“Grandmother, Zeus has been corrupted by absolute power, and I fear that his ambition knows no bounds. He needs to be restrained, and I believe that I have the way to do it. The problem is that my plan jeopardizes all of us, not just Zeus. My question to you is this: Is there a way to decouple our fates from Zeus’s?”
Gaia was silent for a long time. When she replied, it wasn’t an answer to my question, but a question of her own.
“Why do you believe that the rest of the Olympians deserve to stay in power?”
I turned hot with embarrassment. First Isis, now Gaia... I couldn’t help thinking that the universe was trying to tell me something. “I think we did well in Greece, and could again,” I said, a tad defensively. “We lost our way when we became Romans.”
“I’ll ask the question in a different way,” said Gaia. “Why do you deserve to stay in power, when you were swayed so easily? For it is not just Zeus who has been corrupted, but the whole lot of you.”
I bowed my head in shame. It is a hard thing to be chided by the Earth herself.
“Child, I do not say these things to hurt you,” Gaia continued in a gentler voice. “But as immortals, your actions resound in history. You have a responsibility to hold yourselves to a higher standard, and act for the greater good.”
I was silent for a long while, fighting an internal battle over her words. Deep down, I knew Gaia was right, but I wasn’t ready to give up the power I had earned. If Zeus was power hungry, then I was, too. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
Eventually, I stirred, lifted my head, and sighed in acceptance. “I understand, Grandmother,” I said. “I have my answer. All of us must diminish to give someone better a chance to rise.”
“And if you succeed in this, I will hold your last oath to me fulfilled,” she added.
I flinched at that. The angry young immortal who had sworn to bring down her father no longer existed. Despite Zeus’s many, many faults, I had inadvertently grown to love him. He had to decline for the good of humanity, but so did I.
“Rest now, Athena,” Gaia replied. “You are heartsick and weary. I can give you the strength to do what you must.”
Dark earth swept over me like a wave, burying me as Gaia embraced me. Gratefully, I turned on my side, closed my eyes, and let her heal me.
When I awoke, I felt at peace. Rising to my feet, I dusted myself off as best I could, and thanked Gaia for her care. I then returned to Olympus. When I appeared in my villa, the looks on my handmaidens’ faces were priceless.
“Gods! My Lady, where have you been?” Iris cried as she grabbed my hand in both of hers. Lito just took one disbelieving look at me and shot out the door without a word, running towards my father’s villa.
I looked down at myself. Did I look that bad?
“I’ve just been with Gaia,” I replied, patting Iris’s hand to calm her.
“For eleven years?”
“What?” I gasped. “It’s only been one night.”
“No, Lady. You disappeared from the Parthenon eleven years ago. Your parents have been looking for you since then!”
Iris had no reason to lie to me. “I fell asleep in Gaia’s cave, and only just awakened,” I muttered as my eyes darted about my villa. It looked much the same.
Zeus materialized beside me and pulled me into an embrace. “Where have you been, child?” he muttered, his voice thick with emotion. Touched and still reeling from Iris’s revelation, I hugged him back.
“I went to visit Gaia, and just fell asleep. I was tired, but even so, I don’t know how I managed to sleep for eleven years.”
“Even your owl couldn’t find you. Isis said that you were fine at dinner and that nothing seemed amiss. I thought…”
“What?”
“I thought that you may have run off with that Norse fellow.”
“What? Loki? Seriously?” I pulled away, scandalized.
“I know, I know. But there seemed to be no other rational explanation. None of it matters now. You’re home and in one piece.”
I sank onto a nearby couch. “It appears that I’ll have to catch up. Has anything major happened?”
End Game
324 BC
It turned out that Constantine had been very busy while I was asleep. He had pulled his mother Helena out of her self-imposed retirement and named her Augusta of the empire. That was all well and good, until Helena “came out” as a Christian. Her admission revived the rumors that Constantine himself was a secret Christian, though he still hadn’t admitted it.
