Adventure in Athens

by Caroline Lawrence

  ‘This is not Greek,’ said the blacksmith. A big drop of sweat hung from the tip of his nose. ‘I can read enough to know that. Are you a spy? Is this a secret code?’

  His wife looked at me with wide eyes. ‘Or a curse?’

  My first thought was to reassure them that it was harmless.

  Then I had a better idea.

  ‘I am not a spy,’ I said to the blacksmith. Then I turned to his wife. ‘But you’re right. It’s a powerful curse. A curse against theft. If you are telling the truth it won’t hurt you, but if you did rob my friend, then the spirits will be angry. Are you telling the truth?’

  Her eyes grew wider. She glanced at her husband, who stood clutching the label and glowering. Then she looked at the ground.

  ‘It was not her idea to trade, it was mine,’ she whispered. Then she looked up. ‘But I did take her to Socrates’ house, I swear. His wife Xanthippe opened the door. And I left your friend there, I promise.’

  ‘You’re sure she’s safe at Socrates’ house?’

  She touched an amulet around her neck. ‘I swear by Artemis Brauronia I’m telling the truth.’

  ‘Give me the label. I will say a magic phrase and then burn it so that you will be free of any guilt or blame.’

  Reluctantly the blacksmith handed his wife the cloth label and she quickly thrust it into my hand.

  I stepped closer to the blacksmith’s fire and dropped the label onto the coals. To make it seem more mysterious and convincing, I recited the Our Father prayer in rapid English while waving my hands over the burning scrap.

  The blacksmith and his wife stared at me. So did Kid Plato.

  Once I was sure all evidence of the twenty-first century had been reduced to ashes, I nodded my head. ‘Now you are safe. No evil can harm you.’

  I turned away and then turned back. ‘How do you know Socrates, anyway?’ I asked.

  The girl and her husband exchanged a look and for the first time she smiled. ‘Everybody in Athens knows who Socrates is.’

  Kid Plato tugged my tunic. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Everybody may know who he is, but I just told you: I know where he is right now.’

  29

  Seeking Socrates

  As Kid Plato and I hurried down from the Temple of Hephaestus, I noticed what I hadn’t noticed on my way up: the wide flat steps doubled as seats. About twenty men were now sitting there, listening to a man giving a speech.

  I thought I heard the orator mention Alcibiades so I slowed down to listen, but Kid Plato hooked his elbow in mine the way I had seen other men do. ‘Come on! Or we might miss him.’

  We trotted past the ranked columns of two stoas, then vaulted the Great Drain and cut through a small grove of olive and bay trees. The trees had bits of wool tied to their branches. As we passed a square enclosure, I glimpsed an altar through a permanently open gap in the wall. Some skinny men were sitting in a small patch of shade at its base.

  Kid Plato saw me looking and said, ‘That’s the Altar of Pity, where runaway slaves and other criminals can take refuge.’

  I made a mental note to remember the Altar of Pity the next time I was being chased.

  Emerging from the dusty shade of the little grove, we came back into blazing sunshine. Six paths met here and each had a herm. A few were wooden, but most were marble and all of them had the painted, bearded face of Hermes atop a short square column.

  Kid Plato wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his arm. ‘This crossroads is called the Herms, for obvious reasons. And that’s the Painted Stoa.’ He pointed straight ahead to a stoa with brightly painted lions-head rainspouts above the white columns. Men were spilling out of it and down the steps.

  Kid Plato’s small shoulders slumped. ‘It looks as if we’re too late.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Here comes Hippias. And he’s blushing! The ultimate disgrace.’

  ‘Is it?’

  Kid Plato nodded. ‘Here in Athens a man would rather die than lose face. I suspect Socrates is behind this.’

  Hippias the sophist was a thin man with a nose like a hatchet and a wreath on his balding head. He was mopping his forehead with a corner of a dusty pink himation the same colour as his flushed cheeks. A group of grim-faced young men hurried after him.

  ‘Those are his students,’ whispered Kid Plato. ‘They’re the richest of the rich.’

