Arden by: dnrock(dnrock@rock.com)
47: What Is, And What is Not
1319, 7th month, day 24:
I have been musing on the writings of Heraclitus, those that still survive that is. It is easy to see how he influenced those that wrote later. His doctrine of Flux and the Unity of Opposites are most interesting. His ideas of physics are not unlike those of the Atomists. I am told he studied with them. It is on his ideas of moral and political thought that most interest me at this time. "The people should fight for their laws as they would for their city wall." The laws provide a defense for the city and its way of life. These laws are not merely of local interest as they ground their force from a divine law; which he spends many pages explaining. It is the notion of a law of nature that informs human society as well as nature. He suggests their is a human cosmos, that like the natural cosmos, reflects the underlying order of all things. He insists one cannot break a human law with impunity. The notion of a law-like order in nature has its antecedents in the ideas of Anaximander. His ideas of an inherent moral law influenced the Stoics and others since. It influences me, as do the others. I see much in Parga that suggests the balance between the differences, as night and day, are important. This gives me much to think about.
Yesterday Eutukos came to see us. He had been on guard duty and overheard some men speaking in the southern Italian dialect. One of the voices, a very distinctive one, caught his attention. "I looked out the office door way and saw a man I am sure I recognized. He was one of the Florentines that were in Epirus, just before their attempted invasion."
Did this man see you? "No Arden, he did not. I am not sure he would recognize me, in those days I was only a common soldier and had not direct contact with him. Still, I wonder as you must."
"What was his purpose at that time," Iason asked.
"He was a merchant I believe, as he traveled with several others. I do not know what he was selling or buying. His voice is so distinctive that it caught my attention. Once I see a face, I will remember it and combined with the distinctive voice..."
"What name did he give," Polydeukus asked. "He called himself Biagio de Cosenza. He was with two others but seemed to be the leader or spokesperson. I don't remember the name he used before, perhaps I never knew it. He claims not to speak much Greek but as I recall he spoke it well. That is one reason I paid attention to his voice, at the first."
Iason summoned the people who dealt with the spies during that time. It was over 5 years ago now. We thanked him and spent a few minutes socializing. Eutukos told us he was much taken by one of the unwed palace girls and has asked King Iason for her hand, just this morning. This of course required several toasts. I could see from the half smile on Kastor's face he knew her, probably better than socially and approved of Eutukos' choice.
After the Florentine war, changes were made in our money changing system. Coin of the realm can only be minted by the Castle and our Treasury is the only legal money changing authority. Foreign coin is still accepted by our merchants, mostly in the rural areas but less and less of it circulates. I will ask our banking officials about these merchants. It may be simpler to follow the money than the man. If they are who they say they are, tracing their letters of credit should help establish it.
One other concern is our military secrets. They may well be looking for our navigational time clocks, rockets and other armaments, navigational calculators, aiming and siting instruments. None of these are for sale and the less known about them the better. I know our astronomers have used the "far see" to look at the stars and planets. They tell me what they are seeing is amazing. The moon is most interesting. I will make some time to look at these bodies with them. They feel the most important use of the "far see", for them anyway, are the highly accurate measurements of angles and positions. They may also be adapted to surveying and sighting instruments in the future.
Much debate rages about the organization of the heavens. Most feel the earth is at the center, others the sun. For us it matters not, what matters is accurate measurements to set calendars, clocks, geographic position. As one old scholar put it, "man is at the center of his own world; if that world travels around the sun or the sun around it, what difference will it make in how we live, plant our crops or even navigate? None." He feels the "far see", when more developed and disseminated to others, in the future, will be important to astronomy. Through accurate measurements the debate will eventually be resolved. It will take a long time and many accurate measurements. "Not in either of our lifetimes."
William came to us looking for a mentor. He would much like to be courted as he has been told about Lyuben. Kastor told him he would quietly let that be known. I do not know how quietly Kastor was, within the hour the three terrors were upon me, insisting I recruit Mohammed to the task. I told them I thought he was a fine man and my friend but probably not all that interested in sex with boys and until he established his own independent household, an impossibility.
