As he went around the city Uri marveled at how such a significant port could be in such a state of neglect. It was not just that the city wall had collapsed in many places; most of the shrines could have done with a major overhaul.
He came to a halt in front of a papyrus notice stuck to one of the walls.
Matthew also came to a halt.
It was an announcement that the famous Makedonios would be appearing tomorrow at the amphitheater and expounding his theses in person.
Uri became very excited.
“I’ve got two of his works back at home,” he said. “He’s witty. It would be good to listen to him.”
Matthew said nothing.
“It costs eight asses at the theater,” Uri said. “That’s what is written here.”
“I can see,” said Matthew. “Not exactly cheap.”
“Wouldn’t it be a good idea to go and hear him?”
Matthew goggled at him. Uri could see that he was astounded even though there was no rule to forbid a Jew from listening to a non-Jewish philosopher expounding his theses; after all, he was not a priest of some strange rite.
“I’d like to listen to him,” Uri persisted stubbornly.
“Well, then, listen,” said Matthew, and resumed walking.
Uri hurried after him.
“I have no money,” he said. “Lend me eight asses. I’ll give it back in Rome.”
Matthew stopped, reached under his toga, pulled out the little pouch that he carried tied to his back, took out a sestertius, and offered it to Uri.
Uri hesitated.
“Take it!” said Matthew. “One day you’ll come to my place in Ostia and you’ll invite me out to drink a jar of wine in the best tavern.”
Uri thanked him and took the coin from him.
He prayed that a ship would not come just yet. The prayer was heard, and in the afternoon of the following day he handed the money over to the guards at the entrance to the amphitheater and waited for the change. The guards shoved him on, and he was also pushed from behind by others who were seeking to enter, so he was obliged to carry on. Given that one sestertius was worth sixteen asses, he had lost eight asses — and that would have come in handy. He would have fastened it to his loincloth and not spent it, happy in the knowledge that he could do so any time.
There were thirty rows running around the amphitheater. Uri had arrived early so as to be able to take a seat in one of the front rows because from farther back there was no chance of his being able to see the speaker. He hoped he would come close to the audience. The amphitheater was not quite full, but still there was a decent audience, and Uri was relieved to note that there were some other Jews among them. He would make a note of that to Matthew, who seemed to disapprove of his interest in pagan philosophy.
In the center of the space enclosed by the semicircles stood a platform assembled from planks, at the back of which were five steps leading up to it, so the speaker would step up there, perhaps on account of the acoustics. If Uri were to sit a few rows higher, he would be able to see over the landscape to the sea — at least its blueness, if not the horizon. But he wanted a seat near the podium.
It was a pleasant early spring afternoon. A small group appeared in the arena, four men carrying a lectica on which the philosopher was seated. His bald brow was adorned with a wreath of laurels. He was a burly, red-haired man, as Uri could see clearly from the second row, because the litter was carried around past the first row, and the philosopher waved happily to the spectators, who shouted words of encouragement toward him as if they were attending a chariot race. Servants hurried behind, including a scampering manikin.
His physician, people in the crowd commented, goes with him everywhere and if necessary will even open a vein while he is orating. An outstanding doctor; learned his craft at the feet of Celsus, no less.
Uri looked on disappointedly as the burly philosopher, supported by two servants, made his way with great difficulty up the steps to the platform. Even though the folds of the toga were nicely arranged on the ground, somehow it still sat badly on him, pushed out on both sides by his huge misshapen hips. On the basis of the scrolls, Uri had pictured someone with quite a different exterior: a tall, angular figure with sharp features, a pointed nose, irreverently flashing eyes. This man had a turned-up nose and drooping eyes. Admittedly, Socrates also had a totally deformed head; his pug-nosed bust stood in the Capitoline along with all the other Greek greats, whose exteriors were similarly unprepossessing with the sole exception of the dashing Euripides.
The crowd was noisy; a small table was placed on the platform next to the philosopher and an amphora, which may well have contained wine. The servants stood in a semicircle at the back, sunk into reverent immobility; the physician hung around next to the platform. The philosopher raised his right hand; a hush fell on the crowd. Then the philosopher spoke, his deep, sonorous voice filling the space.
He started with a humorous subject: a crocodile wanted to be a man and asked the camel, being a servant to man, what the distinguishing feature of human existence was, so the camel enumerates them and goes on to advise the crocodile on how to be a camel, because that was only one step away from being a man. After the second or third sentence, Uri had the vague feeling that he had already encountered the text — indeed, knew it by heart. The people in the audience chortled with glee as they followed the twists and turns in the witty but rather undemanding text, until Uri realized that he had read the tale among several other works of a similar kind in a scroll by another author. He hoped he was mistaken, but then he saw in his mind’s eye the scroll itself, and he could even recall where in the scroll the words were placed.
The philosopher delivered the text as if it were one of his own compositions.
Uri looked around at the heedlessly chuckling audience.
Plagiarism: the philosopher had pilfered another philosopher’s text. He had not even taken the trouble to write a new one, or at least declaim one of his own older texts.
That grieved Uri. When the orator, having reaped his well-earned success, bowed deeply to ovation, took a sip of his wine, and again raised an arm to request silence to strike up on a new subject, it came as no surprise to Uri that he was also familiar with this tale. It concerned another philosopher’s happy-go-lucky make-believe composition about a cobbler who pretends to be Zeus to win over his friend’s wife, and how the virtuous lady asks Zeus for his assistance, and thus the lady partakes of divine love.
The unsuspecting audience laughed, with the females (there were rich, bejeweled ladies seated among the spectators in the company of their husbands or lovers) demurely gasping a bit at the more indelicate runs of the story, but no protests were to be heard. Uri felt a strong urge to stand up on behalf of the plundered authors and to thunder against the thief, but he controlled himself and watched scornfully at the way the fat man who called himself a philosopher managed to play in his one person the various roles. Not that he was bad at ham-acting: while portraying the female character he even wiggled his hips, simpered and whined in a falsetto tone.
Grown-up men and women enjoyed the infantile stories — grown-ups but utter morons nonetheless.
Uri trailed home despondently. He had wasted sixteen asses, which were not even his, on a shameful farce. He brought to mind the two works of the philosopher he had just seen and considered that they were good, despite his newly found, jaundiced distaste. They were not comparable with his great works but there was in them a certain seriousness, a dignity, a loftiness of the mind. It was terrible that a serious philosopher had to earn a living as a buffoon, filching texts from others.