Worlds That Weren't

This wasn’t the first transport to disembark its men. On the shore, red-caped officers were bellowing, “Form a phalanx! We’ve got work to do yet, and we’ll do it, by Zeus!” As the battle formation took shape, Sokrates started north toward Athens all by himself.

“Here, you!” a captain yelled. “Where do you think you’re going?”

He stopped for a moment. “Home,” he answered calmly.

“What? What are you talking about? We’ve got fighting to do yet,” the man said.

Sokrates tossed his head. “No. When Athenian fights Athenian, who can say which side has the just cause, which the unjust? Not wishing to do the unjust or to suffer it, I shall go home. Good day.” With a polite dip of the head, he started walking again.

Pounding sandals said the captain was coming after him. The man grabbed his arm. “You can’t do that!”

“Oh, but I can. I will.” Sokrates shook him off. The captain grabbed him again-and then, quite suddenly, found himself sitting in the dust. Sokrates kept walking.

“You’ll be sorry!” the other man shouted after him, slowly getting to his feet. “Wait till Alkibiades finds out about this!”

“No one can make me sorry for doing what is right,” Sokrates said. At his own pace, following his own will, he tramped along toward the city.

He was going along between the Long Walls, still at his own pace, when hoofbeats and the rhythmic thud of thousands of marching feet came from behind him. He got off the path, but kept going. Alkibiades trotted by on horseback in his purple chiton. Catching Sokrates’ eye, he grinned and waved. Sokrates dipped his head again.

Alkibiades and the rest of the horsemen rode on. Behind them came the hoplites and peltasts. Behind them came a great throng of rowers, unarmored and armed with belt knives and whatever else they could scrounge. They moved at a fine martial tempo, and left ambling Sokrates behind. He kept walking nonetheless.

“Tyrant!” the men on the walls of Athens shouted at Alkibiades. “Impious, sacrilegious defiler of the mysteries! Herm-smasher!”

“I put my fate in the hands of the gods,” Alkibiades told them, speaking for the benefit of his own soldiers as well as those who hadn’t gone to Sicily. “I prayed that they destroy me if I were guilty of the charges against me, or let me live and let me triumph if I was innocent. I lived. I triumphed. The gods know the right. Do you, men of Athens?” He raised his voice: “Nikias!”

“Yes? What is it?” Nikias sounded apprehensive. Had he been in the city, he would surely have tried to hold it against Alkibiades. But he was out here, and so he could be used.

“You were there. You can tell the men of Athens whether I speak the truth. Did I not call on the gods? Did they not reward me with victory, as I asked them to do to show my innocence?”

A lie here would make Alkibiades’ life much more difficult. Nikias had to know that. Alkibiades would have been tempted-more than tempted-to lie. But Nikias was a painfully honest man as well as a painfully pious one. Though he looked as if he’d just taken a big bite of bad fish, he dipped his head. “Yes, son of Kleinias. It is as you say.”

His voice was barely audible to Alkibiades, let alone to the soldiers on the walls of the city. Alkibiades pointed their way, saying, “Tell the men of Athens the truth.”

Nikias looked more revolted yet. Even so, he did as Alkibiades asked. Everybody does as I ask, Alkibiades thought complacently. Having spoken to the defenders of the city, Nikias turned back to Alkibiades. In a low, furious voice, he said, “I’ll thank you to leave me out of your schemes from now on.”

“What schemes, O best one?” Alkibiades asked, his eyes going wide with injured innocence. “All I asked you to do was tell the truth to the men there.”

“You did it so you could seize the city,” Nikias said.

“No.” Alkibiades tossed his head, though the true answer was of course yes. But he went on, “Even if no one opens a gate to me, I’ll hold the advantage soon enough. We draw our grain from Byzantion and beyond. I hold Peiraieus, so nothing can come in by sea. Before too long, if it comes to that, Athens will get hungry-and then she’ll get hungrier. But I don’t think we need to worry about that.”

“Why not?” Nikias demanded. “The whole polis stands in arms against you.”

“Oh, rubbish,” Alkibiades said genially. “I’ve got at least half the polis here on the outside of the city with me. And if you think everyone in there is against me, you’d better think again. You could do worse than talk with Sokrates about the whole and its parts.” As he’d expected, that provoked Nikias again. Alkibiades hid his smile and looked around. “Where is Sokrates, anyway?”

A hoplite standing close by answered, “He went into the city, most noble one.”

“ Into the city?” Alkibiades and Nikias said together, in identical surprise. Recovering first, Alkibiades asked, “By the dog of Egypt, how did he manage that?”