Realms of Gold Read online

  “But it’s also true that many Krotoniates were against excessive blood sacrifice and loathed the dissolute Sybarites for offering so many animals to Persephone, daughter of Demeter, an important goddess in a city whose wealth was derived from growing and selling wheat throughout the Mediterranean.”

  “What you’re telling me doesn’t sound very different from what goes on today. Two opposing ideologies— on the one hand, the avid vegetarians, recyclers, conservationists—and on the other, the conspicuous consumers of too many expensive goods.”

  “And later on it was Socrates who teaches that we must know to choose the mean and avoid the extremes. The earlier Sybarites had gone far over the edge with so much wealth, gold and purple dye, and such excessive, decadent luxurious living—truphe in Greek.”

  They wander the site for two hours, until the mist turns to rain. Since the museum is closed, Giovanni promises her that they will come back another time. The director is a colleague and she would be happy to show them around. They head for the car. He turns on the engine and the heater before unfolding a map to show her the route the Krater might have taken across the Italian boot from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian Sea to Massilia where it would have gone up the Rhone, then to its tributaries, finally to reach the oppidum at Vix.

  “There’s another theory that the Krater would have reached the Celtic oppidum on Latisco by way of a route over the Alps, but it doesn’t make sense to me that it would have been hauled all the way to the north of Italy over the mountain range, then across to Burgundy. Especially when we’re so close to the Tyrrhenian Sea on Italy’s West Coast and such a short way from here to Laus, another of the Sybarites' trading cities. It had to have been safer and quicker. The Krater was made in seven pieces which made the journey easier. Also there might have been a stop at Poseidonia where many Sybarites had fled; but most likely it was loaded on a boat as soon as they reached the coast, maybe at a port near Laus Calabria, then taken to Massilia, from there up the Rhone and to the Seine.”

  “I still can’t get over this striking concurrence—our meeting because of the wedding was certainly not pure chance, but that both of us are obsessed by the Krater—now that's a remarkable coincidence.” She shakes her head in wonder.

  “In this case there’s no such thing as coincidence. Again, it’s synchronicity— events unlikely to ever occur together by chance. You see, Bianca, the culmination of synchronicity is its direct revelation of destiny, the design of the whole universe working itself out in the display of each unique human life. And since you delve so deeply into the unconscious, synchronism is activated and can occur frequently. Again, it’s all that right brain business I keep talking about. “

  “Then how does chance figure in? I always wondered what the difference is between chance and destiny."

  He smiles. “Chance may simply be a curious way the universe has of helping us to work out our destinies.”

  *

  They leave the site of Sybaris and check out of the hotel at noon. She asks him about stopping at Kroton.

  “Kroton would be a big disappointment to you. There’s virtually nothing left of antiquity there. The city was devastated by an earthquake in 1905 and completely rebuilt. Not one of Italy’s best architectural endeavors, I might add. Only one massive column from the Temple of Hera Lacinia remains and you can’t get close to it because it’s surrounded by an ugly chain link fence. And we don’t even have a clear blue sky to take a good photo. Better that you see it in your visions, Bianca; imagine it as it was once. As for Lokri—it’s the same story.

  “Regrettably, the ruins of Lokri’s most renowned shrine, the temple of Persephone, have not been found, but in the valley below they’ve discovered a large deposit of votive pinakes, so the conclusion is that her temple originally stood there.

  “I suggest that we begin the journey of the Krater by driving through the mountains on one of the routes the Sybarites would have taken.”

  What is she letting herself in for? What might she lose? Or gain!

  “Okay--where do we start—and when do we leave?”

  Lamellae

  Orphic lamella, Plural lamellae, Magna Graecia

  Small gold tokens found for entrance into a golden afterlife: the deceased who were buried with them believed that they had earned Paradise.

  Zatoria

  We leave Lokri as dawn paints rosy streaks across the sky. I ask my father if we might go to Sybaris but he tells me that first we must make the two day journey to Kroton to visit the School of his most renowned student, Pythagoras. Often I hear Zalmoxis say that of all his pupils it is Pythagoras of Samos, who understands with mind and heart his teachings of the everlasting travel of the soul.

