good-looking,
only twenty years old
and already a general.
By the end of the night,
he was reeling
with wine and conceit.
I carried the torch and led him back
to the house of Anytus, where we were guests.
I helped him into bed
and set a water jar beside him.
In the morning he was still drunk.
He slept heavily
one knee up
one arm over his face. I knew he would sleep till noon.
I knew him.
Every slave knows his master.
3. AKROPOLIS
It was my chance, and I took it —
I shoved my feet in my sandals,
hugged on my cloak. It was early;
the sky was turning pink.
The streets were full of shadows:
veiled women carrying water.
I rushed for the crown of the city,
the steep slope, the overhanging glory
of the temples on the rock.
The men at the symposium
had boasted of those temples:
pure Pentelic marble,
even the roof tiles.
Somewhere on that hill
was a giant statue: the Trojan Horse,
with life-sized men
crawling out of its belly!
That morning, with Menon asleep, was my only chance to see it,
I ran till my chest ached.
Around me, up the hill
through the streets
distractions: shrines
festooned with ivy,
temples, tavern-keepers
bawling out the price of wine,
shops and stench and smoke —
The wind was cold against my teeth.
I was gasping like a fish
stumbling, knocking into people,
but I couldn’t lose my way. In Athens,
the Akropolis is always up
halfway to the sky. I kept going up
until the city was down. There was so much to see —
the sunrise above
and the city below.
There’s a ramp on one side of the mound
— the mound is steep as a waterfall
but the ramp zigzags —
so the heifers and goats
can walk up the hill,
to be sacrificed.
I could see the paint on the temples
scarlet and blue,
and the gold leaf
flashing
the great gates ahead.
The marble blushed in the morning sun;
the light seemed to pierce the stone,
or glow out of it, I don’t know which.
Columns and spaces —
Stripes of white that stung my eyes —
And the spaces between
mysterious
dark and dazzle:
glaze and glare
shadow and softness.
Between the columns:
guards
at all five gates. I stopped.
If anyone was going to be turned away,
it would be me.
Foreigner.
Tattooed.
Red-haired barbarian.
They’d know I was a slave.
Where’s your master, boy?
He’s home in bed. He’s drunk.
Why aren’t you tending him, boy?
They’d treat me like a runaway.
It was like biting into an olive gone bad,
only there was nothing I could spit out.
I took a step back
away from the crowd.
I saw my shadow waver across the stone.
There were still things to see: I could go back,
look at the shrines, the fountain house,
a bigger market than any in Thessaly —
but everything had gone sour.
I had to get back.
If Menon woke up —
and I wasn’t there
I’d be beaten for sure.
I made my way downward,
lost the path
ended up in a hollow,
a circle of olive and willow trees
where an old man was dancing.
I didn’t know who he was.
And it wasn’t a gymnasion, and he wasn’t young.
He was ugly. He was like an old satyr,
the arms sinewy, but a belly like a full bowl,
a swaying gut.
His nose looked smashed,
as if he’d been a boxer
and fought too many rounds.
He wasn’t too clean,
he was humming,
raising his ropy arms to the sun,
the hair in his armpits
like two birds’ nests;
his feet striking the ground
in a strong rhythm.
Even I
a slave
a thickheaded Thracian
could see how unseemly it was: an old man
who had no beauty to display:
dancing
naked to the sky. He was worse than I was.
At least I was young
with no sag in my flesh;
And I had more sense
than to dance like that.
I thought of jeering at him —
Menon would have mocked him —
but then: I wasn’t Menon.
I didn’t want to be like Menon.
That man was as happy as a child at play;
he didn’t even seem cold,
that naked
ugly man.
I ducked behind the willow
so he wouldn’t know I saw.
I found my way back,
but I was sore inside. I’d missed my only chance
to see the sights of Athens;
that’s what I thought
that dawn
when I beheld first the wonder of wonders
Sokrates.
Sokrates!
what can a slave boy,
a clodhopper with a pitchfork,
know about Sokrates?
I’ve nothing against slaves. I owned dozens when I was alive;
no, I’ve nothing against slaves
— but a half-breed Thracian
who sneers at symposia,
what could he know of Sokrates?
Sokrates was my friend.
In fact, he once said
that he loved two things best of all:
philosophy
and Alkibiades. That’s me.
Don’t try to pronounce my name unless you’re Greek.
