The Ten Thousand

CHAPTER TWO

LONG BEFORE ARRIVING at our destination, we saw glimpses of mist-shrouded Mount Parnassus towering over its neighboring summits, with its sheer, snow-capped peaks, storm-wracked trees, and above the timber line, its naked slopes. As we approached, the wind sometimes stirred the boughs of the trees, revealing the village of Delphi high above, a shiny cluster of garish color and gleaming white set against the huge flank of the mountain, glittering like a tiny jewel worn on a matron's plump breast. There, part way up the south flank of the mountain famous throughout the world for being sacred to Apollo, his mad brother Dionysus, and the Muses, lies a sort of a natural hollow, like an enormous theater built for Titans but populated by nymphs. It is surrounded on three sides by the sacred mountain itself and two enormous upright crags, the Phaedriads or "Shining Ones." Their sheer cliffs seem to catch the summer's burning sunlight and intensify it across the deep, echoing gorge. Here, as if suspended in space over the river valley, exposed to the wind, air, and penetrating light, is Delphi, the most venerated place in all Greece, the place chosen personally by the god Apollo for his domain.

There are signs of the god's presence everywhere, and the forces of nature seem almost magnified by the deity's startling closeness. The light is brighter there, almost blinding, and at midday the luminous air seems to lift the very rocks from the earth until they burn in a blaze of holy light. At dawn and dusk, the magnificent colors that paint the landscape to the distant horizon are so pure and clear that sky and earth no longer seem to have any definable boundary. Earthquakes often rock the low-framed houses nestled into the cliff, and after dark, when nature seems to be at its most raw, thunder from distant mountain storms rolls and echoes through the gorge and across the mountainside.

Instructors of rhetoric teach that it is not wise to assume equal knowledge on the part of both reader and writer. A word of explanation is in order here, in the event that these scribblings someday fall into the hands of distant readers in lands unfamiliar with the Pythian oracle, though I can hardly imagine how far one must travel not to have heard of this wonder. It is said that in ancient times, when gods alone roamed the earth, the site of Delphi was occupied by a terrible dragon known as the Python, which from its dark lair guarded Gaia, the ancient earth goddess, and her powers to foresee the future. After man was created, Apollo, the god of art and enlightenment, wished to communicate with the mortals, but to do so he had to find a place to enter into contact with them. An ancient hymn we often used to sing in his honor during festivals tells how the god traveled from Crete riding on two dolphins until he arrived at Delphi, where he slew the dragon with his arrow, and took the oracle for his own use. From then on, he was the Lord of Delphi, known as the Pythian Apollo. He was later joined by his younger brother, the mystic god Dionysus, who resides at Delphi during the three months of the year when Apollo is taking the winter months in the northern regions. The holy oracle never speaks to human petitioners directly, but rather through the Pythia, a local Delphian priestess, usually of peasant stock, who is chosen by the temple priests at a young age and who spends her entire life in chastity and dreamlike prayer in the god's service. It was to the Pythia that Xenophon planned to address his question, and if Apollo found favor in his sacrifice and in his pureness of heart, then it would be from the Pythia's lips that the answer would be received. The legendary ambiguity of her responses, however, which were often couched in the form of riddles, usually required written interpretation by her attending priests, the prophetai.

Upon our arrival that evening Xenophon and I immediately began the task of searching for lodgings, a difficult task in this crowded season, and obtaining care for our horses. After arranging a room at a small, timeworn inn, and treating ourselves to a quick splash of water from the inn's tiny, bubbling fountain, we left to wander the enchanted streets of the holy town, guided by one of the street urchins gathered outside our inn. Xenophon had been in almost a trancelike state since arriving, in awe and wonder at being so close to the gods, and it was all I could do to keep him from walking off the edge of the cliff in his utter distraction. His eyes seemed permanently fixed on the summit of the peaks or the tops of the temples, as if expecting Apollo to arrive at any moment in bodily form to answer his query personally.

The town of Delphi itself is as much a wonder as its setting. I had always thought Athens to be the most beautiful city in the world, but Delphi is a worthy rival. Under the late-slanting autumn sun reflected from the glowing cliffs, the temples and public buildings shine and even glow with their polychromed surfaces. Xenophon and I were entranced by the contrasts between the blinding white of the building stone in the few places where it was left unadorned, and the soft pastel shades of pink, blue, and green used so effectively by the Delphians elsewhere, to emphasize the contours of the pillars and stonework. The graceful structures of the temples and gymnasiums, the porticos and fountains, the art galleries and treasuries, and even the more modest houses and inns, were all designed and constructed with the subtle elegance of a holy city.

Most eerie in the moonlight of our walk were the hundreds of bronze statues, gifts from grateful suppliants and cities, which were adorned with a delicate blue and green patina produced by the moisture-laden air constantly blowing over them. Along one side of the sacred approach to the sanctuary stood a row of monumental bronzes erected by the Athenians; standing directly opposite them and casting hostile stares at their carved enemies was another series of bronzes erected by the Spartans. Every temple was surrounded by statues, which spilled onto the street corners, public fountains and gardens. There were the usual portraits of the gods, of course, but also a surprising number of sculptures of animals, which added an almost barbarian aspect to the city. Horse statues abounded, donated by winning generals from their share of the battle loot, or by winners of the chariot races at the festival of Delphi. I saw a bronze bull, offered by the people of Corfu in return for a miraculous haul of tuna during a famine several years earlier; several goats, one of them from a small tribe in thanksgiving for its delivery from the plague; and near the great altar outside the main temple a bronze wolf offered by the Delphians themselves, in honor of a beast that had killed a thief who had stolen some of the sanctuary's gold. There was even a statue of a donkey that was said to have alerted its people to an ambush. The gods apparently cherish our beastly companions as much as they do us ourselves.