These boys are up to something, that I can tell. Exactly what I can only guess but I am sure they are scheming to make this happen. If they are half us four older princes, they will succeed. I think it best I not know how.
1319, 7th month, day 25:
Admiral Pantaleon and the Captain of the Prince Nikias came to Kastor, requesting Prince Nikias join them for a week of sailing. Kastor agreed. They would sail on the morning tide. I was not all that happy about it. Nikias is my eromenos and I do not feel he is ready for independent travel. I went to Father for advice. "Arden son, Nikias is ready and able. You have given him the best mentoring possible. We must let the fledgeling fly when he is ready. He will learn what he does not yet know as you did, by the doing.
Iason and I had to do this. Every father or older brother and every mentor must. Take heart in this, the first time is the hardest. It is never easy but becomes less troubling with time. Some day your son and your Crown Prince eromenos will be taking their first independent steps. Having this experience will make that just a little less disquieting."
Another lesson for the middle princes? "No Arden, another lesson for my beloved son. This is one time sharing is not possible, except the knowledge that in turn, your brothers will experience the same." Father is correct, I know that. Logic tells me not only is he correct but it is best for Nikias. That does not make it any easier for me. I should have at least objected. I did not, what if Nikias thinks I do not care? These were my thoughts and reactions. Later when Nikias was told he ran to me and pinning me on our bed kissed me over and over thanking me for supporting him with my silence. For having confidence in him. I did not have the heart to tell him the truth of my innermost feelings. Some day he too will be in the same position and like Father, he will understand how I felt and like him and me, let the fledgling try his wings.
I am supposed to be a rational man. Mostly I am. Arden the rational man agrees. Nikias is ready and in the closed environment of his named ship, on a mission largely lacking in danger, under the guidance of the Admiral and his Captain, he can only do well. I will make sure Panther keeps a close eye on him. That too is rational, it soothes my soul as well.
Now I think I understand why Uncle and Father have delegated the training of our brothers to us. Not all of it but a good part. It is more preparation for our office. King and Consort are, among other things, father and mentor to all. We middle princes will one day be the senior princes, with sons and young eromenoses of our own. We need be prepared. We need be prepared as well for that wider semi political role, now filled by Father and Uncles. It is frightening to think about and yet it is the natural progression of things. I know also that I will face this many times as: Umar, Aisopos, Zoe, Helladios and even Lysandros and the others, mature and fledg. At the very least I need be comforted that I have had the best teachers, I am a good student and if nothing else, we teach as we were taught.
The design of the wind speed device is almost final. It will work in conjunction with a timing device. The rotating pedometer revolutions will be counted and displayed by an arrow, that moves like the arrows of a clock. Indicating the number of turns for a given length of time. This indicates the number of feet or stadia for that time. It is a way of indicating imputes. By using one on a ship and another on the land and triangulating the positions of the ship, the distance can be calculated and that related to the imputes measure. In this way we can relate the speed of the wind to the speed of the ship with a given sail configuration, weight and sea state, to the imputes. The experimental imputes device will be installed on the roof of the castle. Once we are sure it is working properly, others can be built.
1319, 7th month, day 26:
The Clock Maker's apprentice, reported that the merchants were asking many questions about our clocks. They did not seem to believe him, that the only clocks made here had pendulums and weights, not unlike others in Italy and France. They also were very much concerned with our production capabilities. That sounds like a merchant concern. When asked for details about the three, he noted that Biagio de Cosenza seemed most interested in what he was not being shown, the other two, most interested in what he was showing them, quantities, prices and reliability, ease of repair and so on. He was sure they were in fact merchants, about Biagio de Cosenza, their apparent leader, he was not convinced. None of the people these men will meet, know anything about our secret products. I made sure of that.