  In contrast with Hippias’s unsmiling entourage, the other men coming down out of the stoa were laughing and chatting happily. Some moved away into the Agora while others lingered by the columns.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘There’s your brother.’

  Glaucon and his two friends stood on the top step in animated conversation.

  We went up the steps, and Kid Plato tugged his brother’s himation. ‘What happened?’

  As Glaucon turned, his smile became a scowl. ‘You shouldn’t be here!’ he hissed. ‘I told you to wait at Simon’s.’

  But one of his friends – the one with straight hair – grabbed Kid Plato’s shoulders. ‘You should have heard it, Plato. Socrates was brilliant! He got Hippias to admit that Achilles is more cunning than Odysseus–’

  ‘–which was the exact opposite of Hippias’s original thesis,’ interrupted the other friend, the one with curly hair.

  ‘And then,’ said Straight Hair, ‘Socrates banged his staff on the floor and proclaimed: According to what you have just said, dear Hippias, a deceptive liar is the best sort of man.’

  ‘Oh Socrates! How can that possibly be true?’ harrumphed Curly, obviously imitating Hippias.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Straight Hair as a beaming Socrates, ‘but we seem to have just proved it!’

  Curly pretended to splutter and stammer.

  Straight Hair imitated Socrates by leaning on an imaginary staff. ‘It’s no surprise that I, being ignorant and slow, have got in a muddle. But if a wise sophist like yourself gets confused then we have a grave problem, do we not?’

  They all burst out laughing, even Glaucon. He ruffled his brother’s hair. ‘He’s still in there if you want to introduce your friend. But meet me at Simon’s in half an hour!’

  ‘Thank you, Glaucon!’ Kid Plato pulled me into the stoa before I could thank him too.

  Coming out of the blazing sun into the shade of the stoa was a huge relief. It was almost cool and there was even a slight breeze. The space was still crowded with at least two hundred men, mostly wearing the light tablecloth himation. They were standing in groups, laughing and talking.

  Kid Plato hooked his elbow in mine again and pulled me through the crowd. A few men glared at us or tutted, but most just moved aside. As we pushed past men, the combined stench of their sweaty armpits nearly overpowered me. I had to breathe through my mouth.

  A stocky man dripping with sweat said loudly, ‘Socrates is nothing more than a sophist himself.’

  Kid Plato stopped and turned. ‘You are wrong, sir. Socrates is different from the sophists in three respects. First, he never charges money. Second, he cares about the truth. And third, he uses words as tools to seek the truth. Unless he’s showing how hollow the so-called skills of the sophists really are.’

  The man stared at Kid Plato, open-mouthed. ‘Should you even be here?’ he spluttered at last.

  It was my turn to hook my elbow in Kid Plato’s and pull him on, but before we reached Socrates we heard another couple of men.

  ‘… serves that pompous sophist right. He charges a fortune to teach boys wool fluff.’

  ‘But Socrates has made a powerful enemy,’ said the other.

  I could see Kid Plato pressing his lips together, but the last statement had made me think.

  I leaned over and whispered, ‘If Socrates is so wise, why does he humiliate powerful men. Isn’t that dangerous?’

  ‘Yes. But he doesn’t care. He’s on a mission to expose pretentious liars. He wants people to think for themselves. He often compares himself to a horsefly stinging the sluggish city into wakefulness. And he cares more about
virtue and truth than his own safety. You’ll see.’

  When we reached the back of the stoa my eyes widened. The whole back wall was painted with a scene of Greeks dropping out of the Trojan horse and setting Troy on fire.

  Kid Plato tugged my tunic again. ‘Look! There’s Socrates. Talking to those men.’

  Some men moved aside and I recognised him immediately.

  You know Santa Claus from the Coke ads? With his round cheeks and snub nose and jolly smile? Take off his hat and boots and all his clothes, send him to Muscle Beach for a year to lift weights under a blazing sun and then put him in a threadbare grey himation that shows off his hard-as-rock arms and his leathery brown skin.

  That was what my first glimpse of Socrates made me think of: tanned Santa wearing nothing but a threadbare tablecloth and leaning on a staff.

