Glory and the Lightning (51 page)

Many government officials had their offices in the Agora, and Pericles was one of them. Although of an aloof nature, and possessed of a preference for his own company, he liked to hear the uproar of crowds about him, and to feel the heartbeat of his beloved city in the streets and colonnades outside.

Now the company had reached the level of the Agora. Pericles began to wonder why he had arrived so long before his usual time, forgetting his sleepless hours and his sense of pressure and unease and anxiety. Ichthus, he thought wryly, would not die before noon, if he died at all. There was the matter of his trial. He brought his horses up short with a sharp command as a young man suddenly appeared on the road before him. The young man dodged and danced lightly up on the pavement, and he turned an antic smiling face on Pericles and half-mockingly saluted. He had a Pan-like appearance, and there was an air of goatish agility about him. He had a very ugly little face with a nose that resembled a persimmon and was most undistinguished, a thatch of roughly cut hair, and an incongruous little beard trimmed to a casual point. His big ears stood out from his head like the handles of jugs.

But his eyes were extraordinarily brilliant and dancing and full of vitality, and on looking in them one forgot the small figure, bony, seemingly deformed though it was not in truth, and the poor garments. Those eyes were gray, almost as colorless as Pericles’ own, yet they were so ablaze, so radiant, that it was as if color had been burned from them leaving nothing but light behind.

Pericles recognized him though he had never exchanged a word with this young man who was already noted for his arguments and his philosophies and his teachings in the colonnades of the Agora and near the temples. Anaxagoras spoke approvingly of him, and with some little amusement, as an elder. But Athens teemed with philosophers, all hungry and vehement and self-assured even if humbly dressed and often barefoot.

The morning light lay in his eyes as he contemplated the halted company and Pericles, who rarely smiled, found himself smiling. “Were you coveting death, Socrates?” he asked, flicking his whip idly.

“Do we not all, even the happiest of us?” returned Socrates with an impudent grin. He was not awed by this most powerful man in Athens, whom he had often seen in the Agora. “And why should death be feared? If it is an endless sleep, do we not woo sleep? If there is life beyond it, then that too is good. Death is not to be abhorred.”

“It is too early in the day for philosophy,” said Pericles, and Socrates grinned again, inclining his head. The company went on. Socrates watched it go, scratching his armpits abstractedly. Then, as rapid as a cricket, he disappeared into a wineshop. He sat down at the table and said to the innkeeper, “I have just encountered Pericles, son of Xanthippus. He is entirely too grave and too cold. Yet, he is not an old man. One must laugh at this world or perish.”

In the meantime, Pericles had reached his offices and went to his separate room through a mass of petty officials and scribes who were just beginning to arrive. He sat down at his desk and began to frown and to ponder. A huge restlessness seized him, nameless and unformed. He faced the problem of Ichthus fully. His mind was fresher than it had been during the dark hours of night. But he was conscious of a physical weariness. He went silently over the arguments he had prepared for his friend, and clarified some of them. At some he winced; however, he knew them to be sensible. The trouble was that Ichthus was rarely if ever sensible and had no terrors for himself. Accursed zealots, thought Pericles, sighing. Yet, without them, would the turgid waters ever move or flow or become clear? In their deaths they acquired a stature they never had in life, and that, thought Pericles, is something to reflect upon.

A young scribe silently brought a bowl of fruit and a goblet and a small jug of wine and set it down before him. Pericles nodded without speaking. He glumly drank a little wine and ate an apple. The door opened and Anaxagoras entered, a man of grandeur for all his simple long tunic. He sat down opposite Pericles and said, “Our friend, Ichthus, is to be tried tomorrow before the Ecclesia.” He poured a little wine for himself in a goblet Pericles silently offered. “He will,” said Anaxagoras, “surely be condemned to death. On that the Ecclesia is determined.”

When Pericles said nothing, Anaxagoras continued: “The time is at hand when no man will be permitted to criticise government, however mildly, nor speculate on the gods. Above all things, the government fears enlightened or controversial men. Dictatorship by one man is bad enough; he usually acquires enough enemies to cause him to be somewhat cautious. But dictatorship by a whole government is greatly to be feared. There is nothing worse than inferior men in absolute power. They support each other, obey each other’s directives, and hate and fear the people, whom they regard as their common enemy, and a threat to their power. Bureaucrats are the hungry jackals of society. This, I believe, is what unfortunate Ichthus has been proclaiming—to his disaster.”

