Alexander: Child of a Dream (11 page)

 
honour to whoever deserves it, which regulates trade and commerce, which punishes and reforms those who have committed errors. A community like this is held together not by blood ties, but by laws under which all citizens are equal. The law corrects the flaws and the imperfections of individuals, limits conflict and competition, rewards the will to do and to achieve, encourages the strong, supports the weak. In a society like this the shame lies not in being humble and poor, but rather in doing nothing to improve one’s condition.’
Alexander sat in silence, meditating.
‘Now I will give you tangible proof of the things I have told you,’ Aristotle began again. ‘Come with me.’
He went outside through a side door on the external side of the building and walked to a small window that looked into the foundry workshop.
‘Look,’ he said, pointing inside, ‘can you see that man?’
Alexander nodded. In the workshop he saw a man of about forty, wearing a short work tunic and a leather apron; nearby were a couple of assistants, one about twenty, the other about sixteen years of age. All three were busy arranging tools, preparing the large chain that was to hold the crucible, stoking the forge.
‘Do you know who that is?’ asked Aristotle.
‘I have never seen him before.’
‘He is the world’s greatest living artist. He is Lysippus of Sicyon.’
‘The great Lysippus … I saw one of his sculptures once in the sanctuary of Hera.’
‘And do you know what he used to be before he became what he is today? A labourer. He worked as a labourer for fifteen years in a foundry, for two obols per day. And can you guess how he became the great Lysippus? Thanks to his city’s system of government. It is the city which makes space for talent, which allows each and every man to grow like a healthy plant.’
Alexander studied the new guest who all told looked quite powerful: wide shoulders, muscled arms and the wide, knobbled hands of a man who has worked hard for a long time.
‘Why is he here?’
‘Come. Let’s meet him and he himself will explain.’
They entered by the main door and Alexander greeted the sculptor.
‘I am Alexander, son of Philip, King of Macedon. Welcome to Mieza, Lysippus. I am honoured to meet you. This is my tutor, Aristotle, son of Nichomachus, from Stagira. In a certain sense he too is Macedonian.’
Lysippus introduced his assistants, Archelaus and Chares, but as he spoke Alexander felt the sculptor’s eyes on his face. Lysippus’ gaze explored the Prince’s features, drawing and redrawing them in his mind.
‘Your father has commissioned me to make a portrait sculpture of you in bronze. I would like to know when you will be able to pose for me.’
Alexander looked towards Aristotle, who smiled and said, ‘Whenever you want, Lysippus. I can easily teach while you create his likeness … that is if I am not a distraction to you.’
‘Not at all,’ replied Lysippus, ‘it will be a privilege for me to listen to you.’
‘What do you think of the lad?’ the philosopher asked after Alexander had left the foundry to show the rest of the building to Archelaus and Chares.
‘He has the countenance and the features of a god.’

14
life in mieza was marked by extremely regular rhythms. Alexander and his companions were woken every morning before sunrise. Breakfast consisted of raw eggs, honey, grated cheese, wine and flour, a mixture they called ‘Nestor’s cup’ which came from an ancient recipe described in the Iliad. Then they went out with their riding instructor for an hour or two.

 

After the riding lesson the young men worked with their weapons instructor who trained them in wrestling, running, fencing, archery, spear-work and javelin throwing. The rest of their time was then spent with Aristotle and his assistants.

 

Sometimes the arms master, rather than instructing them in the usual things, took them hunting together with the house guests. The surrounding woods were rich in wild boar, stags, roe-deer, wolves, bears, lynxes and even lions.

 

One day, on their return from a hunt, Aristotle met them at the entrance dressed in a strange way he

 

was wearing high leather boots that came halfway up his legs and an apron with a bib. He inspected the animals they had killed and chose a female boar that was obviously pregnant.

 

‘Please have that brought to my laboratory,’ he said to the chief huntsman and nodded to Alexander to follow him. This meant that the lesson about to take place was for the Prince alone.

 

The tutor’s orders were immediately earned out and the boar was placed on a table alongside which Theophrastus had arranged a series of surgical instruments, all perfectly sharpened and polished.

