We walked back to the house in silence. That afternoon we rode, still in silence, to the old family estate at Erchia, which he had not visited in years. The weather was cold, windy and rainy, and as soon as we arrived Xenophon strode through the dusty hallways to his old room, closing the door behind him. For two days I scarcely saw him as he remained shut inside, reading the books he had brought with him, writing letters, working assiduously on his notes. I cannot say this was unusual-ever since losing his commission he had been in a state of depression, sleeping late, neglecting to shave, writing volumes of work that no one ever saw and which he destroyed by fire in a brazier in his room or carefully filed away in a locked chest. This time, however, I was concerned, because there was a finality about his actions, a determination in his expression, like that of someone set on completing a task, and because I knew of the decision that was hanging over his head like a leaden weight, one that would affect me every bit as much as him.
On the morning of the third day he burst into my room, bathed and well-rested and with blood-stanching cobwebs still dangling parasitically from his jaw as the result of his hurried shaving. The transformation in him was so dramatic that I was momentarily startled, though at the same time delighted to see him having returned to himself. Xenophon was not in the mood for idle chatter, however.
"Pack up, Theo," he announced. "We leave in an hour."
BOOK TWO
He arrived at Krissa beneath snow-peaked Parnassus,
Where a foothill turns to face the west: A cliff overhangs it
From above, a rugged hollow glade lies hidden beneath:
There the lord Phoebus Apollo resolved to build his glorious temple.
– HOMERIC HYMN
BLOODY BATTLE AND homecoming embrace, lightning-studded skies and Arcadian pastures, riddles, mirrors, smoke, illusion, the love of a woman, the wrath of the gods. Life is drama, a tragedy and comedy both, and we the actors. A trite observation, one decidedly inspired by some other man's muses. Yet for all the horrors and triumphs of the stage, I have found that the arts of Dionysus offer little to compare with the struggles and achievements, the lives and deaths of real men, or at least men of thought and action, men who renounce the apathy and ignorance of those who pass through life as if they were mere temporary visitors, gawking occasionally but for the most part simply following the meaty desires of their bellies and loins. Sophocles said as much when he wrote a few years ago,
Numberless are the world's wonders, but none more wonderful than man.
His is the power to cross the storm-driven seas…
His are speech and wind-swift thought…
But there is little that can be recited on the stage that can match any true story of men who have sought to rise above base passivity, men who have taken their lives into their own hands, shaping other men and their surroundings into something more amenable to their own desires, and in the process irrevocably changing their world. Men truly live just as passionately as in the great dramas. They die just as brutally; they love just as fiercely. But in the real world they do not wear plaster masks that are hung on the wall at the end of a performance. Men's actions endure beyond their faces and names, and their effects are not finite and temporary, but encompass their descendants and the descendants of their fellow protagonists in widening yet ever fainter rings for all eternity. How odd that we seek through drama to depict, or to escape from, our own world, the infinite variety and cosmic timelessness of which puts even that of the gods to shame.
My pen rambles and the impatient Muses urge me to move on with my tale.
CHAPTER ONE
THE TRIP TO Delphi was long, though not without interest. Xenophon was the perfect pilgrim, stopping at every roadside attraction, keeping a purse full of obols to tip the young guides importuning us to visit this or that sacred spring, never letting a table of fruit set up outside a farmstead be passed by without a sample. The roads were crowded with men and women, merchants, shysters and prostitutes, all traveling to Delphi to attend the annual festival celebrating Apollo's departure to the northern Hyperborean regions for the winter, and the arrival of his mad brother Dionysus. The ceremony was to begin with the usual dissipation in just a few days. We were rushing to consult the Pythia, the oracle of Apollo, before the festival began, but were hindered by the mobs of other travelers heading in the same direction. The closer we came to our destination, the more frequented the roads became until at length it was impossible to pass the other pilgrims, so heavily traveled was the route. We dismounted and led our horses, to stretch our legs and converse with some of the other travelers, since like it or not, we were condemned to travel with them in this fashion all the way to Delphi.
As it happened, Xenophon had carefully chosen the pilgrims near whom he had dismounted. He quickly struck up a conversation with a cheerful, heavyset country girl named Aglaia, who was traveling to Delphi for the first time, to ask the oracle for guidance on choosing a husband from among her three suitors. Oddly, she was traveling unaccompanied by any male guardian, a fact that would have raised disapproving eyebrows among the other travelers had it not been for the formidable, glowering old crone she was dragging in tow, who turned out to be her grandmother. Though dressed in the rough clothes of a village lass, a goatherd really, Aglaia was plump and lovely, with strong, fleshy arms tanned from her daily exposure to the sun, and full, soft breasts which, even without her calling overt attention to them, nevertheless drew men's gaze to their mesmerizing ripeness. Her eyes sparkled as do those of young maidens before clouding over with the cares of the house and the pain of childbearing, and her bell-like laughter carried far above the deep-voiced din and tramping of the mostly male crowd. Although I appreciated her beauty, she was lusty and demonstrative, just the sort of trollop I disdained, and she had taken an immediate liking to Xenophon, admiring his horse and gingerly touching the jeweled hilt of the short sword he carried at his belt.
"Xenophon!" I said under my breath. "Don't be an idiot! Can't you see she's got you pegged to be suitor number four?" I tried to elbow him over to another group of travelers heading in our direction.
He shot me a black look. "What am I, Theo, an ephebe?" he hissed. "Are you still Father's stool-pigeon slave, guarding my morals from the evils of the world? I'm of age now. I don't need your handwringing."
I felt my jaw tense in anger at his insults, but forced myself to remain silent, and to keep looking straight ahead. After a few moments he seemed to regret his hasty words, and he excused himself from the girl and drew me aside. "Theo, relax. It's been months since I've even spoken with a woman. I just want to chat a bit with someone better looking than you. Believe me, I'll be better company for it afterwards."
I remained staring straight ahead as I walked, determined not to give him the satisfaction of a response. He shrugged, and stepped back up to Aglaia's side, and I resignedly lifted the elderly grandmother onto my horse, on which she rode stiff and trembling, grasping its mane tightly with both hands in her terror at sitting so high. I then walked behind Xenophon and the girl, casting my large shadow over their shoulders.
Aglaia had done her homework before setting out on her journey, and had collected quite a number of stories concerning the oracle, a few from good sources, most from the most spurious origins imaginable. She regaled us with what she had learned, her peals of laughter making men smile for yards around, even if they were unable to hear her actual words. Xenophon traded her story for story, to her great delight. She was most moved by the tale of King Croesus of Lydia, which Xenophon had learned from his mother as a young boy.
"Croesus," he recalled, "learned that the Persian king was becoming more powerful by the day. This worried him, and he began to wonder whether he should attack the Persians before they became too mighty. He decided to consult an oracle.
"In those days, Delphi was not the most famous oracle in Greece, it was simply one of many. Since Croesus didn't know which was the most truthful, he sent runners out from Sardis to every one, including the Pythia of Delphi, with instructions to wait until the hundredth day after their departure from Sardis. On precisely that day, each runner would consult the respective oracle and ask what King Croesus was doing at that moment. All their answers would be recorded and brought back to the King.
"At Delphi, just as the King's messenger entered the oracle's sanctuary, before he had even had a chance to sacrifice and make his inquiry, the oracle spoke in perfect hexameter verse: