Chapter 1.86

Chapter 1.86

The Son of Rome

I’d never cared for the lyre before meeting Aristotle.

As the Young Patrician of a notable family, I was raised under a certain set of expectations. It was a given that I would be educated. It was all but guaranteed, looking back at my father and my great-uncle’s careers, that I would serve my time in the legions and make the climb up the cursus honorum. How far I progressed in the end was something no one could predict, but it was a safe bet that I would claim that first honor if not any more to follow.

It wasn’t enough to be learned if a man intended to take up the reins of the Republic, even if only in a senator's small way. It wasn’t enough to serve. Those things were required but not enough alone. In order to carry forward what the greatest statesmen of the past had entrusted to us, a man had to embody the virtues that defined his city.

The Greeks possessed four cardinal virtues, four that defined their cultural identity and sculpted the greatest of their sons and daughters: Temperance. Wisdom. Courage. And of course, Justice.

Just as there were eight rounds in the progression of a Roman soul to contrast the four a Greek traversed, so too was the Republic defined by eight virtues instead of the Greek cardinals.

Virtus Integritas. The complete virtues - four for the city and four for the man. It was a given that a Roman statesman would embody at least one of these eight qualities, And that expectation only grew higher as they progressed up the course of honors.

The four for the city were the highest social virtues, the qualities that a man extended to his fellow Romans whether they were patrician or plebian.

First of the four was Honestas, the honor that a man wore like a triumphal crown. It was his reputation in the eyes of the state, and if his heart was true then Honestas was his pride just the same.

Fides, the good faith that a man acted with at all times. His reliability to the ones that served beneath him, and his loyalty to the ones that stood above.

Innocentia, the selflessness with which a man pursued the interests of his city. It was the charities born of his easy generosity, and it was the simplicity that made his soul so utterly incorruptible.

And finally, there was Iustitia. A man’s justice, fourth of the four and brother to the Greek cardinal virtue. It was a man’s empathy for those wronged in the Republic, for the Republic - even, at times, by the Republic. It was his sense of equity and his ever unsatisfied desire for structured order. Most importantly, it was the responsibility he took when the burden of judgement was laid at his feet. His acceptance of whatever followed.

If the four virtues that a Roman citizen kept for himself - pure Salubritas, dutiful Pietas, resolute Constantia, and heavy Disciplina - were internal qualities, expectations he had of himself, then the four social virtues were the external qualities that his people and his city could expect from him. And did expect, more so the higher he climbed. The internal virtues had been hammered into me and pressure treated by the soldiers and centurions of the fifth legion that my father had entrusted me to.

The social virtues, generally speaking, required a softer touch. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on who you asked, Aristotle was the one that shaped me to them. From the day he caught me picking pockets in the forum to the day he saw me off to the legions, beginning and ending with justice. The overlap of twin excellence between our two cultures.

Aristotle had opened my eyes in more ways than one, exposed me to aspects of myself and the world around me that I had never before considered in my brief life. He had taught me lessons that no other man in Rome could have conveyed, in large part because he was the only man my mother would not mutilate for sending me home from a lesson bruised and bleeding. Back then, irreverent little bastard that I was, I had tried more than once to have my pitiless mentor fired. No matter what I said, though, my mother would only stroke my head and tell me to bear with it.

In time I’d let go of my resentment and became grateful for her sudden shift to firmness, but I never did understand it. Not in the legions, nor in the Scarlet City. It wasn’t until I went to Olympia and met the mentor of his mentor, until I saw for myself the depths of his resolve in the story of the brothers Aetos, that I finally understood why even my adoring mother would not deprive me of his teachings.

It was all but guaranteed that a Young Patrician would receive a fine education. For the Young Patrician of a family as infamous and esteemed as mine, even the finest education a Roman could give wouldn’t be out of the question.

But I had received neither. Instead, I had been given one of the finest educations in the world. As mad as it seemed, I shared a mentor with the same Damon Aetos that haunted the free Mediterranean nearly twenty years after his withdrawal from it. I was a link in the chain that went all the way back up to the Scholar himself. No one, Greek or Roman or savage barbarian, was guaranteed such a mentor.

What had I done to deserve such an education? Nothing. And what have I done with it? Even less than that.

That wasn’t Aristotle’s fault, though. He had done what he could with me, and corrected as many of my ugly traits as he could. If I had been better from the beginning, I knew in my heart and the marrow of my bones that I could have learned so much more. Even still, Aristotle had accounted for my feelings and instilled in me skills and qualities that would benefit me regardless of whether I fully understood the reasoning behind them.

Such as the lyre.

“You must be-“

“Thyoneus’-”

“Lampter’s-”

This is outrageously rude, Griffon remarked, leaning against the same vertical beam and crossing his arms. Bemused, but curious enough to let me finish. Just as before.

In both of the stories I had heard about the Augur the last couple days, first from Griffon and then from the Thracians standing guard outside the Orphic House, a special emphasis had been placed on the chthonic Hero’s appeal. Charming to the point of absurdity. Charming beyond that point, at times. To charm an animal with music was a less likely prospect than charming a man, but not impossible.

