Killing Pythagoras (Mediterranean Prize Winner 2015)

by Marcos Chicot

  The captain ordered his body thrown overboard. Glaucus was horrified every time he thought of that. He pictured his beloved sinking slowly into the abyss, his eyes wide open, beseeching him silently to save him.

  Though Boreas kept out of sight, Glaucus sometimes felt an almost uncontrollable urge to kill him. He also wanted Akenon dead, the Egyptian recommended by Eshdek, his main supplier in Carthage; the investigator who had shown that Yaco had been deceiving him with his former wine servant; the man I had hoped would prove Yaco’s innocence, and instead ruined my life with his cleverness and his vile potions.

  He was also beginning to wish for his own death as the only way of putting an end to his bitter suffering.

  Tormented by the thoughts that afflicted him every day, he had been roaming the gallery of the palace’s large private courtyard for hours. He passed the guest chambers, changed direction, walked along the side reserved for his most trusted servants’ quarters, then turned again and paced the gallery in front of the private halls, the bath and massage room…and finally, the empty room that had been Yaco’s. There he increased his pace as if he wished to flee, and ran through the last section of the gallery, leaving behind his rooms, the statue of Hestia with its perpetual fire on the altar, and the large armory. This route was repeated over and over. He maintained such a frenetic pace Leandro couldn’t keep up without spilling wine on the marble floor.

  Suddenly, Glaucus stopped in his tracks. He turned around and looked defiantly at the central statue of Zeus.

  Merciless gods, you take pleasure in playing with us as if we were common puppets!

  The stone eyes stared back with cruel indifference. Glaucus passed between two columns, exiting the gallery, and approached the supreme god. His fervor was such that he was on the verge of cursing the most powerful inhabitant of Olympus.

  He halted in front of the statue and raised his fists, enraged. At the same instant, he was paralyzed by a flash of lightning within. As if he had been reborn, Glaucus knew with absolute certainty he had connected with his own divine nature.

  A prodigious light flooded his mind.

  Fifteen years earlier, Pythagoras had traveled to Sybaris with Orestes and Cleomenides, his most outstanding disciples at the time. The Pythagorean community in Croton had achieved such renown that many Sybarites flocked to it in the hope of being admitted. Very few succeeded, as the character of the Sybarites and the worldliness of their society wasn’t compatible with the rigor and discipline of the brotherhood. Pythagoras finally devised an intermediate plan that would allow them to follow his teachings, and presented his ideas to the ruling classes in Sybaris. He would teach them the lighter part of the doctrine and its rules for individual and societal conduct. His proposal was readily received. Without having to make too many sacrifices, Sybarites could follow Pythagoras, whom they considered divine.

  “I must return to Croton,” Pythagoras announced after a few days. “But Orestes and Cleomenides will stay with you for six months.”

  Even though there was no plan to set up a community in Sybaris, the Sybarites were to receive preferential treatment from the Pythagorean masters. An agreement was also reached by which ambassadors would travel frequently between Sybaris and the Crotonian community. Contact between Pythagoras and the members of the Sybarite government would be particularly close.

  The ensuing years were difficult for the Sybarite economy due to threats to its trade routes and its main clients. Persia invaded Egypt and threatened Greece. Some years earlier, it had invaded Phoenicia, after which the Persian king Darius had diverted the eastern Mediterranean trade routes that went from Greece to Phoenicia, now reduced to a mere province of his empire. On the other hand, Carthage, originally a Phoenician colony, had become independent from its motherland, and monopolized the trade routes of the western Mediterranean. In spite of all this, Sybaris benefitted from the heyday enjoyed by Magna Graecia and its neighboring regions, and flourished above all as a result of the political stability Pythagoras had brought to the area. The Sybarite government became increasingly supportive of Pythagoras and forged ties with the other Pythagorean governments, which were steadily growing in number.

