Creation (4 page)

I can never decide whether or not Callias is stupid. I daresay it takes a kind of cleverness to make money with or without a treasure found in a ditch. But his shrewdness in business matters is undone by his silliness in all other aspects of life. When his cousin the noble, the honest, the selfless (for an Athenian) statesman Aristides was living in poverty, Callias was much criticized for not helping him and his family.

When Callias realized that he was getting a reputation for meanness, he begged Aristides to tell the assembly how often he had refused to take money from Callias. The noble Aristides told the assembly exactly what Callias wanted him to say. Callias thanked him, and gave him no money. As a result Callias is now regarded not only as a miser but as a perfect hypocrite. Aristides is known as the just. I am not sure why. There are great blanks in my knowledge of this city and its political history.

Last night one blank was promptly filled by Elpinice. “
She
has had a son. Early this morning.
He
is delighted.”
She
and
he
pronounced with a certain emphasis always mean the companion Aspasia and her lover, General Pericles.

The conservative Callias was much amused. “Then the boy will have to be sold into slavery. That’s the law.”

“That is not the law,” said Anaxagoras. “The boy is freeborn because his parents are freeborn.”

“Not according to that new law Pericles got the assembly to vote for. The law’s very clear. If your mother is foreign. Or your father is foreign. I mean Athenian ...” Callias was muddled.

Anaxagoras set him right. “To be a citizen of Athens, both parents must be Athenian. Since Aspasia is a Milesian by birth, her son by Pericles can never be a citizen or hold office. But he is not a slave, any more than his mother is—or the rest of us foreigners.”

“You’re right. Callias is wrong.” Elpinice is brisk and to the point. She reminds me of Xerxes’ mother, the old Queen Atossa. “Even so, I take some pleasure in the fact that it was Pericles who forced that law through the assembly. Now his own law will forever exclude his own son from citizenship.”

“But Pericles has other sons. By his
lawful
wife.” Callias still resents deeply, or so he maintains, the fact that many years ago the wife of his eldest son left her husband in order to marry Pericles, thus making two families wretched instead of one.

“Bad laws are made to entrap those who make them,” said Elpinice, as if quoting some familiar proverb.

“Did Solon say that?” I asked. Solon is a legendary wise man, often quoted by Athenians.

“No,” said Elpinice. “I said it. I like to quote myself. I am not modest. Now, who will be the king of our dinner party?”

As soon as the second tables are taken away, it is the Athenian custom for the company to elect a leader who will then decide, first, how much water should be mixed with the wine—too little obviously means a frivolous evening—and, second, to choose the topic of conversation. The king then guides, more or less, the discussion.

We elected Elpinice queen. She ordered three parts water to one of wine. A serious discussion was intended. And there was indeed a very serious discussion about the nature of the universe. I say very serious because there is a local law—what a place for laws!—which forbids not only the practice of astronomy but any sort of speculation as to the nature of the sky and the stars, the sun and the moon, creation.

The old religion maintains that the two largest celestial shapes are deities called, respectively, Apollo and Diana. Whenever Anaxagoras suggests that the sun and moon are simply great fiery stones rotating in the heavens, he runs a very real risk of being denounced for impiety. Needless to say, the liveliest of the Athenians speculate on these matters all the time. But there is the constant danger that some enemy will bring a charge of impiety against you in the assembly, and if you happen to be unpopular that week, you can be condemned to death. Athenians never cease to astonish me.

But before we got to dangerous matters, I was quizzed by Elpinice about Herodotus’ performance at the Odeon. I was careful not to defend the Great King Xerxes’ policy toward the Greeks—how could I? But I did mention with what horror I had heard Herodotus slander our queen mother. Amestris does not in the least resemble the bloodthirsty virago that Herodotus saw fit to invent for his audience. When he said that she had recently buried alive some Persian youths, the audience shuddered with delight. But the true story is quite different. After Xerxes was murdered, certain families went into rebellion. When order was restored, the sons of those families were executed in the normal manner. Magian ritual requires the exposure of the dead to the elements. As a good Zoroastrian, Amestris defied the Magians and ordered the dead youths buried. This was a calculated political gesture, demonstrating once again the victory of Zoroaster over the devil-worshipers.

