“Does everyone have one thing for which they are best suited?” Kebes asked. “You’re good at design, as well as debate.”
“They always told us that we were a mixture of all the metals, and it was a case of discovering which one was strongest,” I said.
“The metals are supposed to be an analogy for the parts of the soul,” Kebes said. “So if Patroklus wants to turn to philosophy, does that mean reason is stronger in his soul than appetites, and they were wrong in thinking appetites were stronger? Or was Plato wrong about the soul?”
“Or perhaps the soul and the proportions of its parts change over time?” I asked.
“But assuming that Patroklus is truly best suited as gold, as my friend and debating partner, what does that mean?” Sokrates asked.
“It means the masters made a mistake.” I shrugged. “Nobody said they were gods to get everything perfect.”
Sokrates looked at Pytheas, who was leaning back on his elbow in the shade of the tree, eating zucchini flowers and looking like a Hyakinthos. “You’re very quiet today,” he said.
Pytheas licked his lips slowly, and Sokrates laughed and then swore aloud. “Apollo! Oh, Pytheas, you can make me swoon at your beauty, you know I’m helplessly in love with you, but that won’t help you in debate.”
Once we had all stopped laughing Pytheas sat up straight and answered seriously. “I think your question is the real question,” he said. “How can they know who is the best? Even if they could see into our souls, how could they know? And to my knowledge nobody can see into our souls.”
“Not even the gods?” Sokrates asked, rocking forward and almost toppling over.
“We know the gods can hear prayers directed to them, and sometimes speech before it is spoken. I don’t believe they can see into anyone’s soul beyond that, except perhaps all-knowing Zeus.” Pytheas shrugged and took another zucchini flower. “But in any case, the masters don’t have that ability.”
“The masters just do the best they can with observation and intelligence and goodwill,” I said at once. “To their observation, Patroklus was best suited to be a shepherd.”
“Should they change their minds now?” Pytheas asked.
I looked at Sokrates. “I’d guess not, because it would cause too much confusion.”
“That’s certainly what they’d say,” Sokrates said. “Some might put individual happiness above social confusion.”
“Is happiness the highest goal?” Kebes asked.
“Is it a goal at all?” I asked. I thought of that moment by the fire when I had recognized how happy I was. “Is it rather something that’s a byproduct of something else? An incidental that comes along when you’re not pursuing it? When I think about when I am happiest it’s never when I’m trying to be happy.”
“And how does happiness differ from joy or fun?” Kebes asked. “Fun can certainly be a goal.”
“It can also come along as an incidental,” Pytheas pointed out. “A spin-off benefit.”
“If you pursue happiness, like pursuing excellence, truth, or learning, do you get closer to it or further away?” Sokrates asked.
“You certainly can’t will happiness,” Kebes said, thoughtfully.
“Further away, I think,” I said. “If you try to make somebody happy, you can’t do it by asking them or telling them to be happy. You can do it by doing something for them, or doing something with them. So it seems much more like a side effect to me. Or almost like a thing that happens to you. So if you wanted to maximize happiness, for a person or a city, you’d do better to aim at something else that was the kind of thing likely to produce that side effect.”
“Like what?” Kebes asked.
“Like excellence,” Pytheas said.
Kebes made a rude noise, and Sokrates tutted at him. “What if you wanted to make Simmea happy?”
“I’d argue with her,” Pytheas said. I threw a tuft of grass at him and we all laughed.
“But it’s true. Debate does make me happy,” I said. “It’s not just that it’s fun.”
“What does happiness consist of?” Sokrates asked.
“Freedom, and having everything you want,” Kebes said, looking from Sokrates to me.
“Not everything you want,” I said. “You might want something that would make you unhappy if you got it. Having what is best.”
“That brings us back to what is best,” Sokrates said.
“The pursuit of excellence, as Pytheas said just now. When we first came here, Ficino said that he wanted each of us to become our best self,” I said. “That seems to me an admirable goal.”
“And that has been your constant pursuit since you were ten years old,” Sokrates said.
“Eleven,” I admitted.
Sokrates laughed. “Since you were what passed for ten years old. But how about Kebes?”
“How could he not want to be his best self?” I asked.
“Kebes?”
But Pytheas interrupted before Kebes could answer. “He might have a different pursuit. A different goal. Something he rates more highly.”
“More highly than being his best self?” I asked, incredulous.
“If you’ll let me speak, yes I do,” Kebes said. These days Kebes seemed to tolerate Pytheas better most of the time, but he was really glaring at him now.
“What is it?” Sokrates asked, calm as ever.
“Revenge,” Kebes said. “Slavers killed my family and enslaved me and the masters bought me and brought me here against my will. I can’t possibly ever be my best self. That’s out of reach. My best self would have had parents and sisters. My best self would have lived in his own time. All I can be is the slave self they made me, and my slave self wants revenge.”
“The masters didn’t kill your family,” I said. “It’s like when you poked me back in the slave market, because you couldn’t reach those who could hurt you and I was there. You can’t reach the ones who hurt you, and you want revenge on those who have done you nothing but good.”
“If there weren’t any buyers there wouldn’t be any slavers,” Kebes said. “They’re part of it. And that they have high intentions makes it worse, not better. And they did the same to you.”
I thought for a moment. Pytheas opened his mouth to speak, but Sokrates raised a hand, stopping him. “I see a clear distinction between those who killed my family and the masters,” I said. “And it is my belief that I have more chance of being my best self here than I would have there. I can’t know this for sure.”
“Do you mean you condone having your family murdered to get you here?” Kebes almost shouted.
“That would be called Providence, and it’s an interesting argument to consider,” Sokrates said, calmly. “But it’s late and you’re growing heated. Let’s stop for today.”
Kebes stayed, and I left with Pytheas. “I wonder where Sokrates heard about Providence,” Pytheas said as we walked down the street. “He’s so clever.”
“Sokrates is clever, but Kebes is an idiot,” I said, kicking a stone. I was still upset.
“If Kebes were an idiot, he wouldn’t be half so dangerous,” Pytheas said.
15
MAIA
One day in the summer of the Year Five, Kreusa, Aristomache, Klio and I were sitting on the stones at the top of the beach one afternoon, drying off. We’d had a meeting of the Committee on Women’s Issues, and then we’d had a swim. Aristomache was in her fifties, one of the oldest women in the city. She was originally an American, from later in my own century. She had long greying hair, usually neatly knotted on top of her head but now falling loose in damp curls over her little breasts. I’d been in the city so long that I barely even registered the fact that we were all sprawled comfortably naked in the sun. We were all masters of the city, and the only time we worried about was the present. As Plato correctly deduced, people grow used to seeing bodies, even when they’re not young or beautiful.