 

Aristotle asked for a scalpel and turned to the young Prince, ‘If you’re not too tired I’d like you to help with this operation. You’ll learn many important things. Over there are the materials necessary for writing,’ he added, pointing to pen, ink and some sheets of papyrus on a lectern, ‘that way you’ll be able to take notes and remember everything you see during the dissection.’

 

Alexander put his bow and quiver down in a corner, took up the pen and the papyrus and moved towards the table.

 

The philosopher made an incision along the sow’s belly and, inside the animal’s uterus, there appeared six small boars. He measured them one by one.

 

‘Two weeks from being born,’ he observed. ‘Here, this is the uterus, or the matrix where the fetuses take form. This internal sack here is the placenta.’

 

Alexander managed to control his initial repugnance for the smell and the sight of the bloody innards and began to take notes and even to draw.

 

‘You see? The organs of a pig or a boar, which is the same thing, are very similar to those of a human being. Look: these are the lungs, the bellows that allow us to breathe, and this membrane which separates the upper part of the innards, the nobler part, from the lower part is the phren and the ancients believed that this housed the soul. In our language all the words that indicate the activity of thought or of reasoning or even madness, which is the degeneration of thought, derive from the term phren. A membrane.’

 

Alexander would have liked to ask what moved the phren, what regulated its rhythmic rising and falling, but he already knew the answer ‘There

 

are no simple answers to complex problems.’ And he chose to say nothing.

 

‘Now this is the heart: a pump like the one used to empty the bilges on ships, but infinitely more complicated and efficient. This is the home of feeling and intellect because its movement accelerates if a man is under the influence of anger or love, or simple lust. In truth, my heart’s movement accelerates even if

 

 
I simply walk up the stairs, and this demonstrates that it is the centre of all functions in the life of man.’
‘Indeed,’ Alexander agreed, staring in bewilderment at his tutor’s bloody hands as they rooted through the innards of the boar.
‘A plausible hypothesis might be that when life’s intensity increases it is necessary for the blood to circulate more quickly. And there are two systems of circulation the
one that comes from the heart and the one that goes back to the heart, completely separate, as you can see. In this respect,’ he added, placing the scalpel on the tray, ‘we are very much like animals. But there is one thing in which we are clearly different,’ he added.
‘Hammer and chisel,’ he then said to Theophrastus who immediately handed over the instruments, and with a few sharp, expert blows Aristotle opened the animal’s skull. ‘The brain. Our brain is much larger. I have always thought that all those twists and turns were to help disperse body heat, but man does not seem to produce any more heat than any of the animals. It is a problem I will have to give some thought to …’
Aristotle had finished and he passed the instruments to Theophrastus to clean. He then washed his hands and asked Alexander for his notes and sketches.
‘Excellent!’ he said. “I couldn’t have done better myself. Now you may consign this beast to the butcher. I am very partial to sausage and offal, but unfortunately for some time now I haven’t been able to digest them very well. Have them grill me some chops for supper, if you don’t mind.’
On another occasion Alexander found Aristotle intent on the same operation, but this time with a much smaller subject a
ten-day-old hen’s egg.
‘My sight isn’t what it used to be and so I have to ask Theophrastus for help. Pay attention because one day you’ll have to help me.’
Theophrastus held the incredibly sharp and slender blade between thumb and index finger and was using it with remarkable precision. He had removed the albumen and had isolated the fetus within the yolk.
‘At ten days it is already possible to make out the chick’s heart and lungs. Can you see them? You’ve still got good eyes, can you see them?’
Theophrastus indicated the small clots of blood his tutor was talking about.
‘I can see them,’ said Alexander.
‘There you are, the same process accounts for the development of a plant from its seed.’
Alexander stared into Aristotle’s small, darting grey eyes. ‘Have you ever done this with a human being?’ he asked.
‘More than once. I have dissected weeks-old fetuses. I used to pay a midwife who carried out abortions for the prostitutes in a brothel in the Kerameikos quarter of Athens.’
The young man went pale.
‘It’s important not to be afraid of nature,’ said Aristotle. ‘Did you know that the closer all living beings are to the moment in which they were conceived then the more alike they are?’
‘Does that mean that all life forms share the same origin?’
‘Perhaps, but not necessarily. The facts are, my boy, that there is an abundance of matter, while life is brief and our means of enquiry are limited. Do you see why it is difficult to give answers? Humility is what’s required. One must study, describe, catalogue, take one step after another, reach ever greater levels of knowledge. Just as when one climbs up a stair one
step at a time.’
‘Certainly,’ confirmed Alexander, but in his expression there was an anxiety that belied his words, as if his desire to know the world could in no way be reconciled with the patient discipline propounded by his tutor.
For a long time Lysippus did no more than attend some lessons. And while Aristotle was speaking, or while he was busy with one of his experiments, the sculptor drew sketches of Alexander’s

