Noumenia, Boedromiōn, about-
Of course I mean 'about', boy. At my age-.
Hah! I
am, and I already promised that I would tell you the story. You don't need to-.
No, no. I know that your mother was born thirty seven years ago. I will never forget
that. And I married Nomia two years before that. Nomia? My wife. Your grandmother. No, you wouldn't-. Yes, with the gods. She saw you born, but…
'
In time all things shall pass away'.
That was one of the things he told me, but you wanted to know what year it was. I married Nomia thirty nine years ago, and I spoke to him slightly less than three years before that. Forty two years. The year King Menelaus of Sparta set sail for Troy, to reclaim his wife and prove he could still wield his
spear.
No, I didn't. I could have done, but I didn't.
I had a strong arm in those days-. Huh? R
aaaaagh! Hehehe! But no, not like this. These are the muscles of a farmer. A builder of walls and fences, speaker of laws and council, hewer of wheat and grass. In my youth-. No, younger than your father. Then I was a builder of ships and formations, speaker of battle cries and hewer of men.
Of course not. That was-.
No, I haven't. I made my choice, and I am content with it.
Menelaus sent me a message, asking me to bring my men to join the kings of Greece when they sailed. But we were not friends, and I am not of Sparta. He offered money, but I wanted… I wanted fame. Acclaim. I wanted my skill as a warrior to be legend! Spoken of all across Greece! A war like that… We would become legends or the women of Sparta would laugh at our memories for…
Years.
But Menelaus was not my friend. We had fought together before, and he insulted me. I could earn fame in other wars. I didn't know if I should go or stay. So I asked my mother for advice, and she made my decision even clearer. If I went, I would die, and my name would be spoken of as one of the greatest of the heroes of Greece for generations to come. And if I did not, my name would live on only in my children.
Had that been all, I would probably have gone. My foster-brother Patroclus wanted to, and him I relied upon more than all others. But a priest in my father's court saw my uncertainty, and bade me visit a wondering oracle who had recently come into the city.
Yes, that was him. And yes, you have heard that part. When I went to speak with him he was in a cave outside of the city. Yes, if your mother will let you. It should still be there, unless the rains have collapsed it. But it isn't a shrine or a grotto. He told me that he just wanted somewhere to sit where he would only be bothered by people who would make the effort to see him.
No, he didn't tell me not to go. It was… More thoughtful.
The clothes he wore were… Strange. Rather than a tunic, he covered his legs in tubes of cloth fastened together around his waist. I don't know. I would guess that his homeland is in the colder lands to the north and so he was accustomed to dressing for warmth. His chest was covered by a chiridota, and both had some sort of bronze fastener-.
I'm sorry. My mind wanders.
Glow? Yes, yes, they did. Not brightly, but I could make them out in the dark of the cave. He asked how he could help, and I explained my choice. Immortality in tale and song, or long life and comfort. And what he said struck me dumb.
'No man or god knows the future. No man or god can control how others remember him after his death, and the you that lives forever in tale and song is not you as you are. And that in time even tales die.'
I was shocked. To claim that gods do not know the future? And he just waved my concerns aside. He said that if Cronus had known how and why Zeus would kill him then surely he would not have acted as he did. Therefore, for all his insight and wisdom he must not have known. If Mighty Zeus knew everything, why did he need Metis to advise him? He claimed that instead of being all-knowing, they were merely so well informed and wise that to mortal men it
seemed as if they were. And with a war like the war that would be waged in Troy, the gods would most likely involve themselves, either directly or indirectly. They might make a prophecy only to fulfil it themselves; tell oracles that a man will die and make sure to kill him themselves.
I realised that what he said was possible, and that even one as wise as my mother could have been misled in such a way. So I asked about his second statement. Surely a man's nature and deed determine how he is remembered?
