Black smoke from the burning hunks of oxen drifted up toward the fog-shrouded peaks of Mount Olympus. In the temple, one of the citizens led a murmured prayer while his slaves and young son looked on. Zeus was not on Olympus to smell the sweet aroma of meats given in sacrifice. His dead body rested in a ditch outside a small home on the outskirts of Athens.
“Now what are we going to do?” asked Philippius.
“All I know is that I know nothing,” Socrates said. The old man kicked Zeus’s carcass with a satisfying thump. “What are we going to do?” he asked himself as he looked about to make sure nobody was watching.
It began earlier that evening. Socrates was finishing up a day’s lessons with Philippius and a few other students. The sun was high in the air and hot. It hadn’t rained in three weeks. Brown and green grass crunched under Socrates’s feet as he wove his way through the clump of young men sitting around him. They were spread out on the rise of a small hill, their skin glistening and muscles tense under their tunics. Socrates wore a longer robe; it trailed behind him as he paced.
“But Teacher, how can having few possessions bring one closer to the gods if the gods themselves are given to finery? The Apollonian temple itself must store dozens of golden and silver tripod stools,” asked Xanthus, a dark-haired boy.
“Yes, yes,” added Philippius, nodding and taking up the thread of the idea. “And how can you reconcile this statement with your statement that the gods themselves are naught more than the idle thoughts of frightened men?”
Socrates nodded seriously, his wiry gray beard brushing his chest as he peered at his toes. His nails were thick and white and his soles and ankles stained green from the fresh grass he had been walking through.
“Good questions, good questions all. How do you think I know these things? Do you think I should even try to reconcile those statements? What is the nature of the gods?” he asked Philippius, stripping the boy of his tunic with his eyes. The old man wondered if his student’s stomach was lean and taut or round from rich food. He determined to find out.
“I’m not sure, teacher, that is why I asked,” said Xanthus. Socrates ignored him entirely, having already had him some weeks ago.
“Philippius, are the gods held to contract?”
Philippius blinked and sat up. “Well, I don’t know.”
“Do they meet their obligations?”
“Well . . . ” the young man said tentatively, “we try to win their favor, but they remain capricious.”
“And who are the most capricious mortals?”
“Children and the idle rich.”
“And what don’t children and the idle rich have?”
“Many financial obligations,” said Xanthus triumphantly. Socrates and the other students glared at him. Philippius even dug up a small pebble from the dirt and flung it at the boy’s head. In a flash they were both on their feet. Philippius ducked his blond head down and tackled Xanthus. Xanthus wrapped his dark arms around Philippius’s neck and back, twisting him into a three-quarters nelson. Soon the other boys were up, cheering and kicking the tangle of bodies when they could. The philosopher grabbed a downed branch and strode in, swinging blindly.
“Stop, stop!” he cried out, whipping everyone in sight. The stick snapped in his hand and he fell into the pile of student bodies as a few older women down in the marketplace called up at the gang of kids.
“What’s going on? Leave that man alone!”
“Barbarians! Spartans! Acting like dogs! Acting like slaves!”
Philippius up-ended Xanthus finally, but got a forearm to the jaw for his trouble. Finally, the old master and the other boys managed to pull the two apart. Philippius ended up in Socrates’s lap, the old man’s arms cinched tightly around his waist. Panting heavily and sweating, Socrates dragged the boy to his feet, but kept the embrace locked. Two other boys had secured Xanthus, holding his arms wide.
“And what was that all about?” demanded Socrates. “Are you all so eager for the slightest recognition that you’ll attract the greatest recognition of all, that of public spectacle?” Socrates swung his chin to point at the group of women at the base of the hill. They had gone from yelling to simply pointing and laughing. A few clucked their tongues and then went back to their stalls.
“Even the slave women were mocking you.” He pushed Philippius forward, letting go of his grip violently. “You may all go.”
