When we had found stable quarters for our new horses, we went back to the ship to ready ourselves for the day of delivery. I did not repeat my error of Persepolis, that of being careless of my appearance. Inaudos polished my helmet until I could see my face in it. Kanadas wrapped his head in a new length of colored cloth and gave his beard a new coating of blue dye and cleaned his silver bangles. Vardanas got out his best embroidered coat and trousers, curled his beard, and was stopped only by my earnest protests from painting his face.
My last task of the day was to write two letters. One was to King Alexander, telling him of our safe arrival and my discharge of the soldiers. Of course, I expressed my joy at his recovery and wrote that my next letter would probably be the last.
The other letter was to my parents, to be delivered by one of my homeward-bound Thessalians. After telling them somewhat of my adventures, I besought them to write me and promised to be home in a few months at most.
The reason I gave them for not going home sooner was that I now had a matchless chance, unlikely to befall again, to study under the philosophers, as I had planned to do long before as a beardless youth. This was true as far as it went, but I told them not that an even stronger motive was the presence of my longed-for Nirouphar. As Vardanas planned to stay in Athens for a time, his sister would naturally be there also.
Some of the Thessalians set off for home as soon as they were paid off. Others, learning that they could have free quarters for another night, stayed aboard the ship. Klonios spent the afternoon in Athens finding the Thessalian consul, an Athenian named Epikerdes, to arrange quarters for those Thessalians who wished to remain in the city.
When, next morning, we were ready to take Aias ashore, most of the Thessalians had gone about their business. Some had struck out for home; some were sight-seeing; some were looking for investments for their money. Four spent the night in such violent carousal that the Scythian archers had to be called to arrest them. They had to pay several pounds of silver in damages.
Five Thessalians, including Klonios, were still around when the time arrived to leave the ship. I persuaded them to come with us to find Aristoteles. It would, I told them, be a historic occasion.
Thirteen of us thus marched down the gangplank soon after Helios, rising over Mount Hymettos, gilded the bronzen helm of Pheidias' colossal Athena on the Akropolis of Athens. There were, forbye, porters carrying Aristoteles' specimens and Xenokrates' gold. I invited Elisas, too, to attend, but he begged off on the ground that he had to sell his Lydian carpets.
As we tramped through the straight, right-angled streets of Peiraieus, slave girls bringing the day's water to their masters' houses dropped their jugs and ran screaming at the sight of the elephant. Aias was fractious. Several times he balked or tried to go up the wrong street, and squealed angrily when made to obey.
At the stables we found that not everybody had a horse. So we rented three to fill out the total, as well as a cart to carry the specimens and the gold. Then we clattered out of Peiraieus on the Hamaxitos.
The horses, unused to elephants, snorted, rolled their eyes, and tried to bolt. Pyrron's nag did get away and carried the Eleian almost out of sight before he got it under control.
We splashed through the muddy Kephisos and rode across the flat Attic plain, broken by clumps of olive and fig trees, where the wet-harvest was just being reaped. On our right rose the famous long walls from Peiraieus to Athens. They may have been a formidable defense in the days of Themistokles, or even in those of Perikles, but now any able general could breach them with modern siege machinery.
An hour's ride brought us to the Peiraic Gate of Athens. I had ready my royal seal and my letters in case the guardians of the gate tried to deny us entry, but the Scythian archers were too astonished by the elephant even to speak to us.
Pyrron was the only one amongst us who had ever been in Athens before, and his memory of streets was none too good. Twice he led us astray. At last we followed the avenue from the Peiraic Gate until it opened out into the market place with its many fine statues and monuments. This we crossed to a street that runs along the bank of the Eridanos, and so we came to the Gate of Diochares on the eastern side of the city.
Having heard so much about Athens, I must confess to some slight disappointment. True, the Akropolis, rising from its great ship-shaped hill of tawny rock on our right, has as fine a lot of buildings, monuments, and statues as any city in the world. But after the broad, beautiful avenues of Sousa and Babylon, the city of Athens struck me as small and squalid—a jumble of little, crooked, unpaved streets, deep in mud and stinking refuse, winding amid buildings set at all angles. Although the city is of but modest size, traffic is a frightful tangle because of the crookedness of the streets and because no effort is made to control it.
As we left the Gate of Diochares and entered the eastern suburbs, I said to Vardanas and Pyrron: "Lads, the Aristoteles is deemed by many the greatest thinker in the world. I hope he'll befriend us or at least let us listen to his wisdom. Now, if we burst in on him with the elephant and all, he'll be startled and put out of countenance. Therefore, I think we ought to gallop on ahead, give him the king's letter, and warn him of the coming of Aias. Thus he'll have time to compose himself."
Vardanas agreed, but Pyrron said: "You two go ahead. You know me; if I try to gallop, I shall fall off before I've proceeded a furlong."
Vardanas and I rode ahead. Five furlongs from the city, on the Marathon road, we came to Lykeion Park. The Scythian at the entrance made difficulties about letting us in, since we were not citizens, until I showed him my letters and seal.
"Where is Aristoteles' school?" I asked.
"That way, that way, then turn that way," he said with gestures. "You find, easy."
We passed the athletic grounds, where naked youths jumped, ran, and wrestled. The school was a group of small brick houses around a statue of Apollon, with rows of outdoor benches shaded by plane trees. As it was a fine spring day, classes were held out of doors. Two classes were now in session, at opposite ends of the school grounds. Lecturing one group of young Hellenes was a good-looking man in his forties. He was clean-shaven, a fashion just becoming common in Athens. In his hand he held an herb, on which he was discoursing; others lay at his feet.
I dismounted, leaving Vardanas to hold Thunderbolt, and walked towards this man. I almost hailed him when the thought struck me that he was too young to be Aristoteles. I therefore continued on to the other class.
The second lecturer was a slender man of medium height, with a close-cut iron-gray beard and graying hair carefully arranged by the barber to cover his bald spot. He looked about a decade older than the first one, with sharp, severe features and close-set little black eyes. He was wrapped in a billowing cloak of striking saffron and purple hue, and his fingers shone with rings. He spoke Attic with a slight Kalchidian accent, a lisp, and a quick, sharp, emphatic delivery, whilst he paced nervously about a large platform. As I came up, he was saying:
"... problem in organizing a viable state is the avoidance of thithms and theditions. For instance, heterogeneity of stocks may lead to thedition, at least until the component racial elements have had time to athimilate. A viable state cannot be constructed from any chance body of persons, or in any chance period of time, notwithstanding that dreamers and idealists thometimes think ..."