  My father’s fame has spread to Megále. Hellás They tell me that in Thrace he strummed his lyre and sang with Orpheus himself and that he believes that the soul lives past this lifetime. In his daily rites he says he travels from this world to the Other. Zalmoxis tells his followers that in their hearts they do not die, but their lives change time and place and so they go to their deaths happier than on any other journey.

  And Pythagoras teaches his pupils about the principles of numbers and how to write the very sounds of music. And women are treated as respectfully as men

  *

  When we arrive in Kroton, this most healthful city of Megále Hellás, we find rooms in a hostel of great comfort, where both men and women, students and acolytes of the most esteemed Pythagoras, dine together at long tables. As we stand at the entrance of the school, a servant announces the arrival of Zalmoxis, the seer of Thrace, and me, his daughter, Zatoria.

  Pythagoras has not yet arrived. When he appears, I see how thin he is and that he is not as tall as I would have expected from a Hellene. He is dressed in a white tunic and wool chalmys; his skin is sun-bronzed, his beard as white as the hair on his head. As he stands at the portal, his intense blue eyes scan the room, as if to commit every face to memory. Following behind him are his wife, Theano, and his daughter. Theano is strong and stout, his daughter, Myia, the wife of the famous athlete, Milo of Kroton, is slender as a willow. Both women wear the soft white chalmys of his followers.

  We eat well, but we have been served no meat, only greens, root vegetables and pulses, sweet figs from Smyrna, the dried red berries of Corinth. We are offered wine from the vineyards of the Oenotrians. A servant stands by with a krater half filled with thick dark wine, already strained and free from lumps of pine resin. Into it he pours spring water from an Attic hydria.

  When the revered Pythagoras stands to speak, voices are hushed, the room becomes silent.

  The great man welcomes us and offers his wisdom. “Man,” he tells us,“may be divided into three groups. There are many whose goal in life is to acquire worldly goods, the pursuit of pleasure and the satisfaction of physical impulses. Many Sybarites fall into this class. Sybaris, the Decadent, Sybaris the Soft, is now the enemy of Kroton.

  “The second, smaller group, gains success and fulfillment in praiseful enterprise or good works. Among these, are those who, for the glory of their polis, strive toward victory in Olympia. Milo, the Herakles of Kroton, was winner at the Olympiad six times.

  “The highest and the fewest are those who love wisdom, those whose lives are devoted to pursuits of the mind—the philosophers, whose entire lives are given to searching for the true wisdom of the universe. Perhaps theirs are not only the greatest gifts, but also the greatest challenges.

  Yes, my followers, remind yourselves that all men may indeed assert that wisdom is the greatest good, but there are few who strenuously endeavor to obtain this good.”

  Then a student comes forward and presents to Pythagoras a basket of twisted willow. On a silken cloth lies a sheet of thin, flattened gold, what the Hellenes call lamellae. Pythagoras reads aloud the Orphic prayer incised on the golden sheet.

  Address MNEMOSYNE, mother of Muses,with these words:

  I am the child of earth and starry heaven.

 
Come, give me cool water

  Flowing forth from the Lake of Memory.

  For it is memory that leads us

  From one lifetime to another.

  I, Zatoria, then and there committed these words to my own memory.

  As we leave the symposium, strangers ask if Zalmoxis has taught me the ways of shamans. I tell them that I do not need to be taught things that are already within me, for, as my father often says, the surest way to become a shaman is to be born of one. I do not feel I am endowed with magic powers. My father does not teach me to bestow savage curses or work magic binding spells for unhappy lovers as the Hellenes are wont to do.

  I think of myself as only a teller of stories, like mother like daughter.

  *

  At noon the cold, dreary sky has the muffled look of impending snowfall. Bianca starts to shiver and Giovanni turns up the heat in the car. She closes her eyes and listens to the steady hum of the motor, the alchemy of her mind all the while transmuting gloomy, gray Sybaris into gold.

  Zatoria

  As we leave Kroton and make our way to Sybaris, I gaze out at mountains in the distance, the shadows on the valleys and hills make me think of green lions, long limbs stretched out, their paws resting on mountain peaks.

