"So ended a beautiful friendship. Since then, neither's been able to find anything too bad to say about the other."
I said: "Theophrastos, setting aside the fact that you're Aristoteles' viceroy in the school, and assuming that this pair of proud pedants could be made to agree, what think you of my idea of having Xenokrates pay for the elephant's upkeep with Alexander's gold?"
"Splendid but impractical."
I pondered for a moment. "In confidence, are you so taken with the idea that you'd enter into a little plot to force them to submit to such a plan?"
Theophrastos looked astonished. "Force Aristoteles or Xenokrates? You're a bold man, Leon. They are the most independent-minded men on earth."
"That may be, but necessity knows no law but success. Would you help me in this plot? No harm shall come to either philosopher."
"Let me ask Pyrron. O Pyrron, you know Leon well. What think you of his proposal?"
"He'll do what he says or die trying," said Pyrron. "A stubborn and conscientious chap, kind and well-meaning under that gruff, soldierly bearing."
"All right," said Theophrastos. "'Not vain the weakest, if their force unite.' But 'Erakles 'elp us if your plan go awry!"
"What about you, Nikomachos?" I asked. "Will you too enter a plot against your own father—for his own good, of course?"
"I'll do as my darling Theophrastos tells me," said the youth with a fatuous smile.
I thought my landlord might be impressed by my distinguished guests and so inclined to use me with greater respect. Howsomever, when I cast a casual remark about them, Syloson grumbled: "Na, laddie; 'tis a shame to see a sound young body like you get into the clutches of these sophists."
"They're no sophists; they're philosophers," I said.
" 'Tis all one. They teach sons to defy their fathers, debtors to cheat their creditors, and pious men to doubt their gods. Gin you'd lead ane honest life, keep clear of them."
Two nights later, Aristoteles came to Syloson's house with Nikomachos and Theophrastos and Pyrron and Kanadas. Ignoring Syloson's scowl, I presented Aristoteles to Amyntas of Ichnai, King Alexander's agent in Athens. I had persuaded Amyntas to play his part in my little comedy by offering him a talent's worth of Alexander's gold, provided the scheme went through.
Aristoteles, it soon became plain, had required much urging to come and was in no pleasant mood. "What's this I hear," he said, "of King Alexander's adopting Persian ways, even to dreth and manners?"
I said: "As I understand it, experience showed him that, as king of many nations, he must needs adopt some of their ways. Only thus could he make them love and revere him."
"And after all my teachings! What need of love and reverence from slavish Asiatics?" snapped Aristoteles. "A touch of the whip is all they require. As I have demonstrated in my lectures, they are the slaves of the Hellenes by nature."
Vardanas looked ready to burst with fury, but I motioned him to silence and said: "That may be your opinion. As one who has fought both with and against Persians and other Asiatics for many years, I must say they differ from Hellenes but little in matters of spirit. That is, some are brave and some cowardly, some honest and some dishonest, and so on through all the vices and virtues."
"As I remarked at our first meeting, you've been under foreign influence and so are not a trustworthy witneth."
Now I was about to fly into soldierly curses at this sneering sophist. But Vardanas rose, motioned me to silence, and addressed Aristoteles. He said:
"O Aristoteles, would you meet a mere foreigner like myself in the Sokratic mode of disputation?"
"Thertainly, my dear young man. I will encounter anybody in any kind of dispute."
"Then would you say that a fair definition of justice was: to treat each man according to his deserts?"
"Yes; without committing mythelf, that thounds fair enough."
"Now, have I ever wronged you?"
"Of course not. I've never theen you before, thave the day you arrived with Leon and the elephant."
"Then would it be just for you to whip me?"
"Ah, I see the trend of your reasoning. You hope to trap me by confusing the general with the particular. When I spoke of whipping Asiatics, I spoke generally, as touching on the issue of the Hellenes as a mass against the Persians as a mass. My opinions on this question wouldn't prevent my treating you as an individual with kindneth and generothity, did you prove to deserve them."
"Then why think you that Hellenes in the mass should be so hostile to Persians?"
"Why, there's the long record of aggressions against and oppressions of Hellenes, especially the Ionians, by the Persian Empire."
"But now the Persians are conquered in turn. So that debt is canceled, is it not?"
"It's not a matter of balancing one debt against another," said Aristoteles, "or we should have to go back to the Trojan War. It's a matter of national character, as shown by the long contacts of Hellenes with Persians."
"Such as the execution of your father-in-law?"
"Do you know about that?"
"Yes. Is it?"
"Since you're candid, I might as well be also. Yes, that's one reason I hate Persia and all it stands for."
"Even though Prince Hermeias was intriguing with King Philip for the overthrow of the Persian Empire?"
"By Zeus and all the gods, you are an acute young foreigner! Say rather that the noble Hermeias had striven by such means as were available to him to free Ionia from the Persian yoke."
"As Sokrates would have said, one man's liberation is another man's subversive plot. By the way, Aristoteles, did you ever know Dorymachos of Acharnai?"
Now, this shows the difference between Vardanas and myself. Me-seemed he had a perfect logical opening to tax Aristoteles with confusing, in his turn, the general with the particular, by blaming all Persians for the death of his father-in-law Hermeias. Had I been Aristoteles' opponent, I should have gone for that point hammer and tongs. Vardanas, however, ignored the gap in his foe's defenses to go off on an irrelevant tangent.
"Let's see," said Aristoteles. "Why, yes, I was well acquainted with him, thirty years ago, when we were young men studying under the divine Platon. How in Hera's name do you know about him?"
"He was my teacher! He came wandering through the Persian cities, picking up a living by teaching and lecturing, and so came to Sousa. My mother persuaded my father to hire him to teach my older brother and myself. Why, I owe him all the Hellenism I have!"
Aristoteles got up and grasped Vardanas' wrists, his teeth showing in a grin through his short beard. In a trice the pair were gabbling like old cronies reunited. No more talk of Hellene against foreigner; no more fencing with swords of logic; just a pair of dear friends united by a common acquaintance! I saw then that Vardanas was really cleverer than I in such matters.
This new friendship, however, was interrupted by a bang at the door. In came Xenokrates. He and Aristoteles stiffened at the sight of one another like a pair of hostile dogs. Xenokrates said:
"Rejoice, Aristoteles! I trust you have not lately let the vile passions of jealousy and disappointment swerve you from the search for truth?"
"Jealouthy? Dithappointment?" said Aristoteles. "What have I to be jealouth or dithappointed about? I have created a fine school from nothing, while others, who have inherited splendid schools, have let them run to seed."