As the students skulked away, Socrates reached out and put a strong hand on the blond boy’s shoulder.
“Boy, come home with me tonight. Let us dine together. Go to the market and buy us some sausage and cheese. You may spend the evening as well.”
Philippius smiled, relieved. “Yes teacher. I’ll spend two obols and get the best sausage they have!”
“Better make it three obols,” Socrates said, furrowing his brow. “I’m quite hungry.”
The boy nodded and ran down the hill. Socrates followed slowly, picking his way down the steep incline. He passed Xanthus, who was resting in the shade of a tree near the market.
“Hypocrite,” the boy hissed, knowing that the breeze would carry the word to the old man’s ears.
#
On high Olympus, Zeus was looking for his sandals. A bevy of air spirits, whirling and whooshing through the pillars that held up the sky, were looking for them as well. A zephyr spun a pair of sandals through the air, landing them at the Zeus’s feet. Zeus slipped on a few torn rags and turned his hair from fiery red to gray with a thought.
“And where precisely do you think you are going?” a voice like ten thousand chickenhawks screamed. The marble floors curdled at the voice. It was Hera, Zeus’s wife.
“Out! Out and away! To walk the world like a mortal man! And mortal men do not need to answer to their hearth-bound wives!” the god thundered. The clouds went gray and black as his voice echoed across the sky. Zeus cringed and hoped the display would work.
It didn’t. “What? Don’t you dare compare me to one of those fleshy specks of time and dust!” Hera shouted. Her face was flush, reddening like cheap wine.
Zeus slowly turned on his heels, letting his gritted teeth relax and his cringe unwind to his full posture. “My love, please. A man needs to go out. I cannot be so isolated from our people. Some of them are beginning to get some ideas. Strange ideas.”
Hera stood her ground, hands on her hips. “Oh?”
Zeus nodded and said in his softest, gravest voice, “Yes, atheism.” He slowly began to ease backwards.
Hera gaped, “Impossible! What a ludicrous idea. You should unleash the great waters again, and drown that planet full of arrogant bastards. That would teach them the folly of hubris. A field trip won’t.”
“I know. But I also want to get drunk.” With that Zeus threw himself backwards and transformed himself into a lightning bolt.
He ripped through the sky to the ground, leaving his wife howling. The wind swore in rage.
#
At his home Socrates peered out the window as he was washed by a young slave.
“Did you hear a thunder stroke?”
“No, master,” said the girl, pouring another jug of water over her master’s head.
Philippius walked past the portico with a basket of food. “Teacher!” he called out. Socrates waved his slave to collect the basket and wrapped a cloth around himself.
“I hope I’m not late?”
“No, no, not at all,” Socrates murmured as he walked into the small white serving room. He stretched on his couch as the young girl set down a plate of cheese and great blue grapes. Socrates tugged on the girl’s dark hair. “Thank you. Go now and bring wine. Cook those sausages too. Take your time, I don’t want to die of food poisoning.” He chuckled as the girl left, watching her thick hips sway.
Philippius sat on another couch and bowed awkwardly a few times. “Thank you so much for your hospitality,” he said as the slave walked back in with a pitcher of wine.
“What do you think of the institution of slavery?” Socrates asked slowly as the girl poured him his drink.
The boy squirmed a bit on his couch and bit his lower lip. He didn’t want another lesson today, not a rhetorical one anyway. “I’m not quite sure what I think, sir.”
Socrates laughed and raised his hand. Sending the girl off with a loud slap to her ass, he winked and said, “I can’t stand the thought of a human being enslaved myself, but my wife needs the help around the house. Perhaps next time I will allow her to leave her chambers and greet you. It is not good when students mix with married women, but sometimes exceptions should be made.”
Philippius nodded. “Of course, of course.”
There was a long awkward silence. Philippius stared at his master, who seemed content to stroke the water droplets off his own gray chest hair. Finally, the boy inhaled sharply.
“Do you really not believe in the gods?”
