Sometime later, Melicles was woken by the sound of voices coming from the other side of the curtain of his alcove. He must have slept long and soundly because he felt refreshed. A sliver of golden light shone through an opening in the curtain: the light of olive oil lamps.

It was evening. The hubbub of so many voices confused and surprised him. Only after a while did he remember that today was the day of a feast and that guests had been invited to come and dine together, drink wine, and chat.

Now, Melicles distinguished individual voices clearly.

Someone talked long and movingly about Delphi[1], the greatest and most revered of all temples of Apollo[2], now being rebuilt with great splendor with the contributions of many Greek states. There was talk of treasures flowing in from all corners of the earth to celebrate the city of the true god. Solon’s[3] generosity was praised – he was the lawgiver of Athens. People were also astonished by the rich gifts of Croesus – the young king of Lydia, who, although not Greek himself, was also a worshiper of Apollo.

Then, the conversation turned to Solon again, to his great work and the changes he was introducing in Athens.

“What has Athens been until recently?” asked a poignant voice. “A city like many, probably lesser than Miletus, hardly much bigger than Corinth, or your Syracuse, or Taranto in Greater Greece. And today? It teems with people! Streets widen, new public buildings go up, the city is growing, as is the port of Piraeus, and the wealth of its citizens is rising. And why? Because the cruel, ruthless exploitation of the nation by a handful of rent-seeking landlords was abolished. Tens of thousands of peasants who had groaned under the burden of massive debt had their debts extinguished and the threat of debt slavery lifted from their shoulders. They have been allowed to live like men again, make their own way and keep the profits of their labor.

“Ah, Solon. Yes – there is a true hero. There is a wise man indeed. His reform of Athenian education alone will make his name famous for all succeeding ages.”

“Someone tells me that in Athens, they are now writing down the sacred songs of Homer[4],” said another voice.

Several voices gasped. The great poem about the destruction of Troy, which professional bards had until now memorized and performed orally from one generation to the next, was now to be written down by priests.

And then, after a little silence, Melicles heard a voice chanting the verses familiar to all Greeks: the immortal history of Priam’s city and of the anger of Achilles.

Melicles sat up on his cushion and pulled back the curtain.

In the megaron[5] of the modest house of Kalias, lit with numerous oil lamps, a dozen or so guests sat on low benches running the length of all walls. In the center, an old man sat on a tripod chair, chanting rhythmically and reciting the poem in a strong, singsong voice.

Melicles looked at the faces of the guests. He saw Kalias and Nehurabhed, who – although a foreigner – was a distinguished guest and had been invited to the feast. But in the place of honor, on the bench facing the entrance, there sat another man whose form, monstrous and terrifying, was striking in its uniqueness.

The huge, bald head was sunk deep between upraised pointed shoulders, and a large hump protruded from his back. His unnaturally long arms, with fingers like predator’s claws, twitched nervously. His black eyes stared menacingly from under his bushy eyebrows. It was a visitor from far-away Greece, Arkesilaos from Corinth: a great master potter, painter, and artist.

All eyes turned to him. Whenever he spoke, they all fell silent. Kalias served him before all the others, proud of the honor the man’s presence bestowed on his house. When the singing of the poem ended, the praise of Solon’s work began again.

“Athens will soon be the shining light of all Greek cities,” said Arkesilaos. “Just as the Olympic games are today the soul of Greece, so will soon Athens be.”

They fell to arguing which city in the whole Greek world was the most important. Some were for Athens. Some praised the rich Miletus, making Melicles’s heart leap with pride. A few young men praised Sparta, which won the most trophies in every games and was invincible in war.

Arkesilaos frowned at this, remained silent for a while, and finally said:

“Who among you has ever been to Sparta?”

No one answered him.

Arkesilaos smiled contemptuously. He bit his lips as if to hold back words welling up. Then he burst out with sudden, unrestrained passion:

“Sparta is a disgrace to Greece! Where are her cities, her temples? Where are her statues, her pottery, her textiles? What makes her famous? What great men has she brought to the world?”

There was silence again.

“Lycurgus[6],” someone said.

“Lycurgus was a criminal!” replied the old man impetuously.

A murmur went through the crowd.

Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta, was worshiped as a holy man sent by the gods, like the mythical Theseus[7] or Heracles.

Seeing the impression caused by his blasphemous words, the old man threw back his gigantic head proudly, his fiery eyes gazed at the revelers, one by one, and slowly and clearly, he announced:

“I am a Spartan, Syracusans! I am a Spartan!”

And when no one responded, he continued:

“Yes, my friends, I was born in Sparta, in Sparta itself. I come from an outstanding military family, one of the most honored and powerful.

“Yes! I grew up in Sparta, a happy child! I played with a group of my peers. How healthy, strong, ruddy, and simple we all were! I was just over four years old – I was like your youngest son, good Kalias, just like that – when misfortune struck. A dead tree fell on me, and a branch broke my back.

