The full citizens were spread around the seats of the old theater, wrapped in cloaks of many colors, for even in balmy Rhodes it sometimes waxes cool in late autumn. The Councilmen and the magistrates occupied a reserved section. I was hustled to a seat in the front row, where sat a number of those who had fought in the sea battle. Here were Admiral Exekestos and the ships' captains, the sun flashing on their best parade armor. After a long wait for late arrivals, President Damoteles made a speech praising our heroism.
Rhodians have a tendency to carry eloquence to the point where it becomes a vice. Listening to the wordy and windy declamations of our public men, I have sometimes wished to be back in the Peloponnesos, hearing the Spartans' curt one-word replies.
However, even Damoteles' rhetoric flagged at last. He said: "Chares Nikonos, stand forth."
With pounding heart and flushing face, I obeyed, Damoteles said:
"O Chares, for slaying the Antigonian admiral, thus putting the mighty foe to flight, the city of Rhodes confers upon you this medal."
He hung around my neck a golden sun disk, four digits wide from tip to tip of the spreading rays and suspended from a purple ribbon. Then others were called up, the highest in rank coming last. Some received sun disks on ribbons like mine. The captains got larger sun disks on golden chains, while Admiral Exekestos was honored with a Rhodian naval crown: a thin diadem of gold with a sun disk in front, over his brow, and roses and tridents at sides and back. Solon the goldsmith must have labored far into the night to finish these gleaming baubles in time for presentation.
Proud as I was of my medal, I could not help thinking that, had I been a full citizen, I might have obtained a better one—say, one with a chain. I looked about the Assembly and set my jaw, vowing by Helios-Apollon and all the gods to sit there as a voter someday.
Python of Kallithea, who had captained the Euryalê, invited all the decorated ones to his house to dine. The feast turned into an immoderate revel, for Captain Python was a lavish host.
Python was one of a group of sea-loving Rhodian magnates who take their trierarchies so seriously that, instead of merely paying their assessments for the maintenance of a ship and leaving its actual command to a hired vice-captain, they insist upon running the vessel themselves. Sometimes this works out well, and from this group most of Rhodes's admirals are chosen. Sometimes, however, the amateur captain has faults such that it were better for him to stay ashore, collect his rents, and leave the command of the ship to the working-class professional.
Although I later came to know Python better, I paid him little heed on this occasion save to note that he was a tall, fair-haired man who laughed a great deal. The spirit of Dionysos had its way with me, so that my memory for the latter part of the repast is clouded. When my head cleared again, I was sitting in a waterfront tavern, arm in arm with friends and strangers and bawling naughty songs in chorus. Our harmony was hampered by the lusty bellows of Onas. The Egyptian was one of those who cannot carry a tune but always insists on trying, in a voice to slay the night raven itself.
As my wits returned to their post of command, I perceived Berosos the Babylonian expounding his astrological doctrines to a middle-aged stranger by drawing diagrams in wine with his finger on the table top.
"Thus a planet in its ascendant," said he, "has a positive effect—"
"Oh, rubbish!" I said. "One might as well say the Persian Magi rule the world by their spells and cantrips. The skeptical Pyrron—"
"But they do!" shouted Gobryas from the other table. "Were it not for the Magians' benign incantations, the universe would vanish in a puff of smoke, thus!" He blew out one of the lamps, plunging the room into gloom.
"Very interesting, very interesting," said the stranger. "I must make a note of that." He peered at my medal. "What does that betoken, young sir?" His speech was that of a traveled and educated Rhodian.
"For killing the Antigonian admiral," I said in my broadest Lindian. "I shot him right between the eyes, I did, with my little catapult, as he stood on the stern of his ship. There was this abandoned sodomite, see, sneering at us from his quarterdeck, in his gilded armor and all, see; and here were we, see, aiming the good old Talos—"
The stranger smiled. "I don't wish to belittle your achievement, my young friend, but something is erroneous here."
"What do you mean, good sir?"
"Only that the Antigonian admiral was not killed. At least he was alive when I saw him yesterday."
"You saw him yesterday?" I said, half sobered at once.
"Certainly."
"How? Where?"
"In Loryma. My ship put in there temporarily on its way from Miletos. Let me present myself. My name is Eudemos."
"The philosopher?"
"I endeavor to be one."
Gobryas leaned over and pointed at me. "O Eudemos!" he bawled. "That modest little violet is the world's greatest sculptor. He himself has said it, so it must be true."
"Indeed?" said Eudemos. "Well, master sculptor or master catapultist, it transpires that this missile of yours only grazed the admiral's helmet and stunned him."
"Oh, plague! Does that mean they'll take my medal from me?"
"I think not, for this temporary indisposition of the admiral effected our victory."
"How?"
"It disorganized the Antigonian squadron for the nonce. The captain of the Myraina did not know what to do next. When he saw the two Antigonian triremes withdrawing, he did likewise, not realizing the extent of the damages to the Rhodian ships. The, admiral didn't recover consciousness until they were picking up the crew of the Kirkê less than a furlong from Kynos-Sema—"
"Did the other trireme sink, too?"
"Yes, didn't you know? Anyway, the admiral was much incensed. He asserted that, with most of the Rhodian ships crippled, the Myraina could have turned about and plowed through the lot, sinking them one after another. And, in truth, the Halia could not have done much to prevent her.
"The admiral still possessed two triremes in reserve at Loryma, and he might have essayed another attack. But he did not know how long the repairs on the Rhodian ships would require, and the spirit of his squadron was depressed by the loss of two ships. While they didn't confide their true reasons to me, the fact is that yesterday they departed eastward."
I said: "It's lucky the fight was so near our own harbor. Had it been near Loryma, things would have turned out differently."
"Thank the Unmoved Mover for that," replied Eudemos. "Thank the what?"
"That is a term of my master Aristoteles for God. Of course, there is a question of the propriety of thanking God for any particular event among human beings. It is easy to demonstrate by logic that there must be a God, but it is something else to prove that this God reacts to events on our mundane plane in the emotional and sympathetic manner of a mortal man, as the many assume that he does. If, as I think has been proved, the universe operates on a basis of pure reason, it were inconsistent for this God capriciously to intervene ..."
Eudemos launched on a theological argument, which made me regret that Zenon of Kition was absent. The Phoenician had a taste for this kind of speculation, but he had long since sailed from Rhodes.
As for me, I was confused. I had thought myself a good, solid atheist, along with Evemeros and Theodoros, but the answer of Apollon to our prayers during the battle had shaken my unfaith. On the other hand, I have never been so profound a thinker as to follow the arguments of Peripatetics like Eudemos. It did seem to me that his God was more of a mathematical theorem than a living god like Helios-Apollon, whom one could worship with some hope of getting what one wanted in return. This Unmoved Mover, from a practical point of view, was hardly better than no god at all.