Steven Pressfield: Tides of War, a Novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War

Alcibiades was thoroughly enjoying this give-and-get. “In other words you would declare of me, my friend, that by pursuing politics I act the pimp and panderer, seeking to advance my station among my peers, and that by so doing, I neglect my nobler self in favor of my baser.”

“Is that what I would say?”

“Ah, but here I have you, Socrates! For what if a man seeks not to follow his peers, but to lead them? What if his speech proceeds not from the falsehoods of the flatterer, but from the truest precincts of his heart? Is that not the definition of a man of the polis, a politician? One who acts not for himself, but for his city?”

The conversation ran on with lively animation for most of the evening. I confess I did not, or could not, follow much of its twists and turns. At last, however, the discourse seemed to condense about one issue that the company had been debating before my arrival: could a man in a democracy be described as

“indispensable,” and if so would this man merit dispensation beyond that of his lesser contemporaries?

Socrates took up his post on the side of the laws, which, however imperfect, he professed, command that all men stand equal before them. Alcibiades declared this preposterous and with a laugh claimed that his friend did not, and could not, believe it. “In fact I nominate you beyond all, sir, as indispensable. I would sacrifice battalions to preserve your life, and so would every man at this table.”

A chorus of “Again, again!” seconded this.

“Nor do I speak from affection only,” the younger man continued, “but for the advantage of the state. For she needs you, Socrates, as her physician, to the tendance of her soul. Bereft of you, what shall become of her?”

The older man could not contain a laugh. “You disappoint me, my friend, for I had hoped to discover love rather than politics sheltering beneath that devotion you so passionately proclaim. Yet let us not pass over this issue lightly, gentlemen, for at its heart lies matter which compels our most rigorous examination:

“Which takes precedence, do we believe, man or law? To set a man above the law is to negate law entire, for if the laws do not apply equally to all, they apply to none. To install one man upon such a promontory founds that flight of steps by which another may later ascend. In fact I suspect, don't you, brothers, that when our companion nominates myself as indispensable, his intent is to establish that precedent by which he may next anoint himself.”

Alcibiades, laughing, declared himself indeed indispensable.

“Were not Themistocles, Miltiades, Pericles indispensable? The state would lie in ruins without them. And let us not forget Solon, who gave us those laws in whose defense our friend stands with such steadfastness. Do not misunderstand me. I seek not to overturn law, but to adhere to it. To declare men 'equal' would be absurd if it were not evil. In truth that argument which seeks to calumniate one man as 'above the law' is false on its face, for that man, if he be Themistocles or Cimon, conforms by his actions to a higher law, whose name is Necessity. To impede in the name of

'equality' the indispensable man is the folly of one ignorant of the workings of this god, who antedates Zeus and Cronos and Earth herself and stands everlastingly as their, and our, lawgiver and progenitor.”

More laughter and rapping of wine bowls. Socrates was about to respond when a commotion interrupted from without. An overturned brazier had set the adjoining shelter alight; now all poured forth to assist in its extinguishment. The salon broke up. I found myself beside Alcibiades. He motioned to his groom to fetch horses. “Come, Pommo, I'll escort you back to your camp.”

I secured the password of the changing watch and we set out into the cold. “Well,” Alcibiades inquired when we had cleared the first line of pickets, “what did you think of him, our Professor Baldpate?”

I replied that I could not quite make the man out. Sophists, I knew, grew rich from their fees. Yet Socrates, garbed as he was in homespun, appeared more like…

“A beggar?” Alcibiades laughed. “That is because he scorns to profit from that which he pursues out of love. He would pay if he could; he considers himself not a teacher but a student. And I will tell you something else. My crown of valor…did you notice this night that I never set it, as one decorated ought, upon my head?

This is because the prize rightly belongs to him, to our own coarsecloth master of discourse.”

Alcibiades related that at the height of the battle for which he had been honored he had fallen, wounded and cut off, assailed on all sides by the enemy. “Socrates alone came to my defense, dashing from safety to shelter me beneath his shield, until our comrades could rally and return with reinforcements. I argued vehemently that the prize belonged to him, but he convinced the generals to award it to me, no doubt seeking to school my heart to aspire to forms of glory nobler than those of politics.”

We traversed the remainder of the crossing in silence. Beyond the battlements of the besieged city one discerned cookfire smoke.

“Do you mark that smell, Pommo?”

It was horseflesh.

“They're cooking their cavalry,” Alcibiades observed. “By spring they will be done for, and they know it.”

At the foresters' camp Alcibiades made a show of his arrival, without words putting it clear to all that I stood in his esteem, and any who crossed me must deal with him. Sure enough, within ten days my commander received orders rotating him back to Athens, his replacement an officer with instructions to leave me free to run my platoon as I wished.

I dismounted now and handed the reins back up to my friend.

“What will you do with the rest of your evening?” he inquired.

I would write a letter to my sister. “And you? Will you return to continue your discussions of philosophy?”

He laughed. “What else?”

I watched him depart, trailing the companion horse. His track in the snow bore him back, however, not along the picket line toward Aspasia Three, but in ascent upon the slope called Asclepium to that cabin of spruce wherein awaited the lady Cleonice, she of the violet eyes.

Thus [Grandfather resumed] concluded my initial interview with the assassin Polemides. I left him and made haste to Socrates.

It occurred to me crossing the Iron Court, which conjoined the wings of the prison, that mention of this evening thirty years past might summon a smile from our friend. In addition I was curious.

Did Socrates recollect the young soldier called Pommo? I decided against this, however, not wishing to further burden one with so much already upon his mind. Also I imagined the crush of friends and followers would prevent me from securing a moment apart with our master.

When I arrived at his cell, however, I discovered him alone. The mode of his execution had been established that day by the Eleven Administrators of Justice: he must take hemlock. Though this method mercifully spared the flesh from mutilation, its pronouncement this day, bringing home as it did the imminence of our master's end, had cast his friends into such a state that Socrates had been constrained to banish them, only to secure an interval of peace. Of this the warder informed me on my approach.

I anticipated a similar dismissal and was relieved to see Socrates rising, motioning me warmly within. “So, Jason, are you coming from your other client?”

He knew all about Polemides. Indeed he recalled the youth, he confirmed, not alone from that evening of the siege but from subsequent service with the infantry, and by report from Alcibiades' days of triumph in the East, in which Polemides had served as captain of marines. Our master remarked upon the conjunction of these two defendants, the philosopher sentenced for schooling Alcibiades and the assassin awaiting trial for slaying him. “It would seem that a jury possessed of consistency must, having convicted the one, acquit the other. This bodes well,” he observed, “for your client Polemides.”