  At the time, the young Glaucus had just inherited a commercial empire. His father’s death was sudden, but he had already spent years teaching him the business and making him attend all the meetings. Thanks to that, and to Glaucus’ noteworthy talents, he managed his affairs brilliantly from the outset. Even so, he went through a period of crisis when he became so interested in Pythagoreanism that he neglected his business responsibilities. He even considered entering the community in Croton and devoting himself to the search for knowledge. His partners became uneasy and finally gave him an ultimatum.

  “You can be as ascetic as you want,” they had told him. “You’re also free to enter the Crotonian community and never leave it again. But before you do that, and in memory of your father, with whom we worked for so many years, we would ask you to hand over the reins of all operations.”

  Glaucus had mulled it over for two weeks. He was young and passionate, and both sides of his nature pulled him equally. He didn’t want to choose, but he had to. In the end, he had decided not to renounce his older, more deeply-rooted inclinations.

  Maybe life in the community would prove too hard for me.

  He decided to keep his Sybarite interests and way of life and told his partners so, but his passion for mathematics didn’t wane. Engaging his mind in subtle and complex reasoning gave him exquisite pleasure, as well as calming him like nothing else. For these reasons he tried to convince the master Orestes to allow him access to higher Pythagorean knowledge.

  “Your abilities are extraordinary,” Orestes replied, “but Pythagoras’ great knowledge and discoveries are revealed only to those of us who devote our lives to the brotherhood.”

  Glaucus bowed his head respectfully before the master Orestes, in apparent resignation. However, it wasn’t long before he again wanted more than he was permitted.

  He learned what he could on his own. Then he began to pay anyone who claimed to possess the knowledge he craved. His palace was filled with a cohort of sages, magi, and swindlers with whom he held daily discussions. He awarded prizes to whoever could take him one step further. The amounts offered were large enough to make news of those prizes spread quickly beyond the borders of Sybaris.

  One day he received a visit from Pythagoras. The venerable master looked out of place amid the luxury of the palace. He waited to be alone with Glaucus before addressing a delicate issue.

  “We should hunger not only for truth, but virtue, too,” said Pythagoras. “Knowledge obtained through gold rather than virtuous merit, can separate us from the path of righteousness and be pernicious to us and our environment.”

  Apart from that warning, the rest of the visit was cordial. Pythagoras, in his role as statesman, was interested in maintaining good political relations with Glaucus, who wielded great influence in the Sybarite government.

  Glaucus would have preferred to act within the limits and rules outlined by Pythagoras, but found it impossible. His appetite for sensual pleasures had grown at the same rate as his intellectual hunger, and it had become unthinkable to abandon everything to enter the Crotonian community. The only path that remained for him to learn the complex mathematical truths and intimate laws of nature was to offer prizes to anyone who would reveal these secrets to him. The Pythagoreans were the best, but not the only ones who achieved results in the search for Truth.

  Experience has taught me to trust in the power of gold, Glaucus thought, behind the resigned smile he gave the Pythagorean masters.

  Thanks to his gold, he advanced further than Pythagoras would have liked. Even so, he soon came up against unscalable walls. At the highest levels of the brotherhood, Pythagoras taught that, ultimately, everything was formed from geometric shapes. He also revealed the properties and method of construction of those shapes. As the basic building block of the universe, the dode
cahedron was the most important. Glaucus spent months studying it, consulting dozens of sages, and offering prizes to those who could teach him. All in vain. The secrets of the dodecahedron remained beyond his reach.

  There was an even more fascinating secret, though: one that surpassed all the others. It seemed astonishingly simple, but eluded all of man’s best efforts. It was the ratio, or quotient, between the length of a circumference and its diameter—what would much later come to be known as Pi. The search for this quotient occupied Glaucus’ thoughts for years. It became an obsession, from which he barely managed to distract himself during long banquets or while reviewing the state of his business affairs. Glaucus was an excellent example of a Sybarite: fat, gluttonous, of refined sensibilities, and very wealthy. Even so, his mind possessed special qualities more typical of a Pythagorean master. As a result, the attempt to achieve a close approximation to that quotient immersed him in a state of exquisite mental tension, as if he were nearing the greatest climax imaginable.