He had handed them off to the Spectacle and Lens Makers guild. I figure Biagio de Cosenza is indeed after our military secrets. I assumed they would be seeing the instrument makers next. Most of our standard lenses and instruments have been sold for years now. Very few have purchased our tide calculators. Not that they do not work very well. Except for our astronomers and ingegneres, almost no one knows how to calibrate them. They appear only useful for this geographic region because of that.
Time will tell but I think now that Biagio de Cosenza is a spy and the other two more or less real. He has brought them along to lend credibility. Now if they brought money...
I suggested they be invited to meet with us, once they have been shown that which we wish to sell and they have some interest in purchasing. Since only surplus can be exported, they need seek export permits anyway. Should they wish to purchase, they must come and see me to get them. I asked Kastor to lend Hilarus to me for the next few weeks, so he could be trained to sell these items. Perhaps a little play acting on our part will win us both sales and information.
I am loth to sell anything that can easily be copied. Simple lenses and reading spectacles, clocks and astrolabes are not unique to Parga, so we will sell them. That which is sold, should either be so complex, copying is more difficult than purchase or so common, price and quality make the market.
I am constantly amazed at how beautiful all of my male family is. Almost everyone is naked in our privet quarters and it is so stimulating to see them. We fuck, suck, kiss, fondle and just enjoy each other's company. I have taken to writing in my office, some months ago now, as I find trying to record anything, with so much activity taking place, impossible.
Iason and I must need seek some privet time together, as do the other couples. That is needed to keep ourselves in touch with the roots of our love. Passion not directed is passion misused. We all agree that we need both passion between lovers and passion that is more lustful toward other's in the family. Our boys seem to understand that. They, like us, want and need both in their lives. Passion shared with their mentor and passion shared with the others.
I am so stimulated by just the lust displayed between any of them, that seeing it brings me to complete readiness and overwhelms me with the need to participate. Long ago we decided that masturbation was the poor cousin of passionate lust and all of us only engage in it when no others are available to assist. That seems almost never to be the situation.
It is such a pure delight to have so many young boys learning their limits and testing their abilities. It seems that every hour of the day someone is in need of fucking or being fucked, sucking or being sucked, kissing and cuddling or being kissed and cuddled. It seems that someone is always available to share and service those needs.
Since Ikaros has discovered how wonderful fucking boys is, he has not only changed his opinions and actions with us, he and Dysme and their two eromenoses, have trained all the towel and chamber boys most thoroughly. They now ware only a simple short tunic that terminates just below the buttocks or a short simple loose fitting kilt or both. In the baths or our privet bed chambers they are naked. I have noticed they are not only pleased to engage in sex with any of us, they are highly skilled at it. Even the youngest require no instruction.
For these young men it is mostly lust but lust directed. None are ever forced and I know they are not responding to our stations. It is true that most of the chamber boys are males who love males, like Dysme. I also noticed that almost all of the art works in our quarters are highly erotic and almost all portrayals of males and any females are being serviced by one or more males. (TN: I think he is describing what we would call pornography.)
I noticed the other day, the new trainees that had reached sufficient development, their scrotums were filled; all had small leather straps tied around the base of their boyhood. They seemed in a constant state of erection that need to be looked after. I personally helped several until Nikias finished his duties. Then he too helped. Between us we had my current chamber boy, Nikias and three others with me at one time. No sooner had we finished then Iason came in with several more. Now that these boys are accustomed to our man sized erections in their anus, they seem to want little else. I do enjoy fucking and fucking them is most delightful.
Nothing but nothing is better than waking up with Iason morning erection poking between my butt cheeks and his arms wrapped around me. Perhaps his cock up my anus is better but some times I am not sure which I like the most.
1319, 7th month, day 30:
Much happened and not much happened. That sounds like a true paradox. I like investigating paradoxes. My time seems to have been completely taken up, yet I accomplished little of true importance to anyone but myself.
