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
4
375 B.C. - 365 B.C.
True to their word, the Wu-Tang Clan sold Dio to a rich slave needing a master. They didn’t decapitate him, not even once, not even a little. Instead, they taught Dio to rhyme and he showed them what zero talent looked like. They'd never seen anything like it.
After being paid for him, they all hugged Dio, wished his owner the best, and departed to cut a single copy of a new album we’ll never get to hear. Good guys, those Shaolin slavers. Dio hoped he'd see them again, just not in court or at sea.
While at market, his shanks and teeth were inspected and declared most suitable for a slave. Further questionable screenings were applied, resembling those personality tests your elementary school made you take.
Dio was ENTP, it turns out. But he wasn't above cheating on personality tests.
The other products on sale all stood straight at attention, but even after a whipping he refused to stand, declaring, “A fish is sold no matter whether it stands or not.” The market didn’t know what to do with that. This was a slave market, not a fish market.
It'd been a wild ride the last several days. He had been screwed by a teenaged girl, screwed the city-state of Sinope, had the favor returned, fled for his life, was nearly cancelled, captured by pirates, and then sold as a slave and forced to teach children.
What have you done this week? Hopefully less than that. One should, in practice, do less than Diogenes the Dog. But he was just beginning. He’d been commanded to debase the currency and he still meant to do so. Just not coins, like some dullard.
The gods were to be respected and if their human representatives occasionally got it wrong, that was no one but Dio’s fault. He should have been more… distrusting? No, not exactly. Skeptical. He had a mind, after all. Why trust anything at face value?
Doing so had cost him everything he owned, including his life, which he no longer legally owned either. He’d accepted a positive piece of evidence because he had wanted to. That was his mistake to make and other’s profit to take. Wu-Tang!
But he wasn’t purchased to toil in fields, or build pyramids, or a slavery of that sort. In fact, not long after being hocked at market like a mouthy trout, he found himself entirely in charge of Xeniades of Corinth’s household. A most expansive household.
Dio had done his best to turn Xeniades off from purchasing him. He’d called him a slave, spit in his face, and told him just a few of the vile things he’d convince his wife to do to him as soon as his back was turned. But Xeniades persisted and purchased.
Xeniades, for good or ill, immediately set Dio to teaching his two sons how to be men, something Dio took to with vicious glee. Oh, he’d teach these kids, all right. He’d teach them so hard. But not like the Thespians tended to teach boys how to be men.
Instead, Dio set to work teaching two privileged little rich kids how to throw javelins, to hunt wild beasts, and how to box. He particularly enjoyed beating their dumb little bodies in the gymnasium. It was abuse, sure. But abuse with a purpose. Education.
He also created little remote controls for the boys over time, so they could swap audio tracks on the fly. Language had come in real handy, after all. He taught them to write, to speak, and how to spot debased coins. For reasons.
He taught them his exile had given him philosophy, a kind of comfort one cannot find for sale. A comfort another cannot take. He said other strange things, too, like prophets were full of crackers and beets.
“In a rich man's house, there's nowhere to spit but his face,” he said. Dio taught those rich brats to live beneath their means, no matter the circumstance. To value freedom above all else. Like a god, or a beast, who could say.
The boys swallowed it all up and demanded more. They loved their rough, brutally honest tutor-slave, even when he gave it to their mother. She, for her part, didn't care one way or another about honesty, but she swallowed him, too.
For ten years Diogenes ran the house and its occupants. He was kind to those who grew and savage to those who refused to. He found something to be proud of. The work of his hands and mind demonstrated in his pupils.
He began to love the family he came to own. Not because they dutifully read his books, though they did. The familial connection was genuine and day after day, Dio watched those privileged and fussy little puppies grow into dogs.
Eventually, Xeniades said to him one day, “You're free.”
“Shut up, baby,” Dio quipped. “I know it.”
“I mean legally.”
“So, not really?”
