by David Alkek
He brought her gifts daily, a fruit or vegetable basket with some silver or gold coins in the bottom, flowers, or sweets from Asia.
She thanked him politely and did not mention the money she found in the baskets. It was a matter of pride for her. She held his hand when he reached for it on their walks and modestly kissed him when they met or parted. She did not speak of love to him, although each day she felt it growing stronger within her.
Phidias moved into a house of his own that he had purchased. It was more spacious with a large open courtyard with flowers and a splashing fountain. "Will you come to my new house for dinner? Perhaps you can give me some pointers on decorating it."
"I would like to see your new house. Yes, I will come for dinner tomorrow night."
Phidias greeted Thais dressed in a new cloak, and held her hand while he showed off his house, ending in the dining room, which was lit with scented oil lamps. His heart was bursting with emotion. He could not help but touch her hand, her shoulder, her dress. They enjoyed the dinner that Lydia had prepared and drank sparingly of the wine. Phidias' face was flushed with emotion as he reached into his belt. “I have a present for you," he said.
Thais looked up in surprise. "You do? You have already been so generous.”
"I would give you the whole world, if it were mine to give," he said in a voice filled with emotions that escaped through a front he couldn’t control. He handed her a small carved wooden box. “I hope you like it. It’s something that Alexander himself gave to me.”
Thais opened the box and took out a long strand of exquisitely matched pearls. They gleamed in the lamplight. “Oh, they are beautiful. I love them.” She held Phidias’ hands as he held the box and looked into his eyes. Her vision blurred with brimming tears as she took the pearls out of their box. “I will wear them for you." She placed them around her neck, then reached over and kissed him.
Phidias reached for her hand. "Please move into my house," he pleaded. "I will take care of you. I have plenty of the money left that Ptolemy gave me. I have it invested with the bankers."
She didn't answer, but looked down, one hand in his and the other fingering the pearls. Phidias continued. “I want to be with you all the time, not just meeting here and there. I cannot ever let you go again. Please say you will live with me."
Thais looked up and met his eyes, slowly shaking her head. “I don't think we are ready for that. I know you say that you love me, perhaps you do. I have strong feelings for you too, but... I don't know if you have changed." She remembered the younger man who was filled with erotic energy but lacked a deeper sense of emotional commitment. His true love had been philosophy and history.
"What do you mean, I haven't changed?" He was animated. "Can't you see I'm older and wiser? I've experienced wars, murders, and cruelty beyond imagination. I've seen unbelievable wealth and dire poverty, fabulous cities, magnificent mountains, and wide rivers. I have seen how men can cynically plot and plan assassinations, even of close companions. Believe me, I have changed."
"I don't mean it that way. You must show me how you have changed," she said quietly.
He took her in his arms and kissed her deeply, passionately, pouring all the love of his heart into the embrace. Hopping that the passionate kiss showed her his true feelings, he held her in his arms and said, "I don't want you to move into my house because of my selfish desires or need to own you, although I do want you all to myself. I want to give myself to you also. I want to marry you. Will you marry me?"
"Phidias, we are in our seventies. Why do you want to marry? We have no children. We can simply remain friends and lovers if you wish."
"I..., I..., I love you...with all my heart. I lost you once; I can't bear to lose you again. I want to give you back the love we missed all those years. I want to live the rest of my life with you. I want to give you all that I have, including my heart."
"That’s wonderful, but it’s not enough. You said that to me forty years ago. What is different now?"
"What is different now is that I know myself better. Yes, I am older and have seen more and have had many adventures. I mean that I see now what is important. Books and philosophy are not what is important; it is people, and relationships, and feelings. My love for you and our relationship are what are important.
"I have come to this realization late in my life, and you have helped me. I realize that what is important to me is to share the rest of what life I have left with you. Without you, my life is not complete." He reached with trembling hands to hold hers. "Please, will you marry me?"