Socrates turned to regard Philippius. The boy looked smaller now, and his knobby knees peeked out from under his tunic like wide oranges. “Not as such, I don’t think,” the older man answered slowly. “If they are as capricious as the wind, they are not worth paying attention to, since we cannot control them, or depend on them, anymore than we could a storm.”
“But,” the boy said with a grin, “if they are the wind, wouldn’t their temples be very good shelter?”
“The wind doesn’t care one way or another. If the gods are real, they do not act or think like men. I do not believe in them. I am sure that men can make their own fates.” The sweet scent of sausage drifted into the room.
#
Zeus was irate. He stalked the empty lanes of the marketplace. Thanks to his wife, he was too late for the evening rush. Most of the slaves had already bought their goods and went home. Only a few beggars and some butchers remained behind, trying to pry the last few customers of their last few obols. Beggars weren’t worth considering and the butchers were only selling tripe and spoiled meat, the remnants of the day’s goods. The sun was just now setting, so it was too early for the whores to begin their evening walks.
Then Zeus smelled sausage and followed his nose.
#
The table was covered with iron plates. Philippius had brought no less than four obols worth of sausage to his teacher, and two wineskins. A huge hunk of cheese and a half-gourd full of olives were also set out. There were three kinds of bread, one for wiping one’s hands, one for eating with the meal, and the hard bread, paximathi, for after dinner. A large selection of sesame cakes waited on a bowl on the floor; there wasn’t enough room for it on the table.
Socrates grinned at his student. “Don’t eat too much. I wouldn’t want you to . . . cramp up.”
Philippius grinned and reached for a bunch of grapes. As he took in a deep lungful of the night air, he nearly retched. The stench of offal, shit, and vomit wafted in from a window. The two looked over and saw a beggar staring at them.
“Ho,” cried the beggar, “some hospitality for a poor old man.”
Socrates nodded. “Of course, old man. My slave should have left a plate out for you. We’re very hospitable around here, so I always make sure she leaves provision for the poor.”
The beggar shook his head, which was buried under a huge mop of matted, gray and black hair. His beard was wild and seemingly ended right under his eyelids. A cragged black hole sported a few brown teeth in the middle of his beard. His eyes were glazed over with cataracts.
“I saw no slave and no plate, kind sir,” the beggar growled, seemingly annoyed.
Socrates stood up and walked to the window. “Come in then. She’ll be whipped for being so forgetful. The door is three steps to your left.” Behind the philosopher, Philippius shoved grape after grape into his mouth. If the stench was coming in, he needed to eat now, and a mouthful of pulp and juice would keep him from saying anything stupid for a few more seconds.
The beggar walked right in, finding his way easily enough in the dim light, and stretched out on Socrates’s couch. “Oh my,” he said as he piled his sunken chest with cheese and meat. “A feast!” He tilted his head crazily, as if it was broken, and examined Philippius. “Your boy!” he called out to Socrates, “or a fuck for the night?”
Socrates silently sat on the floor, crossing his legs. “He is a student. I am his teacher.” He looked at Philippius.
The boy swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes. Socrates is my master, I am sure you have heard of his wisdom.”
“Can’t say that I ha—” the rest of the beggar’s sentence was buried in cheese and bread. He cracked the knuckles of his ten toes loudly, it sounded like a branch breaking off a tree.
Philippius piped up again, “My teacher was just telling us this morning about the ways of the gods.” Socrates sighed and reached for his wine goblet, but the beggar snatched it up and emptied it in one quaff.
“Oh good good, glad to hear it,” the beggar said, dyeing his beard red with the wine. He sputtered a bit more, “Even an evening fuck should be pious. The asses of the unholy are way too loose.”
Socrates asked, “Where are you from, stranger?”
The beggar grabbed a handful of olives and poured them into his mouth. He chewed with his mouth open and spit out half a dozen pits, sending them bouncing across the floor. He belched and finally answered, “Oh, up there somewhere. I’m old, I forget.” He waved his hands toward the north, as if dismissing the entire region.
