"Mary Renault - Greece 4 - The Last Of The Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Renault Mary)

someone, it shouldn't be Alkibiades. He invented demagogy. Just because he practises it with a certain
grace, don't let us close our eyes to that. — Let us credit him with the invention, if you wish, said Kritias,
but not with perfecting the art. He should have known better than to insult his strongest ally. He will pay
for it.

I must be slow tonight, Tellis said. What ally do you mean? Kritias smiled at him, not without contempt.
Long ago, he said, there lived a wise old tyrant. We do not know his name or city, but we can infer him.
His guards were sufficient, perhaps, to protect his person, but not to rule with. So out of the stuff of mind
he created twelve great guardians and servants of his will: all-knowing, far-shooting, earth-shaking, givers
of corn and wine and love. He did not make them all terrible, because he was a poet, and because he
was wise; but even to the beautiful ones he gave terrible angers. 'You may think yourselves alone,' he
said to the people, 'when I am closed in my castle. But they see you and are not deceived.' So he sent
out the Twelve, with a thunderbolt in one hand and a cup of poppy-juice in the other; and they have been
excellent servants ever since, to whoever knew how to employ them. Perikles, for instance, had them all
running his errands. You would have thought it might have taught Alkibiades something.

It was the first time in my life that I had heard talk of, this kind. My mind went back to the dawn of this
same day, when I had stood in the High City; it seemed a small thing to have kept my body to myself,
when this had no defence from his filthy hands.

My father, who clearly thought that my presence might have been better remembered, sent me round
with the wine as a reminder. Then he said, For that matter, nothing is proven yet. Reason asks a motive,
no less than the law. Nothing could profit him so much as to conquer Sicily; the difficulty, I imagine,
would be to stop the people crowning him king. If any Athenian broke the Herms, look for one who has
his own eyes on a tyranny, and fears a rival.
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Kritias said, I doubt whether anyone will look so far, when the story of the Eleusis party gets about.

At this, there was a sound all round the room, of men filling their lungs to speak, and emptying them in
silence. My father said, The boy is an initiate. But they had thought again, and no one spoke.

It was my father in the end who broke the pause. Surely, he said, even our heavy-handed friends of the
Agora will hardly be solemn over that, after so long. Any good speech-writer . . . One knows what
young men are who begin to reason, and think themselves emancipated. A procession with torches round
the garden; new words to a hymn-tune; a surprise in the dark and some laughter; and the end nothing
worse than a little love-making, perhaps. It was the year we ... He had scarcely grown his beard.

Kritias raised his brows. Why no. I don't imagine that would raise much dust today. Did he get the
notion so long ago? I was speaking of this winter's party. He will hardly pass that off as a boyish romp, I
am afraid. They raided the store, you know, for the ritual objects. It will take a very good speech-writer
to explainthat away. They did everything. The prayer, the washings, the Words; everything. Did you not
know, Myron? My father put his wine-cup from him and said, No.

Well, those who were there will have taken care to forget it by this time, no doubt. Unluckily, as it was
late and some confusion prevailed, the slaves were overlooked and remained till the end. Some were
uninitiate.