His silent pleading appeared to have worked, be it with the help of God or another higher power or just plain common sense. The intensity of their discussion was slowly dying down. Their voices and sharp rebukes of each other’s arguments began to lose their edge. Their spirited discourse began to fade away.
Plato became Aristotle who became Socrates, separate but merged into one, a triad, but not a religious one, a fearsome triumph and accumulation of wisdom and knowledge. The transformational and changing light spoke with one voice and with none.
‘Aristo, despite our certain differences, Socrates and Aristotle and me, each speak with one voice. As one, our voice is strong, because of the common thread through our beliefs, which is enough to suppress our conflicts. Always question what you encounter. And take away a lesson that will help you in your future endeavours and it is this: There is an inscription at the Oracle in Delphi: “Do nothing in excess”. Or “Always look to the mean”. That is another thread of the common ground between our philosophies and religious, especially Christian, theology that you correctly expounded upon earlier.
‘Temperance is the virtue that is the mean to control emotions, courage is the mean when seeking honour and wisdom is the mean when seeking knowledge. In extreme situations such as the one you have the honour and pleasure to encounter and be involved in, and when you have to save someone from danger or from one’s self or from harming someone else, exceeding the mean is not only allowed but required for an honourable life. Be a worthy successor to us, to those that preceded us and to those that followed and who held and expanded the dream of Alexander the Great and of Ptolemy I.
‘You need the knowledge Ptolemy has acquired. You will find answers in his greatest treasure. But we cannot let you go without gifts for solving our riddle. Before you go to your next destination, there is something at each of our homes to help you on your journey three keys to the three greatest Greek cities to wake him and give him life with the blood of his lost child.’
‘To wake who?’ Aristo shouted. But the three philosophers had already left. Aristo then brought himself and Giorgos back to earth. ‘So Alexandria is the next stop. Ptolemy I’s greatest treasure was his library which no longer exists.’
‘No, Aristo, that’s not strictly true. There is a new one, its modern successor, the Bibliotheca Alexandria, founded in 2003 A.D.’
‘You are right. Then that is where we must go next. But we need to collect those gifts, those keys from the three philosophers’ homes first. What do you think they meant with that?’
‘My guess would be that “their homes” is a term for where they practised their art. For Plato it would be his Academy, for Aristotle his Lyceum and for Socrates that would be the Agora, the market of ancient Athens where he spent most of his life rubbing everyone the wrong way, or at least that’s how many saw it, being as they were humiliated by Socrates’ mind and his deployment of the dialectic method, to lead them to contradict themselves.’
‘Great. Let’s do it.’
Giorgos and Aristo left Keramikos and went to the site of Plato’s Academy first, but they found nothing and nothing happened there. They were about to give up when they caught glimpse of a man who looked like Plato, strangely dressed in Athenian attire of the 5 ^th century B.C. The man was beckoning them over.
They hesitated, but he became insistent and they decided that they had nothing to lose. They cautiously followed him. He led them to a quiet spot where he put in Aristo’s hand a strange object in the shape of a square with rounded edges and a hole in the middle, elaborately decorated with strange characters that looked Pallanian, the whole thing made of a metal-like object neither Aristo nor Giorgos could recognise.
Then the man disappeared into thin air and another man materialised next to him who looked like Aristotle. He led Giorgos and Aristo to the site of Aristotle’s Lyceum where he gave them a similar-looking object and the same story continued with him vanishing and a man looking like Socrates appearing and leading them to the ancient agora where he gave them another similar object after which he also disappeared into thin air.
Giorgos and Aristo then went back to the hotel where they packed and got the first flight to Alexandria. They arrived there just before five in the afternoon and checked into their hotel. They dropped their luggage in the room and, within five minutes, were out of the door and on their way to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina located on the coastal road connecting the Western and oldest part of the city with the more recent Eastern end of the bay near the former summer palace of the former King of Egypt, Farouk.
They found the library easily. Its design was distinctive and from reflecting the sunlight, visible from far away. Its roof was a half-disc on its side at an angle, all made of glass panels. They had seen pictures of it on the internet, but it was their first time seeing it in the flesh, in all its glory. Its impact on the observer was awe-inspiring silence. It looked like an alien saucer that was about to fly away.
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the new library, was the modern aspiring successor to the Ptolemies’ legendary Library of Alexandria, one of the ancient world’s seven wonders. The new library was founded in 2003 A.D. and it was a glorious testament to the achievements of modern Egyptians with the ambition to rival and probably match their illustrious ancestors.
Giorgos and Aristo went straight for the front entrance looking forward to the glorious interior. However, the moment they passed inside they just stood there in total confusion. For instead of the interior of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, they were standing at a high point out in the open looking down at an Alexandria of long ago.
Neither of them tried to understand what just happened, but took it in their stride as part of this crazy mission. They did have some warning from Aristo’s mother to expect the unexpected. She didn’t say, though, the unexpected may involve some form of time travel. They looked at their clothes, which had changed too. Giorgos laughed.
‘That’s a mighty attire you are sporting there.’
‘Don’t laugh. You are no better fashion model yourself. Giorgos, tell me, do you know what year it is?’
‘Well, judging by the progress on the unfinished Pharos or Lighthouse, it must be between 290 and 275 B.C. and by the way, that’s a chiton you are wearing and, if I’m not mistaken, we are dressed as Athenians.’
‘You? Mistaken? Surely not.’
CHAPTER 27
Alexandria, Egypt 287 B.C.
Alexandria shone brightly, flaunting its glory and supremacy over other cities. The great harbour was buzzing with the activity of one of the gateways to the goods of the world from the depths of Africa to the deserts of Arabia and the lands of the Hindus beyond and the Mediterranean Sea up to Carthage and further afield to the gates of Hercules, the mouth of this historic sea and its exit to the unknown.
A few metres above sea level, in the distance, overlooking the harbour and the city below, Ptolemy was standing on the balcony of his palace with his arms stretched wide, surveying and attempting in his mind’s eye to encompass his domain as the master that he was of all that he surveyed and that extended beyond his embrace in every direction, even including the sea of which he was the undeniable, and at least in this period in time, unchallenged overseer, the undisputed ruler in the Eastern Mediterranean, up to the coast of Asia Minor, including the island of Cyprus and all the way North to Crete and West up to the seas overlooking Cyrene and the strategic island of Melite (present-day Malta) and its smaller satellite isles or, more correctly, rocks.