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
6
365 B.C.
Dio and Manes left Krusty’s Inn behind and traveled the last several miles to Athens in silence. The former lost in thought and auto-pilot, the latter seething in rage and joy. They made good time as Manes had limbered up finally. Dio’s dad would be proud.
The road snaked southeast through Attica along its coast, becoming busier the nearer they drew to the city. As Xeniades had promised, or threatened, men in track suits squatting in circles around dice games grew more common as well. Macedonians.
Eventually, Athens came into view. The last century, under the protection of Pallas-Athena and the steady stewardship of Pericles, it had grown rich. But it had seen too much war of late to retain its former shine, whether perched atop a hill or otherwise.
Democracy had given violent way to oligarchy and back to democracy again. Dio found the whole thing strange and distasteful. Little tyrants fighting over baubles. In the oligarchy, one wasn’t free to speak their mind. Nor were they in the democracy.
Even Diogenes had heard of Socrates. The ugly, little troll-man who had set the city’s hive-mind on fire. He challenged every convention they held dear and as payment for his principled and peerless public service was condemned and executed. Typical.
Several gates provided access to the city, but Dio had the Diomeian Gate in mind. He meant to visit the Cynosarges and pay his respects to Heracles first of all. He had no sacrifice, except maybe Manes. But respect, despite appearances, cost him nothing.
It was just difficult to earn his respect.
Even with the Macedonians lurking along the road to the city, no guards seemed to be on duty at the gate. Shame, Dio had looked forward to declaring his genius at customs. Someone else would have to make that joke later. Maybe an Irishman.
When they saw the gate, Dio turned back toward the Ilisos River and felt a quick thud at the base of his skull. Not terribly painful, but he had obviously been struck with something. That didn’t take long, he thought. He didn’t even have to say anything first.
Turning to look, he saw Manes staring at him in terror, holding a small club. Dio raised an eyebrow, “Did you just try to club me, Manes? Krusty must have really put the stiff in your spine. Find your worth in someone else’s perversions and prescriptions?”
“No, master,” Manes protested before pointing over Dio’s shoulder. “But look over there!” When Dio refused to take the bait and stared straight at him, he turned and ran off into the city. He didn’t have the look of a man planning on coming back.
“Huh,” Dio mused. “What a gods-damned weirdo. I guess if Manes can live without me, I can live without Manes.” Just as well. He couldn't feed the little prick. He'd barely be able to feed himself. They knew his obols were no good here.
He walked the street following the bank of the river, and rounded a curve to what he hoped would be the Cynosarges. It was. A beautiful temple-gymnasium hybrid, with gardens all around it. Dio unknowingly took his first step towards the rest of his life.
“I’m sure you’ve heard talk lately from the nobility, those most noble and great men of illustrious birth in the city, claiming to be born of the soil with souls of gold. Unlike the rest of us sods. I only add this makes them as well-born as locusts or snails and twice as soft.”
Dio stopped dead in his tracks, swinging his head towards the source. He found an old man standing atop the steps to the temple-gym speaking to a sizeable crowd. He leaned on a wooden staff, tipped with what looked like silver. He continued.
“But what will these noble men, who in a fit of greatness slew our most famous citizen, do about Phillip? He looks to Thrace for now, but he also is a great man. His greed will not be satisfied with one paltry city. Not when the Jewel of Greece is his for the taking.”
Dio didn’t know about this ‘Jewel of Greece’ business, he’d found plenty of space to spit since arriving at the city already. But the cranky old man’s words had stabbed him squarely in the brain. He drew closer to the crowd, taking a position at its rear to hear.
“Antisthenes, you halfbreed bat,” a broad-shouldered and bearded man exclaimed from the crowd. “Philip isn’t king of Macedon! Perdiccas is. But one shouldn’t expect knowledge from low-born foreigners.” The man laughed at a most sick burn, indeed.
“Yes, Plato,” Antisthenes replied in a patient tone. “For now. Just as you believe yourself clever in this moment. Perdiccas will die soon, just as I will. Philip will be king in Macedonia and they, through him, will become hungrier than you can imagine.”
Dio’s eyes narrowed in recognition and disgust at the name Plato. Oh, to put a face to that hated name, finally. There he was. A very naughty boy. And a surprisingly large one, too. With shoulders like that, he must have had the wingspan of forty chickens.
“Pshaw,” Plato spit. “You assume too much! Ill-educated and lowborn fables.”
