Imaginary LIves (3 page)

While it remained locked in the little pyramid with the temple treasure, Herostratos could only guess at the words of the master. He hardened himself to scorn the luxurious life of the city; courtesans and their loves disgusted him. It was said that he preserved his purity for the goddess, but Artemis had no pity. In time he began to appear dangerous to the College of Gerousia, guardians of the temple, so with the satrap’s permission they banished him beyond the city gates, where he took up his abode on the slopes of Koressos, in an old cave hollowed out by the ancient people. Some authorities have believed that Persian initiates came to him while he sat there through the nights, watching the far-off flare of the sacred lamps on the temple of Artemis, but his destiny was more probably revealed to him in a blazing vision. During his trial by torture he told how the meaning of the word Heraclitus (
The
Way To Above
) had flashed full and sudden upon his understanding, and how philosophy had taught him that the finest quality of the spirit is quickest tinder to the fire. His own spirit, he said, was in that sense perfect, therefore he had wished to proclaim it. For his action he gave no other reason than desire for fame and the joy of hearing his own name. His reign and his alone, he declared, would remain absolute.

Herostratos had been crowned by Herostratos. None knew his father... he was the son of his own labour and his labour was the essence of the world. Alone among men, he would be king, philosopher and God in one.

Moonless came the night of July 21 in the year 356, and the passions of Herostratos rose at that hour pitch upon pitch until they crystallized his old resolve to violate the shrine of Artemis. Up the tangled mountainside he crept, reaching the banks of the Cayster, then climbing by slow, painful degrees to the temple, where guardian priests slept beside their holy lamps. Seizing one of those lamps Herostratos strode on into the Naos. A heavy odour of spikenard rose before the glistening ebony balconies; a curtain, gold and purple threaded, hid the goddess. Passing this barrier Herostratos halted, trembling with excitement, as the light from his lamp fell upon the two erect breasts of the terrible cone... next, his two hands were around the divinity in one long feverish embrace. When he arose at last he saw the little green treasure chest shaped like a pyramid. Catching hold of the brass spikes he swung open the door of it, plunging his fingers deep in virgin gems. But he drew forth only the papyrus scroll bearing the verses of Heraclitus.

And there, under the glow of the sacred lamps, he learned it all.

His first eager look was enough. Before his eyes had left the ancient words his voice lifted in a shrill cry, “The fire, the fire!”

Touched by the flame of his lamp, the sacred veils burned slowly until the red tongues reached the perfumed oils and ointments. Then they flared up blue to the ceiling while the dread cone reflected the scene.

The fire mounted quickly to the capitals of the columns, creeping along the paneled vaulting overhead. One by one the golden plaques inscribed with attributes to the glory of Artemis fell crashing to the stones below. A crimson spout broke through the roof; the brazen tiles reflected it until the whole mountain was alight. And Herostratos stood up in the red glare, shouting his name aloud against the roar of the flames and the darkness.

All the sacred mount became a red pile in the midst of the night. When the guards caught Herostratos they were obliged to gag him to prevent him from shrieking his name again and again.

Bound and gagged, he was thrown into a dungeon while the fire burned on.

Artaxerxes sent immediate orders for his trial by torture. Little was learned, for he admitted nothing save what has already been told. The twelve cities of Ionia issued a decree forbidding the pronunciation of his name through all future ages under penalty of death, but the whisper of it has persisted even to us. The story of that night when Herostratos ravaged the temple of Ephesus was handed down through Alexander, King of Macedonia.

CRATES

Cynic

Born at Thebes, he was a disciple of Diogenes and he also knew Alexander. From his father, a wealthy man named Ascondas, he inherited two hundred talents. Then one day, while attending a tragedy by Euripides, he beheld a vision. He saw Telephy, King of Mysia, dressed in beggar’s rags with a basket in his hand. So Crates stood up on his feet there in the theatre, declaring he would give the two hundred talents of his inheritance to all who wanted the money. Henceforth, he said, the garb of King Telephy would suffice him. Shaking with laughter, the Thebans troop before his house where they found him laughing even louder than they. After throwing all his money and furniture out of the windows he took up a plain cloak and leather sack and went away.