When Pericles still did not speak but despondently refilled his goblet, his friend went on. “You are a controversial man, Pericles.”

Pericles shrugged. ‘That I know. So are you, Anaxagoras.”

“Yes. The government does not believe in the scientific method, which deals with reality and not emotions. Facts are abhorrent to the government, and its minions, the market rabble. They prefer fantasies, and theories which are not based on facts and human nature. That is madness, of course. I do not expect to reach a grand old age.”

Pericles looked up sharply and Anaxagoras nodded, faintly smiling. “I will be a victim of truth. For truth is greatly hated by bureaucrats and the emotional rabble. You and I know that dreams are deceivers, and bureaucrats deal in dreams. For their own advantage and advancement. Yes, surely, this is an age of madness. I know you have tried to establish a transcendental religion, a monotheism, based both on reverence and reality. So, you are in danger also, my dear friend.”

“You were speaking of Ichthus. I intend to go to the prison this morning. I will attempt to persuade him to be cautious, and not to blurt out damning facts about himself, nor orate in defense of freedom.”

“You say that, you a man who constantly speaks in behalf of freedom of the individual? You say that, who have said that without freedom a man is less than a beast?”

Pericles made a slight, impatient and weary gesture. “There comes a time when the warrior’s best defense and offense is prudence—for the sake of his battle. And his life. If he perishes—what of his convictions, and what of his arguments? They die, also.”

“No,” said Anaxagoras. “It is reduced, then, to will a man choose between deathless truth, even if he dies for it, or compromise.”

“Zeno of Elea has sometimes said that compromise is a means of gaining time.”

Anaxagoras sighed. “Zeno is an intellectual man. But now we have no time—for compromise. What will you tell Ichthus then?”

Pericles felt a faint anger, for what Anaxagoras had said were his own convictions, with which he was struggling futilely. He said with some exasperation, “Perhaps you, not I, should consult with Ichthus!”

Anaxagoras waited, looking at Pericles with his noble eyes. Pericles stood up and began to pace the room, cursing half under his breath. “I will try to persuade him, for his own sake, and the sake of his family, to be discreet. Discretion is not to be despised, when a man’s life and the lives of his family are endangered. If I fail—”

He stopped. Anaxagoras still waited. “If I fail,” said Pericles, “I have but one recourse: to defend him before the Ecclesia, even if I have to say that he is mad and so is not responsible for his writings.”

“But the Ecclesia desires his death above all other things. If you persuade them he is mad, they will incarcerate him for life.”

Pericles, who had begun to sweat in his extremity, removed his helmet and wiped his damp hair. “You pose no solutions,” he said.

“In life, there are no solutions. A man can only do the best he can with the guidance of his reason. I grant you that Ichthus is not notable for reason. He is no philosopher. He is only a man who loves his nation and would die for it.”

“I love it also. But I must deal with bureaucrats, and may the Furies seize them!”

Anaxagoras rose. He leaned the palms of his hands on the table and fixed Pericles with his eyes. “You might pray,” he said, with kindness. Pericles gave a short laugh. “You, who believe only in truth and scientific facts, can say that?”

“I have never denied God,” said Anaxagoras. “For truth, and the truth science reveals, proclaim His existence.”

Seeing that Pericles was in no mood for abstruse arguments, Anaxagoras left him. The morning sun shot through the high small window in hot beams floating with golden dust. Pericles suddenly felt sick and drained. Was prudence only self-serving, or was it the course of a wise man? It was a riddle that no philosopher had reasonably solved, nor, in fact, any religion. Was it better to live in cautious peace or to die for a principle which might not survive tomorrow’s scrutiny? What, in fact, was ultimate truth? Perhaps it lived with God, but it certainly did not live with man!