“They brought me home, barely alive. Many, many months, I lay motionless, first unconscious, then unable to move because of terrible pain. My mother watched over me, not sleeping, not eating. Until slowly, very slowly, I began to regain my strength – but not my former health. No, not to my former health. My broken body began to form on my back this monstrous hump, yes, this awful thing you see here.

“My mother looked at it with animal fear. I did not understand why but her fear terrified the little child I was. For years, my mother wouldn’t let me leave the house. She hid me from others. I was only a child. I didn’t understand anything. You see, I didn’t know that in Sparta… I had no right to live.

“I was a cripple. And no cripples are suffered in Sparta. Such is Spartan law, o, Syracusans, the law of the divine Lycurgus, the gods’ equal. Yes! You’ve all heard about that rock from which infirm children are thrown, the crippled, the retarded, all those who could be a burden to them, to the great, glorious, oh so glorious Spartans.

“This was supposed to be my future.

“I didn’t know about it, of course, and I played as innocently as before. But my mother – my mother cried all day, and at night she slept right next to me, her arms tight around me. Whenever I woke, I saw her eyes staring at me, black, motionless, terrible. At such times, I was afraid of my mother.

“One day, she learned that they were coming to get me. O, Kalias! O, Syracusans! Think about it: when the tiny, lovely hands of your children reach out to you with trust and faith, when their pink lips smile at you with their trusting smile, think! I was the same – to my mother!”

Arkesilaos paused, took a deep breath and, with a trembling hand, raised his wine goblet to his wide mouth and drained it. After a while, he continued:

“The night before they came to take me, my mother slipped out of the house, carrying me in her arms. Yes – at night. Secretly. Alone. She did not take a maid with her or a slave. She confided in no one, not even her husband. How could she? Someone was liable to turn her in, to report a woman daring to break the sacred laws of the state. Think about it: a mere woman daring to go against the dictates of the divine Lycurgus, the gods’ equal! Such audacity, such disobedience! It was unthinkable!

“O, my mother! She left the house where she had grown up. She left her husband. She gave up all her other children: she knew she would never see them again. O, Syracusans, think, think! She gave up her own children – forever. But these children were safe and healthy. They were not in danger. And I…

“She walked blindly on, straight ahead, out into the world. We wandered long days and nights. When I tired, she took me in her arms and walked, walked, always forward, always ahead.

“She was strong like a heifer and persistent like a lioness. Oh, my mother, yes! She was a true Spartan indeed! We didn’t go into any village, to any people. We spent the nights in the forest, in trees, in caves. How we survived, avoided falling prey to wild animals, avoided capture by animals worse than animals – slave hunters – I don’t know.”

He paused.

There was a silence.

“At last, we came to Corinth, but my mother’s misfortune did not end there. She had to work hard. She – a general’s daughter and a general’s wife – became a port laborer. She cooked food for slaves, washed their rags, scrubbed the decks of the sailing ships. Indeed, no human misery was alien to her. No one understood her there. No one knew her fate. No one offered a helping hand. People suspected that we were runaway slaves and refused as much as to look at us.

“She was all alone. All alone, all by herself. Her only reward was in the evening, when she returned home, exhausted from her work, and she could embrace a small, poor, broken body: me, her crippled son. Indeed, we were both poor, abused by fate and people.

“And in this way, many years have passed. O, Syracusans, many years! We survived somehow. When I was ten years old, I started working for Lysias the potter. From then on, slowly, everything began to change. Over time, I became my master’s favorite apprentice. He sent me to Etruria – to Volscii, to Veii – to study. I learned the art of the Etruscans. I learned their secrets.”

He smiled, nodded his great head, and continued:

“And now you have learned something new, my friends. Now you know what no one else knows: that whatever my name means in Corinth, or Athens, or here, in your venerable and splendid city, and whatever these decorative cups of mine, these amphoras[8], these kraters[9] are worth to collectors, we do not owe them to me, the unworthy me, but to my mother! To my mother without whose courage and persistence my unworthy misshapen bones would long since have shattered at the bottom of a cliff in the unparalleled, divine, sacred Spartan soil!”

He finished, but no one dared break the silence.

“Yes,” answered a voice after a long moment.  “It’s true that the laws of Sparta are harsh, yet it must be admitted that her people are heroic and brave.”

Arkesilaos shrugged.

“Yes,” he replied. “But the wolf is brave, and the lion and the panther. Why! Even pirates, those who attack your ships, are said to be brave. Do we worship them? No! We exterminate them like vermin. Sparta is a disease, an ulcer on the beautiful body of Greece. There, I said it, and I won’t take it back. None of you knows Sparta as I know her. Ten times, a hundred times, my mother told me about my distant homeland.