He went to Athens. In that city he spent his days walking the streets and his nights crouching against dirty walls. He put the doctrines of Diogenes into practice, all except the barrel. Crates thought even the barrel a superfluous dwelling. For a man, he contended, is neither a snail nor a Bernardine hermit.

He lived stark naked in the filth of the streets, filling his sack with dry crusts, rancid olives, and fish bones. He called the sack his city, a city without parasites or courtesans, he said, but a fine storehouse of thyme, garlic, figs, and bread for its king. So Crates carried his kingdom on his back and it fed him.

Though he never took part in public affairs, he never criticized them. He launched no insults nor did he approve this trait in Diogenes. Diogenes would call out, “Men, come to me!”, then rap them with his cane when they came, saying, “I called for men, not excrements!”

Crates was kind to men. He reproached them with nothing. Sores and wounds he knew, and his greatest regret was that his body were not supple like a dog’s so that he might lick them. He also deplored the necessity of nourishing himself with food and drink, for man, he thought, should be sufficient unto himself, asking no aid from the world. At any rate, he never hunted for water to wash in, being content to scratch himself against the walls after seeing how the asses did it. He seldom spoke of gods or questioned them. What difference did it make, said he, if there were gods or none, knowing as he did how little they could do for him. At first he reproached these divinities with having turned men’s faces toward heaven, thus depriving them of the faculties enjoyed by animals on all fours. Since these gods have decided that we must eat to live, thought Crates, they might better have turned our faces to the earth where food is, instead of twisting them up in the air to graze on the stars.

Life was not kind to Crates. His eyes grew bleary, exposed as they continually were to the acrid dusts of Attica, and an unknown skin plague covered his body with sores. While he scratched himself with his uncut nails he observed the twofold profit, as he called it, of wearing down these nails to their proper length while relieving his itch at the same time. He let his hair grow in a neglected mat on his head to protect him from the rain and sun.

When Alexander came to see him he flung no sharp gibes at the conqueror whom he considered merely as one with the spectators, acknowledging no difference between king and crowd. Crates no longer formed opinions about the great. Only men interested him, men and the problems of living his life as simply as possible. Diogenes with his chiding made Crates laugh no less than the pretensions of moral reformers. Holding himself infinitely above such sordid cares, he transcribed the maxim from the Delphian temple to read, “See Thyself”, and the idea of any knowledge whatsoever he thought absurd. He studied his bodily necessities, nothing more, striving always to reduce them to their simplest terms. Dog-like, Diogenes snapped at life, but Crates lived as the dogs lived.

He had a disciple named Metrocles, a wealthy young man from Marona. Hipparchia, sister of Metrocles, fell in love with Crates. Beautiful and aristocratic as she was, she was certainly the smitten one for she sought the cynic out. It seemed impossible but it was true, and nothing could turn her from him, neither his filthiness, nor his poverty, nor the horror of his public life. He warned her how he lived in the streets like a dog, scrambling for bones in the stench of gutters. He warned her further. If she came to him, he said, nothing of their life together should be hidden. He would want her publicly whenever desire prompted, as the dogs do among dogs. Hipparchia heard all. She declared she would end her own life if her parents interfered, so they let her go. She left the village of Marona with her hair unbound, a single ragged garment covering her nakedness. From that day she lived with Crates and dressed as he dressed. It has been said that she bore him one child, and that the child was named Pasicles, though nothing authentic can be found of that incident.

Hipparchia was kind to the poor. Compassionate, she soothed the sick with her hands, cleansing their bloody wounds without repugnance. To her men became as sheep are to sheep or dogs to dogs. When nights were cold she and Crates slept close to other poor folk, sharing the warmth of their bodies. From the beasts they learned the wordless kindnesses of beasts. When men approached they held no preferences... they were men and that sufficed.