I am
I was
Αλκιβιαδης Κλεινιου Σκαμβωνιδης.
All my life long, I was famous! Even now,
twenty-four centuries after my death
(I was murdered)
my name is mispronounced
by scholars all over the world!
But I’m not here to talk about myself.
Hermes offered me time off from Hades
if I told you about Sokrates.
I leapt at the chance. After twenty-four centuries,
Hades is tedious. And to tell you the truth,
my home down there
is not in the best neighborhood.
Plus I’m a restless sleeper. Murder — that is, being murdered —
leads to insomnia.
Enough about me.
I’m here to tell you about my friend.
We’ll start with his name. Σωκρατης. First syllable, So. Not sock.
He never wore socks.
We had socks, we Greeks —
our second-best poet, Hesiod, sings of socks —
but Sokrates never wore them. He seldom wore sandals:
the soles of his feet were as thick as hooves,
a
nd his cloak . . . We used to tease him,
that hairy, hoary old cloak
that stank like a badger’s den,
same cloak, season in, season out . . .
Now, I wore silk:
purple-dyed, fantastic,
tickling the grass around my feet.
I wore my hair long
and crowned myself with violets —
a cure for drunkenness.
(It doesn’t work, but it’s becoming.)
My armor was gold and ivory. If I’d been less a man,
I might have been mocked,
but I was a paragon
of strength and grace,
and a virtuoso at war.
It was said: if the hero Akhilleus
did not resemble me in every way
he was not handsome. By the gods,
I was beautiful!
Not just in youth,
but in every season of my life . . . !
Forgive me. We were speaking of Sokrates.
His name: So, as in so what?
Kra, as in crop.
Tes, as in tease. So-KRA-tes. No socks, please.
His father was a stonemason.
His mother was a midwife.
He used to say he was like her,
only instead of helping women bring forth children,
he helped men bring forth ideas.
Unlike me, he was poor —
Oh, I was wealthy!
an aristocrat to my fingertips:
a spendthrift, a playboy,
charismatic, silver-tongued,
the offspring of Great Ajax who fought at Troy!
I blazed and bedazzled!
Half the men in Athens
and all the women
— or the other way around —
caught fire from me!
I was Eros with a thunderbolt!
If Sokrates had been my lover —
(I tried to attract him) —
he would have been the only one I ever had
who was worthy of me,
the better part of me,
the man I seldom was.
We shared a tent at the battle of Potidaea;
he treated me as if he were my father.
I was eighteen. He was pushing forty.
He bore the hardships of fighting better than I did.
Better than any man there! We were cut off from supplies
and had nothing to eat,
and he didn’t seem to care. But when the food came
he enjoyed it more than anybody. And as for drink,
he enjoys his drink,
but no man on earth ever saw Sokrates drunk.
That winter at Potidaea was shocking,
a hard frost. We wrapped ourselves up in old sheepskins,
bits of felt, anything. But there was Sokrates,
barefoot
walking on the ice,
no fuss. One sunrise, he started thinking over some idea —
it was summer by then — he stood there all day,
lost in thought. At nightfall he was still there;
some of us checked during the night.
still there . . .
all night
still there . . .
When the sun rose, he said his prayers
and walked away. I never found out what he was thinking.
He saved my life at Potidaea,
single-handed.
I was wounded;
he wouldn’t leave me,
stood over me
and got me out of the fray, armor and all.
Athens awarded me a suit of armor and a crown —
— What?
You think they should have given him the honors?
I thought so, too. I went to the committee to protest,
but I was the one
with the family connections
(you know how these things go)
and I was so much more
the kind of person who wins awards . . .
Did I mention I was an Olympic champion?
Chariot racing! Entered three teams.
Came in first, second, and fourth!
Now Sokrates —
Sokrates never cared for the trophies of war.
He’d stride across the battlefield like a goose,
his head in the clouds,
unfrightened;
his feet naked, and that god-awful cloak.
He was as brave as any man in Athens,
and unlike me, he was faithful.
He was loyal to the city . . .
To tell you the truth, I changed sides.
More than once. Oh, I won victories for Athens,
but also . . . against Athens. Whatever side I was on,
that was the winning team!
On the battlefield I was —
let’s not mince words — a genius.
A fox for strategy, a whirlwind for speed —
Wherever I went, I made myself at home.
