The Just City (6 page)

“Not that I can think of,” he said. “Why, do you want to be attached to the Florence house?”

“I loved it so much. And it's where I found Plato. I never got to Greece, only as far as Italy.”

“Talk to Ficino. He's bound to be the man who gets Florence.” He sounded a trifle envious. Ficino's name was now formally Fikinus, but everyone went right on addressing him as Ficino.

We voted that we would all adopt the kiton, and those who knew how to wear one instructed the rest. The workers wove the cloth for them. I had lessons in how to don one from Krito himself, the friend of Sokrates. Once I was used to it I found it charmingly practical and comfortable. The kitons had an unexpected benefit—once we were all dressed alike, the factions among us were less immediately visible, if no less real.

On the women's committee, Kreusa, originally a hetaira from first-century Corinth, explained the use of menstrual sponges. We voted by acclamation that this method would be the usual and standard method of the Republic. We did not even present it to the full Chamber. Workers could easily harvest the sponges. We knew the men wouldn't recognize or care about their significance. We had agreed that the masters should not have children of our own, and Kreusa told us about silphium root, which had the ability to prevent conception. We agreed that it should be available to all female masters who wanted it.

I was the only woman on the committee to select art, on which Ficino, Atticus, and, inevitably, Ikaros, also served. Plato is very clear about the purposes of art, and what forms of it should be permitted in the Republic. We were divided on whether we should have only original art or allow copies. This was an issue on which passions ran high, and on which Ficino, Ikaros and I were united—the children should see only originals if they wanted to learn excellence. We should ask Athene to allow us to rescue lost and destroyed art to adorn the city. Copies, especially copies created by workers and more than once, would make them see art in entirely the wrong light.

Atticus and some of the others argued against us. “We have already decided that the eating houses will be copies of buildings in the cities they are named for,” he said. “If the workers can build them, and if it won't harm the children to see a hundred and forty-four copies of architecture, then how can art be different?”

“It would be better if we could get the original buildings too,” I said. “But it's not possible. It is possible to get the art.”

“It might be possible to get some buildings,” Ficino said. “Sophia isn't just wise, she's powerful as well.”

“Were there enough suitable buildings that have disappeared?” I asked. “I don't know about Greece, but when I was in Rome it looked as if every brick and piece of marble was being reused in some other building.”

Ikaros shook his head. “It's completely different. It wouldn't be better if we could get original buildings, because the real problem then would be that the buildings wouldn't be so suited to our purposes as the ones we will build. The design for the sleeping houses, for example, is elegant and ideal.” He was on that committee as well, of course. “We want them to be identical and classical and useful, and that's how they are. We don't want the city to be full of repetition because that would teach the wrong lesson. The sleeping houses will all be the same; the palaestras where the children will exercise will be functionally the same, but have different decoration, for variety. And the same goes for the eating houses, temples, libraries, and practice halls. We want everything to be as well-suited to what we need it for as can be. Making new buildings in the style of old ones is best for that, for buildings. They won't really be copies, not functionally.”

“Functionally?” Atticus repeated, frowning.

“The buildings for our city have different functions from the buildings in any existing city. Even if we had all the choice in the world, it would be difficult to find sufficient buildings with big eating halls and kitchens and rooms of the right size for classes,” Ikaros explained. “Ideally they'd all be new designs by wonderful architects, but as it is, we've decided to take the features of the old buildings, in the styles of the cities the halls are named after, and have the workers reproduce them on our buildings.”

“But why couldn't we do that with art as well?” Atticus asked. “The workers could just as easily reproduce that.”

“But the original art best fits the Platonic purpose,” I said.

“Plato says art should show good people doing good things as an example to the children,” Atticus said.

“Yes, and also be an example of beauty, to open their souls to excellence,” I added.

Ikaros looked approvingly at me. “Yes! And when it comes to art, the best is definitely the originals.”

“Jupiter!” Atticus swore. “They won't be able to tell if they're originals or copies.”

“Their souls will,” Ficino said.

Eventually we won the day, which the three of us celebrated at dinner with cold water and barley porridge. Ficino and Ikaros shared memories of wines they had drunk together in Florence, and discussed how long it would be before the grapes the workers had planted could produce a vintage. We pretended to be mixing our water with wine, in best classical practice, and Ikaros pretended to grow a little drunk, whereupon Ficino reproached him by quoting Socrates on temperance, and Ikaros pretended to be abashed. I had never spent a pleasanter evening nor laughed so much.

Back on the committee the next day, it became apparent that Ficino and Ikaros wanted to save everything.

“The Library Committee is sending an expedition to the Great Library of Alexandria to rescue everything,” Ikaros said. He also served on that committee. “Manlius and I are going. We're going to have it all, all the written work of antiquity, though we will of course control access to it. Why not all the art we can find?”

“We have to be selective and make sure it fits what Plato wanted,” Atticus said.

“How could it not?” Ficino asked.

“Before we allow it into the city we need to examine everything to make sure it does,” Atticus insisted. We all agreed to this.

We put together a complete program of art rescue through the centuries. It all had to fit the message we wanted the children to understand from it, and of course it had to be on classical themes. There was a huge amount of art potentially available from the ancient world—it was heartbreaking that so much had been destroyed. I entirely agreed that we should save as much as we could. There were many lost works available from the Renaissance which were also deemed likely to be worthy. Athene took the men of the Art Committee on several expeditions. To my astonishment and delight, they brought back nine lost Botticellis, snatched from the Bonfire of the Vanities.

“At first I pretended to be a Venetian merchant and tried to buy them, but Savonarola wouldn't listen. In the end we stole them and replaced them with worthless canvases we'd bought,” Atticus said, laughing.

“Who ever met a Venetian who could only speak pure Classical Latin?” Ikaros teased.