I told them of Amestris’ perfect loyalty to her husband the Great King. Of her heroic behavior at the time of his murder. Of the hard intelligence which she demonstrated in securing for her second son the throne.

Elpinice was delighted. “I should have been a Persian lady. Obviously I am wasted in Athens.”

Callias was shocked. “You are far too free as it is. I’m also certain that not even in Persia is a lady allowed to lie on a couch, swilling wine with men and talking blasphemy. You’d be locked up in a harem.”

“No, I’d be leading armies like what’s-her-name from Halicarnassus. Artemisia? You must,” Elpinice said to me, “prepare an answer to Herodotus.”

“And tell us all about your travels,” said Callias. “About all those eastern places you’ve seen. The trade routes ... That would be really useful. I mean, just
how
does one get to India or Cathay?”

“But more important than trade routes are the notions about creation that you’ve encountered.” Anaxagoras’ dislike of trade and politics sets him apart from other Greeks. “And you must put into writing the message of your grandfather Zoroaster. I have heard of Zoroaster all my life, but no one has even made clear to me who he was or what he actually believed to be the nature of the universe.”

I leave to Democritus the recording of the serious discussion that followed. I note that Callias was predictable; he believes in all the gods, he says. How else was he able to win three times the chariot race at Olympia? But then, he is torchbearer of the mysteries of Demeter at Eleusis.

Elpinice was skeptical. She likes evidence. That means a well-made argument. For Greeks, the only evidence that matters is words. They are masters of making the fantastic sound plausible.

As always, Anaxagoras was modest; he speaks as one “who is simply curious.” Although that stone which fell from the sky proved his theory about the nature of the sun, he is more than ever modest, since “there is so much else to know.”

Democritus asked him about those famous
things
of his: the things that are everywhere all the time and cannot to be seen.

“Nothing,” Anaxagoras said, after his third cup of Elpinice’s highly deluted wine, “is either generated or destroyed. It is simply mixed and separated from existing things.”

“But surely,” I said, “nothing is no thing and so has no existence at all.”

“The word nothing will not do? Then let us try everything. Think of everything as an infinite number of small seeds that contain everything that there is. Therefore, everything is in everything else.”

“This is a lot harder to believe than the passion of holy Demeter after her daughter went down into Hades,” said Callias, “taking the spring and the summer with her, an
observable
fact.” Callias then muttered a prayer, as befitted a high priest of the Eleusinian mysteries.

“I made no comparison, Callias.” Anaxagoras is always tactful. “But you will admit that a bowl of lentils has no hair in it.”

“At least we hope not,” said Elpinice.

“Or fingernail parings? Or bits of bone?”

“I agree with my wife. I mean, I hope that none of these things gets mixed in with the lentils.”

“Good. So do I. We also agree that no matter how closely you observe a lentil bean, it does not contain anything but bean. That is, there are no human hairs in it or bones or blood or skin.”

“Certainly not. Personally, I don’t like beans of any kind.”

“That’s because Callias is really a Pythagorean,” said Elpinice. Pythagoras forbade members of his sect to eat beans because they contain transmigrating human souls. This is an Indian notion that somehow got taken up by Pythagoras.

“No, because I am really a victim of flatulence.” Callias thought this amusing.

Anaxagoras made his point. “On a diet of nothing but lentils and invisible water, a man will grow hair, nails, bone, sinew, blood. Therefore, all the constituents of a human body are somehow present in the bean.”

Democritus will record for himself but not for me the rest of our dinner party, which was pleasant and instructive.

Callias and Elpinice left first. Then Anaxagoras came over to my couch and said, “I may not be able to visit you for some time. I know you will understand.”

“Medism?” This is what Athenians call those Greeks who favor the Persians and their brother-race the Medes.

“Yes.”

I was more exasperated than alarmed. “These people are not sane on that subject. If the Great King didn’t want peace, I wouldn’t be ambassador at Athens. I would be military governor.” This was unwise—the wine’s effect.

