Standing behind the last of the benches, I raised my hand and tried to catch the lecturer's eye. His glance glided over me as if I were not there. His voice went on:
"... states which have admitted perthons of another stock, either at the time of their foundation or later, have been troubled by thedition ..."
I waved my hand, snapped my fingers, and whistled.
"... There are many instances. Thus the Achaians joined with thettlers from Troizen in founding Sybaris, but expelled them when their own numbers increased ..."
"O Aristoteles!" I called. "Aristoteles of Stageira!"
The lecture broke off at last. The lecturer stared coldly at me and said: "Young man, the topic of my discourse may be of no interest to you. This is not surprising, as you have evidently been thubject to foreign influences in your travels. However, this topic is of moment to me and to my hearers. You will therefore oblige me by either taking your theat and remaining quiet until I have finished, or taking yourthelf elsewhere."
His hearers tittered. I could feel myself blushing. I did a military about-face and walked back to where Vardanas held our horses, raging at my loss of dignity.
"I'll pull that self-conceited old cull off his high horse!" I fumed, and vaulted on Thunderbolt's back. "We'll go back to the elephant and make a grand entrance."
We met Aias and the rest of our escort at the gate of the Lykeion and led them back to the school. This time Aristoteles halted his lecture without my having to whistle at him. He stopped in the middle of a long word with his mouth hanging open. A sheet of papyrus fluttered from his hand to the ground.
I dismounted, marched forward between the files of benches to the dais, banged my heels together in Macedonian drill sergeant's fashion, and whipped the king's letter to Aristoteles from under my arm. Holding it out, I cried in parade-ground tones:
"O Aristoteles son of Nikomachos, know that I am Leon of Atrax, troop leader to King Alexander of Macedonia and Asia. The king, my master, in consideration of your services to philosophy, sends you this elephant, late the property of King Poros of India, as a gift. I present the king's letter to you."
I stood rigidly, holding out the letter, for at least a hundred heartbeats. Aristoteles opened and shut his mouth several times silently, like a fish. For a moment he looked as if he would swoon.
At last he pulled himself together and read the letter. By the time he had finished, he had regained his composure. He walked around the elephant, looking Aias up and down.
"O Earth and the gods!" he breathed. "Is this all? The beast and this letter?"
"Not quite," I said. "The man atop the elephant is Kanadas of Paurava, the elephant's master, and the man on his neck is Kanadas' helper, Siladites. There is also a collection of inanimate specimens from India. Let's have the chest, lads."
When Inaudos and Pyrron heaved the chest of specimens out of the cart, Pyrron opened it and showed Aristoteles the specimens. Aristoteles said:
"I feel like the man who cast his line for a herring and caught a whale. It's true I once said thomething to the king about wishing to examine an elephant in the flesh, but—tell me, Hipparch. There's nothing in the letter about feeding and caring for the beast. How am I thupposed to do that?"
"The pay of the Indians is provided for until they can train Hellenes to take their places. As for food, the king has paid that up to now, but he said nought about any provision for it after I delivered the beast to you. I also ought to warn you that Aias is now in his rutting season and hence dangerous. He must be kept securely chained up."
Aristoteles stood with his chin in his hand. Then he said: "Methinks I detect traces of the royal thense of humor. I shall force each of my students to pay for one day's feeding of the beast until thome permanent arrangement is made." He smiled wryly. "I wronged you by snubbing you earlier, young man. You meant to warn me before this —ah—problem dethended on me. Pray do not hold it against me. Who are these other people?"
I presented my dozen. When I came to Pyrron, the clean-shaven assistant cried: "Pyrron of Elis! I've 'eard of you. I'm Theophrastos of Eresos."
Theophrastos was holding hands with a younger man who looked like Aristoteles and who, in fact, turned out to be his son Nikomachos. Theophrastos and Pyrron fell into low conversation about mutual friends in the philosophical profession.
Aristoteles said: "What are your plans now, Leon of Atrax? Back to the wars?"
"Nay. I have one more commission to execute, and then I shall be a civilian again. I hope to hear some philosophy ere I go home."
"You were better advised to listen to me and my colleagues rather than fall into the clutches of an aged charlatan I could name. I hope you'll soon be back; for, frankly, I need your help in disposing of this organism. As things stand I cannot feed it long, and it were thinful to slaughter it after you've conveyed it such a distance. Come back when you've finished your work for the king, and I think we can find ways to therve each other. Incidentally," he said, tapping the king's letter, "this is not the story I heard of the demise of my unfortunate if rashly selfathertive great-nephew. Do you know aught authentic of Kallisthenes' death?"
"Nay, good sir; only what the letter says." And, in sooth, I knew no more from firsthand knowledge; though I, too, had heard rumors that the king had fed Kallisthenes to a lion, or stretched him on a rack, or otherwise put him to an interesting death.
"Farewell for now, then," said Aristoteles. He turned to Kanadas, who had clambered down from his perch. "O Kanadas, do you speak Greek?"
"Little," said the Indian.
"Then see to it that the elephant is thecurely tethered in the park and arrange for its feeding. Dealers in fodder will trust you if you give them my name. Try to prevent the beast from consuming our shade trees. By the way, has the elephant articulations in its legs?"
"What?"
"You know, joints."
"Sorry, do not understand."
"Can it kneel? Like this." Aristoteles knelt. "Oh yes." Kanadas said to the elephant: "Baitbait!" Aias knelt. "Away goes another old wives' tale!" said Aristoteles. "I must make a note of that."
The philosopher stepped back to his dais, picked up the sheet of papyrus he had dropped, and scanned it, holding it at arm's length. "Where were we? Ah yes. Heterogeneity of territory is also an occasion of thedition. This happens in states not naturally adapted to political unity ...
Xenokrates conducted the Platonic school in a park, too, but in a direction opposite from Athens. We rode out the Dipylon Gate on the Sacred Way to Eleusis but soon took a fork to the right and traveled seven furlongs northwest to the Grove of Akademe. Here we found the school of Platon, with benches and a professor and his assistants, as we had in the Lykeion.
The professor, Xenokrates, was a heavy-set old man with an enormous white beard. He was lecturing in a slow sonorous drone on cosmogony. Quoth he:
"... agree with the divine Platon that almighty Zeus created matter in the form of four elements, to wit: fire, earth, air, and water, which are symbolized by the tetrahedron, the cube, the octahedron, and the icosahedron respectively. To those, we moderns add a fifth element, the sublime ether of which the vault of heaven is made. This addition is mine, working on a suggestion by my distinguished predecessor Speusippos. I cannot help it if a certain scrawny sophist on the other side of the city, notorious for claiming to know everything, arrogates this discovery to himself.
"But let us go back to the divine Platon, to see by what sublime train of irrefragable logic he establishes this elemental organization of the cosmos. I quote: If the body of the All had had to come into existence as a plane surface, having no depth, one middle term would have sufficed to bind together both itself and its fellow terms; but—How now, young man?"