“Thessaly?” Socrates guessed.
The beggar sat upright. “Thessaly! There are witches in Thessaly!” He leaned in close, twisting to stare at Socrates. “You calling me a witch, boy?” The old man burped again, giving the philosopher a snootful of his own dinner.
Philippius sneaked a plate of figs off the low table and placed it on his lap. He offered one to Socrates. “Teacher . . . ” he began, but the old man jerked forward and knocked the fig out of the boy’s hand. It bounced off the floor and landed right on the beggar’s lap. He jammed the figs into his mouth, crushing them in his bony fingers. His free hand dug under the rags he was wearing to scratch his testicles.
“Must take care of your figs if you want your figs taken care of,” the beggar said with a hoarse laugh. He was the only one who enjoyed the pun. Socrates again reached for the table, but the beggar planted his mud-caked feet on it first, making the plates clatter.
Socrates stood up. The beggar looked at the man. “Hey! Sit down. Tell me, what kind of religion are you teaching this boy?”
Socrates smiled to himself and nodded. Then he turned to Philippius. “Recite for your elder, boy.”
Philippius opened his mouth but didn’t get a syllable out when Socrates shouted, “Wrong! Today’s lesson was Baucis and Philemon. How dare you forget!” The philosopher took a hold of the boy’s white ear and yanked him off the couch.
“Ooowww!” the boy yelped, only to get slapped.
“Enough, boy,” Socrates said, grabbing the boy’s blond curls and yanking on them. Turning to the beggar he said apologetically, “He is a rockhead. I need to whip him immediately. I’m sure you understand.” The beggar looked up from the plate full of sausage he had brought to his mouth.
“Whatever. Rude bastard you are, to leave a guest alone though,” the beggar said. Socrates ignored that insult and pushed his young charge outside.
Philippius turned to face his teacher the moment they reached a portico. “Teacher, what did I do!” Socrates snapped a twig off a tree and leaned in to whisper to his student.
“Fake it!”
Socrates brought the switch down across the trunk of the tree. Philippius yowled, “No master, ooowww!” as if on cue.
“Have you ever seen anybody so rude?” the teacher whispered to his student as he whipped the tree again.
“You’re killing me!” Philippius shouted. Then he whispered back, “Never. Nobody is that crude, that ungrateful.”
Through the window they watched the beggar empty an entire wineskin down his throat. “Nor that gluttonous,” whispered Philippius.
“Exactly,” the teacher whispered, hitting the trunk. Philippius didn’t react so Socrates poked him with a bony elbow. “Yow!” the boy responded.
“What was your lesson for today?”
“That there are no gods?” the boy whispered. Socrates struck the tree. “Aaaah, my tender flesh! Please teacher, I’ll be a good student.”
“Yes, and if there are no gods, then the gods are nobody.”
“And nobody is that inhospitable.”
Socrates hit the tree again.
“Aiiiie! Please sire!”
“Thus, my boy . . . thus? What is your conclusion?”
“Zeus!” the boy shouted.
Luckily, the beggar didn’t look up from inside. “Keep it down, boy,” Socrates hissed again. “Are you aware of the myth of Baucis and Philemon?”
The boy shook his head. The old man frowned and said, “Zounds, you may get a whipping after all. They were a poor couple that Zeus turned into trees after killing everyone in their village.”
“Why?” asked the boy nervously. “Did they displease him?”
“No,” Socrates said with a cluck of his tongue, “they were his favorites. He wandered into a village looking for hospitality and only that old couple showed him any. Transforming men into trees is what he does to people he likes. Imagine what he might do to us!”
They both stopped and stared at the tree they were standing under.
“What do we do?”
“If there are no gods, there are no gods. We’ll have to make sure there are no gods,” Socrates said. Then he whispered the rest of the plan.