“Pericles is popular. I am his friend. I also come from a city that was once subject to the Great King. So, sooner or later, I shall be charged with medism. For Pericles’ sake, I hope it is later.” As a very young man Anaxagoras fought at Marathon on
our
side. Neither of us has ever alluded to this episode in his life. Unlike me, he has no interest at all in politics. Therefore, he is bound to be used by the conservatives as a means of striking at General Pericles.

“Let us hope that you are never charged,” I said. “If they find you guilty, they’ll put you to death.”

Anaxagoras gave a soft sigh which might have been a laugh. “The descent into Hades,” he said, “is the same no matter where or when you start.”

I then asked the grimmest of Greek questions, first phrased by the insufficiently hard-headed author of
The Persians
,
“ ‘Is it not better for a man never to have been born?’ ”

“Certainly not.” The response was brisk. “Just to be able to study the sky is reason enough to be alive.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t see the sky.”

“Then listen to music.” Anaxagoras is always to the point. “Anyway, Pericles is convinced that the Spartans are behind the rebellion of Euboea. So this season Sparta is the enemy, not Persia.” Anaxagoras lowered his voice to a whisper. “When I told the general that I was coming here to dinner, he asked me to apologize to you. He has wanted to receive you for some time. But he is always watched.”

“So much for Athenian freedom.”

“There are worse cities, Cyrus Spitama.”

As Anaxagoras was taking his leave I asked, “Where was all this infinitesimal matter
before
it was set in motion by mind?”

“Everywhere.”

“No real answer.”

“Perhaps no real question.”

I laughed. “You remind me of a wise man that I met in the east. When I asked him how this world began, he made a nonsensical answer. When I told him that his answer made no sense, he said, ‘Impossible questions require impossible answers.’ ”

“A wise man,” said Anaxagoras, without conviction.

“But
why
was it that mind set creation in motion?”

“Because that is the nature of mind.”

“Is this demonstrable?”

“It has been demonstrated that the sun is a rock which rotates so quickly that it has caught fire. Well, the sun must have been at rest at some point or it would have burned out by now, the way its fragment did when it fell to earth.”

“Then why won’t you agree with me that the mind which set all these seeds in motion was that of the Wise Lord, whose prophet was Zoroaster?”

“You must tell me more about the Wise Lord, and what he said to your grandfather. Perhaps the Wise Lord
is
mind. Who knows? I don’t. You must instruct me.”

I find Anaxagoras agreeable. He does not push himself forward like most sophists. I think of my kinsman Protagoras. Young men pay him to teach them something called morality. He is the wealthiest sophist in the Greek world, according to the other sophists—who should know.

Many years ago I met Protagoras in Abdera. He came one day to my grandfather’s house to deliver wood. He was young, charming, quick-witted. Later, somehow, he became educated. I don’t think that my grandfather helped him, though he was a very rich man. Protagoras has not been in Athens for several years. He is said to be teaching in Corinth, a city filled with wealthy, idle, impious youths, according to the Athenians. Democritus admires our kinsman and has offered to read me one of his many books. I have declined this pleasure. On the other hand, I should not mind meeting him again. Protagoras is another favorite of Pericles’.

Except for one brief public meeting with General Pericles at government house, I have not come within half a city of him. But then, as Anaxagoras said last night, Pericles is always watched. Although he is, in effect, the ruler of Athens, he can still be charged in the assembly with medism or atheism—or even the murder of his political mentor Ephialtes.

Democritus finds the great man dull. On the other hand, the boy admires Aspasia. Lately, he has had the run of her house, where a half-dozen charming girls from Miletus are permanently, in residence.

Since Democritus is taking dictation, I cannot give my views on the ideal behavior of a young man in society. He assures me that Aspasia is still good-looking despite her advanced age—she is about twenty-five—and recent motherhood. She is also fearless, which is a good thing, since there is much to fear in this turbulent city; particularly, for a metic—the local word for foreigner—who happens to be the mistress of a man hated by the old aristocracy and their numerous hangers-on. She also surrounds herself with brilliant men who do not believe in the gods.