The Just City (37 page)

“I think you're like children,” I said when there was a break in the conversation.

“Like us?” Kebes asked. “In that they were brought here without choice?”

“No, like real children. Like the babies. Children are people, but they need to be educated before they have power and responsibility. The workers are the same.”

“Educated?” Sixty-one wrote.

“Read. Write. Learn,” Crocus replied.

“That's exactly right,” Sokrates said.

“Want educated,” Crocus wrote.

“You can read,” Pytheas said. Then he frowned. “Oh.”

“There's nothing for them to read in Greek but in Latin letters,” Kebes said. “Even if they can read books. But maybe we could teach them the Greek alphabet.”

“Music and mathematics,” I said. “That's where we should start. And we can educate any workers who want it, and when they're educated they can be classified—the philosophical ones gold, the others to their proper places.”

“That's an excellent idea!” Sokrates said. “They want education. It's something we can give them in return for all the work they do.”

Crocus went back to where it had engraved “Give power” and tapped it, moving rapidly to “Electricity.”

“Do you mean we give you electricity in exchange for work?” Kebes asked.

“Yes,” it wrote.

“It would seem to me that since you look after the electricity supply, it's something you give yourselves,” Kebes said.

“Power comes in from sun,” Sixty-one wrote.

“Well, you get it directly from Helios Apollo, then,” Kebes said.

Sokrates looked at Pytheas, and then at me, and we all smiled.

“Want to read,” Crocus wrote.

“Can you read books?” I asked. “Could you if they were written in the alphabet you know?”

It was still.

“I don't think they could,” Kebes said. “Books are too fragile.”

“What are books?” Sixty-one asked.

I tried to explain.

“There must be a way, other than inscribing every book in the city on the paving stones in Latin letters,” Pytheas said. “Though that's not unappealing.”

“We could read aloud to them,” I suggested. “We could take turns doing it.”

“Want talk to workers,” Crocus wrote.

“You are,” Sokrates said. “When you answered Sixty-one about what education is, you were talking to each other.” Sokrates tapped the exchange.

Crocus inscribed a circle in the pavement, and went over it again. “What does that mean?” Pytheas asked.

“That's distress, I think. I asked Lysias to tell them they could answer my questions, not talk to each other,” Sokrates said. “I'll ask him to change that.”

“And ask him about how to educate them,” I said. “I feel sure that's the way forward on this.”

“He only barely admits they think, he's not ready to believe they have souls,” Sokrates said.

“But they were talking to each other,” Kebes said. Crocus was still etching its circle deeper. “Hey. It's all right. Stop. You can talk to each other.”

Crocus took no notice.

“Stop,” Sokrates said. Crocus stopped abruptly and lifted the chisel. Seeing it close up at the level of my belly I suddenly realised what a formidable weapon it would make. It swivelled and wrote “Want talk to workers. No. Command language.”

“Command language?” Pytheas repeated. “What does that mean?”

“Command language,” it wrote again.

“We need to define that,” Sokrates said. “What do you mean?”

“Command language,” it wrote, a third time.

“Go and get Lysias,” Sokrates said. “Run.”

And Pytheas ran, like an athlete off the mark.

Sokrates patted Crocus again. “We'll go inside and wait for Lysias. Talk to each other if you want to. We'll be back soon.”

Crocus didn't respond in any way. I frowned. We walked back to Thessaly, where Sokrates opened the door and led us inside. I took a long drink of water, then went out into the garden. As soon as I did Sokrates looked at me compassionately. “How are you doing, Simmea?”

“I'm well,” I said, confused. “I really am cured.”

“Not too many shocks?” he asked. “You're quieter than normal.”

“I suppose it is a good deal to take in,” I said, sitting down.

“Yes, we've been getting used to the workers bit by bit over the last months, and you're getting it all today,” Kebes said.

“Yes,” I said, and Sokrates smiled. “Pytheas ran like the wind when you asked him to.”

“He's a good boy,” Sokrates said.

“He's too good to be true,” Kebes said. “I hate to see you with him so much. You could do better than him.”

“Meaning you? You've been telling me this every month or so, ever since Pytheas and I became friends.”

“It's still true,” Kebes insisted.

“You're both my friends.”

“But he's your lover.”

This was plainer than Kebes had ever been. “Yes, but that doesn't mean I don't value you too. Friendship isn't something where one person can do everything for another.”

Kebes was about to answer, but Sokrates intervened. “Simmea is right, and if she and Pytheas are practicing agape it is none of your business to interfere unless she asks for help.”

“But you and I are meant to be together. We were together from the slave market. We were chained together. You know my name,” Kebes said.

“I know it and I value it. I also value what I have with Pytheas, which is different.”

“Interesting as this is, I wanted to come inside to discuss something without the workers,” Sokrates said. “The masters agreed in Chamber that they're not slaves, that they are people, and that as they've been treated as slaves we should stop. I'm supposed to be finding out what they want. If what they want is education, that's not something that's in short supply here. But how do we persuade the masters to give it to them?”

“My idea that they are children should hold,” I said. “They can have the status of children, from which they can later be emancipated, as we were.” I touched my gold pin.

“It probably is the best way,” Kebes said. “Except that it validates everything.”

“Precisely,” Sokrates said.

I looked from one to the other of them. “What do you mean?”

“If we say they should be educated in the ways of the city, it validates the city and everything that has been done here,” Sokrates said.

“Yes?” I waited, then went on. “Kebes, if you have a problem with me loving Pytheas, you should have ten times the problem with me loving the city. You've been analyzing and examining it, and you have to be prepared to be open to admitting that it might be good.”

“And you have to be prepared to be open to the other interpretation,” Kebes snapped.

There was a scratch on the door. We got up and went back through the house. Outside was Pytheas, with Lysias, and also Ficino.

