The Ionia Sanction

by Gary Corby

  “Where did you get her?” It was Socrates. He’d wandered into the entrance hall, and looked Asia up and down appreciatively. It occurred to me my little brother was growing up.

  “She’s a slave. I bought her. Today.”

  “You bought her?”

  “Yes.”

  Socrates inspected my purchase once more, and said, “I wouldn’t want to be in your place when Diotima sees her!”

  “Who’s Diotima?” Asia asked.

  “His girlfriend,” Socrates said to Asia.

  “No, she’s not,” I said. “Diotima will never see her, and anyway I don’t care if she does.”

  “That’s bad logic,” Socrates said. “Either you don’t care if Diotima sees her, or else you do care but you’re not worried they’ll meet. They can’t both be true; it’s an exclusion principle, you see—”

  “Socrates, I need you to do something for me,” I said, cutting him off before he could go on about his principle, whatever it was. “I have to get ready for the symposium. Get Asia some food and a proper tunic, will you? The tunic the slave dealer threw in is so moth-eaten it’s ready to fall apart. She needs something tough enough for travel.” I paused. “Sandals too.” Sandals were a major extravagance for a slave, but I reasoned we had some hard traveling to do.

  “Can I take the slave girl to the agora?”

  “I have a name, it’s Asia.” She glared at Socrates.

  Socrates would be there to watch her, but Socrates … hmm.

  I said, “Run along and play, children.”

  Asia ran into the street at once. I grabbed Socrates’ arm as he followed her, looked into his eyes, and said firmly, “She was a virgin when I bought her. She better still be a virgin when you bring her back. Got it?”

  Socrates grinned. “Yes Nico.”

  I washed at the gymnasium and had a barber cut my hair and shave me. One doesn’t call upon the mighty without looking one’s best, especially if one is as low as one can get and still be a citizen.

  My mother’s slaves laundered my best chiton. It was a rush job, so the smell of the laundry still hung about the cloth—they use urine to bleach, and it lingers—but they sprinkled me with scented water that almost erased the smell. The chiton was tied about my waist with clean ceremonial rope, into which strands of blue ribbon had been threaded. The only sandals I owned were old, scuffed, and had been soaked in blood on more than one occasion. I sent a male slave to the agora with my old sandals for comparison, and orders to buy a decent pair of formal wear. The ones he returned with were pretty, made of highly polished light leather with silver buckles, and minutely embossed with a Dionysiac scene. They would fall apart after a day’s hard walking, and cost five times what my sturdy pair had done. I sighed and reflected that the slave had done exactly what I’d ordered. Next time I would think before I sent a slave to market with general instructions.

  Callias rose as I was shown into his courtyard. He was graying, well dressed, and manicured, showing none of the paunch an older man might acquire. Callias made his money mostly from renting slaves to the silver mines run by the state. That was his private business, but he was also a man who took part in public affairs. He was probably Athens’ most experienced diplomat, and certainly the smoothest.

  He gave me a broad smile and said, “Nicolaos, so good to see you. Pericles told me you were coming. I’m glad.”

  The home of Callias is remarkable for its size, and its beautiful courtyards and garden.

  “I could work for a hundred years and never afford the equal of this,” I said, looking around in appreciation.

  “You are too kind.”

  “Merely realistic.” I paused for a moment, not sure how to broach the subject. “Callias, did Pericles tell you why he asked me here?”

  “Pericles has told me everything. It was I who suggested he invite you. Now hush, don’t mention it until after dinner. I think you will enjoy your fellow guests. Among them will be Anaxagoras, the philosopher. You may know he’s a friend of Pericles. The others are my son Hipponax and his friend Telemides. Hipponax is a good lad and in high spirits. He’s recently married.”

  At that moment Pericles and Anaxagoras were announced and walked into the courtyard side by side. Pericles nodded his head to Callias, turned an ice-cold smile on me, and uttered a few simple words; Anaxagoras greeted his host by taking Callias’ hands and quoting Homer, “‘A man of substance dear to his fellows; for his dwelling was by the road-side and he entertained all men.’ Thank you, dear Callias, for this invitation. Would that Homer were alive today so that he could describe you in such language.”

