Understanding the poetry came later; he initially conceived of Olivier as a man of the greatest promise destroyed by a fatal flaw, the unreasoning passion for a woman dissolving into violence, desperately weakening everything he tried to do. For how could learning and poetry be defended when it produced such dreadful results and was advanced by such imperfect creatures? At least Julien did not see the desperate fate of the ruined lover as a nineteenth-century novelist or poet might have done, recasting the tale to create some appealing romantic hero, dashed to pieces against the unyielding society that produced him. Rather, his initial opinion—held almost to the last—was of Olivier as a failure, ruined by a terrible weakness.
He took the lesson but could not help himself. Julien was still attracted to the Provençal’s poetry precisely because of the incandescent passion he considered so dangerous. Olivier’s words stirred his blood, created in him images of a different history. It was an effort to subjugate the lyrical, magnificent poems of love to the full force of critical reason, to disregard the expressions of desire and seek out the meanings that surely must lie underneath, to see longing as allegory, the beloved as metaphor, the love as a reflection of faith in the divine.
At least, the pure physicality of the poetry proved one thing beyond doubt. However much he may have collected the classics of philosophy and joined them to the theological masterpieces he must have read as well, Olivier de Noyen perfectly failed to understand them. While Manlius argued about the need to maintain the supremacy of reason in the face of the irrational that was eradicating all he held dear, Olivier embraced the opposite, unable to subdue his passions and falling victim to his weakness.
MANLIUS DID not lie to his friend; Bishop Faustus did indeed write to him, asking if he would consent to become Bishop of Vaison. But he did so only after Manlius had spent several months courting the saintly man, slowly convincing him of both the need and the appropriateness of such an appointment. He had acted because of the discomfort that came over him as he saw others, of lower origin, less education, and smaller ability, lording over the region with so little skill and foresight. For many years he stuck to his determination to turn his back forever on public life and live quietly on his estates. He was, after all, one of the richest and most powerful men in the province even when he did nothing but write poetry.
He had been destined for great things at one stage, but the fate that overtook his father filled him with contempt for a world he considered no longer worth saving; when the body was returned, he swore he would never succumb to such an end, remembered the look on the older man’s face as Manlius cleaned away the blood, washed the caked mud from his hair. Women’s work, usually, but far too precious to be left to them. He would take no obvious revenge; rather, he would stand by, cultivate those things that really mattered, and watch as the consequences of their deeds became clear.
For his father had attached himself to Majorian, a good and virtuous man, only to see the last competent emperor the West produced abandoned by those who most needed his help, then cut down by the warlord Ricimer, the man who had built him up in the first place. And his father had fallen victim to the purge that followed, set upon in the streets of Arles, butchered and left to die in a gutter. Manlius never discovered who was responsible; there were too many people who might have ordered such a thing. His father had been foolish, too trusting, too merciful. He had not moved fast enough to eradicate those who disagreed with him. “It is what is different about us,” he had said. “We argue, and convince. We allow disagreement. If we no longer allow that, we might as well be Goths ourselves. What do we have a senate for in this poor little region of ours? It is to hear the opinions of those who disagree with us. What is the point of holding council, if we do not hear different opinions? It is our strength, not our weakness.”
He paid heavily for his faith. Majorian had been the last hope for Gaul. He had a chance of putting together an army that might push the Goths back, rebind Gaul to Rome, and strengthen the frontiers. And he had sacrificed it, thrown it away through his delicacy. The constant bickering and disagreement had so weakened this brave, good man that he doomed himself. Manlius’s father, charged with governing Provence and keeping it sound, had been part of that failure. Manlius knew that he would not show that same weakness; his retreat to his estates stemmed in part from the fear that realization caused in him. He did not wish to know what he was capable of doing.
Even so, the discomfort remained; the distaste clouded his idyll and drove him, eventually, back to Sophia to see if she could restore his tranquillity with her wisdom. He might have expected that she would do no such thing.
“So tell me. Why do you continue to live in idleness?” she asked once his salutations were presented. “What is your justification beyond that of natural lassitude?”
What was it about this woman that made him feel so confident and content? How was it that her mere look, the way she smiled, could banish all his fears and persuade him that all problems could be understood? How was it that, when faced with a difficulty, he always thought of what she would say or recommend? The first thing he had done after burying his father was to go south, to Marseille. She had comforted him, reassured him, stilled his heart. It was because of her words that he had not brought out his troops and let them loose for an indiscriminate revenge that would have convulsed the province into civil war, because of her again that he did not allow his inactivity to grow into a cancerous hatred of humanity. For twenty years now she had been his mentor, his teacher, his guide; never had she failed him. She had criticized, scorned, bullied, but never withdrawn her love. And he had risen to meet that challenge, always seeking to live up to her expectations, even though he knew he must always fall short.
Her question was a shock, even though it was put in her normal fashion, with the inquiring neutrality of a teacher probing her pupil, forcing him to consider unthought-of questions that he knew only too well once posed. They were in the house he had given her, although it was as unfurnished as the day she walked up the hill and into its door; her way of life was as ascetic as a desert anchorite’s. She never had possessions; a few clothes and her books were all that she had or wished to have. In this she remained thoroughly Greek, although almost as archaic as she was in the Attic she still sometimes spoke in homage to her masters, already dead for nearly eight hundred years.
“Are you urging me to abandon a life of contemplation and take up public affairs? After all you have told me about the virtues of the philosophic life? Which side should I take? The bad, or the worse?”