Pericles called for his chariot and his guards. He passed the wineshop where Socrates was still slowly drinking and musing, and Socrates saw his face. There is a man, he thought, who is beset. When a man is so beset it is best for him to withdraw from the uproar of life, and conflicting arguments, and to think coldly and clearly, and without emotions. He must define his own terms in the light of reason, then act upon them, even if they wound his heart, and sensibilities. This is a sorrowful world, indeed. Often a man believes he is acting with reason when he is in truth acting only from his hidden desires and his uncontrollable impulses. What self-deceivers we all are! Often when we believe we are acting from the purest of altruisms we are, in fact, acting only from the instinct of self-preservation. Socrates sighed, and said to the innkeeper, “Refill my goblet. Sometimes we must take our refuge in wine, if we are not to go mad.”

“The Persians,” said the innkeeper, “say that only when a man is drunk can he see the truth with clarity.” Socrates laughed, a high thin whinny, and shook his head. “Wine is a deceiver, it is said,” and he drank deeply of his goblet. “But, a pleasant one. If the gods had not desired us to get drunk occasionally, then why did they teach us the arts of fermentation? To destroy us, or to give us a momentary peace?”

“The gods do not desire our destruction, Socrates,” said the innkeeper with an air of pious virtue, he being mindful that his shop was filling up with new customers, who were listening.

“Who knows?” said Socrates. “There are times when I believe the gods regret that they made us.” Yes, it was a dolorous world and full of enigmas. Was it better to be ruthless in this world, or to melt in pity and so be destroyed? To survive was to be good. The destroyed, therefore, were not good. It was a valid argument, but, was it moral; was it truthful? It was an argument to be debated. There was a great difference between validity and truth.

Pericles drove up the acropolis to the prison of “the Eleven,” or the Criminal Commissioners, where Ichthus was confined. It was a formidable and grim place, and only heinous prisoners, suspected of being enemies of the State, were incarcerated there.

Now the sun was very hot and the sky was incandescent with blue fire. The sea beyond the port glittered as a plain of blazing white light. Athens was embraced in her bowl of hills, which enclosed her with ochre arms. Groves of olive trees ran up their sides in a wave of fretted silver. In the distance were small green valleys, palpitating in the heat in a glimmer of emerald, and beyond them clusters of cypresses and palms and karob trees and sycamores and oaks, and orchards. Sheep and cattle were dotted there, little moving spots on the landscape.

The guards were awed when they saw Pericles and his company. He was readily admitted, and with incredulous wonder, by the guards, to the cell of Ichthus. What had this powerful man to do with a criminal?

As Ichthus was not only a citizen of Athens but was of a notable family his cell was commodious and light and clean. A member of his family had brought a soft carpet to cover the stone floor, and some light furniture and a comfortable bed. But Ichthus was not a man to enjoy comforts or notice or care about them. He sat on his bed in deep thought, his hands clasped between his knees. His overly sensitive face twitched and his gentle mouth was mournful. A less dangerous man, Pericles thought, was not to be found in all Athens. Yet, he was dangerous, for he was a good man and loved his country, and for that he must be punished. He also did not compromise with truth. Yes, truly a threatening man to governments. He disturbed the tranquil death of slavery.

Pericles motioned to the guard not to open the barred door as yet, and he stood there and looked through the iron bars at his friend. Like many men of strong and ardent passions Ichthus had not aged much, and appeared almost as the youth Pericles remembered, who had saved his life. However, the years had appeared to enlarge those huge brown eyes, to have increased his transparency of flesh, to have elongated that tremulous nose, to have made firmer that emotional mouth. The fine brown hair had retreated on his delicate skull so that his brow, always high and wide, seemed to dominate his whole face. Many of his old schoolmates jeered, and still jeered, at what they described as his “weak, vacillating chin,” which receded below his lower lip. But Pericles knew, with fresh despair, that here indeed was a valorous man who would never be turned from what he believed his duty.

Pericles studied him for long moments, his fair brows drawn together in pain, his helmet faintly illuminated by the lanterns which hung from the walls of the corridors. Then he motioned to the guard to open the door, and he said with stern authority, “I will call you when I wish to depart.” The guard saluted, Pericles entered the cell, and waited impatiently for the sound of the guard’s retreating footsteps.

Ichthus had started at the sound of Pericles’ voice, and then had slowly risen to his long and emaciated height, uttering a faint sound deep in his thin throat, but whether of protest or welcome it was impossible to know. A lamp burned on the table beside which he had been sitting, and there were numerous books on the table also.