Selene of Alexandria (11 page)

Selene relaxed slightly. Antonius linked arms with her in the way of students. They followed the sheltered stoa around the periphery of the square to the eastern exit then headed south. They left behind the somber atmosphere of the agora afflicted with the weighty issues of government and law and entered a more carefree environment.

Selene tried to look at everything at once without seeming to. Boys, both younger and older than she, hurried along the streets carrying wax slates or lounged under shaded stoas talking with friends. The occasional older man passed by in white scholar's robes, sometimes accompanied by students, sometimes with a colleague. They passed a silent theater and several loud taverns, young men spilling from the doorway, laughter wafting over the walled courtyard.

As they came opposite a public bath, four boys swept past, jostling Antonius and shoving Selene to her knees as they pelted down the street toward an intersection. Antonius pulled Selene to her feet and yanked her into a doorway. A much larger number of students – she guessed about a dozen – followed closely on the heels of the others, shouting taunts and waving sticks at the fleeing youths.

"I told you this wasn't safe! Those were philoponoi chasing those other students. I recognized their badges."

"The 'zealous ones'? Why would they attack other students?"

"The students being chased are pagans. The philoponoi have been more zealous than ever since the pagan students managed to slip their float into the Prefect's investiture procession. They seemed to have taken that action as a personal affront." Antonius grabbed her arm and tugged her around. "I'm taking you home."

The blood had drained from Selene's face but now came back with a rush.

"I'm not a pagan and have nothing to fear." She yanked her arm away. "I am not going home. I've come so far and I'll see this through."

Antonius clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes. Selene felt her opportunity slipping away. She had counted on his sense of public decorum. No well brought-up boy would dare cause a scene by hauling a girl screaming through the streets – harmony and moderation were the mark of their class. But the resolve in his face boded ill for her plans. Antonius just might ignore convention if he felt she were in true danger.

A knot of unshed tears tightened her throat. She put a hand on his arm and said softly. "Please, Antonius, it was a minor clash. Just boys chasing each other. The streets are calm now." She looked up at him with glittering eyes. "You don't believe I would chance my father's disapproval on a whim, do you? I want this so much. Haven't you ever felt like that? Wanted something so badly, that life without it would be ashes and dust?"

His face softened and his eyes took on a haggard look. "Yes, I've felt that way." He looked around the street, sighed and linked arms with her again. "The lecture halls are this way. Maybe we can catch up with Nicaeus there."

They crossed the street and went around the corner from the baths. Two halls sat side-by-side sharing a solid wall and a flat roof. Tall windows provided air and light to the interior. They entered the building through an off-center opening. Four tiers of stone seats set stepwise against the side and rear walls. Hypatia sat on a double-height seat in the center rear of the room. The space at the front and down the length of the hall between the seats was empty. There seemed to be about forty students, but the tiers could accommodate three or four times that number.

Selene plucked at Antonius' sleeve and whispered. "I want to sit close."

They edged to the back of the hall; taking seats on the bottom row about one quarter of the way past Hypatia's left hand. This was the closest Selene had ever been to the great lady. She had always seen her from a distance; heard her voice carry across crowds. Now she could see the laugh lines at the corners of Hypatia's eyes. Dramatic streaks of white hair flared from her temples, striping the tidy bun at the nape of her neck.

The students stilled as Hypatia called, "Come to order."

Selene listened closely. Hypatia might have an old woman's face, but her voice vibrated with life – a clear alto. Selene, realizing she had been holding her breath, let out a long sigh.

"We've studied the ancients and their philosophy. Today we will discuss the modern thinkers, in particular, Plotinus. Our subject today is the nature of beauty and its relationship to the soul. What is it that attracts the eye? Color? Symmetry?"

Hypatia looked toward a boy seated to her right almost directly across from Selene. He lowered his face, as if he afraid of being called upon.

"Agrippa?"

All heads turned as Agrippa stood to declaim. Selene saw why he tried to hide his face. A large birthmark marred his right cheek, spreading like red wine splashed from forehead to neck. The kitchen servants would call it the mark of a demon. Selene wondered if Hypatia had intended a special message for the afflicted boy through her choice of topic.

Agrippa cleared his throat and started in a near whisper that gradually became louder. "Many declare that the symmetry of parts delights the eye; that the beautiful thing is essentially symmetrical, patterned. Yet Plotinus points out that using this criterion excludes color, the sunlight, the stars at night or a lump of gold. Faces are symmetrical, yet can be accounted beautiful or ugly." His hand crept up to the birthmark. Agrippa looked around self-consciously then abruptly sat down.

"Thank you, Agrippa," Hypatia said in kindly tones. "So beauty is more than symmetry. Is beauty eternal?"

Her piercing gaze settled on Selene, who rose to her feet as if compelled. Selene, vaguely aware of Antonius' frantic whisper and tug on her robes, ignored him as she took a breath and dropped her voice several tones.

"Beauty cannot be eternal for natural processes ensure decay. The flower wilts, skin and limbs wither. Even man-made art chips, weathers and falls to ruin," Selene answered confidently.

Hypatia's lips pursed as she tapped her chin with one finger. "And your name is?"

"Sele...uh...Selonius, Honored Teacher." Selene bowed, in part to hide a blush.

"Those things of and made by man, do indeed fall into decay. But what of those things of and made by God? The stars? The soul? Are they not eternal and therefore eternally beautiful?"

"The stars sometimes fall from the sky, so they can not be eternal. As for the soul?" Selene shrugged. "The presbyters tell us it is eternal, but I have no way of knowing its beauty."

Murmurs rippled through the students and Selene heard a hissed "blasphemer!" as well as several comments in her favor.

