, Eukles asked if he wished to leave you anything for remembrance. He said nothing, but smiled. I daresay he had not heard. But when Eukles asked again, he said, ‘Whatever there is.’ Eukles showed him he had a ring on, and he tried to draw it off, but it had been there a long time and from weakness he could not. Eukles has it for you; he got it off after he was dead.
“At just this time, the troops of the City fell back altogether from the Agora, leaving us masters of the field; and Thrasybulos ordered the trumpet to sound for victory. He opened his eyes and said, ‘Is that for us?’ I told him yes, and he said, ‘Then all is well, isn’t it?’ Eukles answered, ‘Yes, Lysis; all is well’; and with that he died.”
I thanked him, and they went away. When they had gone, I lifted his hand, and saw how they had bruised it, pulling off the ring for me. Then I wept.
Presently from the walls of Munychia I heard the victors singing a hymn of praise to Zeus. As I listened, my head swam, and my senses melted in darkness; for walking had opened my wound, and it had been bleeding again. Then men were lifting me upon a litter, and debating together whether I was alive. I did not speak, for it seemed no matter; but lay with closed eyes, listening to the triumph song.
28
A YEAR LATER, ON a warm day in spring, I went up to the High City, to receive an olive crown.
It was only one of seventy, which the City had voted to Thrasybulos, and the men who went with him to Phyle. The civil war was over, and the tyranny crushed for good; for Lysander had over-reached himself in Sparta, intriguing for a kingship; King Pausanias had got wind of it, and moved to set him down. Seeking to sap his power everywhere, and thinking it policy besides, the kings had given us leave to set up a democracy again. So the City gave thanks to Zeus, and pledged itself to a rule of perfect justice between man and man.
It was strange to stand again in the Maiden Temple, and feel the olive-twigs prick my brow. Many times in my youth I had prayed that Lysis and I might be crowned together; and he, I daresay, had prayed it too. Now it was I who received his wreath for him, and brought it home. I accepted it for Thalia, it being now my place to act for her in this and in all other things. But the mother of my sons has deserved better of me, these five and twenty years, than to be talked of at large, and already I have set down more than I ought.
Afterwards there were speeches, praising the liberators, honouring the dead, and hailing the fair prospect before the City; for though we had lost empire, they said, we had found justice, the greatest gift of Zeus to man. Then there was a choral contest, a race in armour for men, and, as evening fell, a torch-race for the boys.
I sat in the stadium, in the pause between the contests, thinking I would go down presently to see the lads I had trained for the race, and encourage those who might need it. But there was time yet. The water-sellers and the wine-sellers were busy, for the evening was warm and the runners had kicked up the dust. As you find at such times, friends saw each other from their seats (for it was hardly dusk) and came across, and others made room for them to sit together. Xenophon waved to me, and made his way over. We greeted each other warmly. The amnesty had given both of us a welcome excuse to heal our friendship. I said I had missed him lately in the City, and asked where he had been.
“To Delphi,” he said, “to consult Apollo, how I should sacrifice before a journey I mean to make.” I asked if he was going far. “A good way,” he said. “To Persia, to fight for Cyrus.”
I stared at him, too much surprised to speak. He said, “Proxenos, my Theban friend, has written to me from Sardis. He is in Cyrus’ service already, and tells me he has never met a finer soldier and gentleman. And Proxenos is a judge of such things. A force is needed, it seems, to clean some bandits out of the mountains; and Cyrus is open-handed, which is something to a man whose estate is encumbered like mine.”
“It sounds like an odd business to me. Hire an army of Hellenes to clean out bandits? You can’t trust a Mede’s word; you might be in for anything. Didn’t you ask the oracle, while you were about it, whether you should go at all?” He laughed rather shamefacedly. “That’s what Sokrates said. Well, I admit I didn’t want to change my mind. But I suppose if Apollo had been much against it, he would have given me a hint.”
I felt more concerned for him than I liked to say. Even in peacetime, he would do himself great harm at home by hiring his sword to the patron of Lysander. But he must know it; he was a soldier and no fool. And I thought to ask him why he was leaving the City, just when things were on their feet again; but I did not ask. For though he held himself still like a knight and an officer of horse, yet there had been something dimmed and quenched about him since the amnesty; he had looked like a man without a future. All through the troubles he had gone, as he saw it, step by step with his honour; in the end he had abhorred the tyrants as much as anyone; but his eyes had opened late; and it was true that the City had little use, at present, for men who had ever been loyal to the Thirty.
“Any man,” he said, “wants to leave his name on record somewhere about the earth. Even a boy feels it, who carves a tree. I have dreamed sometimes of founding a city; but that is with the gods.” The wine-seller came round, and he stood me a cup; the usual rough stuff they sell at the games. “Besides,” he said, “I want to study Cyrus. They call him a man born to rule, and I want to know how such a man is made. One hears a great deal from this faction or that, how they are fit to govern, rather than anyone else. As Sokrates always says, a mason, or a smith, can tell you clearly how he qualifies for a job; but no one has defined the qualifications of a ruler; or, rather, no two agree on the definition. Trouble always comes of not defining your terms; but more trouble than most, it seems, of not defining this one.”
“Good luck, then,” I said, “with your definition. But bring it back here, for your friends to share.” I looked at him, tipping down the coarse wine like a man who expects to put up with worse. I felt I was looking my last at the lad I still remembered. I was right. When I saw him again, it was five years later, and not in Athens. He was tanned like the thong of a javelin, and as tough as the shaft, a soldier who looked to have been cradled in a shield; but the oddest change, I think, was to see in one always so mindful of convention that careless outlandishness you find in irregular troops of great renown; men who seem to say, “Take it or leave it, you who never went where we have been. We are the only judges of one another.”
He went off to some other friends; and I, seeing someone sign to me, stood up, and recognized Phaedo, and went over. Plato was with him, and, a few benches lower, Sokrates in talk with his old friend Chairophon, who was back from his exile with the democrats. They did not see me, coming behind; but Plato made me sit beside him. When we meet in public places, he has never ceased to show me courtesy. But he does not ask me to his house. Though I never came forward as the killer of Kritias (no man will boast of what he has bought too dear) yet it was known to a few; and no doubt it will be a bad day for the City, when men are so lost to piety that they play host to the shedder of a kinsman’s blood.