"I suppose I did let my enthusiasm run away with me," said Flin humbly. He made a face at his wine. "Hang it all, if I could only have a dish of tea!"
"Wrong century."
"Uh-huh. I admit the sheer physical discomfort of this environment does take some of the bloom off."
"Personally," said Bulnes, "I shall be satisfied hereafter to view ancient Greece in the form of museum exhibits."
"Oh, but you don't get the same effect at all!" Flin took a gulp of his wine, spilling a little out of the wide shallow cup, more like a soup plate on a base than a proper drinking vessel. "If you'll come up on the Akropolis again, I'll show you the other ..."
"God forbid! Podokles, my friend, give us of your wisdom. How is Periklean regime doing?"
The innkeeper, thawing to Bulnes's persistent friendliness, planted his broad bottom on the bench. "Not too well."
"How so?"
"Everybody expected war and was full of enthusiasm. Then the Perikles suddenly made a treaty with the Spartans, compromised with the Corinthians, and offered the Potidaians synoecism."
"Offered them what?"
"Common citizenship with Athens. A lot of the commercial people are saying: Why go to all the trouble of building up an empire if we are to give its benefits away to foreigners? What do you think?"
"I fear as foreigners my friend and I is prejudice."
"What?"
"Never mind. What will come of these?"
"I do not know. I fear that if the Perikles continues to follow a soft line in foreign affairs, the radical factions will join with the extreme conservatives to gain control of the Assembly. I, now, am for moderation, wherefore I have always favored the Perikles."
"So that's how it was!" said Flin.
"We don't know yet," said Bulnes, and to Podokles: "How do the radicals propose attack Perikles?"
"There is a rumor — Polites Eurybotou was repeating it here the other night — that Dophithes and Kleon and those fellows were going after his friends, since he himself is too popular. They think they have something on some of them."
Flin exclaimed, "Then it is real! It must be! Because that's just what happened. We've got to warn Perikles they're after Pheidias and Anaxagoras and Aspasia!"
"Take it easy, my dear fellow," said Bulnes. "What shall they do to Perikles' friends?"
"Indictments," said Podokles. "For instance, the Pheidias handled a lot of gold in his work on the New Hekatompedon of Athene Polias ..."
"The which?"
Flin interjected, "What you'd call the Parthenon. Go on, Podokles."
"As I was saying, he handled much gold in doing the work, and it would be surprising if some had not stuck to his fingers."
Later Flin told Bulnes, "This waiting is driving me mad. Here we're running out of money with no more in sight. My wife is God knows where. The plot against Perikles is gathering. And we sit waiting for Sokrates to come back."
"You can't rush things like that without ruining them. And what makes you so sure we want to save Perikles?"
"The Peloponnesian War ruined Hellenic culture ..."
"I thought Aristotle and a lot of other important thinkers came after this war?"
"They did, but — oh, it's too complicated to explain. Political morality had broken down and so on. Evidently Perikles tried to stave off the war, but the rabble-rousers forced his hand by attacking his associates — so he dropped his efforts to conciliate Sparta and let the war break out to unite the people behind him. Now if we could only ..."
"My dear friend, we don't even know yet if this is the genuine Perikles. Even assuming we're back in ancient times, what should we accomplish? Perhaps we should find ourselves unable to change anything, since an act once done can hardly be undone. Or if we did change events, we should alter all subsequent history and destroy ourselves in the process."
"Nonsense! We haven't disappeared yet. We might start history off on another tack ..."
"So men would perfect the solar bomb in the third century instead of the twentieth and, having no notion of a world society, would merrily blow each other off the face of the globe? Let's wait till we have all the facts."
Next morning found them scouring the Agora until, several hours after sunrise, a disturbance around the Painted Porch drew their attention. There stood a new arrival among the talkers and loafers, a short, bald, potbellied, snub-nosed man of about forty, barefoot, wearing nothing but a ragged himation, whom it did not need the greetings of his acquaintances to identify as Sokrates.
Though most of the chatter was too fast for Bulnes to follow, he caught a reference to Sokrates's previous day.
"Of course," said Sokrates, "you will understand that my affection for the young Alkibiades is of a purely spiritual kind."
The dignified graybeard of the previous day was there too, saying, "Rejoice, O Sokrates!" with the rest.
"Rejoice, O Protagoras," said Sokrates. "I heard you were in Athens and hastened to see you. How long will you be with us this time?"
"Perhaps a month. Have you seen Demokritos?"
"I know him not. Is he in Athens, too?"
"He set out before I did, and should be here unless he has been lost at sea."
"Well, we have not seen him hereabouts," said Sokrates.
Flin breathed, "That was Protagoras we spoke to yesterday! I never thought we should run into anybody really important just like that!" .
"Who the devil's Protagoras?" asked Bulnes.
"Such ignorance! He's — oh, hush up and listen!" '
Sokrates continued, "Are you giving courses, Protagoras?"
"A brief one to pay my traveling expenses."
"How do you expect the purity of philosophy to withstand the contamination of vulgar commercial transactions?"
"As to that, Sokrates, I am not aware of any rule that philosophers have not the same right to eat as other men. Therefore I charge."
"Therefore you consider your teachings worth money?"
"Certainly," replied Protagoras.
"But I remember on your last visit, when we argued whether virtue could be taught, you professed that your teachings were priceless. If they are priceless, you obviously cannot put a price upon them."
"I do not. As I explained, I really charge for my time. The teachings are free."
"But how can you distinguish the time from the teachings, since the teachings take time to expound, and are therefore in a sense the same as the time?"
"Sokrates, you are an amusing rascal and I am glad to see you, but I will be ground to sausage and fed to Kerberos before I let you entrap me in one of your quibbles again."
"Be not angry. I admit I am an ignorant man in search of wisdom, and here you come, the godlike Protagoras, all the way from windy Abdera to dispense it, so naturally I make the most of my oppor —"
"Excuse me," said Protagoras firmly. "I see a couple of strangers who were asking for you yesterday. Come forward, sirs, and give your names."
"Me?" said Bulnes, a little disconcerted. "I am — uh — Bouleus of Tartessos, and my friend am Philon of Tartessos."
"Can you understand him?" said one onlooker to another. Bulnes persisted, "Hearing you were — ah — wisest man in Athens, Sokrates, we sought you out to make selves better."
Sokrates smiled an embarrassed grin. "No, no, somebody has been filling you with lies. My only advantage is that I know I am ignorant, whereas the other simpletons do not." He did not, however, sound displeased by the flattery.
"Tartessos?" said Protagoras. "Is that not in Spain, at the very rim of the known world?"