  Hipponax and Telemides arrived before Anaxagoras could continue with more flowery words, and we all settled onto our couches. It was a warm night so they’d been moved into the courtyard and torches lit. Slaves brought out scented garlands, which we placed around our heads, and cups of aromatic wine. A flute girl emerged from the colonnades and played something soft and lilting.

  Slaves brought in the first of the dishes: plates of fish, eels, octopus, vegetables, and two hares. We ate with little conversation, as is the custom. Revelry waits upon the removal of the dishes.

  As we ate, I looked sideways with interest at Anaxagoras. He was a famous man, not for his wealth, politics, or military prowess, but because Athens had never seen his like before: a professional philosopher, a man who earned his living by telling other men what he thought of things, as if his views were better than anyone else’s. Everyone knew Pericles funded Anaxagoras. The philosopher had arrived in Athens five years ago and attached himself to the young politician long before he had risen to the top. Was it luck, or had Anaxagoras seen something in Pericles right from the start?

  The philosopher wore a rather bushy beard but was half bald. What hair he had on top and his beard were a light brown, almost blond. His eyes were a dark blue, his manner lively, and his paunch particularly visible as he lay upon his dining couch. I guessed him to be about forty years old, or perhaps a little older. That made him five to ten years older than Pericles.

  Anaxagoras belched and declared, “Callias, my friend, that was the most delightful meal I have enjoyed in a long time. Thank you.” He turned to me and stage-whispered, “A philosopher should always praise his host. The Gods know where his next meal is coming from.”

  Socrates stood as my attendant, behind my couch. Even without turning my head I could feel him taking all this in.

  Slave boys carried a krater into the middle of the gathering. Callias, as host, would be the symposiarch, who would determine the ratio of water to wine to be poured in. A symposiarch controlled the nature of the evening with this single decision.

  Callias ordered the boys, “I think we will begin with three to one.” Three parts water to one of wine meant a refined, cultured evening of discussion rather than a raucous party, but with enough wine to keep everyone glowing happy. The boys poured water and wine into the krater and stirred slowly before handing out cups. I took my first sip. The wine was excellent, heavily spiced with fenugreek.

  “This is excellent, Callias, as good as anything we have at home,” Anaxagoras said as he swirled the wine in his cup.

  “Anaxagoras comes to us from the other side of the Aegean Sea,” Callias said to me. “From the city of Clazomenae.”

  Anaxagoras sighed. “Oh, for my own estates and my own wine. I miss them so.”

  “Have you ever considered going home, Anaxagoras?” I asked. Perhaps if he went, Athens might lose its obsession with philosophy.

  He looked at me in surprise and said, “Do you know why I moved to Athens?”

  “I imagine because Athens is richer, and you were more likely to find a host here to act as your patron.”

  He snorted. “It was to save my skin. The Persians wanted me dead after the Hellenes of Ionia rebelled thirty years ago. The Persians crushed the revolt and then went looking for the troublemakers who started it. One of them was me.”

  “Every city rebelled?”
r />   “Every city under Persian rule, which meant all the provinces on the Asian side of the Aegean Sea. All except Ephesus. The Ephesians decided to remain quiet and subservient. The reward for their cowardice was permission to govern themselves. They have the illusion of freedom as long as they do nothing to offend the Great King.”

  “The Athenians supported the revolt,” said Callias. “But alas, it came to nothing. Many of our friends suffered.”

  “I had a fine house, a farm for olives and another for sheep, an orchard, and a vineyard. It’s all gone. Fortunately I have my philosophy to sustain me.” Anaxagoras knocked back his wine and called for more.

  The slave boys mixed more wine, and I took a moment to admire the krater. Like everything else in the house of Callias, it was a thing of beauty. The krater was painted with red figures and showed a battle scene, Hellenes fighting in phalanx against Persians.