“Look at the
Judgement of Paris
,” Atticus gloated, taking it off with him to show Tullius.

“Does that show good people performing good actions?” I asked, quietly, so that Atticus wouldn't hear.

Ikaros grinned at me. “Some of these show mysterious people performing mysterious actions. But they do lift the soul.”

“They certainly do,” I said.

Ficino spread out another, smiling. “These will hang in the Florentine dining hall,” he said.

“Do you have a woman master for Florence yet?” I asked. “Because if not, I'd really like to volunteer.”

“So you can see these every day?” Ficino asked, looking proudly at
Winter
.

“Yes, and because, though I'm not a Florentine I loved Florence so much,” I said.

“I'll think about it. I should find out whether there's anyone with a better claim,” he said. “What would you think would be the best Florentine building to emulate as the eating hall?”

“Oh, it's hard to choose, because it was all so beautiful,” I said. “Perhaps the Baptistry? It's a shame the Uffizi wouldn't really be practical, even though that would be the best setting for these wonderful Botticellis.”

“The Uffizi is a symbol of Medici power and the loss of the freedom of the Florentine Republic,” Ficino said, frowning.

“Then the Palazzo Vecchio,” I said, at once. “That was for the Republic, and it's so beautiful.”

“Much too big,” Ikaros said, cheerfully. “Now for Ferrara, Lukretia has suggested we can do half of the castle.”

“How about the Palazzo Vecchio at half-size,” Ficino suggested, ignoring Ikaros and looking at me.

“I think that would be splendid,” I said, as affirmatively as I could.

“Or maybe we should have something in three parts, for the three parts of the soul,” he mused. “It's going to be so wonderful to see the children grow up and the best of them really become philosopher kings.”

“I can hardly wait,” I said. “It's wonderful to think we're getting everything ready for them. Did anyone tell you yet that the Tech Committee have decided to go with full printing in both languages for the reproduction of books? So everything will be available to all of us through the library. And first, immediately after the complete works of Plato, we're going to print the things Ikaros and Manlius rescued from Alexandria, so that all of us can read them.”

“Excellent,” Ficino said. “I shall volunteer to work on translations so that I can see things early.”

“New plays by Sophokles!” Ikaros exulted. “And the original works of Epicurus, and the Hedonists! I'm going to read them the second they're printed.” He grinned. “I'm on the Censorship Committee, so I'll get to them before anyone.”

 

6

S
IMMEA

I learned to read, first in Greek and then in the Latin alphabet. Before the end of a year I was reading both languages fluently, though I had not known Latin before. There were many native Latin speakers among the masters, which made it easy to pick up. Even those who were not native Latin speakers knew it well, for, as they told us, it had been the language of civilization for centuries. I was soon speaking and reading both languages easily. I no longer noticed the slurring and softening accent so many masters had, or even the use of B for V. I had begun to speak Greek like that myself.

I began to learn history before they began to teach it to me, and I knew without examining it that this was the history of the future. We were living, they told us, in the time before the Trojan War. King Minos ruled in Crete and Mycenae was the greatest city on the mainland. Yet, although it had yet to happen, we knew all about the Trojan War—a version of the
Iliad
was one of our favorite books. We knew about the Peloponnesian War, for that matter, and the wars of Alexander, and the Punic Wars, and Adrianople, and in less detail about the fall of Constantinople, and the Battle of Lepanto. When I asked Ficino what happened after Lepanto he said it was after his time, and when I asked Axiothea, who taught us mathematics, she said that history got boring after that and was nothing but a series of inventions, the laws of motion, and telescopes, and electricity, and workers, and so on.

From the beginning, and by design, we rarely had a free moment. Our time was divided equally between music and gymnastics. Music came in three parts—music itself, mathematics, and learning to read, later superseded by reading. Gymnastics also had three parts—running, wrestling, and weights.

Gymnastics was fun. It was done naked in the palaestra. There was a palaestra shared between each two eating halls. Our palaestra was Florentia and Delphi, and it had rows of Doric columns for Delphi along the back and two sides, and exuberant Renaissance columns along the front, with a very elaborate fountain. I felt proud that Florentia had contributed the fountain. It was easy to love and feel pride in Florentia, that great city, with so many great scholars, writers, and artists. Ficino himself came from Florentia. When we came to dye and embroider our kitons, I embroidered mine with a running pattern of lilies, the Florentine symbol, and above them snowflakes, leaves, and roses, for Botticelli's three seasons, which remained my favourite pictures. Above those I put a pattern of interspersed books and scrolls, in blue and gold, which so many people admired and asked permission to copy that it became quite commonplace.

Our palaestra stood open to the air, naturally, and the ground inside was made of white sand, which the hundred and forty of us churned up every day and the workers raked smooth every night. I soon stopped feeling conscious of nakedness—we all took off our kitons when we went into the palaestra, it was just what we did. I learned to use the weights, both lifting and throwing, and to wrestle, and to run. I was good at running, and was always among the first at races, especially at long distances. I soon learned that I would never excel at wrestling, being small and wiry, but found it good fun when matched against somebody my own weight. Weights, once I had learned how to handle them, were a delight, though there were always people who could throw the discus further and lift heavier weights than me.

The odd thing about gymnastics was that we didn't really have enough teachers. Only the younger masters could teach it, and not even all of them. This oddity made me realise how few masters there were. There were two masters assigned to each dining hall, and just a handful of others. There were a hundred and forty-four dining halls, now completed with seventy children in each. That meant there were only two hundred and eighty-eight masters in all, or perhaps three hundred at most, to ten thousand and eighty children. I thought about the implications of this, and decided not to point this out to Kebes. He still muttered about wanting to overthrow the masters, but I was happy.