Charming the earth, though? Charming sticks and stones so they would avoid his face when thrown at him? That was ridiculous. Utterly absurd.

Entirely Greek.

Aristotle had taught me all that he could, and evidently it had been enough to leave its mark in the foundations of my soul. But I still felt like a foreigner in this culture that was at least nominally a part of me. I still didn’t know enough. I was still grasping, blindly, in the shadows.

I understood intuitively the difference between myself and a man like Gaius. In theory, I knew what it would take to progress through the course of honors, what it would take to see the succession of my Roman soul to its end. It was because of that understanding that I knew that way was lost to me now. Succession was no longer possible, which meant refinement was my only hope. The Greek path to ascension.

What did that entail, though? The more I learned the less I understood. Reason, spirit, and hunger. Principle, passion, and purpose. Discoveries, deeds, and domains. Philosopher. Hero. Tyrant. There was no unified path to heaven if you traveled the Greek way, and the most successful of the culture’s cultivators were considered utterly mad by the standards of even their own people - even their own brothers.

Socrates had advised me to strengthen my body after he thrashed Griffon and I, but was that because the Greek way demanded it or simply to combat the burden my Roman virtue imposed upon me? The Gadfly had warned me not to take my Roman virtue for granted while among Greeks, but he hadn’t offered any specifics as to why. Because he himself didn’t know where one half of me ended and the other began.

I was a Philosopher of the first rank by the standards of a Greek, yet I had stood above the Roman equivalent of that the day the fifth legion fell and Damon Aetos took me into his city. How can I progress one way but not another? What had I done to progress through the Greek Civic realm before I knew I was even a part of it? How did life in the Roman military translate to Greek philosophy? What had I done before? What did I have to do now?

I hadn’t been lying when I promised our Heroic companions that I would do whatever it took to see Carthage destroyed. The Roman way was closed off to me, but every Greek stands alone against the wrath of raging heaven. Whatever was required, I would see it done if it meant I could stand alone in fields of salt and ash. I’d do it if it meant I could drag the stars down from heaven, like Griffon’s father had so casually done, onto the heads of every cursed dog.

But I only vaguely knew what was needed. There was no marked road to follow, especially not for me. There was a suggestion of structure, I could almost see it, but every time I thought I nearly had it something would take me by the shoulders and rattle my brain in my skull. An old man would grab me by the head and leap up a fucking mountain like he was vaulting a rose bush, or the insatiable Young Aristocrat that called me his brother would casually reveal to me a fever dream of his uncles and father burning a ship to make it steadier at sea, fighting dragon spirits with wooden blades, and manifesting a hand of scarlet glory the size of a city to simply... pick up an island.

It wasn’t that the Greeks were stronger than the legions in their prime. Even now, I knew that like I knew that water was wet. It was just that they were so godforsakenly ridiculous about it.

What did I need to do to become a man like Damon Aetos, or the late Tyrant of Tyrants himself? How much of Bakkhos’ strength was a product of the nectar he so jealously hoarded, and how much of it was due to some other absurdity? I had agreed to this errand quest because as far as I could tell, each explanation was as likely as the other.

Who could say how it was a Greek became strong? Certainly not me. What was the difference between a genius and a madman, in a world where man could defy nature's wrath if he was compelling enough about it? What separated a Hero from the souls both above and below them, that they alone could linger centuries after their death in a house built out of repurposed wagons for any baffled Roman or irreverent Greek to wander by and see?

Are we the shadows, Sol?

How much of this path was an illusion? Where did the shadows end and the light begin to shine? How far could I progress off of implication alone? Instinct by itself couldn’t possibly be enough, or else every man would end up a god eventually, but nothing else felt real when I grasped it in my hands.

Maybe I was the man that cast the shadow on the wall of the cave, or maybe I was nothing but the silhouette. If that was the case, why shouldn’t I be able to do something that should’ve been impossible, for no other reason then because it was enthralling?

If the Greek approach was nothing but flash and illusory thunder, it followed that I should be able to change the shape of my shadow if I only adjusted my silhouette and let the light catch it from a different angle. Shift my stance - physical, mental, spiritual. Contort myself until it hurt.

And lo, there upon the wall, something that looks nearly like a lyre is in my shadow’s hands.

I plucked and strummed an ivory lyre that I’d pulled from the shadows, one that I had not put there first or ever seen before, and the sound of it was deceivingly sweet. I put everything I had into its wispy shadow strings, conveying through melody alone the reason why I had come to this place. I put all of my confusion, my uncertainty, and my desperation for clarity into my song, and I willed the chthonic Hero to understand it.

Aristotle had told me once that a song was at times a better conveyance than any spoken words. I had seen enough of his culture to take that sentiment literally now.

I played my last bewildered cord and weathered Griffon’s solitary applause. Looking up, I locked eyes with the Hero Orpheus down on his stage.

He was smiling.

“It seems you have some questions,” he said, because of course he’d understood. He raised his golden lyre to his forehead in a friendly salute and beckoned us down with a voice like molten honey. “Come, friends, and join me on stage. It’s been far too long since I’ve spoken to a raven.”