Hypatia's eyes narrowed as she raked the crowd. "Take your differences outside. This is an open forum for reasoned discourse not a gymnasium for pugilists. Selonius is correct. We do not know. Yet, the search for knowledge is the essence of divine philosophy – that most ineffable of ineffable things."

She pointed to another boy further down the row from Selene. "Clement, take us back to Plotinus. What does he say of beauty and the soul?"

Selene took her seat as the boy rose. "Plotinus urges us to seek the spark from the One. He says the fount of all that is good or beautiful is within us and not of this world. The beauty we experience with our senses is but a hazy shadow in twilight compared to the beauty we can find through the examination of our mind."

Clement looked at Hypatia as if for confirmation.

"Yes! The mind contemplates the ultimate Beauty and Goodness and not the contrived shifting and ephemera that man beholds in the material order of existence. Life lived according to reason is the purpose of men. Let us pursue that life. We must, through strenuous effort of mind and heart, extract from our inner selves the eye buried within us. This intellectual eye, this luminous child of reason, allows the individual to burst the shackles of matter where beauty cannot remain."

Selene flushed, breathing hard. The words rang in her ears, but did not resonate with her heart. She did not want a life of contemplation, but of action. She gloried in the world of the senses. Would Hypatia understand that? Was she the wrong person to help? Disturbed, Selene listened to the continued discourse.

Antonius' words were drowned by the voices of the other students as Selene pushed her way toward Hypatia. She crept closer as the crowd thinned. Antonius caught up with her but she ignored his threats to drag her back to her father's house by her hair. He hadn't earlier and she doubted he would at this late date. Being so close to her goal, Selene redoubled her efforts. She needed to petition the great lady and determine her fate.

Hypatia rose, dismissing the remaining students in preparation for leaving. Selene, her heart in her throat, stepped into Hypatia's path and bowed gracefully. "I wish to speak to you, Honored Teacher."

The diminutive woman looked her up and down, starting with the dusty sandals, dwelling on her bitten fingernails and finally searching her face. Selene put her hands behind her back and shifted from foot to foot.

"Many wish to speak to me, but I have time for only a few. Who recommends you to me?"

"I come on my own behalf, at great personal risk." Selene's voice edged up in her nervousness. "I will take little of your time, Lady."

"I think I see." Hypatia reseated herself and patted the stone next to her. "Please sit down. I'm straining my neck looking up at you." Antonius stood back several paces, a scowl marring his dark good looks. "Antonius, isn't it? Don't just stand there. Come join us."

Selene perched on the edge of the tier. Antonius approached, bowed, and murmured, "Thank you, Honored Teacher," then took a seat on the other side of Selene.

"Now, my dear, what is so important that you must risk disgrace and your family's displeasure roaming around the city in that costume?"

Blood rushed to Selene's cheeks. "You knew?"

"Not for sure until just now. You are tall for a girl and chose your draperies well to disguise the most obvious features of your sex. But there is a certain fineness of bone and variability of voice that give you away to any keen observer."

Selene sat silent, staring at her hands clasped in her lap without seeing them. She raised her head and looked steadily into the questioning eyes of the older woman. "Soon I will be of an age to marry. My father will choose my husband. My husband will choose where we live, what social relationships we honor, even how we educate our children. The Church will dictate my conduct in public and private. I want to make some choices for myself. I wanted to meet a woman who made choices for herself."

"Ah, my child, that is where you are wrong. I did not choose this life. I was born to it as you are born to yours. My father Theon was a mathematician with the Museum. He was graying when I was born, and my mother died before my second birthday. I grew up reading from his texts, listening to his scholar friends arguing over meals. The Great Library was my playground. In form, I am a woman, but in the content of my mind and the nature of my soul, I am a philosopher. This is not a life you choose but one that chooses you."

Tears threatened to spill from Selene's eyes. She rapidly blinked them away. "But I do feel chosen. I want to study." She hesitated before telling her innermost secret; afraid Antonius would laugh, or, worse, Hypatia would. She took a deep breath. "I know you feel philosophy is the highest calling of man, nurturing the soul. I wish to follow a humbler path and study medicine. Not just midwifery or the herbals and nostrums the wise women sell in the market. I want to study anatomy, surgery and the works of Galen and Hippocrates."

"Philosophy is a fit subject for men or women of your rank but medicine is work for freedmen. Why would a girl of your birth wish to study to be a physician?"

"I want to know 'why.' Why do some wounds heal and others don't? What is the function of our organs – heart, brain, lungs, muscles? Why do some of our parts get diseased? Why do we have hot fevers, but shiver as if we are cold? I want to know and I want to help people with what I know. I've already been practicing."

Antonius snorted. "Splinting a bird's wing or tending a sick kitten doesn't make you a physician."

Selene rounded on him, chin high. "Who sewed you up when Nicaeus clouted you on the head with a practice sword last year? You almost fainted at the sight of all that blood. I didn't even twitch." She grabbed him by the forelock and pulled his head down. "Show Hypatia your scar."

"Ouch!" He batted her hand away and rubbed at the stinging spot.

"Children!" Both sets of eyes turned to the stern voice. "I've never been one to discourage a true calling, even for one of the humbler arts. If your soul leads you to this, it is a powerful force for learning. Most people with a passion will not be denied. They find a way to live their dreams or they turn into bitter, destructive people."

Hypatia cupped Selene's chin with her hand. "We are so different, yet in this, I think we are very alike. 'Why' is the great question of scholars. Most people leave that question behind in childhood after being told 'it's God's mystery.' But some few search beyond and find answers for the rest of us. You will find your way, I'm sure of it. Come tomorrow just after mid-day meal to the Great Library and I'll show you where to look for the texts you need and introduce you to some possible teachers. Antonius," Hypatia snapped her fingers, "you needn't look like a fish out of water." He closed his gaping mouth. "Please see that Selene makes it home safely."