Glory and the Lightning (43 page)

Anaxagoras taught not only in the colonnades to young men and students but had a small academe of his own, for which he charged a minor fee for attendance. He would quickly expel youths whose intelligence disappointed him, and totally materialistic ones also. “It is true that all things are governed by natural laws,” he would say, “but law implies a Lawmaker and he who thinks all comes from blind Chance is as idiotic as he who denies there is any Chance at all.” “Then Deity is capricious,” Pericles would laugh, to which Anaxagoras would reply, “Deity, too, has a sense of humor. One has only to observe animals at play. I am not speaking of man’s contrived play, but the spontaneous capers of the innocent ones.”

He taught that there was a Oneness in all the universes, from the suns to the smallest field flower, and variability among species and the infinite variety manifest even to the dullest of men were manifestations of the divine Mind which ruled the apparent chaos, and was illimitable and incomprehensible. “That Mind is endlessly in motion,” he would teach, “and out of that motion evolves all things, from the marvelous configurations of a sea shell to the movement of the stars. If that Mind should cease its motions, which are creativity, then everything would disappear and be no more. All would be void, and nothingness.”

When he was accused of impiety in insisting on “mechanism” in the universe, he would reply that this was an exercise in semantics, and “mechanism” was the law of the Divine Mind, and he was then accused of inconsistency, for did not “mechanism” imply a machine ungoverned by the creative Mind? He would throw up his hands in despair.

He found mathematics not a boring subject but an inquiry into the workings and the law of the Anima Mundi, and a marvelous mystery. He introduced an implication of esoterism into mathematics. He was confronted by his own sayings that there were no mysteries and he would answer that his definition of mystery was not the definition of other men. Like Zeno of Elea he said that speculation was the first step towards the understanding of common mysteries, and their solutions. But the Mystery of the Godhead was not to be understood by men. The Ecclesia said that he was indeed a danger to the people, for everything that he said not only confused philosophy—as they understood it—but frightened “simpler minds.” When he said that “simpler minds” had no place in philosophy he was accused of the very arrogance he despised and condemned. The Ecclesia said that this showed an imperviousness towards and contempt of the common people, and so he was their “enemy.” At this Anaxagoras would laugh ruefully. “It would seem that I threaten the Ecclesia, itself, for surely there are no uncommon people among them.”

He had no tolerance for those who would oppose inquiry, no matter how “impious” it seemed. “The only impiety,” he would say, “is a denial that the Divine Mind is larger than the mind of man.”

Pericles would attend his classes and he would experience, as always, an exaltation of spirit and excitement as he listened to this majestic man’s teachings. He would feel an enlargement in himself, a quickening of consciousness. Anaxagoras perfected and colored his dreams for Greece above all other teachers. It was Anaxagoras who told him that he had become too engrossed with the arts of war and politics. Pericles joked, “Can a man’s mind contain all things?” to which the philosopher replied, “There is no limit to a man’s mind, no end to his speculation, if he is not lazy and does not tell himself that his mind can contain only so many matters, and that it is necessary to judge what is important and what not. Who are we to decide the importance of anything?”

“Except truth,” Pericles would reply with mock solemnity. “Have you not said that, yourself, you scientist?” Anaxagoras replied, “Even truth has its amusing variables, and we scientists recognize that—if we are truly scientists.” He added, “Even reality changes or is transformed when man perceives it.”

Pericles had heard of Pheidias, who was the same age as Anaxagoras, but busy as he was he had not yet encountered him. Anaxagoras soon changed that. He took Pericles to the studio of the sculptor, who now had a considerable fame. He had already executed the incomparable chryselephantine Athene for Pellene and the Marathon memorial at Delphi. The mighty bronze statue of Athene, which towered on the acropolis and was a landsight for sailors, had been designed and cast by him. He had many students; some of the more gifted imitated him expertly.

He was an Athenian, son of Charmides, and though still fairly young he was balding, and he had a shy sweet smile infinitely touching and self-deprecating. His body was slight and bending like a young sapling, but his face was plump and rosy and frank, which gave him an appealing aspect. His workshop was as modest as himself, and as dusty, and as stained with paint and the shavings of metal, but as noisy as he was quiet. He greeted Anaxagoras with affection, touching him gently on the shoulder and smiling bashfully into his eyes. He gave the impression that he felt that Anaxagoras was demeaning himself by visiting him, Pheidias, and he was humbly grateful in consequence. He looked at Pericles with some timidity, for he was afraid of strangers. He had seen Pericles at a distance, at the theatre and in the halls of the Ecclesia, and at the games, and knew who he was.