We experimented with timing races but not with the new Timer, which is still under construction. We found, races longer than 3 stadia can be easily timed by signaling the start at the beginning of a minute and counting the minutes and parts, until the race is won. For the very long distances this method works quite well. For the shorter distances, the arrow and dials are not fine enough, as close runners finish in order but not noticeable time difference. The divisions of 1/60 as proposed are needed. I would like to see 1/120 divisions on a large dial, that would be even better. If runners are far apart, one Timer will work well but if close, not well. On the very long races, runners do not seem to be close but that will change as runners improve their training.
Now that the clock makers have experienced the timing of races, I am sure they will build a truly useful device. Having given us runners, even this crude data will assist, as I had speculated, in helping us to improve. The coaches are in agreement with this. What we see is, the fastest runner will run no faster than his competition, save a step or two. The speed is than related more to the second fastest runner, than the first. Since all do not train together or even at the same place, we will soon train to meet the same minimum standard of time, over a fixed distance. Dios and Helladios are most interested in this method, as they can measure themselves against, not only the boys they run with, but with other boys close in age through out Parga.
We have begun recruiting masters and apprentices to the staff of the Achemedia. Starting with clock and instrument makers for the Timer projects and the tempered glass projects. I think it important to involve the users of these devices, to assist in setting standers, requirements, even design. I will ask one or two of our coaches to do this.
More information has come to light about the Napioe merchants. It is as we thought, two are real and one is not. Word has come that the one who is not, this Biagio de Cosenza, has letters of credit from Napioe but that are backed by letters of credit from Avignon, the city, not the Church. Our sources do not think Biagio de Cosenza is retained by the Pope but by others at the very top. The Bank that issued the letters of credit, is interestingly enough, the Church's bank. My suspicious mind sees more connection then may exist.
I have been giving this some thought. Nothing about Parga has changed, we are still not a desirable place. Our harbor is secure but to small for a large fleet. We will cost to much. How would military intelligence or our inventions benefit a religious organization that has no army? Directly it would not but if that information or invention could give some advantage to a state, that would act on the Church's behalf... That I think would be of great value, it would give the church leaders leverage with kings and others who would do their bidding. Perhaps they believe the stories of my magical powers? Given some of the other things they profess to believe, I would not doubt it. Maybe I am a devil or magician, as some ignorant and uneducated believe. If they truly believe in such nonsense I fear for us all, mostly the poor and uneducated or the very cleaver, who might offend them. They are educated and should know better. Apparently however, they seem not, for they act in far to many ways, as the barbarians they so greatly fear. Perhaps to them I am a barbarian? If that is true, then they do need fear me.
I think they should fear me and Parga. Not for the reasons they do. They should fear us as the last repository of knowledge that shows them for what they are. Their political leaders should fear us as the last example of true Greek Democracy. Unfortunately we are to many and to distant apart, to vote on everything, as in ancient times. We are stuck with this modified Greek and Roman style representative system. It has flaws as do all systems, even that proposed by Plato in his Republic. As long as we can remain a secular state, governed by rational principals and a free, educated people, Parga will continue and prosper. I now realize how prophetic Father's comments about leadership were. I too hope and will work as hard as I can, so that this extraordinary leadership is not required and therefore not realized. If successful, that too will be the result of extraordinary leadership but of a different kind.
1319, 8th month, day 1:
Iason and Alexandros have only 68 days until their weddings. As the days grow closer Iason and I, also grow closer, if that is possible. Umar is learning his music better than I ever thought possible of him. We are now often able to play together, something he seems to greatly enjoy, as do I. Nikias returned. He was overjoyed and Panther reported he not only behaved himself but gained the love and affection of the entire company. Knowing him and Panther, I suspect Nikias was climbing in the rigging and getting into the middle of anything else that was happening. Like us, he does not want to be just thought of as a pretty face on the figure head.
The news from Bejaia, provided by the usual questionably reliable sources, suggests the Umar incident, as I like to call it, has been set aside. Much reorganization has been taking place in the sultan's palace. A few privateers from other places have moved in. They seem to be back in the pirate business, although still reduced in numbers. What I hear, but do not like hearing, are the wild stories circulating about me and my magical powers.