Thais saw that this old man was speaking from his emotionally filled heart, completely different from the person she had known; the one who had been interested in her only sexually, and had even abandoned that to follow adventure. Yes, now she could see that he had changed. She did not answer, but tears filled her eyes.
Phidias confessed a deeper yearning. "I need you to help me, Thais. I must fulfill a destiny that fate has given to me. I can’t do it alone. We can do it together. Please say you will," his voice choked with pleading.
Thais realized that Phidias finally admitted that he could no longer rely on himself alone. He needed someone, someone to aid in his quest, someone he could trust. Perhaps he needed the magic that a woman could bring. He was willing to give up his proud independence and ask for a partner. Yes, she admitted to herself, he had changed. She looked into his pleading eyes as a tear ran down her cheek. "Yes, I will marry you. I will be glad to be your wife, your lover, your friend, and your partner.”
“Oh, Thais, my love.” He fell to his knees at her side, holding her hands, his tears bathing them as he covered them with kisses.
Phidias realized at last that real love is when a person truly, truly cares about another, not for what they represent as a means, but as an end in itself.
They were married in the same Temple of Aphrodite in which Phidias had made his promises. He invited all of the faculty and students of the Lyceum and all of his and Thais’ friends. He gave one thousand drachmas to the head priestess of the Temple, and asked her to officiate at his wedding with all the proper ceremony and sacrifices.
The Temple was filled with guests who were flanked by candles and bouquets of flowers. Incense wafted to the ceiling as the priestess asked the goddess to bless the marriage. The elderly couple, dressed in their finest clothes, held hands and spoke to each other from their hearts. Phidias choked several times as he spoke and Thais could hardly finish her words. Tears of joy filled their eyes as they embraced and kissed. The priestess herself wiped away her tears as the assembly raised their voices with hopes of blessings and good fortune.
IX Resurrection
Chapter 38
Not long afterward, Phidias made his way one morning to the Lyceum. He walked slowly, leaning on his stick, as he moved through the people already crowding the narrow streets. He wrapped his robe around him and threw it over his shoulder against the brisk breeze that blew from the ocean only a few miles away. Winter was coming and it was cool in the mornings for his stiff old bones. Sounds of tradesmen opening their stalls, yells food vendors, and the laughter of children running and playing joined with the shrill voices of women bargaining with the sellers of everything that fed the life of Athens. The bright clothes of the crowd mixed with the hues of cloth, jewelry, and foods of all sorts created a kaleidoscope of color. Phidias relished the smells of the markets, the bustle of the people, and the energy of the tradesmen.
As he was walking through a street lined by fruit and vegetable vendors, he spied some fresh apples laid out like giant rubies sparkling in the sun. Stopping to pick out one he said to the vendor, "Good morning, Petros. How fresh are your apples?"
"I just got them early this morning from the port. They are as crisp as the morning air."
As Phidias picked one up, he was struck in the back and yelled at, "Turn around old man and give me your purse."
Phidias slowly turned as the man stepped back. He had dark, swarthy s
kin and greasy black curls tied back with a dirty red cloth. His short, one-piece, yellow shirt was tied at the waist with a rope. He held a small knife and pointed it menacingly at Phidias’ belly.
"Don't you know who this is, you ruffian?" Petros said. "He is a philosopher at the Lyceum."
"I don't care who he is. What use have I of philosophers? They don't make or sell anything. But he has money to buy apples, so I can take it to feed myself." His appearance and accent told Phidias that the man was from Asia. He thought ruefully, how many of them were seen in Athens since Alexander had conquered Persia. "Quick, old man, your purse."
"Here take this," said Phidias as he tossed the man his apple.
When the thief's attention was distracted, Phidias arced up the bottom of his walking staff and struck him hard between his legs. The man groaned, dropped his knife and grabbed his groin. Phidias then used his stick like a club and hit him across the ear. The robber fell to the ground, one hand on his groin and one on his bleeding ear.
