heave in a box and cart to the warehouse. But mostly they came for no reason at all, just to be there and see him. In fact it was a point of honor to come for no reason, spontaneously and unannounced, as any calendared agenda smacked of covetousness or self-interest. Therefore they came; the joiners at dawn, the Sons of Danae at the market hour, then the Curators of the Naval Yards and the potters and on and on, serving up the same confection of bombast, abjection, and self-congratulation. Critias, who would himself be tyrant one day, even set such sentiment to verse.
From my proposal did that edict come, Which from your tedious exile brought you home.
The public vote at first was moved by me, And my voice put the seal to the decree.
Nowhere could be discovered any who had voted against him or served on a jury that condemned him. These must have vacated to Hyperborea or hell. Nor could the delegations' encomiasts complete their panegyrics, as cries of “Autokrator, autokrator!” interrupted, ascending ad lib from the throng. They wanted Alcibiades master of the state, subject to no constitutional curbs, and in the evening more sober fraternities would second these sentiments, of the Knights' class and the Hoplites', the men of the fleet and the tradesmen's guilds, and plead with him to put himself beyond the reach of envy. Each coterie warned of the fickleness of the demos. “They” would turn on him, “their” devotion would prove unsteadfast. When that hour came, these partisans of obeisance admonished, Alcibiades' purchase on authority must be absolute. Nothing less was at stake than the survival of the nation.
On the twelfth evening, the most earnest and influential company yet convened at the home of Callias the son of Hipponicus. Critias himself was its spokesman. If Alcibiades assented, he declared, he would the following morning place the motion before the people. It would be enacted by acclamation. At last the city would stand beyond its own self-devastating pendulations of passion. The war could be prosecuted and won.
Alcibiades made no response. Euryptolemus spoke for him. “But, Critias,” he observed, in a tone flat with understatement, “such a motion would be contrary to law.”
“With all respect, my friend. The demos makes the law, and what it says is the law.”
Still Alcibiades did not speak.
“Let me be sure I understand you,” Euryptolemus continued to Critias. “Are we to agree that this same demos which banished and condemned my cousin unconstitutionally may now, with symmetrical lawlessness, anoint him dictator?”
“The people acted in madness then,” declared Critias with emphasis. “They act with reason now.”
XXXVI
Alcibiades spurned Critias' summons, as you know, citing the poet's admonishment that
Tyranny is a splendid roost but there is no step down from it and when report of this self-regulation reached the people, his popularity soared to yet more unprecedented heights.
Nor did his enemies wait long to find means to exploit this. It was a sight of pungent irony to observe such miscegenated bedfellows as Cleophon, Anytus, Cephisophon, and Myrtilus, the zealots of the oligarchs, leaping into wedlock with the radical democrats, not only stepping forth in concert but advocating those policies most likely to find favor in Alcibiades' quarter; in other words, to become his most ardent and obeisant toadies, their strategy being, as the comic poets later elucidated, to
“over-Alcibiadize” the people until he lodged in their craw and they spat him out.
No one perceived this peril more keenly than Alcibiades himself.
He drew about him now those companions of youth and war-Euryptolemus and Adeimantus, Aristocrates, Diotimus, and Mantitheus-whom he felt loved him for himself and did not perceive him, in the phrase of the poet Agathon, through the disrefracting glass of their own hope and terror. I as well found myself drawn more closely into his confidence.
He entrusted me with assignments of increasing import and subtlety. I was sent to address groups of the bereaved of Sicily, to serve on the committee seeking a site for the memorial. I officiated at sacrifices, represented the fleet marine force at official occasions, entertained prospective allies, and attempted to suborn or intimidate potential foes. I found these chores excruciating and begged to be released. He wished to know my objection.
“They acclaim me not for myself, but for some imagined
'Polemides,' and address themselves to me as if I were he.”
He laughed. “Now you're a politician.”
Until that time I had managed to keep clear of political connivance. This now became impossible. Life was politics. A man encountered may not be greeted as mate or fellow, but must be assessed as partisan or adversary and dealt with by this criterion alone: what can he do for our side, this day, not later, while he simultaneously took our measure, and in the same coin. One no longer talked but negotiated, spoke not but represented. The deal was everything; one breathed only to close. Yet such proved elusive as smoke. For many could say no but only one yes, and without yes you had nothing. The worth of each man rose or fell as a ram in the livestock market, according to that currency which is neither coin nor khous but influence. I never smiled so much or meant it less, nor met such friends to whom I was nothing. In all things, perception superseded substance. One may not demand accountability of others, or give his own pledge to any undertaking, however trivial, but always options must be kept open till the last instant, at which point all bets were off and if you'd given your word to a friend, you now broke it at the orders of another friend and leapt as fast as you could upon the main chance. At dawn I stood garlanded, sacrificing to the gods; by night I cut deals with stooges and back-stabbers. This was not my style. I detested it.
Compounding all were the tremendous stakes of these affairs, so that one must think, and indeed did, not only how our party may outpolitick those opposed but in the crunch how may we put them by. I missed not only my bride but her brothers and father and the straightforward landsman's ways of these who had become to me, I realized now apart from them, my hearth and family.
Now I myself became ensnared in politics' web.
I had taken residence with my aunt at Melite. To her I confided my plans to secure exemption or retirement from service and with my wife and child remake to Road's Turn. It was my ardent wish that my aunt make her home with us. I would build her a cottage; she may play the matriarch and lord it over all. She said she had always fancied a cottage. I took her hands in mine. It seemed happiness lay beyond one final bar of shoal.
I went to the Registrar to record my intent to build on our land at Acharnae. To my shock the clerk informed me that a claim had been placed against it. What was this, a joke? The recorder displayed the documents. One Axiomenes of Colonus, of whom I had never heard, had filed a petition of decedent estate, citing my death overseas, and the demise of my brother and father prior, and laying claim to the property. He had even deposited the parakatabole, equal to a tenth of the estate's value.
Dawn found me before the archon's clerk, scheduling a diamartyria, that hearing at which witnesses known to the court would testify that I was indeed my father's son and legitimate heir.
That should put a period to this nonsense, I thought. But when I rode out to the farm at noon, I discovered labor gangs at work upon the site. The sons of the aforementioned Axiomenes chanced to arrive at this juncture, three in number, and, comporting themselves with insufferable arrogance, displayed their papers and proceeded to order me off my own land. I was in military kit, it chanced, with a ceremonial sword at my hip. Perhaps an evil daimon took hold of me. My hand flew to the weapon's hilt, and though self-command reasserted before I could bare its blade, the act itself and the fury behind it sent my antagonists backpedaling in fright and outrage. They withdrew with oaths and pledges to eviscerate me in court. “And do not run to your patron, Alcibiades,” the eldest squealed. “For not even he stands above the law.”
A man of politics would have grasped at once the covert design understationing this ruse. I did not. My distress was such that I took counsel with a number of friends, including my commander, the younger Pericles, who, guileless as myself, accompanied me to address this Axiomenes at his home. I begged the fellow's pardon and, maintaining a tenor of temperance, restated my position which was unassailable; I had not been slain in war; the farm was mine; let us put this affray behind us. I would make restitution, I promised, for my unfortunate outburst.
“Indeed you shall,” this villain responded. He had filed an impeachment against me before the Council.