The day after our arrival, and the day prior to our scheduled appointment with the oracle, we came upon Aglaia walking along a side street, her aged grandmother in tow along with a small retinue of admirers whom she had already collected. Her face was beaming and she greeted Xenophon warmly, as if they were two old friends separated for months.

"I've just come from the oracle," she announced. "I asked the Pythia exactly what you told me to ask, rather than 'whom should I marry.' And wouldn't you know it-the man that Apollo said was the richest was the very one I most wanted for a husband anyway!"

"Unless the Pythia had told her that another one was even richer," the dour old woman muttered.

Xenophon congratulated her on her good fortune, and after listening absentmindedly to her chatter for a few moments, he politely excused himself, and we continued on our stroll.

"Xenophon!" Aglaia called after we had moved on only a few yards. "We'll be leaving tomorrow morning at sunrise, so if you'd care to visit tonight to wish me well…"

She blushed at this display of forwardness, which must have been extreme even for Aglaia, and hurriedly turned away down the street. Xenophon stood staring after her for a second and then, reluctantly it seemed, continued his stroll with me through the streets.

We trudged along Delphi's steeply inclined flagstones for an hour without a word passing between us. I stopped at a stall, eager to purchase a memento of our visit, for who could know when, or if, I might return. I selected a small, antique brass figurine of Apollo, sword in hand, holding by the hair the head of a man with a vaguely Persian countenance, his beard long and pointed. The shopkeeper was unable to tell me to which event it referred, but I purchased it anyway, as it seemed like a good omen, and besides, it had caught my fancy. Though tiny, the faces and expressions were of a realism that made one think that the original castings had been modeled on individuals known to the sculptor, and the god's stance and posture suggested utter fearlessness, trust in the strength of his body, and confidence on the sculptor's part to depict such a scene with seemingly no reference to any actual story of Apollo. What might the world have been like, I wondered, when men were as certain of themselves as that? Xenophon ignored the colorful shops, the stalls being set up in the street for the coming market, the frankly appraising gazes of the local girls eyeing the handsome stranger walking obliviously among them, even the magnificent vistas of the rocky mountains and temples that sprang to our sight around every corner. I finally broke the silence.

"Xenophon, I don't mean to belabor this, but you could have your pick of a thousand young virgins from good families in Athens. I just can't understand seeing you bedazzled by this roadside trollop Aglaia."

He stopped in the middle of the street and stared at me. I feared I had again spoken too bluntly, and I braced myself for his violent reaction. After a pause, however, during which I could almost see his mind working furiously in response to my complaint, he burst into a loud laugh and clapped me on the back. The men around us looked up briefly from their tasks at the sudden sound.

"Poor Theo, is that what you think has been weighing on my mind this whole time? Aglaia? Go to her inn tonight yourself, if you like, she's clearly looking for a quick roll before she marries her town's rich man, who probably has three obols to his name compared to his rivals' two." He winked at me, and I cringed in distaste.

"You're right, though," he continued. "I was thinking of Aglaia, but not the way you expect. I was just considering how satisfied she was at having asked the oracle her precise, narrow question, and at receiving the answer most useful to her. There are hundreds of stories of men blinded by their pride and ambition, asking an open-ended question of the oracle and receiving an open-ended answer. They ignore the ambiguity, and hear only what they wish to hear, taking the wrong course of action and suffering for it. Is Aglaia wiser than those old kings, in not trying to tempt or confuse the god, and in seeking only an answer she is capable of obeying?"

Xenophon resumed his stroll, but now he was agitated, his mind working faster than he was able to speak, a troubled expression on his face. "I can't understand why Socrates didn't advise me on this before we left," he went on. "I see the wisdom of Aglaia's solution, and the satisfaction she feels at the answer she received, which is actually the answer she would have wanted all along. But if you narrow your question as she did-restricting the range of the god's answers, which you could take so far as to eliminate the god's every choice but the one answer you wish to receive-are you not still trying to deceive the god, and thereby deceiving yourself? And if you are deceiving the god-well then, does the god know that? I mean, do the gods really see into our hearts and minds? Can they read our souls? Do they even care to, or is it enough that from their heights on Olympus they see only our physical actions, the outward evidence of our thoughts?"

He continued speaking, becoming more excited, gesturing with his hands as we walked and ignoring the sidelong glances of the passersby.

"The problem is, Theo, if Apollo knows he's being duped by being asked a staged question from which his choices are limited, why would he meekly accept this, and cause the oracle to provide the truly best answer? Because of the goat we sacrifice in his honor beforehand? Is the god so easily bought? If the truthfulness of his answer is conditional upon the size of the sacrifice, next time I'll bring an elephant! If Croesus, with all the wealth he donated to the oracle's treasury, was given an answer calculated to lead him astray, even though the god knew of his ambitions to conquer Persia, what hope did penniless Aglaia have of receiving a straight answer from the god? At least Croesus asked an honest question!"

Xenophon fell silent for a few moments, as we finally approached the inn. He looked longingly back at the streets, as if reluctant to go inside, though I myself was exhausted from our long ramble up and down the steep flagstones.

"I'm speaking gibberish, Theo, forgive me. But I was much more confident of my prospects with the oracle before we met Aglaia. She's put more doubts in my mind than Socrates ever did."

I was at a loss what to say to my troubled master. The faint echoes of the ancient chanting had begun repeating themselves in my mind, like an irritating buzzing of which I was unable to rid myself, and my feelings for the success of our venture had begun to darken.