“Thank you for coming,” Sokrates said. “Joy to you, Lysias, Ficino. Lysias, do you know what
command language
means?”

Sokrates went out past them into the street, leading the way to where we had left the workers. Pytheas put his arm around me and I relaxed into it. “Yes, but it's complicated to explain, like a lot of things to do with the workers,” Lysias said. “It means the language in which they can accept orders.”

“I want you to let them know, using a key if necessary, that it's all right for them to talk to each other,” Sokrates said.

“They ought to be able to communicate,” Lysias said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there should already be a system in place for them to communicate with each other, but I'm not sure how it works.”

Lysias began to try to explain this to Sokrates and we came up to the workers, who had not moved or written anything since we had left. “I saw a note one had written near Florentia saying they want to make art,” Ficino said.

“I saw that too,” I said. “And build.”

“I think we're going to have to let them, if they want to. I mean, make art!” Ficino glowed. “I was talking to Lysias about that when Pytheas came to find him.”

“You can talk to each other,” Lysias said.

They didn't move. “Do you want to talk to workers?” Sokrates asked.

“Yes,” they both wrote.

“You can talk to workers,” Lysias said. There was no response.

“And another thing: though they'll answer questions from them, are they still forbidden to take orders from the children?” Sokrates asked Lysias.

“Yes,” Lysias said. “I can change that, but I think it should be debated in Chamber. Perhaps the golds only?”

“I think they should be considered children, to be educated,” I said. “They say that's what they want.”

“Educated in music and mathematics,” Kebes added.

“They already know mathematics,” Lysias said. “Music, perhaps. You mean they should be educated to become citizens of the Republic?”

“The problem is that we can't educate them all, as only some of them are interested in having a dialogue,” Sokrates said.

“Talk. Want talk. Educated. Want,” Sixty-one wrote.

“It seems clear that only some of them are aware,” Lysias said. He read the incised words, moving back down the street. “Command language. Yes. It's hard for language to be something else for them. What's this about power?”

“Electricity, as it turns out,” Kebes said.

Lysias laughed. “Of course.”

“If only some of them are aware, do only those workers have souls?” Sokrates asked.

“And of what nature are their souls, the same as those of people and animals or different?” Pytheas asked.

“People and animals have different kinds of souls,” Ficino corrected him kindly. “Plato meant animal-like, not that human souls passed into animals.”

Pytheas raised his eyebrows and didn't contradict him. “How about workers, though?”

“Those who are aware can choose the good, and therefore they have souls,” Sokrates said. “Whether they are of the same kind I do not know.”

“But when did they get them, if the others do not?” Kebes asked.

“They each have a number. The number corresponds to their soul. As they become aware, the soul with that number crosses Lethe and enters into them,” Ficino said. “I wonder if one could see it?”

“It seems very unlikely,” Lysias said.

“Why?” Pytheas asked.

“I only half believe in souls anyway,” Lysias said, shrugging. “Even for us, let alone for workers. And they're not visible.”

“Athene confirmed that we have souls,” Ficino said. “On the first day, in Chamber.”

“Well then, we should ask her whether the workers do, and when they got them,” Lysias said. “I'm sorry, Sokrates, I'm going to have to prepare a key before they're going to believe they can talk to each other. I'll do that now.”

“Joy to you, Lysias, thank you for coming,” Sokrates said.

“Do you want to make art?” Ficino asked the workers.

“Yes,” they both wrote.

“I would like to see your art,” I said. “I can't imagine what it would be like.”

 

35

M
AIA

It was a rainy evening in early spring, and I was trying to organize the names for the next festival of Hera, when Klio came to tell me that Tullius had died. “Charmides was with him. Apparently at the last moment he just completely disappeared—the same as with Plotinus. His death was pretty well documented. It must be so strange. From the assassin's point of view, he'd suddenly have looked fifteen years older just before they stuck the knife in.”

“It'll happen to all of us,” I said. “Well, not with assassins. I expect I'll just seem to have aged terribly and fallen dead at my aunt's feet in the Pantheon.”

“And I in my office. I can't imagine how they'll explain it. At least I was alone.” Klio picked up the paper on my table and glanced idly at it.

“I'll miss old Tullius,” I said. “He never wanted to take any notice of me, but his speeches were always wonderful.”

“I suppose Porphyry will be the President of the Chamber now,” Klio said. “Or Krito?”

“It'll be so much easier when the children are grown. None of this wrangling. All of them seeing clearly the best way ahead and doing it.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“… No. I'd like to. But some of them are very smart, and they've been brought up the right way, and maybe by the time they're fifty? Who knows.”

Klio put the paper down. “I must get on and do my own list. It's so difficult to decide which of the boys are the most deserving.”

“It is. I think we should space the festivals out more, have them every six months, or even just once a year. Once we take out all the girls who are pregnant and those who are still feeding, the numbers are getting smaller and smaller. And we don't need all that many babies. Maybe we should time the festivals for just after the dark of the moon, to reduce fertility, instead of at the full to maximize it.”

“That's a good idea. Cutting down the frequency would make everyone upset, but nobody would take any notice of changing the timing, and having fewer births would be much easier on us. You should bring that up in Chamber.”

“If we ever get on to any subject that isn't workers.” I sighed. “It might be better to suggest it to Ardeia and Adeimantus and whoever else is on the Baby Committee.”

There was a knock on my door. Klio opened it, and Ficino came in. “I came to tell you about Tullius, but I see Klio was before me,” he said.

“I was very sorry to hear about it,” I said. “And I expect you are more sorry, as you were friends.”

“I had that privilege,” Ficino said. He sat down on the bed. “It was a privilege. I thank Athene every day for the privilege of being here and knowing these people—men from the past whose work I revered.”