"That will teach you to try and rob a citizen of Athens. Now go back to Asia where you belong." Phidias offered a coin to Petros for the apple, which he refused. He then stepped around the still moaning thief and went on to the Lyceum. He had learned many tricks and how to fight from his travels with the Macedonian army.
He reflected on his way about the incident with the Asian ruffian and how it was a symptom of how Athens had changed. There seemed to be no respect for age or intellect. Only wealth and power were the coins of the Empire. Mercenary soldiers roamed over Greece, hiring themselves to the highest bidder for their private armies.
Returning from the Lyceum at the end of the day, Phidias entered his courtyard breathless. Pilocrates took his outer cloak and helped him to where Thais was embroidering a scarf. He sat down heavily in a chair. "What is wrong?Phidias? You look as though you have the weight of the world on your shoulders like Atlas.”
“The decay in Athens is beginning to stink." He told her of his episode with the thief.
"That is terrible. Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm not hurt. I'm just disgusted. My soul aches."
"You should be more careful. You're not the young adventurer anymore. That thief could have stabbed you. He could have had a partner."
"I realize that now. I will be more careful. Athens is full of foreign riffraff these days. It does not have the feeling of spirit, of citizen loyalty to Athens anymore. Something is missing, as if it is dead."
"Did the thief shake you up so much? Have you given up on Athens?"
"I haven’t given up, but Athens is sick. Not only is there rot in the streets, but there is intellectual decay as well. Timotheus, the leading mathematician at the Academy, and two of our main scientists at the Lyceum, Simonides and Polydorus are leaving for Alexandria. Some of their students are also going with them. We are losing some of our best talent. It saddens me to see this happen to Athens." He shook his head and wiped the perspiration from his bald pate.
“I have seen other sad signs, she admitted. “Athenians are limiting their families. Some have only one child, while many have none. When a child comes, especially a female, it is often exposed and left to die in the hills or by the ocean. I am afraid that the citizen population will fall, and we will be populated only by slaves." She changed the subject by pausing and looking squarely at him. "Phidias, look me in the eyes and answer me. Why did you come back to Athens?"
"I wanted to teach at the Lyceum."
"You are not needed at the Lyceum. The great philosophers are gone and only Theophrastus holds the Lyceum together. Even, the students are going outside of Athens for learning and adventure. Why did you return to Athens?"
"I came back to find you."
"No you didn't. You found me accidentally. Now look into your heart. What do you see? What is there that told you that you must return? What is it that you came back to do?"
He looked up at her with extended open hands as if pleading. "I love Athens, Thais, more than I love anything, more than I love you, more than I love myself. I was drawn back to her as to a lover, as a slave to a beloved master. I see that her soul is dying. Her sense of patriotic pride, her intellectual leadership, even the creative energy of her artists and writers has faded.
"It seems to me, that not only Athens, but all of Greece has passed a distance marker. The many wars of polis against polis weakened us and now Macedon rules, Greece. By conquering the Persian Empire, Alexander has spread Greek culture throughout the eastern world. It has enriched the other civilizations of the world, but it has opened Greece to their influence as well.”
He finally began to realize what she was asking. "When I recovered from my close call with death, and I found you, I made a sacred promise that I would fulfill my destiny, the destiny I would find in coming back to Athens. It was not clear to me before what that destiny was.
"My youth was spent in sports, in eating and drinking with my friends, in arguing in the streets about politics, and even in brawls. I was no deep thinker or leader of men. I was rather weak in virtues. Perhaps my teachers at the Academy, especially Plato, Aristotle, helped prepare me for my later experiences with Alexander, that truly made me a mature person. I have literally gained a world of experience.
"You made me open my eyes and realize what my real desire was in coming back to Athens. It is that I must write a history of all the events I've experienced, so that posterity can have a record of what transpired in Greece, and Macedon, and Persia, and Egypt. It is my task to document those momentous events and personalities that defined our times. It will be my gift to Athens and to the world."