  Callias said, “I see you are admiring my krater, Nicolaos. It comes from the workshops of Ceramicus. I commissioned it years ago from Hieron the potter and had Makron paint the scenes to my direction. He was a touchy man, old Makron.”

  Callias had named two of the greatest craftsmen of the past generation. This pot was worth more than most houses.

  He was still speaking. “I couldn’t make a single suggestion without touching off his temperament. Why is it so many artists must be temperamental? Your own artistic father is a delight to deal with. All I wanted was a particular scene.”

  “It’s very beautiful. But what is particular about the scene?”

  “Look closely.”

  I did. Something was odd about the Hellenes in the scene, but for a moment I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I inspected the leading figure in the phalanx. He carried a spear and hoplon shield like all the others, but he wasn’t wearing armor. In fact, he was dressed in the robes of a priest.

  I laughed. “Oh, Callias, this is the battle at Marathon, and the man leading the charge is you.”

  Callias smiled. “So nice to be recognized.”

  Callias had been one of the heroes who fought at Marathon, and some eccentricity of his had led him to fight not as a soldier, but as a priest. The krater spoke volumes about the subtle byways of his mind. Any man of the previous generation would immediately recognize Callias in the scene. The krater displayed his wealth and discrimination, but it also advertised that here was a man who served the state in every way, not only as diplomat and wealthy backer, but a man not afraid to put his own life on the line for Athens.

  I had planned to say to Callias that Pericles’ anger with me over my failed attempt to capture Araxes was unfair, and suggest he might persuade Pericles against dismissing me when the mission was over. Now I put away that idea. No man who had stood in the line at Marathon would accept adversity, or bad luck, or a tough opponent, or overwhelming odds as an excuse for failure.

  It occurred to me that every important leader in Athens had fought both at Marathon and the later sea battle at Salamis. The only exception was Pericles, who like me had been too young. If I wanted to be worthy to join them as a leader of Athens, I would have to fight my own Marathon.

  My question about the krater had caused Pericles and Anaxagoras to fall into a discussion of pottery art. Anaxagoras said, “All those terribly practical men with their practical tools and practical wares in their practical houses.” Anaxagoras gave a mock shudder. “Practical men scare me. I shall stick to my philosophy.”

  I said, “Philosophy isn’t practical?”

  “You certainly can’t use it to make a pot. Now, if you wanted to know what the pot is made of…”

  “The pot is made of clay,” I said, thinking the question quite obvious. If this is what philosophy was, then why did men make such a big thing of it?

  “Ah now, but what is the clay made of?”

  “Er … more clay?” I ventured.

  “And if you take a pinch of the clay, what do you have? And what if you take a pinch of the pinch?”

  “If I tear away a small pinch, then it’s still clay, so I guess if I tear away a small pinch from the small pinch it will be clay again.”

  “And if you continue to take pinches from the pinches?”

  “Obviously that will never work. My fingers are too large—”

  “Bah,” Anaxagoras snorted. “You are thinking in practical terms. Forget the size of your fingers. Use your imagination, man. What if your fingers were no impediment?”

  “Then I suppose it would still be clay no matter how small the pinch, but I must say this isn’t very pract—”

  “Excellent. You begin to understand philosophy, young man. You have proven matter is infinitely divisible.”

  “I have?” I said, perplexed.

  “You have,” he said, with a firm voice. “Clay must consist of infinitesimally small particles of clay. You could continue taking pinches from the pinches for the rest of your life, and all you would get is an ever-decreasing amount of clay. So it is that water must consist of infinitesimally small particles of water. Air must consist of infinitesimally small particles of air.”

  He reached for his wine cup and took a hefty swallow of infinitesimally small particles of wine. Callias had upped the ratio to two to one with the latest krater. I wondered if Anaxagoras had begun to feel the effect, or did he always talk like this? Anaxagoras rubbed his hands. “Now we get to the serious points,” he announced. “If all matter consists of infinitesimally small pieces, then how could all those clay particles have come together in a lump? Why aren’t all the different types of particle mixed together in an amorphous soup? How is it possible a clay pot consists of only clay particles?”