“Spartans are brave, you say. Yes! Well! Do you know, friends, how they acquire their valor? When a Spartan is a boy of fourteen or fifteen, he is sent alone into the mountains and forests to hunt runaway slaves. He can shoot them with a bow or cut them down with a sword as he likes. At first, he does it awkwardly. Well, too bad his little hands aren’t yet strong enough.

“But every good blow is applauded by the elders!

“Mercy? Pity? Those words do not exist in the Spartan language. To beg for mercy in Sparta? This is a school of valor, right? A beautiful school indeed. Perhaps you would like to teach your children this, too?

“And think of something else – look, I see you have here, Kalias, and of course, while you are well off, yet you are not fabulously rich like others, here you have on your table a beautiful Etruscan krater, strangely noble in lines and exquisitely painted. And there I see a beautiful curtain. It is old and a bit faded, but so deliciously colorful and beautifully embroidered – it is a wonderful work from distant Syria, is it not? But in Sparta, in Great Sparta, you would not be allowed, o noble Kalias, to have any of these things. Oh, no! Luxury is forbidden by law! And rightly so, yes? Do you say? Why would a warrior need a beautiful krater or cloth or anything that pleases the eye? Why? Such things could only distract you, Kalias, were you a Spartan, from the one and only important thing in life – which is to kill and to rule.

“And you, Epictetus, who so defends Sparta… People say that you have a beautiful vineyard and a garden full of flowers and in that garden a fountain beautifully carved in rare marble and that you spend all your free time in that garden of yours, enjoying it, being happy. But in Sparta, my friend, you couldn’t have any of these things. They would be forbidden. Why? Because while strolling in such a beautiful garden, you just might too easily forget about the only thing worthy of a warrior, the only true and great purpose of your life – which is to kill and to rule.

“And it is said about you Syracusans that you love your beautiful temples, public statues in city parks, beautifully decorated grottoes built around sacred springs… That you like to gather in the shade of beautiful porticoes to talk about truth and beauty and immortal gods and to recite poetry.

“You would look in vain for any of these things in brave Sparta. What purpose could they possibly serve there? A person could relax among them, reflect, dream about great and distant things – and perhaps come to doubt the one and only important thing which is, yes, you already know – to kill and to rule.”

Arkesilaos laughed a short, evil laugh.

Suddenly he stood up and threw his head back, his shapeless hands stretched out in front of him.

“Blessed be my mother!” he exclaimed. “Blessed be my hump and the misery of my childhood and my hunger and my disability! What would I be without them? A soulless soldier in war, a slavecatcher in peace. I would be a Spartan, my friends, a Spartan! What a misery! How sorry I am for my unknown brothers and my father. Nothing worthy of man is known to them!”

He fell silent and closed his eyes; his face slowly brightened.

“Do you know?” he was saying now in a changed, soft voice. “Do you know what has been my greatest worry in all the waking hours of my long life? It was this. Because the Spartans preach that it is fit and proper to destroy all cripples and hunchbacks like me; because they say the immortal gods themselves cannot look at perversions like me without disgust; therefore, I have been worried, my friends, that all these vases, jugs, and craters which have left my hands, these vessels on which I painted most often the deeds of my beloved god, Apollo – well, I trembled that maybe he, the radiant Apollo, god of the sun, despised me and my ugliness and all the work of my hands. Yes, my friends, I did ask myself that every day!

“And now know this: we were just a while ago talking about Delphi. Well, now, the priests of Apollo of Delphi have commissioned me, a cripple and an outcast, to make for them the complete set of ritual vessels in which they will offer sacred sacrifices to my god. My hands will now shape and decorate every little object to be used in the worship, sacrifice, and prayer to Apollo!

“So, Syracusans! So, now you see, it turns out that the radiant god did not despise my work after all! I must have earned his acceptance for my ugly, crippled body with all the thousands of shapes and paintings that came out of my over-big hands.

“My god, Apollo, has been pleased by my work!”

He spoke ever quieter, staring far ahead with unseeing eyes.

“Or maybe,” he whispered, his voice barely audible, “maybe… who knows? Who does really know what the immortal gods see, what they feel? Maybe… Maybe he was pleased above all else by my mother’s heart?”

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[1] Delphi: one of the most important religious centers in Greece, dedicated to Apollo

[2] Apollo: Greek god of art, healing, and prophecy

[3] Solon: Athenian political reformer

[4] Homer: the greatest poet of ancient Greece, author of Iliad and Odyssey

[5] Megaron: the central room of the oldest Greek houses, with an open fire in the center and an opening in the ceiling

[6] Lycurgus: mythical law giver of Sparta

[7] Theseus: mythical hero of Athens, killer of the Minotaur

[8] Amphora: a very large Greek vessel for storing and transporting oil and wine

[9] Krater: a large bowl used for mixing wine

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