If I had been around, I might have been able to influence Constantine into imposing change slowly. That was, after all, the lesson in Isis’s story. Unfortunately, while I was asleep Constantine decided to champion the Christian cause a little too feverishly. He promoted Christians into key roles and used the characters Chi-Rho on his military standard. This was seen as an open declaration of his religious affiliation, as Chi and Rho are the first two characters of Christ’s name.
In sharp contrast, Constantine’s brother-in-law and co-emperor Licinus was a traditionalist, of good family, and with old-fashioned Roman values. Not surprisingly, the people had decided to back Licinus—a move my family wholly supported.
Thus, the path to civil war had already been laid by the time I awoke from my slumber. Licinus and Constantine had met once on the battlefield, and another conflict was imminent. Licinus had the numbers and with Zeus backing him, the odds were well against me.
In the end, however, it all came back to the discussion in Gaia’s cave. I had made my decision there and it was time to act. Covertly, of course.
Constantine slept fitfully in his tent, pitched on the banks of the river Hebrus. Across the river in the town of Adrianople slept Licinus, along with his much-larger army. They had the superior position, their backs protected by a tall ridge and their front protected by the river. Licinus was wisely waiting for Constantine to come to him, so that he could pick off the enemy as they attempted to cross the river. Constantine wasn’t going to fall for that, so the two armies were essentially in a stalemate, waiting for the other to make a move.
I glided over to Constantine’s cot and knelt beside it. He had aged terribly in the years since I had seen him. I hoped that I still had the ability to influence him.
I bent to whisper in his ear. “There is a shallow spot in the river three miles from here. Your army can cross safely there. If you mean to win this battle, convince Licinus that you plan to cross elsewhere.”
I repeated those lines in Constantine’s ear until I saw him start twitching in his sleep. That generally meant that his subconscious was processing my words. I kept repeating the message until I was satisfied that he had absorbed it.
The next morning, Constantine had his scout look for the crossing point, and they found it. Hidden by a small wooded hillside, the Hebrus narrowed and became shallower. Constantine acted. He instructed his generals to hide five thousand archers and cavalrymen under the trees on the hillside, while he had his engineers move building materials in the opposite direction. Licinus shifted his men accordingly.
The night before Constantine attacked, I paid Licinus a visit in his tent. This time, I wasn’t going to be subtle. I glamoured myself as the preacher Jesus Christ, complete with thorn crown and bleeding wounds. Then, I woke Licinus.
To his credit, Licinus didn’t scream. He merely bolted upright in his cot, staring at me in horror. The color drained from his face.
“This is just a dream, this isn’t real,” he whispered to himself, repeating it like a prayer.
“This is not a dream. I’m here in the flesh,” I said in a man’s voice. Then I reached out and gripped his shoulder with a cold hand before releasing him. Licinus gasped and squeezed his eyes shut before reopening them. I was impressed with his composure.
“What do you want?” he asked in an even voice.
“I’m here to warn you. Do not go up against the true god. You will lose. Flee while you still have the chance. There will
not be another warning.”
I became invisible again and watched him leap from his cot and call for his guards. Together, they searched the confines of the tent for intruders. Of course, they found none. Eventually, Licinus dismissed the guards and sat back on his cot, his hands clenched as he struggled to calm himself. Satisfied, I left him to a sleepless night.
It’s strange how big events can turn on small actions. Licinus, his confidence shaken, fell for Constantine’s ruse and threw his forces at the fake crossing point. Meanwhile, at the real crossing, the first wave of archers and cavalry crossed safely and fell on him from the rear. By sunset, Constantine stood victorious and became the sole leader of the empire. He didn’t actually convert to Christianity until just before his death, but he did spend the remainder of his life legitimizing it. My father fought back, as you might expect, but Constantine’s deathbed conversion had sent a message screaming across the empire that was impossible to counteract. It was now acceptable to be Christian.
Aftermath
They say that the rise of Christianity was the downfall of the Greek gods, but the reality is that everything in the universe operates in cycles and what goes up must eventually come down. So it was with us, with the other deities that we knew, and even with Rome itself.