"Yes, Phidias, that is why you have returned. I see it in your face and hear it in your voice. I know your heart, and you have found your destiny. Now document the exploits of Alexander and his golden age before it is forgotten."
“I know I must do it, but I don't know if I am capable. It is such a huge task. It spans my whole lifetime and half the known world. My notes are a hodgepodge, more like a diary. Some are merely fragments, thoughts, impressions, or a name of a person or place."
"I will help you. Tomorrow, instead of going to the Lyceum, bring out all your notes and I will help you arrange them."
The next day after breakfast, Thais told Lydia and Pilocrates to clear all of the furniture out of one of the spare rooms. She told them to place a table with writing materials against the wall under the window. Then she told Phidias, "Bring all the scrolls containing your notes. I'll help you. We can lay them out in some order on the floor and you can open and refer to them as you write your history." As Thais was helping Phidias arrange his notes she said, "I have something I must tell you."
"What is that, my love?"
"Remember when I told you to go to Pella with Aristotle, because I didn't love you anymore? I said some pretty harsh words."
"They broke my heart. Yes, I still remember."
"Aristotle told me that you must accompany him to Pella for your own growth. You had to see more of the world than Athens, and indeed he was right."
"I saw almost the entire world. I saw many wonders and had many adventures, but I would have traded all of that for your love. You mean more to me than all of that."
"You say that now, but I knew that you must go. You had to go with Aristotle. He convinced me. You don’t know how it crushed my heart to say those things to you, but I did it for you, for your welfare,” she said, putting her hands around his cheeks.
Phidias replied, “I could not believe in my heart that you meant those words. I was crushed. My world was destroyed, but now I understand everything. It was for my benefit that you hurt yourself. It makes me love you even more for your sacrifice.”
“Aristotle was your friend, and teacher, and mentor. Now he is gone. You must carry on and finish what he has trained you for. I will try to take his place. I will prod you along, and keep you going. Now, let’s get to work.”
Even though he knew that this is what he came back to Athens to do, he was afra
id that he was not up to the task, but with Thais’ encouragement he would begin.
* * *
"I can’t read some of my notes," Phidias said exasperated one day soon afterward. "My eyesight is getting so bad."
"I will read them for you," Thais said.
"You can't. Some are just brief statements, abbreviations, barely legible even to young eyes. I can’t finish."
"Don't keep making excuses. There must be a way. Perhaps one of your students from the Lyceum can help read them for you."
"No one can read them but me. But there might be a way. You mentioned someone at the Lyceum helping. Maybe there is someone. Leontinas, a teacher of physics, has been making glass lenses that will focus the sun's rays to burn paper. He says he can also use them to study small insects. Perhaps I can use one to read my small script."
"If it is possible, that would be wonderful. We will pray to the gods that it will work."
He returned from the Lyceum the next day and, bursting through the gate, he began to shout for Thais, Pilocrates, and Lydia. "Hurry, come see what I have." They all came running and met him in the room in which he was working on his book. He showed them a lens that he had obtained from Leontinas. "Look how it makes the letters larger. I can read even the finest of writing merely by moving it farther from the paper. Look."
They all took turns with the lens, marveling over it. "Now, Phidias, you have no excuse," said Thais.
"Yes, Master, you can finish your book now," said Pilocrates.
"The gods are looking after you, Master Phidias. You must not disappoint them," said Lydia.
"You are right, all of you. I have been told in so many different ways that I must finish this task. By everything I hold sacred, I will do it. Now everyone except Thais, leave me and we will get to work.”
Chapter 39
The days became weeks and the weeks became months, while the two of them labored on the book. He still went to the Lyceum occasionally, for he enjoyed talking with the students, and his fellow teachers. As the winter winds got colder, Pilocrates had to keep a fire in a small stove in the room. Phidias had to rest his cramped and arthritic hands occasionally, warming them by an oil lamp kept on his table.