We know nothing more of Crates’ wife; we are not told when she died or how. Metrocles, her brother, admired the cynic and imitated him, but Metrocles lacked tranquillity. Troubled continually by a flatulency he could not control, he resolved upon suicide. Learning of his ailment Crates went to him after first eating a quantity of lupine. When Metrocles confessed himself no longer able to support the disgrace of his infirmity, the cynic showed his disciple how all men are submitted by nature to the same evil. Upbraiding him because he had dared to be ashamed of others, Crates led Metrocles away and they lived long together in the streets of Athens, Hipparchia undoubtedly beside them. They talked little but were ashamed of nothing. When they lapped water from a puddle with the dogs the dogs respected them. They must have fought together over scraps of food, though the biographers fail to mention it. Crates died old, we know. We know he ended his days squatting among bales of goods in a shed belonging to a shopkeeper from Pirus, and that he finally refused to move from that spot even to pick up scraps of meat. We know he was found there one day starved to death.

SEPTIMA

Enchantress

Septima was a slave under the African sun in the city of Hadrumetum. Her mother, Amna, was a slave, and the mother of her mother all had been slaves, beautiful and unknown, to whom the dark gods had revealed the spells of love and of death.

Hadrumetum was a city of white houses, though the one where Septima lived was built of pink stones, the trembling tint of roses, while the garden paths were set with shells from Egypt, washed away by the tepid sea, where the seven deltas of the Nile spread out forming seven vases of different colours.

The silvery voice of the Mediterranean could be heard from Septima’s house by the sea. At her feet a fan of shimmering blue swept out to the horizon.

The golden palms of her little hands were rouged, her fingertips tinged with fard, her lips touched with myrrh and the anointed lids of her eyes drooped softly. Thus she appeared as she walked through the fringe of the city, carrying a basket of bread for the servants’ table.

Septima fell in love with a young freeman named Sextilius, a son of Dionysia, but love was denied her, for she belonged to those who knew the mysteries of the lower world and served love’s adversary whose name is Anteros. As swiftly as Eros aims the glances of eyes or whets the darts of his arrows, Anteros turns those glances aside and dulls the flying shafts. He is a kindly god, labouring among the dead, not cruel as the other is. Anteros possesses the nepenthe of forgetfulness. He holds love to be the worst of human afflictions; he pursues love to cure love. Powerless, however, to enter a heart once caught by Eros, he seizes that heart’s affinity. This is the method of the strife between Eros and Anteros, and the reason why Septima could not love Sextilius, for when Eros touched her with his flame, Anteros took the man she loved.

Septima saw the power of Anteros in the lowered lids of Sextilius. When purple trembled through the evening air she walked down the road to the sea. It was a quiet road, a road where lovers sipped wine of dates, leaning together against the polished walls of ancient tombs. An eastern wind blew its perfumes across the Necropolis. Veiled as yet, the young moon came timidly abroad. Sleeping in their sepulchres, many dead were enthroned on the hills around Hadrumetum, and here, under these stones, slept Phoinissa, sister of Septima, a slave girl dead at sixteen, before a man had ever breathed the sweetness of her. Phoinissa’s tomb was straight and slim as her body had been. The stone contours following the outline of her breasts were crossed by bands like the strands of a strophe. On her low forehead hung a pendent stone, long and drooping between her eyes. From her blackened lips came still an aromatic vapour of embalming spices, and a green gold ring set with two pale, clouded rubies gleamed on her finger where she lay, dreaming eternally of things she had never known.

Under the virgin whiteness of the new moon Septima crouched by her sister’s tomb, cooling her face against the sculptured garlands of white marble, her lips close to the aperture for receiving the funereal libations, and she poured out all her passions:

“O my sister,” she began, “turn in your sleep and hear me! The little lamp of death’s first hours is lighted. We gave you an ampula of coloured glass, but you have let it slip through your fingers. Your necklace is broken and the golden beads are scattered around you. Nothing of ours is any longer yours, and he has you now, the hawk-headed one. O listen, my sister, you have power to carry my words. Fly to that heaven you know so well. Plead for me with Anteros. Implore the goddess Hathor. Beseech him, whose body once drifted safely on the seas to Babylon. Sister, pity a sorrow you never learned! By the seven stars of the magicians of Chaldea I entreat you. By those dark powers Carthage knows, by Tao, Abriao, Salbaal and Bathbaal hear my invocation. Make him love me! Sextilius, son of Dionysia, make him burn with love of me, Septima, daughter of our mother, Amœna... so that he shall burn in the night, so that he shall come to me by thy tomb, Phoinissa!