As you might expect, the first few centuries after the rise of Christianity were difficult. Our decline didn’t happen overnight by any means, but when the emperors of Rome became Christian, they turned the tables on us and started persecuting the old ways. Our temples were looted and closed. Fines were levied against mortals who continued to worship us. The mood on Olympus turned dark, as we got a taste of our own medicine.
It took centuries for our decline to be complete. Even then, we never vanished entirely. When you look up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to see Jehovah rendered as a white-bearded man in flowing robes, who do you think you are looking at? And the classic image of the Virgin Mary with the Christ child on her lap came from ancient statuary of Isis with Horus on her knee. I was simply grateful to see a feminine aspect appear within that religion.
As for we Olympians, we scattered to the winds. The youngest immortals were the first to leave, departing to make new lives on Earth. The legends you may have heard of angels descending to Earth to father children were essentially about them. I can still pick out their mortal descendants today. There is usually a little extra something, a divine spark, in their eyes.
Zeus, Hera, Apollo, and Hestia stayed on at Olympus. They continue to care for their worshippers to this day. You’d be surprised how many there still are.
Aphrodite lives in Paris, and is a giant in the beauty and matchmaking industries. She still has a penchant for younger men.
Ares has been an arms dealer since the fourteenth century, and continues to make appearances in random conflicts worldwide. He works primarily in Africa now.
Artemis is heavily involved with Greenpeace, and lives on a ship in the middle of the ocean somewhere. Dionysus disappeared in the eighth century, but I’m sure he’s having a wonderful time wherever he is.
Hephaestus didn’t really change with the times. He’s still a metal smith, and creates stunning works of art in the depths of Mount Stromboli. I market his bronzes to discriminating art collectors everywhere.
Isis went into decline just as we did, but she remains in the heart of Egypt, safeguarding the cycles of the land just as she has from the beginning.
As my star declined, Loki’s seemed to rise. His role in the murder of his adopted brother Baldur the Beautiful resulted in him being ostracized by most of our peers. Still, the scandal freed him to find his own path, which turned out to be in mortal politics. Loki’s calculating mind was the power behind many a coup during medieval times, with his most ironic achievement coming much later, when he helped Rodrigo Borgia win the papacy. He and I make it a point to meet every ten years to laugh over our misadventures.
As for me, I got into the coaching and inspiration business. I specialize in finding budding inventors and artists, and turning them into successful ones. The muses were a bit bitter about me invading their turf, but they’re one step above nymphs so they learned to deal with it.
I endured the Dark Ages, almost getting burned at the stake a couple of times before I came into my own during the Renaissance. It’s no accident that Michelangelo painted Zeus on the ceiling of the Sistine.
Lito and Iris are still with me; they run my publishing and production houses. They take care of the day-to-day, while I wander the world looking for the next great mind.
So, why bother to rehash ancient history now? Well, I wanted to set the record straight on a few things, and it’s been long enough that there shouldn’t be too many hard feelings when my family reads this book. That’s the theory, at least. If I’m wrong, I’ll be in for a very interesting time.
The End
How to Help the Author
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Acknowledgements
I’d like to express my gratitude to my beta readers—Dessa and Michelle—for taking the time out of their busy lives to comment on this book and help me eradicate that bane of my existence: typos. I would also like to thank my editor, Jen Blood of Adian Editing, for her insights and her care in making this novel fit to print.
I’m indebted to my husband Jeff, for pushing me to write. His perseverance finally overcame my laziness, and it only took eighteen years!
Last but not least, a nod to the goddess Athena herself: an independent and influential female in an age which didn’t encourage it.
About the Author
Daphne Ignatius was born and raised in Malaysia. She attended the University of Kansas, where she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration. The daughter of two high school teachers, she was instilled with a love of the written word at an early age, and set down her first short story in illegible longhand at eight years old. Her earliest remembered ambition was to become an author, and that desire resurfaced during an existential crisis, resulting in this novel.
Daphne currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her beloved spouse, where she works by day as an Information Technology professional. Her existential crisis continues profitably with her next work, tentatively titled Tales from a Dragon Clan.
My Life as Athena: The Private Memoirs of a Greek Goddess Page 19
