"And why would they be doing that?"
"To show how clever they are, so they can enroll more rich young men in their classes. It's what we call higher education."
"And the young men pay to learn all about this Being and Becoming?"
"That's right. They also learn to reason, to argue, and to make speeches."
"Ah, a grand thing it must be to be a rich young Hellene and learn all about arguing and speechmaking! We have some powerful orators among the Celts, too; but I'm thinking they could learn a thing or two here."
As they climbed the ladder to the deck of the Muttumalein, the last basket of fish was just going into the hold. A heavy smell of fish hung in the air. Zopyros shot a covert glance at the cabin, but no sign of life appeared. The sky had again become overcast.
The last passengers had come aboard, the ladder had been pulled up, and the crew were winching up the anchors when a shout from the shore caused heads to turn. A young man was waving from the beach. As they watched, he ran through the shallows towards the ship, splashing mightily. He leaped up, caught an anchor, and climbed aboard like a monkey. Dripping and panting, he approached Captain Ethbaal.
"Have you room for another passenger?" he asked when he got his breath. "How far are you going?"
"Yes, we have room. We're going to Laos, Tempsa, and Messana; then west to Panormos and our home port, Motya."
"I'm trying to get to Syracuse. Could I take passage with you to Messana and catch another ship from there to Syracuse?"
"I suppose so. There's plenty of coastal shipping. Your fare will be one drachma."
"By Herakles, that's outrageous! I could buy passage on a state galley for that!"
Ethbaal shrugged. "Take it or leave it. Somehow I don't think you'll climb over the side and wade back to shore."
Ethbaal was staring shoreward. On the road to the harbor, small in the distance, appeared a group of running men. One of them wore a magistrate's purple cloak, which he clutched with both hands as he ran. Some of the others carried spears.
The young man, with a frightened glance shoreward, mumbled: "Phy! I suppose I shall have to take it. Here!"
Coins clinked. Ethbaal said: "Up sail, Asto! Now, young man, who are you?"
"Alexis son of Krates. I—"
The running men reached the shore. Their voices came thinly across the water: "Captain Ethbaal, come back! Bring back that young man! We want him!"
"What?" shouted Ethbaal, making a trumpet of his hands.
The yells from shore continued, growing fainter as the distance widened. Ethbaal shouted again:
"I can't hear you. I shall see you again in a month; tell me about it then!"
Ethbaal allowed himself a bitter little smile. "When you appeared in your shirt, without cloak or other baggage, I knew you weren't leaving Velia of your own accord. I could have made you pay twice as much, so count yourself lucky."
"Speaking of cloaks," said Alexis, "it'll be cold on the water. Could I borrow one for the voyage?"
"You may rent one for an extra obolos."
"Why, you—" began Alexis, but glanced shoreward and choked down his words. "Here!"
"Thanks. Just remember to stay away from the cabin, where I keep my wife, the most beautiful woman of Egypt."
"Oh? If you say so. Don't think I did anything wrong at Velia; it was just that I—"
"Young man," said Ethbaal coldly, "the less I know about your private affairs, the better for all of us. Now please permit me to run my ship."
The new arrival turned to the other passengers, who sat or squatted by the rail, an interested group all staring at him. "Rejoice, everybody!" he said. "I'm Alexis son of Krates, on my way to the court of Dionysios, and I'm pleased to know you all. Do tell me your names!"
He went through the list, greeting each affably, with a special smile for Korinna. He was a few years older than Zopyros, but smaller and slighter, with light brown hair worn long and blue eyes in a face of striking if slightly effeminate beauty. Strangely enough in that company of bearded men, his face was innocent of hair. Zopyros envied his easy way with strangers. He asked the newcomer:
"Why did you leave Velia in such a hurry? We are interested, even if the captain isn't."
Alexis waved a hand airily. "Just philosophy, that's all. Some of my friends and I got together to promote the higher wisdom, and the whipworthy magistrates thought they smelled a subversive plot. Ridiculous, of course."
"What school of philosophy?" said Zopyros.
"The Elcatic or Velian, if you know what that means."
"I'm not ignorant," said Zopyros. "As a boy, I studied under the great Philolaos."
"The man who said the earth flies in circles around the moon, or something? Beastly idea! Then you're a Pythagorean?"
"People call me one because I learned from them and have followed mathematical studies. But I'm not a teacher or lecturer by profession. I'm an engineer, and a good one if I do say so."
"Why, so am I, of sorts! We're shipbuilders. That's what my friends and I were trying to convince the Velians of: that their state should be ruled by a technocracy of scientific experts. But the stupid, benighted Assembly—well, anyway, I may find more sensible folk elsewhere. Do you suppose we could persuade the Tarentines to adopt such a government?"
"I don't know. We like our government as it is. Anyway, I keep out of politics."
Alexis clucked. "A well-rounded citizen can't keep out of politics; least of all a philosopher. A citizen's polis is the center of his existence."
"Well, I prefer to be less well rounded and to follow my own bent in peace."
The old Etruscan spoke up: "All this Greek word-chopping you call philosophy is a waste of time. For all your scientific—how you say—pretensions, you cannot change universe. You can only learn to fit yourself to it. And that you do by studying omens by which gods make their plans known to men, as nymph Vegoia taught us Etruscans to do at beginning."
"Which gods?" said Segovax. "At home we worshiped our own gods: Esus and Cernunnos and Epona and the rest. When I was in the Etruscan country, they said the true gods are Tinia and Uni and Minerva and others whose names I'm forgetting. The Latins had another lot, with a fellow named Jupiter as high king; and the Greeks and the Phoenicians have still others. Now, what I'm wanting to know is: Are all these gods different, with each ruling only a little patch of the earth like a mortal king? Or are they all the same gods with different names?"
"We philosophers of the Eleatic school," said Alexis with a supercilious expression, "hold that there is really only one God—a universal divine principle, you might say—but this principle manifests itself in various guises and has been different names in different places."
"You mean," said Segovax, "like the different numbers on the different sides of a die, even though the die is still one little square piece of bone?"
"That's a good example. We certainly don't believe that any gods worthy of the name go about seducing each other's wives and clouting each other over the head. And we disagree as to how our God principle can be known. Some think it can be grasped by observation and reason; but others doubt that observation and reasoning are adequate. Zenon, who taught my father, proved by his paradoxes —like his story of Achilles and the tortoise—that the combination of observation and reason are inadequate for grasping the true nature of reality. Observation tells us that Achilles could catch the tortoise, while reason says he couldn't. It follows that the phenomenal world is not the real world. This must be sought by some other mode of perception, such as dreams or divine inspiration."
Zopyros: "I wouldn't give up observation and reason just because they failed in one case. If my tool breaks when I'm making a machine, I don't say tools are no good for machine making. No, I get another and—I hope—a better tool. All Zenon proved was that his reasoning was faulty. As to this divine principle, I don't doubt that, if it can ever be known at all, it will be found out by observation and reason."