"Your kind of mind, you mean?"
"Thertainly. Shall I demonstrate it by logic?"
"I'll accept your word for it, wise one."
There were tense moments when Aristoteles uttered scornful opinions of foreigners, especially Persians, and Vardanas bristled. But, as Aristoteles came to know the Persian better, these outbursts came fewer and farther between.
I also discovered that I had somewhat to learn about being a gentleman in the Athenian sense. The well-bred Athenian, I found, prides himself on never walking fast and never raising his voice. My years in the field had given me a swift, active stride and voice trained to be heard above the roar of battle. It was to these qualities, I learned, that Aristoteles referred when he called me a vulgar young ape, as well as to my unfortunate lack of beauty. To impress my new colleagues, I tried to slow my step and soften my voice, though I fear with no great success. Mighty is the empire of habit.
Howsomever, my plainness of feature was not extreme enough to keep all the men of Athens at bay. Every few days I had to fend off an amorous proposal from one or another of them.
Shortly after I had begun my courses, Elisas came to bid us farewell. He had obtained a bottomry loan from Dareios and Pamphylios, which he had invested in a cargo of oil to sell in Egypt.
"You see me again in the autumn, if the sea god allow," he said. "I am taking oil to Egypt and fetching back Egyptian wheat, fancy furniture, ornaments, and jewelry."
Then, about the middle of Skirophorion, Pyrron said: "Dear friends, I must be off for home tomorrow. My sister is frantic to see me, and I must organize my classes."
We were sitting on the steps of the little temple of Athena Nike on the Akropolis, watching the sunset. I was happy to see that Nirouphar, who was with us, took Pyrron's utterance with perfect calm.
Vardanas had told me the poor lass was having a dull time in Athens. Aristoteles would not hear of admitting a woman to his classes, so she had to spend most of her time with Syloson's elderly wife, listening to her foolish chatter and helping her spin and weave. This was hard on Nirouphar, because free Persian women deem it a disgrace to make cloth, and it took all Vardanas' powers of persuasion to get her to submit to Hellenic ways in this regard. And the Athenians clap up their women so closely that she had no chance to meet other maids of her own age and class.
Theophrastos said: "You must see Diogenes on your way through Corinth, Pyrron."
"Is he still alive?"
"Yes, though perhaps not for long."
"Did his owner ever free him?"
"No. Xeniades offered to emancipate him long ago, but he refused. 'E said he was too old for travel, so he preferred to eat Xeniades' food and lord it over his 'ousehold for the rest of his days."
Pyrron said: "I heard you finding excuses for slavery the other day, Aristoteles. Surely the enslavement of Diogenes refutes all your claims as to the justice of the institution!"
"If you'd attended closely, my dear Pyrron," said Aristoteles, "you would have heard that I carefully qualified my approval. I pointed out that, whilst thome like Vardanas' stupid Scythian are natural-born slaves, the folk who are actually enslaved are often chosen more by luck than by merit."
Pyrron rejoined: "Then the only way to terminate this injustice is to abolish slavery. If you had ever experienced enslavement yourself, as did Platon and Diogenes, you would openly confess that I'm right."
"And stir up all Athens against him as a dangerous revolutionary?" said Theophrastos with a chuckle. " 'E's not so simple."
"Viper!" said Aristoteles. "As if I had ever trimmed my opinions to the prejudices of the unthinking mob! Theriously, though, while dreamers may prate of a classless society, we have to make do with the societies we actually possess. As things stand, civilization would collapse without slavery."
"Why?" said Pyrron. "One can always hire free men to do the work."
"But not so cheaply. And think what would happen if, for example, the slaves of Athens were all liberated simultaneously! The majority are foreign adult males: cowardly Egyptians, grasping Syrians, dull Anatolians, milk-drinking Scythians, and bloodthirsty blue-eyed Celts. Free these creatures, and overnight they'd have the rings cut from their phalli to enjoy the pleasures of love. Next they'd demand the right to espouse Athenian women, and they'd be too many and too strong to be easily gainsaid. Before they finished, they'd force the Athenians to admit them to citizenship. Our Greek blood would be mongrelized, and our thuperior culture would perish with our racial purity."
"Don't be sure they'd stay," said Pyrron. "I'll wager that most, given a choice, would go haring back to their homelands like bullets from a sling."
"How would one prove that athertion?"
"I suppose one could inquire of the slaves."
"That were impractical, on two counts," said Aristoteles. "First, everyone knows that a slave can be counted upon to tell the truth only under torture. Second, if anybody, given a free choice, really preferred some barbarous foreign land to Athens as a place to dwell, he would thereby prove himself an inferior, whom it were natural and right for Hellenes to enslave."
"All I can say is," said Pyrron, "that you should try enslavement yourself before you talk so glibly of its being right and natural. Experience often changes the point of view, and for a group of slaveholders to talk solemnly of justice is like a congress of rabbits discussing lion hunting."
"I will concede it's a difficult question," said Aristoteles. "But, practically speaking, men will never succeed in abolishing slavery, unjust though it be at times, until they invent machines to perform the labor of the slaves."
"Why don't you invent such a machine?" said Pyrron. "If anybody could, you could."
"I?" said Aristoteles. "Tinker with mechanical devices? After all, old boy, I am a gentleman!"
"Well, that leaves the situation hopeless," said Pyrron. "For, whilst I'm not too proud to use my hands, I cannot drive a nail without mashing my thumb. Perhaps the remedy for slavery lies in the other direction: establishing ideal communities like those proposed by the divine Platon, where all shall be free and equal."
"Platon was not so egalitarian as all that," said Aristoteles, "and I shall believe that thuch schemes are practicable when I see one in operation."
Theophrastos said: "Do you remember that son of the Macedonian regent who studied with us last year? 'E had some such plan in mind."
"Yes," said Aristoteles. "Alexarchos Antipatrou was determined to establish, with funds from the Macedonian treasury, a complete Platonic community, with communistic ownership of property. He even had a scheme for an artificial international language."
"What said you to that?" I asked.
"I advised him to proceed, but to omit communism of women and children."
"Why?" said Vardanas. "It sounds exciting."
"Perhaps," said Aristoteles, "but there was a fatal objection to it. Under such an arrangement, nobody would know his own father. Hence men, in their homothexual love affairs, might unwittingly have intercourse with their own sons or brothers. And that, I told Alexarchos, would be a shocking indecency!"
The next one of our little band to depart was Kanadas. When the tall Indian came to settle some small money matters with me, he said: "Leon, you must do something about Siladites!"
"Do what about him?"
"He says he will not come back to India! He lives in sin with Egyptian woman. He says he will become a registered foreigner, stay in Athens, never obey caste rules any more."
"What of it?"