The pair walked back in to see the beggar wrestling with Socrates’s slave. “Master,” she cried and the old man let her go. Philippius’s tunic was ripped and he carried a shovel. The philosopher was a bit out of breath but waved his slave away. “You may go, Terpsi.”
As the slave ran off the beggar sighed and farted. “So, anything else to eat? Perhaps a nice melon?” The plates were bare. “Why that spade, boy?” he asked.
Philippius looked away and blushed, but Socrates answered. “He’s dumber than a pig, thus he’ll be shoveling their shit for a few days.”
The beggar nodded. “Hopefully, he’ll learn something about the power of the gods as well.”
Philippius kneeled on the floor as his teacher took his old seat. “Actually, my masters, I do have a question about the gods.”
Socrates nodded. “Go ahead, young fool.” He winked at the old man. “Should be good for a laugh, eh?”
“Could Zeus create a thunderbolt terrible enough to bring down the walls of Athens?”
The beggar laughed. “Of course, child. Mortal stone masonry can’t resist the will of the Sky-Father.”
Socrates nodded again, agreeing. “I was a stone mason back in my day. Rock is weak, even a god’s tears could wear down stone. Look at any river.”
Philippius blushed. “But . . . could Zeus smite Hades with his thunderbolts?”
The beggar laughed again. “Of course, child. Zeus probably would not, since the souls of the dead would be free of their bondage. They would crawl back to the surface of the earth and outnumber the living.” The beggar considered it for a moment further and then confirmed his statement. “Yes, he could do it though.”
Socrates stood up and walked behind the beggar, placing his thick hands on the man’s hunched shoulders. “See, boy? Elders, even the lowest of them, are full of wisdom.”
“Yes, teacher.”
“Of course, he is still only a beggar,” Socrates said with a chuckle. “I, as a philosopher know one thing that even the Sky-Father could not do.” The skies overhead darkened.
The beggar snorted as thunder rolled over the hills bordering the town. “Nonsense,” he said.
Socrates grinned. “Oh, but it is true. There is no irresistible force or immovable object, after all.”
The beggar rose and turned to face Socrates. “Liar. There is nothing that the gods cannot do. Mortal logic is for mortals, gods make their own way.”
Socrates smiled widely. “But I am sure. I am sure there is something Zeus could not destroy, even with a thunderbolt.”
Forked tongues of blue lightning arced down from the horizon. Philippius looked up nervously to glance out the window, but then lowered his eyes.
“Why are you so concerned?” Socrates asked. “What do you think it is that I have in mind?”
“Nothing, there is no such thing that a god could not do,” the beggar said.
“Oh? Could Zeus destroy himself with a thunderbolt?”
Zeus raged, his disguise melting like wax. “You dare! I shall show you now what my bolts can do, even to my own personage!” The room tingled with static and ozone. Socrates felt the hair on his chest and head rise.
“No, wait!” Zeus cried. “You will not use that old trick on me.” The static receded and the clouds rolled back over the ocean. He tapped his feet nervously.
Socrates glanced over Zeus’s shoulder and said, “Look out behind you, my lord.”
“Nor will that trick work. Look behind me indee—”
Philippius buried the blade of the spade into the skull of Zeus. The setting sun broke through the clouds as Zeus fell, dead. Black blood poured from the god’s wound. For a long time, neither teacher nor student had anything to say.
Finally Socrates spoke. “Well, are you waiting for Athena to burst from the gash? Get him out of here. This is my living room.”
“I suppose you’d want to kill her too, if she did show up.”
“Help me get him outside. We’ll throw him in the ditch after we go through his purse.”
Up on high Olympus, some nymphs combed Hera’s hair as she sat on her throne. She frowned as the scent of burning oxen reached her nostrils.
“Bastard, he’s late to dinner again.”
#
Socrates was later executed on charges of atheism and corrupting the youth of Athens.
Later still, much of the city died in a plague.