  Beyond the city walls lie the villas of the richest Sybarites, those who have herds of white cattle or vast wheat lands and vineyards. They ride in canopied wagons or in litters where they repose upon silk cushions shot with gold. To give them protection from sun and rain, awnings are stretched from side to side across the long, straight roads.

  As I passthrough the city gates, I think that I have entered the portal to the Otherworld, a golden, glittering, crimson, purple Otherworld. Its richness is something to behold, neither in Olbia nor in Sinope have I seen such wealth. Even the poor are rich, and slaves wear garments far better than those of any Hellene I have ever seen in Olbia. The colors, bright saffron, scarlet and the blue of lapis, are unlike the somber woven wool clothing of the Hellenes. The women paint their eyes in the manner of the Etruscans, lining their eyelids with soot, coloring their lips a lustrous carmine. They buff their fingernails with golden powder and wrap their hair in golden fillets adorned with jewels. Their chitons are sewn from byssus, a cloth woven of threads spun from the spit of whelks abounding on these shores, or they wear peploses of sheer flax cloth sold by sea traders.

  We pass a woman dressed in a chiton of purple cloth gleaming like the skin of an onion. She is riding in a wagon under a white linen canopy festooned with branches of yellow acacia. Gold bracelets encircle her wrists, her lips are rouged, her cheeks flushed. On her head she wears a wide-brimmed hat of woven straw shielding her fair skin from the sun. A white horse with a golden harness draws her cart. On her lap she holds an ivory and gold coffer. Zalmoxis tells me that she is on her way to leave her offering at the shrine of Hera, the goddess much revered by the Sybarites.

  As we are arriving at the house of our host, the Archon, we see a slave parading Hera’s peacock about on a leash. The bird’s silvery blue-green feathers are bound so that it cannot flare its tail. We watch as the slave unties the cord, and the peacock proudly spreads his tail wide for us. We admire its design of many eyes, the peacock’s gift from Hera.

  In Athens strangers are not welcome, but here, citizens of Sybaris welcome outsiders to their polis, as well as “barbarians,” the name the Hellenes give those who do not speak their language. We enter the courtyard of the villa of our host. He greets us with courtesy, eager to hear the wisdom of Zalmoxis. Around the walls grow thick garlands of vines, heavy with clusters of purple grapes flushed silver, soon to be ripe for plucking. Beyond the plain of Sybaris our host's vines grow along the hillsides. When the grapes have been crushed and the wine is rich and dark, it flows through the pipes from our host's villa to the port, ready to be stored in amphorae to sell or to trade with the Keltoi or the Tyrrhenoi. The Phoceans of Massilia trade their wine and olive oil for tin and amber.

  A woman of the household presents me with a chest made of fragrant Phoenician cedar. Inside I find a white silk peplos and, to wear over it, a mantle of the whitest, softest goat hair bordered with ivy leaves of hammered gold so thin they tremble as I breathe. The women admire my hair and twist it with flowers and a fillet of gold ribbon. My bed is spread with a cushion of swans down, ample enough for me to lie on, and a cool silken sheet to cover my body. The beds here are so soft that the wife of our host is said to have complained that rose petals beneath her mattress ruined her sleep, but I think this is silly gossip spread by envious Hellenes from Attica.

  Our host tells us that today Zalmoxis is to be the symposium’s honored guest. He proudly shows us the tables already prepared for reclining. Their bases are supported by carved winged griffins, and they are covered with a finely-woven cloth so sheer it must have heavy gold weights in each corner lest the breezes cause it to ruffle. The plates and cups are gold, rubbed until gleaming by a slave who does nothing but polish gold. The Sybarites will have none of silver. Silver is for other Hellenes, the less rich Hellenes of Kroton.