Among the Persians, I went mad for luxury;
With the Thracians, I was always drunk;
In Thessaly, I lived on horseback;
In Sparta, I ate pudding made from pig blood,
cut off my flowing hair,
and scorned all comforts. Even the Spartans,
who admire no one,
honored me! Even the Spartan king —
till I ran off with his wife.
Ah. Enough about me.
When I was alive,
the potters of Athens
used to make these toys: clay statues of sileni,
little figures of beefy old men,
bald and fat
with thick lips
and horse’s ears. If you open them up,
inside there’s a prize, a grab bag:
a tiny statue of a god. That’s Sokrates.
He was ugly all his life,
impudent as a satyr. When you first hear him, you think
his ideas are laughable. He talks about pack mules
and shoemakers and blacksmiths:
ordinary people,
ordinary things. His arguments sound like sheer nonsense,
but if you open them up
they’re the only ideas in the world that have any sense in them.
When most men talk,
nobody gives a damn what they say,
but when Sokrates talked
I listened:
staggered and bewitched. There were times
when I was filled with holy rage.
My heart leapt into my mouth,
and my eyes filled with tears —
my soul was turned upside down.
He made me feel
that there were things inside me
crying for attention
— I don’t mean the usual kind of attention;
I had plenty of that all my life,
even now, in Hades,
I can’t get enough of myself! . . . There’s hell for you.
What I meant was this: I felt with him
something I never felt with anyone else —
a sense of shame.
There were times when I’d have been glad if he had died.
But he outlived me. A man like me makes enemies:
the Thirty Tyrants,
the Spartans.
They came at night and set fire to the house.
I leapt through the flames
sword in hand.
They shot me full of arrows.
Enough about me. In my lifetime, I was famous
and infamous. I am famous still
largely because I knew him.
He’s the thing I miss most about being alive —
By the gods, he was magnificent!
So beautiful,
so rich in virtue,
so golden,
Σωκρατης . . .
EXHIBIT 12
Miniature chariot wheel, circa 525–500 BCE.
This
bronze chariot wheel was found near a sanctuary of Apollo. It may have been given to Apollo in thanksgiving for victory during a chariot race. Votive objects—that is, offerings to the gods—were often symbolic in nature. This miniature wheel symbolizes the whole chariot.
Chariots were luxury items in ancient Greece. The land was rough and mountainous, with few roads, so chariots were not practical for travel or trade. They were status symbols, serving the function of a pampered sports car, and were most often seen in public processions or athletic contests.
1. THE SQUARE
Four days later, I saw him again. By then I’d heard of him.
Sokrates, I mean.
I’d been to two more symposia
and heard, “Sokrates says — ”
which led to raised voices
argument
and laughter.
The Oracle at Delphi
said Sokrates was the wisest man on earth.
Menon itched to meet him.
So Anytus took Menon to the gymnasion. It was called the White Dog,
not the best place in town. Foreigners and half-breeds,
metics, human mongrels
were allowed to work out there.
And there he was,
my dancing man, that grizzly old satyr;
it turned out he was Sokrates.
I didn’t stare;
A slave is supposed to keep his head down.
A glance was enough. It was the same man.
Once they’d been introduced, Menon began to ask questions.
His eyes gleamed: a cat who’d spotted a mouse.
He was courteous. Even bashful.
He asked Sokrates if excellence could be taught.
The word he used was ἀρετή,
which means goodness
or excellence. If something’s good
at being the thing it’s meant to be,
or doing the thing it was made to do,
that’s ἀρετή.
Menon spoke modestly,
a young man consulting a sage.
It was a trap. He meant to trick Sokrates
into saying something stupid.
Which he did. Or so I thought. Because right away
Sokrates said he didn’t know.
He didn’t know if ἀρετή could be taught.
Not only that, he wasn’t sure what it was.
Not only that, he didn’t know anyone who did.
Menon started to tell him. He said ἀρετή
was lots of things: a man ruling a city,
helping his friends and harming his enemies;
a woman obeying her husband.
Sokrates exclaimed, “I’m in luck!”
and you could see
he was set to have himself a good time.
“I asked for one kind of excellence,
and you give me a whole swarm.
But if I asked you, What is a bee?
and you answered me,
There’s this kind of bee, and that kind of bee . . .
I’d have to say, You haven’t told me what a bee is.
All bees have something in common,