Seeing Anatolius, his expression brightened and he leapt up with an eager grin. “How kind of you to attend my recitation! I feared my genius had frightened off my fellow devotees of Calliope. Until you arrived, as someone once said, my audience was made up of three benches and four walls. Well, if you want to be entirely accurate, not even four walls, just a single curved one.”
Not certain whether his friend was jesting or not, Anatolius mumbled apologies for arriving late. “I visited the Lord Chamberlain on the way here, and we talked about Gregory’s murder. Remember, I was telling you about that after you mentioned you’d witnessed-”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. What matters is that you’ve managed to finally get here!”
“Yes. That’s the important thing, naturally.”
Crinagoras ignored the ironic comment and chattered on.
Anatolius occasionally wondered why he tolerated Crinagoras. They’d been tutored together as boys. Their shared horror of the hypotenuse was the foundation of their friendship. The two aspiring poets had always preferred Homer to Pythagoras.
Crinagoras had grown up to be slightly taller than Anatolius, bigger of frame, and with a tendency to plumpness. Although the same age as his fellow, his ruddy face, framed in sandy curls, retained the pudgy, unformed look of a child, a face that might be characterized as a not quite completed marble likeness still awaiting time’s final, telling cuts.
“We may as well begin, I suppose.” Crinagorus fussed with the voluminous folds of the old-fashioned toga he’d donned for the event. A disappointed scowl displaced his welcoming grin as he ruffled through several parchments. “It’s just as well I didn’t bring my lyre.”
“Perhaps notice of your recitation has not yet reached your patrons?” The prospect of maintaining a semblance of enthusiasm as an audience of one in the face of his friend’s lugubrious verses made Anatolius squirm as much as the sight of a equilateral triangle on a wax tablet had upset him in his youth. “Might I therefore suggest you delay it until they have received the news? Doubtless they’d all be sorry to miss such an opportunity! Instead, perhaps we could…” He cast about for inspiration. “…go off into the country for a little fresh air?”
“What? But we’d have to go to the stables. I’d need to change my clothing. What about our midday meal?”
“Oh, you don’t need to change,” Anatolius replied hastily. “It will be an adventure. John was telling me just now that he hadn’t learned anything when he visited Nereus’ residence except that the household has moved out to his estate. It’s up by the northern end of the Golden Horn. Perhaps we could find out something useful for him.”
“I’m not certain if I want to go, Anatolius. Riding always upsets my humors.”
“We could stop at the cemetery on the way and inspect your latest inscriptions.”
“Well, there’s that, certainly! It may be that some of my dear patrons no longer draw the breath that sang my praises. What a cold mistress is the grave, yet none can resist her blandishments. Alas, that men would desert my verses for death.”
“Aptly put, my friend. You must write it down for posterity as soon as possible.”
“Anyway, it would be best to reveal my newest inspiration to several of my patrons simultaneously, wouldn’t you say? Then no charge of favoritism could be leveled at me if one should hear before the rest.”
“A circumstance that would certainly create difficulties in the way of obtaining new commissions, if someone thought another had heard your most recent creations first.”
“Exactly so. I hope you don’t mind, Anatolius, but I shall not let you read my new poems either, even though you are a close friend!”
“Of course.” Anatolius attempted to look disappointed. “Even friends cannot always ask for special dispensations.”
“I can tell you, however, that one of them is a most personal poem about my beloved Eudoxia and the agonies of longing I have suffered ever since her death. I am quite painfully honest about my anguish. Courageously honest, if you will. It is my duty to keep her dear memory alive.”
“You don’t have to explain. Your patrons expect nothing less of you. Alas, I know how difficult it can be, pleasing one’s patrons.”
Crinagoras looked thoughtful. “I said I would not reveal my latest poems to you, but I will tell you I have composed several more of my epigrams on architecture. You see, my thought is they might eventually be chiseled on the architecture in question for a reasonable price. You might describe them as little bricks of poems. Businessmen are not always interested in the finer feelings. Ordinary subjects are what they prefer. For instance-” he glanced through the parchments in his chubby hand- “you’ve already heard my Ode to a Granary. Another one proclaims the Mese. I call it Forked Like The Serpent’s Tongue. There’s pathos in stone, you know, if you can just find it.”
Anatolius stated he was absolutely certain if pathos could be found, Crinagoras would be the one to find it.
“You’re right. It’s an amazing talent once you realize you have it. Here’s another. It’s about the fortifications on the land walls. Ninety-six Towers, I call it.”
“Speaking about land walls and towers reminds me we were going on a little journey, so let’s be off.”
They strolled out, taking a leisurely pace through the rambling edifice. Glancing at the numerous bronze and marble statues of heroes of mythology and prominent Greek and Roman poets and philosophers with which the baths were decorated, Anatolius found his attention straying somewhat from his companion’s recital of his latest misfortunes.
“But then we must all be men of philosophy in these sad times,” Crinagoras concluded, “especially poets.”
Anatolius agreed. “Yet consider,” he went on, “sometimes it’s less their writings, but rather the lives of philosophers and poets that provide the lessons.” He gestured at the statue of Aeschines they were approaching.
Crinagoras laughed. “The orator who was a sausage-maker’s son?”
“We should not scoff at sausage-making. It’s honest work, after all. However, more importantly, his statue reminds me he failed in the perfume business.”
Crinagoras inquired as to the moral of the tale, other than that it proved sausage-makers’ offspring should not nurse notions of entering a more fragrant profession.
“The lesson, my friend, is that anyone can aspire to greatness, even if he loses all he has by failing in the attempt. Is it not true that the courage to try, however hopeless the task might be, is the mark of the hero?”
“Now you sound like our old tutor,” the other grumbled. “However, you’ve inspired me with a wonderful idea. I’ll write a series of poems relating lessons we can learn from all this wonderful statuary.” His face flushed with excitement. “Yes! Just think, I could lead my patrons around the baths, give a short lecture at each statue, and then declaim my verses!”
Anatolius wondered uneasily what he had unwittingly unleashed on Constantinople’s literary community as his companion plunged ahead, eagerly laying out plans for his new enterprise.
“Take, for example, Erinna of Rhodes over there. A poetess, and one who died at a tender age. I could make much of those crocuses at her feet. Something along the lines of, oh, it would be sending crocuses to Cilicia looking for poets of my quality in Constantinople, for I never hesitate to give acknowledgement to my fellow writers.” His expression clearly conveyed his opinion of his rivals.
“Not to mention that such appearances would naturally lead your audience to recollect your services are available for hire?” Anatolius suggested.
“Indeed!” They turned a corner and entered a corridor lined with bronze statues.
“Writers should always be subtle in offering their compositions,” Crinagoras continued. “Look at this representation of Isocrates. Wonderful orator, no doubt about it, and there’s his famous tomb with a column supporting the statue of a siren. An absolutely inspired choice for symbolic decoration. Are not sirens the most persuasive of creatures, even to the extent of leading men to their deaths? I’ve made this very observation more than once. Yet how often when Isocrates’ name is bruited about does someone immediately recall that the orator owned slaves who were expert flute-makers? Isocrates’ slaves are as famous as he is and none of them ever wrote a line!”