“But that’s nonsense,” Sokrates said gently. “They do form individual attachments, they’re just pursuing them in secret. And they do care more about their own children, they’re just prevented from seeing them.”
“It may not be perfect, but it is more just than the existence of families,” Athene said. “Plato was successfully attempting to avoid nepotism and factionalism. We have none of that here. Ficino, you can speak for the evil which families can cause to a republic.”
Ficino nodded sadly. “Yes, it’s true, family rivalries did great harm to Florentia. The Guelphs and the Ghibellines, and then later in my own time the rivalry between the Medici and the other noble families. It can tear a city apart, and there is no justice possible.” I saw many of the masters nodding. “The worst thing is with inheritance. Even if you educate an heir carefully, they will not always be the best person to succeed to power. And unless rulers happen to be childless, they will always prefer their children, regardless of fitness.”
“We saw that in Rome,” Manlius said. “Caligula, Commodus, we have innumerable examples. Whereas when the emperor was childless and chose the best succesor we had rulers like Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. But family love can be a wonderful consolation when things go wrong in the state.”
“It can indeed be very pleasant when things go well in the family,” Athene said, nodding to him in a friendly way, and then turning back to Sokrates. “Just as you called on one or two children to say that Plato’s system makes them unhappy, there are many among the masters I could call on to talk about how families did the same for them.”
“And I could call on many more among the children to witness that they are forming individual attachments in secret, but I will not, because I would be putting them in danger of being punished if they spoke the truth.”
Athene was silent, and so was the crowd. Everyone kept still and tried to avoid Sokrates’s eyes.
Then Klymene spoke up, astonishing me. Her voice sounded very soft in the big space, but everyone was so quiet that she could be heard clearly. “I have not made any individual attachment. But I see it all around me. In my sleeping house, I am the only one who is not in some kind of love affair. Sokrates is completely right about this. Almost everyone has individual attachments. And while I believe the city knows best how to bring up children, and I understand what you’re saying about the dangers of factionalism and preference, I do miss my own boy, that I only saw for a few minutes after he was born.”
“Bravely spoken,” Sokrates said, smiling at her. “I think that point is made. Now, let’s move on. I questioned whether Plato was wise enough to write the constitution for a city like this. He was only a man. But you are a god, are you not?”
“I am,” Athene said, cautiously stepping into Sokrates’s unavoidable rhetorical trap.
“So you know more than mere mortals, isn’t that so?”
“Of course,” Athene said.
“So we should trust you to be doing what is right for us, even if we can’t quite understand why?”
“Yes.”
“And you have been deeply involved in setting up this city from the beginning?”
“Yes.”
“And you have constantly used your power to make things work out for the city, things that might otherwise not have worked?”
“Yes.”
“The trouble with that is that even though you are a god you too are ignorant in some areas. One area I can easily cite is to do with the workers. Until I discovered it, just recently, nobody knew that they had free will and intelligence.” Sokrates raised an arm to indicate the workers who were there listening in a circle around the outside of the agora. Axiothea was standing near Crocus and read aloud the response he carved.
“Volition,” she read. “Want to choose, want to talk, want to make art, want to debate, want to stay.”
“Wait,” Manlius called. “Sixty-one is writing something.”
“What is it?” Sokrates asked.
“No choice brought, choose stay city,” Manlius read out.
“Precisely,” Sokrates said. “They wanted to choose and to talk and to make art, they wanted a say in their own lives. They didn’t choose to come, but they do choose to stay. But you didn’t even know they could think, nobody did.”
“But as soon as you discovered it, we agreed to consider them people. Now they spend ten hours a day working and ten being educated and the rest recharging, their equivalent of eating and sleeping.” Athene looked pleased. “Once we realized we were committing an injustice we moved at once to redress it.”
“Indeed. That speaks very well of you, of the city in general. I think Aristomache deserves especial thanks for this.” He smiled at Aristomache where she stood near him in the crowd. “But my point is that the reason you were treating them unfairly is because you were not even aware, until Crocus and I discovered it, that the workers were people.”
“He’s got her,” Simmea muttered.
“Yes, I was unaware,” Athene admitted.
“So even though you are a goddess you don’t know everything?”
“Of course not.”
“Of course not,” I echoed. “He knows that.”
“Yes, but not everybody does,” Simmea said. “Hush.”
“So, for instance, you didn’t know how well Plato’s experiment would work until you tried it?”
“No.”
“It was an experiment?”
“Yes. I said so.”
“An experiment, and nobody knew what would happen. And to perform this experiment, why didn’t you do as Plato said?”
“We did,” Athene said, indignant.
“Plato said you should take over an existing city and drive out everyone over ten years of age, you didn’t do that?”
“No. It seemed better to start fresh.”
“Seemed better to you?”
“Yes.”
“Even though it wasn’t what Plato said?” Sokrates pretended surprise. There was a ripple of laughter.
“What Plato said wasn’t possible,” Athene snapped.
“Wasn’t possible even for you?” Sokrates sounded even more surprised.
“Not everything is possible even for the gods,” Athene said.
Sokrates paused, then shook his head sadly. “Not everything is possible, and you do not know everything?”
“I already said so.” Athene was clearly irritated now.
“To return to what Plato said. He thought his city would be near other cities, would trade with them and make war with them. Why did you decide instead to put it on an island far away from other cities and with no contact with the outside world?”
Athene hesitated. “It seemed it would work better that way.”
“So you felt free to change things Plato wrote when you thought they would work better a different way, but you kept them the same and held Plato’s words up as unchangeable writ when you didn’t want to change them?”
She hesitated again. “There were a number of good reasons to choose this island.”
“Yes, the volcano that will erupt and destroy all the evidence of your meddling. That was going to be my next point. If you believe that this is the Just City, that the life here is the good life, why did you situate it in this little corner of the world that will be destroyed, at a point in time where it can influence nothing and change nothing? Why is it set here in a sterile backwater? Why didn’t you put it in a time and place where it could really have an effect, where it could have posterity, where all humanity could benefit from the results of this experiment and not just you?”
There was a swelling murmur through the crowd at that, especially from the masters. Everyone must have wondered about that.