 
face, both on sheets of papyrus and on wooden boards whitewashed with plaster or with white lead. Then, one day, he approached Alexander and said, ‘I’m ready.’
From then onwards Alexander had to spend at least an hour every day in Lysippus’ studio for the definitive sittings. The artist had arranged a block of clay on a support and modelled a portrait in it. His hands ran fretfully over the damp clay, searching, chasing forms that glimmered in his mind, forms recognized for an instant in the face of his model or evoked in the sudden light of his gaze.
Then the hands suddenly destroyed the thing they had modelled, taking the matter back to its formless state to begin again immediately, vigorously, determinedly in reconstructing an expression, an emotion, the flash of an intuition.
Aristotle looked on fascinated, following the dance of the sculptor’s hands over the clay, the mysterious sensitivity of those enormous blacksmith’s hands as they created, moment by moment, an almost perfect imitation of life.
It’s not him, the philosopher thought in those moments. It’s not Alexander … Lysippus is modelling the young god he imagines to be there in front of him, a god with the eyes, lips, nose, the hair of Alexander, yet he is something else, he is more and is less at the same time.
The scientist observed the artist, studied his intent, feverish gaze, the magic mirror that absorbed the real and reflected it transformed, recreated first in his mind and then through his hands.
The clay model was ready after only three sittings during which Lysippus had reworked the boy’s likeness a thousand times. Then he began the model in wax.which would confer its ephemeral form to the eternal bronze.
As the sun’s light began to descend towards the crest of Mount Bermion, it spread a golden luminosity through the room just as the artist turned the mobile base of the support, showing Alexander his portrait.
The young man was astounded at the sight of his own effigy, finely-reproduced in the light tones of the wax, and he felt a wave of emotion rush to his heart. Aristotle also moved towards the work.
There was much more than a portrait in those proud and yet at the same time graceful forms, in the trembling chaos of the hair that framed, almost besieged the face of superhuman beauty, the majestic, serene forehead, the long eyes, suffused with a mysterious melancholy, the sensual and imperious mouth, the sinuous and neat contours of the lips.
There was a deep silence at that moment, a great peace in the room pervaded by the gentle liquid light of the evening, and in Alexander’s mind there resounded the words of his tutor telling of how form models matter, of the intellect that regulates chaos, of the soul that makes its own mark on the flesh, perishable and ephemeral.
The Prince turned towards Aristotle who was contemplating with his small, grey sparrow-hawk eyes a miracle that failed to fit any of the categories known to his genius and he asked, ‘What do you think?’
The philosopher started and turned to look at the artist who had slumped down on a stool, as though the energy spent in such a wildly prodigious manner over the past few days had completely run out all of a sudden.
‘If God exists,’ said Aristotle, ‘he has Lysippus’ hands.’

15
lysippus remained at mieza through spring of that year and Alexander became friends with his assistants, who told him wonderful stories about the art and character of their master.

 

The young man posed for the sculptor again, this time for a full-figure work, and even on horseback, but one day on entering the studio at a moment when Lysippus happened to be out, he noticed among the drawings heaped untidily on the table an extraordinary portrait of Aristotle.

 

‘Do you like it?’ came the voice of the sculptor who suddenly appeared at his shoulder just then.

 

‘I’m sorry,’ said Alexander, slightly startled. ‘I didn’t want to nose through your things, but this drawing is magnificent. Did he sit for you?’

 

‘No, I sketch him a little now and then while watching him speak or walk. Would you like to have it?’