  In time, he learned that the Pythagoreans didn’t know how to calculate the quotient either. It was a bittersweet discovery. On one hand, it was discouraging to know he couldn’t use his gold to seduce a Pythagorean to break his oath of secrecy and reveal the enigma. On the other hand, if he managed to discover the answer without the help of a Pythagorean, he would be at a higher level than Pythagoras himself on that subject, and the promise of glorious catharsis he had always felt while studying the elusive quotient would be transformed instantly into reality. It would elevate him, if only for an instant, to the level of the divine.

  A year and a half earlier, his passionate nature had taken a marked turn toward the opposite end of the spectrum. One sunny morning, he had discovered Yaco among the merchandise in a slave market, radiating innocence and sensuality. He’d bought him without haggling and made him the focal point of his life, relegating his mathematical interests—elusive, frustrating promises—to second place.

  With Yaco, his life was a prolonged ecstasy. Glaucus sailed the sky-blue of his eyes and lost himself in Yaco’s alabaster skin. He achieved such a perfect state of bliss it seemed eternal. That was why the abrupt ending had hit him so hard. He lost his way, began to go mad, and, little by little, convinced himself that suicide would be the best alternative, indeed, the only one. That idea, shrouded in anguish and an alcohol-induced haze, had been strengthening its hold on his mind for several weeks and was now at the point of being realized.

  But now, a simple glance at the statue of Zeus had wrought a new change in his world. The irrational passion accumulated in his soul suddenly overflowed its bonds and began to flood his old obsessions. The mists dissipated, blown away by a breath of clear vision, and he realized his life was beginning to make sense again. His entire being filled with limitless determination when his old goal resurfaced. All doubts vanished. The path to knowledge would be sublime, and its culmination would bring him immeasurable satisfaction.

  He closed his eyes in front of the statue, dazzled by the clarity of his vision. He felt an urgent longing, a compelling need to devote every second to his goal.

  Whatever the cost, I must possess the secrets that have so far been denied me.

  Pi

  …

  The ratio between the perimeter of a circumference and its diameter.

  It has been called Pi since the 18th century. Its name comes from the Greek letter pi (Π, π), the first letter in the Greek words for periphery (περιφέρεια) and perimeter (περίμετρον).

  It is an irrational number: i.e., it cannot be expressed exactly as a ratio of any two integers. Therefore, its decimal digits are infinite and non-repeating. To five decimal places, its value is 3.14159…

  The effort to compute the value of Pi to a high degree of accuracy has occupied many of the most brilliant minds throughout history, some of whom have devoted their lives exclusively to it. Around 1800 B.C., the Egyptian scribe Ahmes estimated its value as 3.16 [3]. In the Bible, the Book of Kings narrates the construction of the Temple of Solomon in the 10th century B.C. and mentions a circular bronze pillar with a diameter-circumference ratio of exactly 3. In Mesopotamia it was also given a value of 3, and sometimes 3.125.

  In the 3rd century B.C. Archimedes was the first to develop a rational method of calculation with which he produced a range whose midpoint is 3.14185 [4]. Archimedes’ method was used by the Chinese mathematician Liu Hui in the 3rd century A.D., and by the Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata, in the 5th century A.D.. Aryabhata achieved a close approximation to the fourth decimal place (3.1416), and Liu Hui to the fifth (3.14159).

  During Pythagoras’ time, centuries before Aryabhata, Liu Hui, and Archimedes, no one had developed a method of calculation, and no decimals of Pi were known with certainty, but its importance was recognized. The number Pi is indispensable for calculating circumferences, circles, and spheres. To the Pythagoreans the most perfect shape was the circle and the most perfect solid the sphere. Moreover, they believed the planets moved in circular orbits.

