With his long hair, cut as they show it in the archaic statues (Macedon is full of these old customs) and his ardent eyes bluer even than theirs, he was like some kouros in ancient legend, listening for the voice of a lover who is also a god. Aristoteles coughed, and the boy withdrew himself calmly from his vision. He said, “But Achilles must have had some reason. It was so long ago—twelve generations of men, they say. I suppose the real reason has been forgotten.”
Aristoteles reached out discreetly and plucked Hephaistion’s tunic. The young prince looked round, as if by chance, just in time to catch him at it. “We must be going,” he said, like someone rewarding a dog that has done its trick. He remained, however, standing by me. I thought it was just to tease the man. Then he said, “I have always tried, when I read the Iliad, to give a voice to Achilles, and have only heard my own. He will have your voice now. This is a great gift you have given me.”
As I was seeking some answer fit for this, he tugged off his arm his great heavy bracelet of Macedonian goldwork, a thrice-coiled snake with ruby eyes and delicately graven scales. He took my hand, and slid it up into place. There was a life in his touch that seemed to kindle all up my arm, with the warmed gold. “This for remembrance,” he said. I thought he spoke of the gift, till he took me by both shoulders and kissed my mouth. Then he put his arm round Hephaistion’s waist, and they went out together, the philosopher following behind.
This morning, having got back to Athens, I went out to the Academy. No one was about; I chose the quiet time, when everyone is working. The myrtle they planted on Plato’s grave is getting thick and tall, and the marble begins to mellow.
The grove was green. But I saw in my mind the white slopes of Etna, the titan lava-rocks black on fields of snow, and the snowlight on those blue eyes, enrapt and listening.
He will wander through the world, like a flame, like a lion, seeking, never finding, never knowing (for he will look always forward, never back) that while he was still a child the thing he seeks slipped from the world, worn out and spent. Like a lion he will hunt for his proper food, and, fasting, make do with what he finds; like a lion he will be sometimes angry. Always he will be loved, never knowing the love he missed.
No one would fight for Dion, when he gave, as his own soul saw it, his very life for justice. But for this boy they will die, whether he is right or wrong; he need only gaze at them with that blue fire and say, “My friends, I believe in you.” How many of us, like Thettalos, I suppose, and me, will follow this golden daimon, wherever he calls us to show him gods and heroes, kindling our art at his dreams and his dreams at our art, to Troy, to Babylon or the world’s end, to leave our bones in barbarian cities? He need only call.
I thought how, before I went on at Pella, I had touched the mask for luck, and it seemed that the god had said to me, “Speak for me, Nikeratos. Someone’s soul is listening.” Someone’s always is, I suppose, if one only knew. Plato never forgot it.
Sitting by the tomb, I took from my arm the golden bracelet. It seldom leaves me; most people put it down to conceit, but not Thettalos, though he laughs at me. The marble was warm with sun and dappled with shade. I laid the gold on it, as if it could speak, as if I laid a hand in a hand.
All tragedies deal with fated meetings; how else could there be a play? Fate deals its stroke; sorrow is purged, or turned to rejoicing; there is death, or triumph; there has been a meeting, and a change. No one will ever make a tragedy—and that is as well, for one could not bear it—whose grief is that the principals never met.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
NIKERATOS IS AN INVENTED character. The inscriptions which listed the victors in the Athenian dramatic festivals survive only in fragments, few of which relate to the years covered by the story; the name of the leading man in The Ransoming of Hector has not come down to us. Nor is it known who the actors were, or what they did, when the exiled oligarchs of Phigeleia stormed the theater. Both events are related by Diodorus Siculus; so is the story of the chorus-man who brought Dionysios the news of his fatal victory in 368 B.C.
Thettalos and Theodoros are both named in the victors’ lists, and there are literary references to their gifts and fame. I have inferred the character of Thettalos from a highly dangerous adventure he undertook on behalf of the young Alexander in 338 B.C., four years after this story closes. During one of the recurrent Macedonian family feuds, Alexander, on purpose to foil his father’s dynastic plans, wanted to arrange a marriage contract between himself and the daughter of the satrap of Karia. Thettalos went on this secret mission, in which he was succeeding until Philip found out. The King’s arm was by then a long one, and he had Thettalos brought to him from Corinth in chains, apparently reprieving him later. It seems unlikely that Thettalos could have expected, in the circumstances, payment from the eighteen-year-old prince in proportion to the risks involved. That he took them is informative about both parties.
Theodoros was one of the Greek theater’s greatest stars. Like all other actors of the day he must have had to satisfy his audiences in male roles; but his fame rested on his tragic heroines. When he was playing Merope before Alexander of Pherai, that bloodthirsty brigand had to leave the theater, ashamed to be seen in tears.
It is important to remember that the grimacing, flat-faced masks of Tragedy and Comedy which are a cliché of today’s commercial art bear no relation to anything worn on the Greek stage. Masks covered the whole head and included a wig mounted upon cloth, only the front being of rigid material. In Graeco-Roman times, as theaters grew more enormous and taste declined, tragic masks were grotesquely enlarged and stylized, while the actor was padded and raised on high pattens to give size and height. Since his neck could not be extended in proportion, the total effect became progressively uglier and more conventional. But in the fifth and fourth centuries masks followed the trend of sculpture, idealizing or enhancing nature; from the few representations that survive, they seem to have had great subtlety, variety and often beauty. The mouths were not, as with late examples, opened in a vast dolorous gape, but parted as if in natural speech.
No part of Greek life has aroused more scholarly debate than the techniques of the theater. Literary accounts are late and conflicting, contemporary references casual. In a novel one has to choose between rival theories on such matters as the use and form of the machines, and the height of the stage above the orchestra. (I have fisted some books for those who would like to examine the evidence for themselves.) It is certain however that three men sustained all the speaking roles in every tragedy, the extra, if there was one, being almost or wholly mute, and that the actors somehow achieved the amazing versatility required. There is an anecdote about one who became so absorbed in doing his voice exercises that he missed his cue to go on.
By the start of the third century, actors were highly organized in guilds centered in large cities, through which their tours were arranged. The fourth century must have been a period of transition, with a good deal more left to private enterprise; I have had to conjecture what arrangements actor-managers of the time may have made for themselves. Their use in diplomacy is well attested.
Throughout the whole classical period, actors, though often dissolute in private life, were held in their work to be performing a religious rite in the service of Dionysos, or any god to whom the performance was dedicated. (For this reason they were exempt from military service.) Plato’s concern about the content of plays should, in fairness, be seen not as a mere censorship of ideas, but more like the wish of an enlightened Christian to drop from the liturgy passages about the wicked gnashing their teeth in flames of eternal torment.