“My friend, Pericles, who is a notable soldier and, alas, a blossoming politician, has been very anxious to know you, dear friend,” said Anaxagoras. Anaxagoras was dressed as humbly as the famous sculptor but nothing could reduce his aspect of self-containment and grandeur. Pheidias led his two visitors outside his workshop and into the midday. Here there was a small but perfect garden of myrtles and oaks and sycamores surrounding graveled walks and one single flowerbed centered with a fountain in which stood one of his own works: a little but exquisite bronze statuette of Psyche with a butterfly on her shoulder, her wings outspread, one delicate foot poised on her pedestal. The metal had been polished by the water which flowed over her so that she was bright gold in the hot sunlight and airy. It was so finely wrought, that statuette, that it appeared alive and pulsing, and the infinitesimal veins on her hands and ankles seemed to palpitate with moving blood. A smile of eager and virginal seeking was on the lovely little face, an ardent desire for love. Pericles went to the fountain to admire this work and to long for it. Pheidias watched him with an expression of gratification, and he thought: Though this young man is obviously somewhat pompous in manner and speech, and even assuming, there is something splendid about him, something massively stately and sincere. As if Pericles had heard this thought he turned suddenly and encountered Pheidias’ gaze and he said to himself that here was a great man who understood more than one could guess, however simple his demeanor. Now Pericles himself understood what Zeno had meant when he had said that it was only the base fellow who swaggered and spoke importantly and had a high opinion of himself. Alas, however, the truly great were frequently ignored by the rabble, and even by government and prominent men, for they had no pretensions. He, himself, Pericles, acknowledged that he was not guiltless at times of open scorn, and that he slighted others when impatient.

A student brought wine and cheese and olives and honey and bread to a rough plain table under the shade of an oak, and a dish of dates and figs. Pheidias made no hypocritical apology for the simplicity of this light meal and as the three sat and ate and drank Pericles gathered that food was of small importance to the sculptor and to Anaxagoras also. The wine was execrable, and cheap, yet Pheidias was not a poor man. It is probable, thought Pericles, that he has as meager a regard for food and wine as he has of money. In the background, from the workshop, there came a constant hammering and the sound of youthful voices.

“It is my dream,” said Pheidias in his hesitating voice which implored forgiveness for his words, “to see Athens the supreme centre of beauty as well as philosophy and science.” He glanced up at the acropolis, and mused and his face became sublime with dreams. “I can see a temple there, to Athene Parthenos, and a statue of her before it of ivory and gold, a vast statue facing the dawn, heroic and terrible and commanding, bathed in the light of Aurora, and gleaming against the blue sky.”

“It is not an impossible dream,” said Pericles, and Pheidias was pleased again by the sonorous quality of his voice. “I, too, wish for the glory of Greece and though Anaxagoras here despises politicians it is necessary to be one to obtain the money to bring a dream into reality.”

“But we have a ramshackle democracy,” said Anaxagoras, “which is too solicitous for the bellies of the citizens to care for the glory of the nation. Only republics, and empires, can rise above the gutter and execute splendor. But democracies are feminine and republics and empires are masculine, and therein lies the difference between mediocrity and sublimity.”

He began, as usual, to inveigh against the Ecclesia and the judges, not with rancor but with regret. Pheidias listened, sighing. “Even the arts, which are immortal, must stand aside for the greedy appetites of the mob,” he said. “You are correct, my Anaxagoras, in believing that the spirit is of more importance than the body. But it is impossible to tell government that. Or, they are afraid to acknowledge it in the search for votes.”

He led his guests back into the workshop. “I perceive little or no marble here,” said Pericles. “Do you work only in gold and ivory or bronze?”

“I find marble too ponderous,” said Pheidias, again with that air of fearing to give offense. “But I dream of the acropolis crowned with marble, as pure as light, as powerful in aspect as a mountain.”

“Which you will grace with your genius,” said Anaxagoras. “How beautiful are the elements of nature, ivory, gold, metals, marble! They speak in the voices of silence, which are holy.”

Pericles watched in fascination as Pheidias took up a knife and began to work on a statuette of Zeus. The knife flashed and cut as through butter, and Pericles marvelled at such elegant and fastidious power. The small countenance began to emerge, regnant and endowed with godly lineaments. “One day,” said Pheidias, as if thinking aloud, “it may be that I will enlarge this small thing into superhuman stature, not only for my own delight but for the greater delight of those who will see.” His face saddened a little as if he feared that such a dream had small hope for emerging into reality.