She cocked her head to one side and looked at him dreamily, in the way she always adopted when teaching. As usual, she was a mess, a disgrace. Her dark hair was cropped short and looked as though it had been shorn by a slave with a blunt knife; her dress was of coarse linen, short in the arms and not very much different to the sort of thing shopkeepers might wear. Her nails were rough-cut, and her feet bare. She wore no decoration; her eyes were her only adornment, but these so far excelled all artificial baubles in their beauty that any jewel would have seemed tawdry in comparison. And her voice, which had not changed in all the time he had known her, still dark and throaty, seductive and commanding, amused and critical by turns; once heard, impossible ever to forget. Blind men could fall in love with Sophia, just as Manlius did, despite his usual fineness of discernment in the matter of female beauty.
“An example,” she said. “You may comment on it when I am finished. According to Aristotle, one of the earliest laws of Solon, the great law-giver of Athens, said that if a society split into strife and civil war, anyone who refused to take sides should be exiled and outlawed when order was restored. Your opinion?”
“An absurdity,” said Manlius, with a sigh of contentment, for this is why he came to her, to have his mind tested and strained; it was what he lived for, almost, and what she had always unselfishly given. “It’s obvious that the more people join in, the worse the conflict. It seems designed to increase dissent, and spread the chaos of faction even to those who would ordinarily preserve something of civility in a period of violence.”
“Your beliefs are so thinly held that you think your grasp on reasoned behavior would collapse under such conditions?”
“I hope not. Not least because of the training I have received at your knee, dear lady.”
She acknowledged the compliment with a faint smile; she had banished vanity in most things, but not in this. “Then you must think that what I have taught you is so feeble that it can only be examined in the quiet of a sealed library, or with friends who are already of your opinions?”
“No; at least, I have never heard anyone refute an argument you have presented.”
“Then there is only one conclusion; you think all men are unreasoning beasts.”
“Most are; but you tell me all retain the faintest remembrance of the divine, and are able to respond to it. Even the worst of men can be persuaded.”
“Then surely, if reasoning men do not abandon the people when they are in a state of frenzy, but ally themselves with factions, then they can begin to direct through being men of more than ordinary influence? Would not that soothe the passions, and guide men back to harmony? Would that not be the wisdom behind Solon’s law?”
“Perhaps,” Manlius said. “And it was no doubt good advice for Solon’s time. But I do not see how such balm might be applied now. Which public office should a man take now? A senate seat? There is no one else to talk to. Command the military of the province? There are no soldiers. Oversee an administration and give orders which no one obeys? Perhaps become a tax collector? At least that still functions all too well. Rome will not abandon us as long as it can squeeze a few extra coins out of us. It is too late. There is only an empty shell, all the goodness sucked out and wasted. Majorian was the last chance. Now we must await King Euric’s pleasure.”
“You are making windy speeches when you know the answer,” she said impatiently. “When Socrates was accused of corrupting the young he was also accused of contempt for the gods of Athens. He replied that he honored all the city’s deities. And it was true; he sacrificed assiduously. Did he believe they were anything but stories, to comfort the unlettered and present the great ideas of the divine to the simple? Of course not, but as they were so believed, then he maintained a necessary decorum in public. And so must you do, to the gods of your time.”
“Are you serious?”
“Very much so. Worship the three gods of the Christians, the father, son, and holy ghost. Make them the sacrifices they require. The church has a power that the old offices no longer have. If you do not fill its grand positions, others will do so. Why do you live, Manlius Hippomanes? Why do you walk this earth, if not to show virtue in your deeds, and how can you do that except by exercise of public office? For generations your family, and your friends’ families, have brought honor amongst themselves with these baubles, and convinced yourselves that honor and virtue were one and the same. You have been what, in your time? Procurator, Comes, all these things. Your father had more such offices before you. What do they mean, except that you have vaunted yourself above rivals? You have been like children with toys, fighting over little bits of painted wood. Once upon a time all these places were worth something; their holders ensured good government and gave good advice. That has not been the case for generations now, and still you squabble for the outward show, thinking it distinguishes you from others. It does; it shows how much greater a fool you are.”
“I hold no such office anymore. Not since my father was killed.”
“Even worse. You give delicate dinner parties and entertain your friends, and write letters and verse which get cleverer by the day. But what when there is no one left to read those letters? No friends to invite, no food to put on the table? What then? The schools of Marseille are long gone. No teachers, no pupils. The schools of Bordeaux, even, are growing feeble. Do children care anything for philosophy, for letters, for thought? Will their children even be able to read?”
“And you think joining the church will help?” he asked, scarcely keeping the amused incredulity out of his voice.
“Of course not,” she said scornfully. “I think
running
the church will help. Perhaps even that will accomplish nothing, but at least learning will die with a friend by its bedside, rather than abandoned in a ditch. Virtue comes through contemplation of the divine, and the exercise of philosophy. But it also comes through public service. The one is incomplete without the other. Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is pointless. Who, for example, is likely to be the new bishop?”
“Caius Valerius.”
“And will he do a good job?”
“No. He is a contemptible fool.” He did not mention that he was also a cousin of his friend Felix.
“So do a better job,” she said simply. “Take that authority and use it. Defend all you hold dear. Use your skills and your intelligence, for you have both. Can Euric be stopped? If not, can his rule be moderated, or put under constraint?”
“Perhaps,” Manlius said.
“ ‘Perhaps,’ ” she repeated. “A possibility, with no guarantee of success, but said without hesitation. You have thought of this already, I see.”
“Of course. I see a possibility.”
“And yet you do nothing about it. Shame on you.”
He looked at her. “I am concerned about what would be necessary, about what I might have to do.”
“Then double the shame on you, and double it again,” she said sharply. “You are like a general who will not send his troops into battle for fear they will get their breastplates dirty. You have your mind and your soul, Manlius, trained and honed, and will not act for fear of tarnishing them. You should be afraid; you are vain and arrogant, full of error. But I never thought you were a coward as well.”