  30

  Santa in a Tablecloth

  I had done it. I had found the man I’d been sent to find.

  All I had to do was get a few soundbites from him. Then I could go back home, collect my money, become an avatar on the coolest computer game in history and sit back to enjoy a life of fame and fortune.

  We moved closer in order to hear what the wisest man in the world was saying. He was speaking with a young man in a dusty pink himation, the same colour as the one Hippias had been wearing.

  ‘One of Hippias’s disciples, no doubt,’ whispered Kid Plato in my ear.

  ‘Tell me, Lysias, son of Hippomachus,’ Socrates was saying, ‘do not all men want to be happy?’

  ‘Of course!’ said the young man. With his bronze-coloured hair and skin he reminded me of a famous statue called The Charioteer.

  ‘Then how can we be happy?’

  ‘I don’t understand the question.’

  ‘Will we be happy if we have good things?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And what sorts of things make us happy? Wealth, health and physical beauty?’

  ‘All those things.’

  Socrates smiled encouragingly. ‘How about good birth, power and honour?’

  ‘Those too.’

  ‘What about self-control, justice and courage?’

  ‘Also good.’

  ‘And what about wisdom? Is it not the greatest of those good things?’

  The young man frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Say we had lots of food but did not eat it, would that good thing benefit us?’

  ‘Ooda moce,’ he said. No way.

  ‘Or take a craftsman – a shoemaker, for example. If he had leather and cork and adzes and awls but left them to one side, would they be of any use to him?’

  ‘No use at all.’

  ‘And if a person had all the good things we mentioned above – wealth, power, courage – but did not make use of them, would he be happy simply because he possessed them?’

  ‘Ooda moce,’ he said again. No way.

  ‘So shall we say that those good things will only benefit a person if they use them?’

  ‘That seems right.’

  ‘But is that enough?’

  ‘What do you mean, Socrates?’

  ‘What if he uses them wrongly? The shoemaker, say. If he were to try to make a tunic from leather and cork using awls and adzes. Or if the brave man mustered up his courage and raced to certain death.’

  ‘Why, then those good things would be worse than useless.’

  ‘So do you agree that the wrong use of a thing is worse than the non-use?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And the best use of a thing is when it is used rightly?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And in the use of those other things we mentioned – wealth, health, courage and so on – isn’t it wisdom that directs us in the best use of them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, in themselves they are worth nothing or even less than nothing. But only when used with wisdom can they bring happiness.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can we then conclude that, to be happy, a man must seek wisdom before all other things?’

  ‘Yes!’ The young man’s tanned face shone, making him look even more like bronze.

  ‘Now,’ said Socrates, looking around happily, ‘shall we discuss how to get wisdom?’

  I think he might have gone on for hours but at that moment he caught sight of me and his bug eyes widened. They were twinkly and bright and I could almost feel invisible beams coming from his eyes to mine, like a fishing line drawing me closer. Then his gaze slid beyond me to Kid Plato and his smile grew wider.

  ‘Ah! Young Plato!’ he said, and beckoned us both forward.

  People were taking this opportunity to leave, and as a man crept away, I noticed the only other kid I had seen so far in the whole Agora. He sat on a marble bench behind Socrates with his head in his hands. From his grubby tunic and shaggy brown hair I guessed he was a slave. But something about him was oddly familiar.

  ‘It is good to see you again,’ Socrates said to Kid Plato as we approached. ‘And who is your friend?’

  ‘My name is Alexis, son of Philippos.’

  Up close I could see that Socrates wasn’t as old as Santa. He looked to be about forty-five years old. I was wondering if ancient Greeks shook hands upon meeting.

  But I never found out.

  The boy on the bench had lifted his head to look at me.

  It wasn’t a slave boy.

  It was Crina with her hair cut short.

  31

  The Gritty City

  Crina saw me at the same moment I spotted her.

  ‘Oh, Alex!’ She jumped up and threw her arms around me and squeezed so hard I could barely breathe. ‘Thank God you’re all right!’