“Oh, my gods. Get out. You've been manumitted. But do write and take Manes with you wherever you go. I think he might be sleeping with my wife. He's your slave now. He's had his vaccinations, so you just need to feed and water him. I’ll miss you, Dio.”
“Shucks, Xen,” Dio blubbered. “I was looking forward to missing Manes. But I'm really going to miss your wife.”
“She's beside herself, too.”
“Maybe keep a better eye on her in the future,” Dio advised. “I’m not one to cast aspersions, you know, but she’s pretty sketchy. Probably best to not have married her, Xen.”
“I had to! I dragged it out as long as I could. We were engaged for years!” Xen protested. “Her family was about to murder me and move on without me.”
“A good man intends to marry but doesn't. A good man intends to be a politician but doesn't. A good man intends to speak to the Pythian Oracle but doesn't.” Dio droned.
“How is any of that good advice?” Xen asked, genuinely confused.
Dio stroked his peppered but still beautiful, manly beard in thought a moment before shrugging, “I don't know. But that woman is scandalous, and the Pythia is a bitch.”
“Yes, that's why Manes is going with you. I'll see if she's still acting suspicious once he's gone and if she isn't, then I'll know she was banging him.” Xen fairly purred. “It's this new thing called Science I’m giving a try. Another Ionian invention, you know.”
Dio raised an eyebrow at the implication he should care about Ionians in particular. “Ever hear of the problem of induction? And why do I have to take care of that damned hunchback?”
“One problem at a time, Dio. After I kill my wife. And no one will buy the sneak, so he’s yours now.”
“Of course, you haven't heard of it. Well, you do you, Xen. You're free now.”
“One more thing,” Xen handed Dio a small bowl, painted black, with “World's Best Boy” emblazoned across its outside. “We got you a new drinking bowl.”
Dio fought back tears at the sight of it, recalling his last bowl lost in the Great Sinope Fire. Not a day went by he didn’t miss it. A sentiment reserved. “Ah. How'd you know?”
“The wife says you talk in your sleep.”
“She's a conscientious lady, your cheating wife. Don’t kill her, though. That’d be like admitting you screwed up marrying her,” Dio lectured. “Also, I’d let that Science thing bake a bit longer before applying it whole hog. You’re not Thales, Xen. You’re dumb.”
“Yes, master,” Xen pouted. “Any idea what you'll do now?”
Dio grinned viciously, baring canines at the idea he absolutely had. “I have a date in Athens with a most naughty boy. I'm going to screw him so hard there won't be any doubt at all about who did it this time.”
“Sick him, boy! And write us! Oh, watch out for Macedonians! They’re all over the place these days.”
“The world is about to get turned upside down.” Dio nodded, seeming to agree.
“Because you’re going to Athens?”
“Because the Macedonians are about to conquer the world, you idiot,” Dio retorted. “But no one seems to see it yet.”
“No way,” Xen countered. “Their greatest thinker is still trying to work out how to predict a baby’s gender by looking at the sky. Those dudes were farming dirt just yesterday.”
“They’ll be farming men before too long.”
Xen frowned, trying to puzzle all that out before giving up. “Well, we should be safe in Corinth.”
“They aren’t even safe in India, buddy. Anyway, I’m ready to go, where the hell is Manes?” He yelled, “Manes!”
“Yes, master,” the hunchbacked adulterer rose like smoke from behind a nearby couch, startling Dio. “Shall we pack? I do enjoy packing, master. Yes, packing.” He rubbed his gnarled hands together and licked his lips, anticipating the joy of putting things in other things.
“Don’t do that! Sneaky little prick. And nope,” Dio declared. “Whatever I can’t carry with my own hands, you don’t need. Off we go! Not even time to make a Who Let the Dogs Out joke here.” And a good thing for that.
The Dog Show was back on the road. It was time to go mad. Athens and eternal fame awaited. Or eternal infamy. Either way. Dio didn't discriminate. Not like that.
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