  “Don’t ask me.”

  “I won’t. I’ll tell you. Because it doesn’t!” He laughed as if he had won some triumph. “There must be infinitesimally small pieces of all the other types of matter in the pot as well, but because the vast majority of the pot consists of clay particles, it seems to us to be all clay. We don’t notice the other particles, the impurities, which could be of stone, or water, or—”

  “Horsehair?” I suggested, smiling. “Or nose hair?” The man was clearly mad. But I noticed Socrates had stopped serving and leaned over my couch in a most unslavelike manner, hanging on his every word.

  “Correct, you understand. And now then, young man, what made most of the clay particles come together to form clay, and most of the air particles come together to form air?”

  “Hmm. Anaxagoras, I am so stunned by your blinding revelation, I can barely think…”

  “It was the Mind, young man, the universal Mind! There is a Mind that moves the parts of matter to form the world we experience!” He was almost shouting, and he waved his arms about.

  Socrates was so totally absorbed that he forgot himself and said, “But sir, how does the Mind know what to make, and why does it do it?”

  Anaxagoras stopped in mid-exult, and looked at me with a quizzical expression. “You allow your slave to speak?”

  “I’ll beat him when I return home. In the meantime, I would take it as a favor if you could bestow your wisdom to answer his no doubt ridiculous question.”

  Anaxagoras rubbed his chin and said, “On the contrary, the question is a deep one and would require considerable time to answer fully. It is true there are some fools, claiming to be philosophers, who make this very objection to my theory. To hear the same point from the mouth of this simpleton slave boy only goes to prove my belief that their arguments are worthless. Nevertheless, there are some subtle points involved. Let us begin.”

  I wish I could record the ensuing conversation, but I confess my eyes glazed over within moments. Anaxagoras spoke at length, and when he was finished, Socrates responded with something I didn’t follow at all. Anaxagoras however did, and forgetting that he talked with a boy, and a supposed slave, the two of them became immersed in their argument. I gave up and held out my cup for a refill.

  “Your slave boy appears to be a lad of some talent,” Callias rem
arked.

  “Callias, I have a confession to make—”

  He laughed. “I noticed early in the evening. Also, I met your brother previously, when he was here with your father. It would not be the first time an inquisitive lad entered a symposium before his time.” He glanced over at his other guests. “They will be in conversation for some time. Let me see if I can untangle Pericles from my admiring son. Have you noticed everyone wants to know Pericles now that he’s the most influential man in Athens?”

  Callias ordered two slaves to carry Pericles’ dining couch next to his own, thus placing himself, Pericles, and me slightly apart from the others.

  Callias said, “We must speak of state affairs, and the death of Thorion, of which Pericles has told me. Forgive me for raising such matters at a symposium, but time rushes.”

  I said, “I have important news.” I began to tell them of Asia the slave girl.

  “You paid how much for her?” Pericles fairly shrieked, loud enough that everyone in the courtyard stopped their own talk to look our way.

  It was an awkward silence. Callias quickly motioned to the slave boys to refill cups, and called for flute girls to play music. Two girls appeared from the shadows of the porch. They began a lilting, soothing tune and walked among the couches. The other guests turned back to their neighbors.

  I said quietly, so that only we three could hear, “She was worth every drachma, Pericles, I swear it. Listen to what she had to say.”

  I was gratified to hear exclamations of surprise from both Pericles and Callias.

  “Is she telling the truth?” Pericles asked when I finished. The puzzle of the girl’s origin had at least made him forget for the moment the bill that was coming his way.

  Callias looked thoughtful. “Themistocles did have a young daughter at the time he was ostracized. Your woman-child would be the right age, and I happen to know the infant’s name was Asia. The family was spirited away after Themistocles was condemned for treason.”

  “How did they escape Athens?”

  “A friend named Epicrates smuggled the wife and children out of the city. There was suspicion he had help, but he was the only one discovered.”