  They needed Pi, but calculating it was still far out of their reach.

  …

  Encyclopedia Mathematica. Socram Ofisis. 1926.

  CHAPTER 47

  June 3rd, 510 B.C.

  “Master!”

  The boy, about ten years old, was running toward Orestes as fast as he could. He was barefoot and wore a short tunic. The community grounds sloped gently down from the residential buildings to the entrance portico, which propelled the boy even faster. He looked as if he’d fall at any moment.

  Orestes stopped in front of the statue of Dionysus and raised his hands to chest level, signaling to the boy to calm down. Running wasn’t allowed inside the compound, but the boy’s expression seemed to indicate he had a good reason for breaking the rule.

  “Master Orestes!” The boy reached him and had to take several breaths before he could continue talking. “Master Pythagoras has summoned an urgent meeting. You have to go to the schoolhouse as soon as possible.”

  Orestes tensed immediately and looked toward the schoolhouse. Many people crowded outside the door. He swallowed. In the six weeks since Daaruk’s murder, calm had gradually returned to the community. Even so, many recoiled like frightened animals at the slightest hint of trouble. It was clear that the re-established tranquility in the compound was as fragile as a Sidonian crystal wine glass.

  “Do you know what it’s about?” he asked as he started walking.

  The boy shook his head.

  “All I know is that news has arrived from outside.”

  News from outside, thought Orestes, puzzled. What could have happened?

  He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to regain his composure of a few minutes earlier. He had just returned to the community after the solitary walk he took every morning to meditate. Or, more precisely, which had been solitary until he’d been assigned two bodyguards who accompanied him at all times. They dogged his steps from the moment he went out into the street at dawn until he returned to his room at night. The bodyguards then returned to Croton, and the community was protected by guards who patrolled it at every moment. Walking on the grounds after sundown was forbidden now, unless accompanied by a patrol. Orestes didn’t know the soldiers on night duty, but his bodyguards were always the same.

  He turned to them without slowing his pace.

  Bayo was about twenty-five, of medium height, with well-honed muscles under his leather and bronze-plated cuirass. His face was pleasant and frank. You can tell he likes being a hoplite. He probably never challenges an order. Next to Bayo walked Crisipo. He was taller and thinner, but also in excellent shape in spite of his forty years. Like his companion, he wore the full panoply befitting a hoplite: cuirass, helmet, greaves, shield, lance, and sword. Sixty-six pounds in all.

  Crisipo looked back at Orestes, and his eyes flashed with a shrewdness rarely seen in a soldier. Orestes turned away. Despite having spent a month and a half with these bodyguards, and havi
ng atoned for his crime almost three decades ago, he was still uncomfortable in the presence of security forces. The mistake made in the past, his shame and repentance, had left an indelible mark on the deepest part of his being. He now knew, though, that it wasn’t a problem for Pythagoras. The night of Daaruk’s murder, the philosopher had scrutinized Orestes' innermost thoughts, but during the process, Orestes had also glimpsed something within his master.

  I was able to perceive the reaction Pythagoras had to what he was seeing inside me.

  Thanks to that, Orestes was sure that with Cleomenides gone, he was the main candidate to succeed Pythagoras.

  Without realizing it, he lifted his chin, taking long strides as he approached the throng milling around the schoolhouse. Pythagoras’ confidence in him made him feel strong and safe. He couldn’t change the past, but he could throw off the burden of that past that hampered his public appearances. He knew he was a good master and was beginning to feel he could guide the Pythagorean communities and do combat in the political arena. In his youth, before his error, he had achieved considerable success as a politician.

  Now I’m much better prepared in every way.

  A warm breath of air affirmed this thought. At this time of year, the sun shone brightly from early morning on. He reached the schoolhouse door and the disciples parted to let him pass. Their linen tunics gleamed with the strength of Apollo. Such brilliance was in keeping with the purity of their philosophy.