  The tables will soon groan with all manner of meat dishes, dishes normally eaten only on feast days by other Hellenes. Because Sybarites often lead their finest heifers to the altars, the flesh from sacrifice is standard fare. But fish is also eaten here, and the Sybarites excel in its preparation. They delight in the golden red mullet, cuttlefish stuffed plump with rare spices from faraway lands. Eels in anchovy sauce are a favorite delicacy, as are song birds baked in crust, buds of caper blooms, and lupine seeds preserved in wine vinegar to cleanse the palate. But the most precious dish is roast truffles, as they are said to be the food of Aphrodite. One chief household cook was crowned by the Archon for a dish he enjoyed more than any other, a recipe concocted with these fragrant fungii, a gift from the Tyrrhenoi, the traders whose sniffing pigs dig for them at the base of oaks. The Archon boasts that this fine dish has been deemed worthy of a patent, and no other cook is allowed to prepare it for one year.

  The day has already gone into night. For it seems only then do these people socialize: the Sybarites dine all night and sleep by day. Their windows are lined with sheer linen panels to keep out flying insects and the zanzari that breed in the marshes. Before these people allow their guests to enter a dining room, they burn special herbs to keep away these tiny, flying demons. And the women of Sybaris and Poseidonia sometimes dine with the men— not only the hierodule, but also their own wives. At these famous dinners, the Muses are always honored: poetry is recited, lyres are strummed, flutes piped, and everywhere there are maidens whirling and swirling. Slaves pass golden bowls heaped with klustre, ribbons of coiled dough fried crisp in olive oil, then dribbled with honey and chopped almonds.

  Tonight, only my eyes feast on the food. My stomach will have none of it. My father takes note that I am silent, distant, and that I do not eat.

  *

  Later, on my bed, I cannot sleep. My feelings are strong, and strange. Music must still be playing but I hear only shouting and screaming. I cannot quiet these sounds of pain and agony.

  Now I hear the voices of men chanting paeans. I hear their marching feet. Where are they going, what enemy do they face? Suddenly terrifying visions appear. A giant leading thousands of men. He is naked except for a lion skin flung over his shoulder. He holds a club in his hand as if he were Herakles, the father of my people, he who planted his seed in the Milouziena. Are they marching to Sybaris? I shudder to think of it. Behind him march countless hoplites. Curved shields, each marked with the letter Kappa, press against their bodies, daggers, swords unsheathed to plunge into human flesh. Archers stand ready to rain showers of arrows down on their enemies.

  Now I see that they are Krotoniates, led by the giant, Milo, ready for battle. I can see the Cavalry of the Sybarites forming a border across the plain. Warriors astride white horses wear golden belts; their helmets flash in the bright sun. They wait still, confident, ready for the signal to charge. Drums beat, trumpets
blare, horns wail. Then an eerie silence, a long moment of stillness as each army faces its enemy. Suddenly hundreds of the hoplites in the front flanks of Krotoniates put flutes to their lips and fill my ears with the sweetest sounds I've ever heard. At once the horses of their enemy begin to dance, leaping up on their hind legs, prancing on their fore legs, standing again on their hind legs, gracefully turning their heavy bodies, hopping on one front leg, then on to the other. Panic spreads among the ranks. Riders tumble to the ground. I hear bloodcurdling screams and the neighs of frightened horses. The giant gives the battle cry and rushes his phalanx into the melee of dancing horses. Javelins fly, swords swing, daggers plunge. Horses collapse to the ground as blood spurts from their bellies. The Krotoniates enter the gates of Sybaris. Shrieking women run with their children. Men rape screaming women on the steps of Aphrodite’s temple, steal her golden cups from the sacred space. Blood runs from the altars of the temple of Hera.

  The giant calls to his men to destroy this despised, decadent city. I see fire and flames, temples collapsing, the altar gutters running with blood, then water, like a bursting dam flooding the city, rising higher and higher until its temples can no longer be seen, until Sybaris the Golden is no longer.

  I am shaking and weeping. Is this a prophecy? Why have I suddenly been given this gift, this curse?

  Giovanni

  They drive through the plain of Sybaris passing hectares of vineyards, here and there rows of tall black cypresses stand like mournful sentinels guarding the leafless vines. “These vines are descendants of those grown by the Greeks of Magna Graecia —a variety called Primitivo, thousands of years old, that produces an excellent wine. You call it Zinfandel in the States,” Giovanni explains. “When we have dinner tonight I’ll order a bottle. Maybe two.”