He told me that the people of his homeland practice a religion where they worship a single god. Everywhere, from their greatest city to their smallest village, has at least a shrine to that god and his demigod son who taught them about him. And that even then, that because the people who wrote their holy texts spoke Greek and changed the names of its people to Greek names, no one alive knows what the demigod's true name was. They only know the Greek version. That would be like you or I calling Herakles 'Hercules' as the Romans do, and not knowing any better! And that was for their only god!
But I questioned him on why they had Greek scribes, and he admitted that his people were less learned than ours. We Greeks keep records of the deeds of great warriors and kings. Surely, then, our tales were more accurate?
He asked if I knew of Herakles, and of his meeting with Queen Hippolyta. I said that I did, that Herakles was sent to obtain her girdle and though she would have given it willingly Hera's intervention meant that the Amazons rose against him and he slew many to escape.
When he heard my words, he shook his head and said that was not what happened.
Ah… He said that Herakles caused the fight by behaving poorly. That the girdle was simply a token of victory and not the object of his journey. That despite our record keeping and my education, I did not know that he had fought Herakles at Themyscira, and that the only song left from that fight was the clicking his right arm made if he raised it above his shoulder.
I know that mine does too. I may not have sought out war, but it has sought me out upon occasion. My advice, grandson, is that you should avoid getting your shoulder broken if you can avoid it.
Did he actually fight Herakles? Perhaps. He was an old man, and Herakles was of my grandfather's generation. All versions of Herakles' story say that he fought many people, and some of them lived, so it is not impossible.
So I asked if he believed that I should not go. He told me that he could not answer that. That only
I could know what I valued most in life, and in death. What I lived for was for me alone to determine, and that all he could do was make the facts related to that decision as clear as possible. He said that there was no immortality to be had in tale or song or indeed anywhere else. That whatever was said of me would distort to become less and less like me until it was forgotten entirely. That in time the land itself would be ground down to nothing and then consumed by the dying sun. That simple misfortune might take any children I sired as it did my six elder brothers. That no nobility of intent or will can shield completely against the vagaries of fate.
Yes, that was a sad thing to hear. All of life contains a little sadness.
It was then that he pointed to the rock points on the ceiling of the cave, and asked if I knew how they formed. I told him that I did not. He said to me that they are made by water seeping through tiny cracks in the rock. As the water moves, it takes tiny amounts of rock with it, and deposits it where it drips down. A small amount stays where it dripped from, and a small amount stays where it lands. Over hundreds of years, the succession of tiny drips leaves enough rock to make spikes on the top and bottom.
They are made not by a single act, but by a million tiny acts.
So I decided that I would not go, to serve a man and a cause I cared nothing for. Patroclus who cared for such things more than I took the Myrmidons to Troy. You know how that went: they defeated the force outside the walls before gaining entry by trickery. Prince Hector's counterattack gave the people of Troy time to flee, burning their food stores as they went. Proud King Menelaus had to eat his own boots and scabbard, and returned home little more than a skeleton and without his wife.
And while they were doing that, I renewed my studies. I had built a library and a public baths. I laid bricks and cut timbers myself, for I still sought a legacy, and I wanted it to be
mine, and not the invention of a poet or bard or ignorant scholar. Even if the people of some far distant future know nothing else of me, they will know the names of the civic architecture I built. It is hard to get 'King Achilleus built this' wrong. And if I am fortunate, my being a good king will likewise work to building a nation that will outlast me, even if none know that it grew strong because of me.
Hm? Oh, no. He had already left by then. Where? I have no idea. Did I ask him-? Of
course I did. What fool would pass on the opportunity to question any oracle, much less the Ancestor? He told me that so much of history gets forgotten that he considers himself responsible for remembering as much of it as possible, and I think that is a noble cause for a scholar. Is he really the first ever man made by the gods? He told me that at that time the rules of the universe were less fixed in the distant past, so that by some metrics he was first and that by others he was not.
No, I do not know what that means either, though I asked him to clarify. Something to do with time having no meaning in primordial chaos, perhaps? And the answers he gave were of little more help. But I was glad to have met him. And you should be too, for I doubt that you would be here if I did not.