  At last she pulled back. ‘I saw those strange archers grab you and Dinu and I thought they might have taken you to jail or even the silver mines! Can you ever forgive me for hiding when the guards came? Wait! Where’s Dinu?’ She looked over my shoulder.

  ‘He’s fine. And of course I forgive you. Hiding was the best thing you could have done. But why didn’t you stay in the temple, where you were safe?’ I tried not to stare. She looked so different with short hair.

  ‘I had to find you and try to save you.’

  ‘Didn’t you get the message from a slave? To wait in the temple?’

  She shook her head, her eyes brimming.

  ‘Crina, did something happen? Did someone hurt you?’

  ‘No,’ she sniffed, ‘but it’s horrible here! People poo and pee in the streets. And they kill animals and just leave them bleeding on the altars. And there are flies everywhere. And Alex! I saw a dead body just lying in the road!’

  ‘But apart from it being ancient Athens, you’re OK?’

  She nodded and looked up at me with liquid brown eyes and then she finally gave in to tears.

  I pulled her back into a hug and patted her back as she sobbed.

  This was a side of Crina I had never seen. Comforting her made me feel protective and strong.

  And that was a side of me I had never seen.

  Kid Plato was talking to Socrates in a low voice and they were both glancing at us.

  ‘She’s never been this far from home,’ I said to Socrates in my best Greek. ‘And she doesn’t understand the language.’

  Crina stopped crying and stood back and wiped her nose with her forearm, a very un-Crina like thing to do. Strangely, the short hair made her seem prettier than her girlish plaits had done.

  Socrates raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Your friend sought refuge with me this morning and begged to be allowed to come to the Agora with me.’

  Crina said, ‘Will you tell Socrates I want to thank him for looking after me? And also his wife? They were both very kind. She agreed to cut my hair to make me look like a boy. And she gave me this old chiton.’

  ‘My friend Crina says thank you for your hospitality,’ I said to Socrates. ‘And the chiton.’

  ‘She is most welcome! But our Athenian hospitality is not exhausted.’ He put
his hand on Kid Plato’s shoulder. ‘Young Plato tells me you hope to meet your friend at Simon’s house. I am a frequent guest but I have not been to see him for several days. I’m due for a visit.’

  ‘Did he just say Plato?’ asked Crina. ‘As in “Play-Doh”?’

  ‘Yup. That kid picking his nose will grow up to be one of the greatest minds in the history of humanity. By the way,’ I added, ‘they’re going to take us to meet Dinu.’

  ‘Oh, thank God. Once we’re all together, can we go back home?’

  The relief of finding her was enormous and I suddenly felt happy. ‘I thought you wanted to see what ancient Athens looked like?’ I teased.

  ‘And now I want to go home!’

  ‘The portal won’t open until midnight, another twelve hours from now.’

  ‘Oh no! I don’t think I can bear it.’ Her tummy growled fiercely.

  ‘Crina,’ I said, ‘have you had anything to eat?’

  ‘Of course not. We’re not allowed.’

  ‘We’re not allowed to go through the portal with clothes either. Especially not clothes that have a label on them from the twenty-first century,’ I said. ‘But you did that.’

  ‘Oh no!’ She covered her mouth with her free hand. ‘Did I leave the label on?’

  I turned to Socrates, who was still watching us intently. ‘I think some food will cheer her up,’ I said.

  He rolled his bug eyes in a way that almost made me laugh. ‘My wife tried to give her something,’ he said, ‘but the girl refused to eat!’

  ‘She’ll eat now, I think. Do you know where we can get food?’

  ‘Certainly!’ Socrates thumped his staff on the marble floor of the stoa. ‘I know the best sausage-seller in the Agora. His stall is on the way to Simon’s.’

  ‘I’m afraid my friend is a vegetarian,’ I said.

  ‘By the dog!’ he exclaimed. ‘Are you Pythagoreans?’

  I wasn’t sure what a Pythagorean was so I tipped my head to one side. ‘A little bit?’

  ‘Then we’ll look out for a bread-seller on the way. Follow me!’ And with a swirl of his grubby grey himation, the great philosopher Socrates stepped out of the shady stoa and into the noontime blaze of the marketplace.