Debase the Currency - Whether Coin or Clout - Show Who Rules Them - And Set Yourself Free - Go East Old Man - To Learn Something New - Make Peace With Darkness - And Shine Your Light - Witness Inaction In Action - Before the Great Game - Of Two Competing Conceits - Leaving a Strange Legacy
1
375 B.C.
Poets claim the gods have a sense of humor. Exceptions apply.
Hera is famously dull, and Artemis didn’t exactly appreciate some fool mortal getting one over on her, either. One could argue her retort was darkly comic, but only if being torn apart by your own dogs is funny.
And it is to other gods or animals. Humans always seemed to miss the joke. Reeling in terror rather than amusement at becoming your best boys’ breakfast, they just don’t get it. The dog gets the joke immediately.
Dio liked dogs. They were happy with little. Perhaps, because they were born with very little. They owned nothing, they sought to own nothing, and seemed all the better for it. They were simple and honest animals. Something human beings were not.
Honest, that is. Human beings were incapable of honesty. Human beings had money, instead. The only animal that does. Or the only animal conceiting the distinction for themselves. Either way.
That was what Dio had traveled so far to ask the Pythia about. Money and honesty. A hard choice loomed and since no one in Greece had invented the coin-toss just yet, he needed other ways of making decisions. For insurance.
Like asking the drunk teenager a cult had propped up as a prophet.
Prophecy wasn’t exactly a science. Not like medical humors were. But what did one do with experts if not trust them? Dio had heard enough evidence this Priestess of Apollo knew things she shouldn’t.
Dio had a simple question in mind. He’d not be caught in any prophetic snares in this place. The Pythia had set Oedipus on his path to patricidal incest in the first place and that always seemed a bit tragic. Dio didn't dance to anyone’s tune. He played.
And for what he had planned, he needed divine deniability if he could get it. He hoped Apollo saw it the same way. He’d come a long way, by sea and road, to visit this high-functioning financial advisor in her unconventional office.
Bit of a tourist trap, this office. As if the line of stalls, bars, and brothels gracing the approach to it didn't give it away. They even showed off the stone Cronos supposedly ate in an effort to kill his son. Dio knew that wasn’t the right rock. That was in Corinth.
“Know thyself,” read an inscription. Dio wagered that was decent advice. After all, he knew himself. He was an important man in his community. He baked coins and people who matter loved him for it. Wisdom couldn’t buy that. Not like money could.
Dio hoped to buy himself a little love. He meant to embark on what could only be charitably referred to as a scheme and when it comes to gods one asks permission rather than forgiveness. One does so at Delphi.
Torches spit and sizzled, illuminating the temple atop its hill. A strange smell, sweet like rotting flesh, hangs in the air. It mingles with the sweat, smoke, and wine of the sacred and revered. This is a holy place, and it smells and looks the part.
The unadorned stone floor, ground to grooves over centuries, is smooth and bare. People had always visited Delphi, the center of the world, to hear the wisdom of The God spoken. They came from thousands of miles away, all desperate to know the God's mind.
He followed the worn grooves, shallow gutters which would deposit him before the seeress, to hear what the God would say to him. He'd traveled hundreds of miles to hear truth. The Pythia at Delphi had served millions so far in the fast fate industry.
“Oh, well look here, Ape Lo,” a girl of fifteen said, lounging on a raised dais. “We got a live one that doesn’t know it’s alive yet. The Dog himself, even.” If Apollo replied, Dio didn't hear it. The Pythia tilted her head, listening to what Dio could not.
“Strong words from a drunk.” Diogenes barked, disappointedly. Tendrils of some sort of gas seemed to swirl about the child prodigy’s head. Dio counted a dozen zits before giving up.
“A dog should respect the gods,” the Pythia warned in the volume of the drunk before continuing in a monotone, “Welcome to the Oracle at Delphi. Please ask your questions and carry all liability derived from their answers.”
Dio cleared his throat and began to ask his question, “The mines are dry, but the mint mustn’t be. We must make more coin. This means I must debase the currency. Does the God agree?”
Pythia’s head rolled forward at the question, the tip of her tongue snaking out to wet her lips, intoning in an otherworldly voice, “You already know the answer, Dog. Deface the currency.” Bared teeth spread across her child’s face, her whole body shaking.
“Deface? Don't you mean debase? Debase the currency?”
“Sure, whatever. That's the one.” She purred, eyes rolling back in her skull.
Dio was unimpressed. “Debase means lowering the metal content of a coin while passing it off as full value. Deface just means vandalizing the thing.” She shrugged. “It just seems you should know the difference if you're passing judgment, girl.”
The temple seemed to darken despite the torches, their light swallowed in a gloom descended. Pythia continued, “Yes, to both. You will do this. One way or another. It is your fate, Dog. Your doom is fame, though which is yours to claim.” She laughed.
“Don’t laugh!” Dio was aghast. This had become quite serious quite quickly it seemed. Doom, fate, Dio expected this kind of talk from an oracle. He’d even expected Apollo to sign off on official thievery, he was the God of Poetry after all. But not rhymes.
“Debase it! Soil it! Do it, Dog! Do it, do it, do it!” Pythia ranted, clapping her hands and jumping up and down on her throne. “Dog! Dog! Dog! Cynecos!”
“Why do you keep calling me Dog? And there's no call for Greek!” Dio accused angrily. He hadn’t supersized his prophecy. “I’m a banker. An important man. My name is Diogenes of Sinope and I’ve never sniffed an ass in my life.”
“Deface the currency and you’ll see, Dog! Yes. Now get out, I need a nap and a bath.” With that, the torches flickered out leaving Dio alone with a whisper, “You will flatter those who give, shout at those who do not, and bite rascals of all stripe and rot.”
Dio stood in the darkness. He considered himself a bit of a rascal, really. He hadn’t expected that last part and as the words faded in the air, they seemed to solidify at the same time. That was god stuff right there. Superstate soft-solidness.
“When the lights go out, that means get out,” the Pythia announced from the dark, her trilling girl’s laughter stalking Dio as he left the temple. “Get out, Dog. Get out. Get out, get out! Don't have to go home but you can't stay here.”
Prophecy and poetry may belong to the gods, but money belongs to man. Humorless, mortal man. He left the temple with renewed commitment, if not satisfaction. That last part troubled him, and he pondered it all the way home.
But he was no dog. He was a banker. That twit had shown nothing but disrespect for him. Still, she’d given him what he came for. If he ever had to make a case in his defense, he’d have none other than Apollo in his corner.
He could still hear the Pythia’s laughter as he disembarked at the city-state of Sinope. His home, and the home of his father, he was welcomed back. He sighed in comfort and relief, returning to a place which respected him as they should. Home.
Aided by Apollo, he would steal every drachma from them he could. But what worried him was the idea the gods had a sense of humor. When the gods begin playing jokes, man is the punchline. Good thing they seemed to think Dio was a dog.
He should be safe enough.
Debase the Currency - Whether Coin or Clout - Show Who Rules Them - And Set Yourself Free - Go East Old Man - To Learn Something New - Make Peace With Darkness - And Shine Your Light - Witness Inaction In Action - Before the Great Game - Of Two Competing Conceits - Leaving a Strange Legacy