The power structure in Avignon is hard at work, to strengthen its authority and increase its revenue. They seem to stop at nothing. Patronage appointments, crusades against anyone they don't like or can't get to tithe them appropriately, in their estimation, general corruption and so on is rampant. Much of this is blamed on the influence of the French. But that blame is placed by the Italians, the French have the opposite view. They would all very much like to gain ecclesiastical influence over the eastern Patriarchs, if they can. Father Georgio tells me, he personally is glad to be rid of them. He has his problems with others in the Eastern Church but nothing like he would have from Avignon or Rome, if they ever move back.
The Venetians, Florentines and others have established western congregations in their eastern colonies. They are limited in influence by the locals. All this is not to mean that some of the dogma of the eastern church is any more palatable then the west. The Orthodox churches have been less willing to persecute those they believe are heretical and seem to allow for the differences in local culture, to a greater extent. On the issue of male to male sex they both agree, it is a sin and once the churches got into the business of making laws, not legal. This goes against all the pre christian traditions, except those of the Jews. It is a very old Judaic tradition, ambiguously written and only sparingly mentioned, one not even supported by the later writers in the Christine testaments or an accurate translation of the Hebrew and its context.
Be all that as it may, in Parga it is not against any laws and if the Christians wish to view it as a sin, as the Jews or others do, so be it. I think their arguments and admonitions are weak and built on a few scattered refferences in the mythological parts of their writings. (TN: Arden did not use mythological in quite the same way we moderns would. For him mythology is story. For him mythology had a much wider meaning. It was the same as for us, in not being the word of the divine.) Those writings were done for a specific culture in an ancient time and another place. Sodom is reported by the Jews as being destroyed by god for some offense. Greek historians that have investigated this, as best as they could, given the ancient time of it, tell us an earthquake was responsible. What I found in my travels were substantial numbers of men and boys who willingly fucked each other and us. Should these attitudes become enshrined in law, those people are in for a very hard time of it.
The Patriarch of Parga well knows this and more. He grew up here and I know his priests and himself have all fucked his alter boys and acolytes, just as they were fucked. They have told me. They also told me, it is a practice not unknown in all Christine lands. This flies in the face of the church's emphasis on chastity. Some in both churches recoiled at this practice, even leading a few, so called pais, to self castration. Not in Parga, that I know about.
I think this is all rather stupid but then I like to fuck. I like to fuck boys, men and young women. Eunuchs can still fuck, they just can not reproduce. I have never had an older woman but some tell me they are most desirable, having some experience. Judging the ever expanding populations of other states, I guess most people are like me.
I find many attitudes of the religions, all of them, to be more about control of people, from what they are allowed to think to what they should and should not do. The Muslims even tell the faithful how to clean shit from their asses. I guess if you live in a sandy desert with nothing around, the suggestion or custom makes some sense. I think I will stay with my sponge and salt water, combined with washing my hands with soap.
I do not understand why everyone, except most of the Pagans, are so frightened by nudity. I think it is the old and ugly of both sexes that insist so. Yet they let small children run naked and think nothing of it. I think this is false modesty. Perhaps they feel ashamed and wish to teach or force others to fell this way. I also think some of this stems from the old idea, that a person can be the property of another. One day an old woman chastised me for being naked, saying, "do you know no shame prince, do you not think you set a poor example for others?" I think I shocked her by saying, I know what sham is, being naked is not shameful. Clothing has its purpose and usefulness as does nakedness, shame has no place in either.
I learned in my studying of the law, in Parga it is not illegal for someone to spy. It is illegal for someone who has been entrusted with a state secret to reveal it. It is not illegal for the person who learns it, to transmit that knowledge. It is illegal for the learner to pay a bribe or give any favor to acquire it. I doubt many know this. Good, I will keep it that way.