When Pericles and Anaxagoras left Pheidias, Pericles carried with him a gift from the sculptor, an ivory figurine no longer than his index finger, and it was of a lovely woman with a clear and valiant face. She had the body of a young goddess, yet was mature of aspect. Her hair was dressed in the Grecian fashion and bound with ribbons, which Pheidias had colored with gold. One arm was lifted in a gesture of pinning her robe on her right shoulder, and one perfect leg was half-revealed. Her expression was musing but firm and there was a slight indication of humor about her mouth. Pericles held it on the palm of his hand and said, “Where is such a woman endowed not only with beauty but, better, with character and subtlety? Yes, I have my pretty courtesan, and she is like a mirror to me, reflecting back what I say. She has graces. But she is not as womanly as this, so bravely tender of appearance, so human yet so divine, indicating profundity of mind.”

“You are speaking of Helena, the physician?” asked Anaxagoras with surprise, for he knew Helena.

“No,” said Pericles. “Helena belongs to no man, not even to me, though she is often my companion. I speak of my Pomona, my nymph.”

He studied the figurine again as it seemed to him that she moved on his palm and was about to speak. He put his hand in his pouch and withdrew a silken kerchief and carefully wrapped the figurine in it and returned both to his pouch.

“If I do find such a woman—which is impossible, of course—she will be more to me than my life.” As they walked on down to the Agora, Pericles said, as though continuing a conversation with himself, “Yes, the dreams of Pheidias will emerge into reality. I know it in my soul.”

He put the figurine on the chest at his bedside and would gaze at it for long periods, filled with yearning and desire. Once he dreamt that she grew and stepped down from the chest and was a tall woman and that she smiled at him and bent over him and whispered, “I have hoped for a man like you. We will find each other.” When he awoke he was comforted and thereafter spent years seeking for her in every assemblage and in every temple. He was always disappointed yet he never ceased to search.

CHAPTER 7

It had not been Pericles’ serious intention to marry early in life, and he had often hoped to escape marriage entirely. As to the latter he was discreet enough not to discuss it in the presence of potential enemies or random friends. For he was in politics and it was dangerous to dissent against popular custom, especially in the case of a man who had no older brothers to continue the family line. He had idly played with the thought after his two years’ ephebia, or military service, when his mother had hinted of his duty to the family. He had had his choice of the camp followers when he was a young officer, and there had been pretty slave girls in his father’s house, and a concubine or two. He had fallen in love with the hearty Helena, a former hetaira, and now a physician much deplored in Athens. Helena, however, was a happy companion to any man who attracted her—another violence against the public virtue—but she loved none except her former protector who had been a noted physician, himself, and who had trained her in the arts of medicine. Upon his death she had been disconsolate, but she was very healthy and natively cheerful and liked men and so later gave her favors as she chose and at her own will and desire. It was she who had introduced Pericles to Pomona, a young hetaira, and had furthered the alliance. Helena was naturally benign and affectionate and she arranged the affair partly because of fondness she had for both Pericles and the young girl, and partly to distract Pericles from her own person and to free herself from his importunities.

In short, he had wanted her only for himself and Helena considered that both tedious and self-assuming. Yet, she did not hurt his feelings and his passion for her by dismissing him abruptly. She let him occupy her bed occasionally but did not encourage his devotion. She accepted his gifts joyously, smiling her rosy smile of genuine pleasure. She also appreciated his genuine regard for a woman who was intelligent, and who did not despise her as did other Athenian men. As a woman of sense she also knew that there were many times when even such a proud and sufficient woman like herself needed the protection and influence of a prominent man, and particularly a politician and a man of riches. Too, Pericles was very handsome and when he was not pompous he was a merry companion. She trained him not to take himself and public matters too seriously, as he was inclined to do, and introduced him to men of famous wit and ribaldry in her house at her sumptuous dinners. (She could eat and drink like a man, and as zealously, and did not consider asceticism a virtue. Accordingly her tall figure was voluptuous, but not fat.) Above all things she had an enormous sense of humor, rollicking and sometimes even rude and a little coarse, and she had lightened the astringent and acid-tipped tongue of Pericles so that his natural impatience did not break out into arrogant insult too often, insults that invariably exposed the other man’s secret foibles or weaknesses to the laughing eyes of others. “One thing I have learned,” she told Pericles, “is that fools sometimes attain power and they can be dangerous. Moreover a little kindness never hurt the giver. The predicament of humanity is sorrowful and tragic enough without making it more onerous, even when justly exasperated.” She brought reluctant compassion into his life.