“Perhaps,” the old man replied. “But I do not lie, as you do when you insert your vile words into our dead master’s mouth. I admit I can be mistaken in error, but you are mistaken by choice. No one will believe Socrates loved slavery. He taught slaves.”
“We’ll see,” the wrestler-philosopher replied over his shoulder as he shoved his way through the crowd, slamming into Dio on his way. Dio grinned at him, baring his teeth fully, anticipating all the fun they were going to have together. The big man ignored him.
“Make way for Plato, everyone,” Antisthenes said. “He needs to go tell the soil on me. Snails find it difficult to change course quickly. Or at all. Show charity to them until it comes time to protect your garden.”
This garnered polite laughter and applause from the crowd, but Dio found it difficult to keep from baying at it. He’d never heard such things directed at a proper target before. Not unless they escaped his own mouth, anyway.
He thought maybe he was in love. Finally, a brutally honest man. Or perhaps a god. Who could say?
“Well,” Antisthenes said to the crowd. “I suppose we will see. Now get the hell away from me.” He turned and headed into the Cynosarges, leaving the crowd behind. None followed him. Except Dio. He was headed there, anyway.
He lost sight of the old man as he sauntered up the steps with the stupid confidence of a dog. Upon entering the temple's doorway, the world jumped and skipped. A flash of white light swamped his vision and his knees revolted. He collapsed to the floor.
The old man stepped out from behind him, silver-tipped staff in one hand. Before Dio could express appreciation at someone properly clubbing him, the old man slapped him across the face with a force unexpected from an eighty-year-old.
“Why are you following me?” His assailant and possible love-interest demanded.
Dio worked up his best joke, attempting to bring all of his sizeable charms to bear, but found his tongue had grown eight sizes too large after nearly biting it in half. All he could do was bark and bleed on Heracles’ floor, gasping and spitting.
Antisthenes slapped the next bark out of Dio's mouth. “Who sent you?! Some tyrant’s bastards? Philip? Plato? Student loan collectors? Student loan debt forgivers? I don’t care about either! Speak, dog!”
Still spitting blood on the floor, Dio groaned, “Apollo sent me.”
This earned him yet another slap, with the back of the hand this time. All knuckles and one less tooth. “Try again,” Antisthened demanded.
“No one! No one sent me! I want to learn! Gods damn, man. You treat all your pupils like this?”
This earned him yet another slap, but an answer as well. Progress! “Yes! And I don't have any students. Don't want any. Now piss off!” Antisthenes turned and began walking deeper into the temple, leaving Dio to weakly grasp the end of his cloak.
“You aren't getting away, old man,” he rasped, with some semblance of strength returning to his voice. “As long as I think you can teach me anything at all, you will never be rid of me.” He wiped blood from his lips. “Gods damn. You're intense.”
Antisthenes looked down at Dio as he stroked his beautiful, manly beard. Five minutes passed in silence with their eyes locked, a spell only broken as Dio began stroking his own beautiful, manly beard, adding crimson streaks to it. Both erupted into laughter.
“Well,” Antisthenes said, giving Dio a hand to help him stand. “I still don't take students. But you can hang out and do my chores. If you manage to learn anything that will be entirely your fault, not mine. I don’t need that evil on my conscience.”
“Thank you, master!” Dio said, earning another slap and falling back to the ground. It was going to be an odd year in Athens if this was Dio's first day. He noticed his tooth on the temple floor. “I wasn’t sure what to sacrifice to Heracles, master. I learn good!”
“Don't call me that. I am Antisthenes of Athens, son of Antisthenes. You can call me Anti if you're into it. American readers like shorter names and Anti works well enough anyway. Kind of appropriate, really. You have a name?”
Dio had very little idea what he meant with that American nonsense, ignoring the fact he somehow knew about Oliver Wilde earlier. But he did have a name at least. “I am Diogenes of Everywhere. I have no home. You can call me Dio.”
“I'll call you whatever the Hades I want, fool. Wait, Diogenes? Diogenes of Sinope?”
“Once. No more. That’s the old me.”
“You’re famous. Or infamous. Who can say? They condemned your dumbass to exile, didn’t they?”
“And I condemn them to stay in Sinope.”
“You know,” Anti chuckled. “For a scheming banker, you're all right. Tough, too. Bonk on the head should have killed you. I mean, Plato tried to take you out. I'm surprised he didn't. That guy’s an ass lusting after horses but he’s a tough prick, all the same.”
Dio had never bled more, nor been happier to do so, in his entire life. He was definitely in love. Just not the romantic type. It seemed to be some sort of non-sexual love between good friends no one had gotten around to naming just yet. Whatever.
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