Thais realized that the wait could be long and decided to rent the same house in the New City, on the other bank of the Euphrates, near the Lugalgira gates, where she lived before. Much to her astonishment, when she went to look, she did not find her former home there. Only the garden, the old wooden pier and the path remained unchanged. The house had been replaced with a beautiful pavilion tiled in translucent pink marble, with pillars of bright blue stone and gold surrounding the rectangular pool with clear fresh water. All this belonged to Alexander and was guarded by two savage-looking Scythians, who unceremoniously chased Thais away. An enraged Eris offered to kill them right there and then, but the Athenian, touched by this proof of Alexander’s love, ordered Eris in no uncertain terms to do nothing. In the end, all Ecbatana visitors settled at Hesiona’s house, much to Ehephilos’ joy. The city was overfilled.
Thais discovered other news in Babylon. The huge theater of Dionysus, of which she had heard from Hesiona, remained unfinished. Its construction materials, which were the remains of the Etemenanki tower, had been bought by the priests of the Marduk temple. Alexander had allowed its restoration against the advice of his old seer, Aristander. The old man had predicted great personal peril for the king should the sinister temple be revived; however, Alexander wished to increase his influence with the help of priests of various religions, and hadn’t listened.
Chapter Fourteen. Wisdom of Eridu
Warm Babylonian winter came to an end, summer drew near with its threat of heat. As there was still no news from Alexander, Lysippus decided they should all take a trip to Eridu. The sculptor joked that Euryale and Eris were going to Eridu with Ehephilos. The four friends sailed down the Euphrates, but Hesiona stayed home to wait for Nearchus. She swore this was going to be the last time she waited. The next time, she would leave him forever.
In the south the river split into many streams and flows, forming an enormous swamp almost five hundred stadiums long. Only the most experienced navigators could find the main section of the river within that labyrinth of reeds and sea grass, since it deflected to the west where sticky clay and salt flats guarded the eastern edge of the Syrian Desert. They sailed nearly fifty parsangs, or fifteen hundred stadiums, in three days without a single docking. Then the Euphrates flowed in one broad stream, heading east. After another twenty-five parsangs, the river curved around an elevated rocky plain from the north. The plain had been the location of the oldest cities in Mesopotamia. Swamps and salt flats stretched all the way to the left bank, from the east and northeast. The endless spread of quiet water, swamps and reeds, inhabited by wild boars, reached the Tigris and went on for another thousand stadiums.
On the fifth day of their voyage, they docked at an ancient, half-destroyed pier with a staircase of huge stone slabs climbing the right bank. From there, a wide road drowning in hot dust took them to the ruins of an impossibly ancient city, then further southwest to a small town atop a flat hill. Majestic ruins, a few ramshackle newer structures, and a large inn surrounded three splendid temples. Two of them, or rather the one that was damaged the least, reminded Thais of the main building of Kibela’s sanctuary as well as similar structures of both Babylon and Susa. The third temple bore traces of multiple restorative efforts and as a result had peculiar architecture. Its foundation rested upon a platform with rounded corners and brick siding. In its center, a wide staircase led toward a portico with three pillars under a heavy, pyramid-shaped roof. Beyond that rose an incredibly tall round tower with several sloping levels.
Informed about the arrival of the guests, priests and servants met the Ecbatanians at the platform, bowing to them with dignity and humility. Most of them were dark-skinned, much like Thais’ Indian friends who had visited her in Ecbatana.
After the ceremonial greeting, the guests were taken to a side wing which was designated for rest and overnight shelter, and served nuts, dates, honey, rye cakes and milk. The travelers bathed and took time to enjoy their meal.
Eventually, a tall priest entered and sat down on a bench, pointedly avoiding physical contact with the visitors. He was dressed in white and his thick beard covered his face almost to the eyes. From the corner of her eye, Thais saw Lysippus make a sign in the air and point at her with his eyes. The priest rose, clearly moved, and Lysippus drew another oval in the air. The priest, apparently affected by this sign language, made a welcoming gesture and led Thais and Lysippus through a tall, narrow passage, then into an inner room of the tower. Two more priests joined them along the way. One was a dark-skinned man with broad shoulders who appeared to have tremendous strength. The other wore a colorful garment and a blunt, narrow beard beneath a mane of curls. The latter turned out to be an interpreter. After exchanging some information, both priests expressed their desire to offer their knowledge to the Helenians. That was when Thais realized that initiated Orphics had access to the temple’s mysteries.
As if wishing to prove this to be true, Lysippus and Thais were taken down the longest passageway, its wall ornamented by vertical rows of tightly stretched silver strings of various lengths. The tall priest walked, touching various groups of strings as he went, and the strings responded with a lovely, long moaning sound, echoing along the stone passage.
“This sound lives inside every person, connecting generations,” the priest explained. “Through centuries, flying into the unknown future. If you understand this symbol there is no need to explain the other one.” The priest pointed at the deep trenches running across the passage, covered with boards which had been painted with images of animals and mythical monsters. Thais interpreted this as separation between generations, filled with darkness and ignorance, driving human beings to animal state. She wasn’t too shy to ask the Indians. The priest smiled kindly.
“The first drops of rain do not saturate the earth but they are first signs of a plentiful rain,” the second dark-skinned priest said. “You too are drops. Let us retire for conversation to a place of inviolate seclusion.”
The round hall was lit by strange torches which shed neither smoke nor soot, set on the ledges around square half-columns. Large cushions of soft, thin leather were scattered over the rugs. The room was furnished with two octagonal tables and hard stools of dark wood, which the two priests occupied. Heavy fragrant smoke from two bronze incense burners settled around the hall like blue fog.
Thais noticed colorful images of animals between the columns: tigers, rhinoceri, wild bulls. Images of elephants were most ubiquitous. The giant animals were known in Mesopotamia and sometimes brought to Babylon, but were never portrayed in the local temples, palaces or on the gates, akin the Gates of Ishtar.
“What would you like to choose as the subject of our conversation?” the dark-skinned priest asked.
“During the many years of our friendship, my pupil has asked me questions I could not answer. Perhaps you, who possess thousands of years of wisdom, would be so kind as to enlighten us both,” the great artist said modestly.
“Knowledge, akin to good,” the elder priest replied, “must not be scattered about haphazardly. Akin to wealth or military power, knowledge in the wrong hands serves to elevate one people and humiliate others. In addition, and this is very important, great discoveries — like the fact that the Sun is a sphere circled by planets, and the Earth is also a sphere that hangs in space — these can destroy faith in those gods that are only created by human imagination. A wise man’s knowledge will not destroy his faith in the grandeur of the world or the coherence of its laws, sensed so well by poets and artists. A fool, on the other hand, would lose any faith whatsoever and fall into a black pit of senseless animal existence. Fortunately, an ignorant man’s stupidity saves the careless truth seekers. They are simply not believed or they are laughed at, as happened with your philosopher Anaxagoras. He was the first Helenian to teach that the Sun was a fiery globe. Because of this ‘amusing misdirection’, even his great notion of nus, the universal intelligence, which overlaps with our philosophy, had no noticeable influence upon Helenians. Even earlier than that, you had another giant of thought, Anaximander. He taught that man is a result of a long line of transformations of animals, starting with a primordial fishlike creature. He also realized the vastness of space and inhabited worlds. There was Alcmeon, the physician and student of Pythagoras, who discovered two centuries ago that the brain was the organ of intelligence and the receptor of the senses. He also discovered that planets followed circular orbits. He also was ridiculed. But the Orphic teaching, Indian in spirit, was either taken from us Indians or from our common ancestors, which is why you are free in your possession of wisdom without the foolish conceit.”