“No, it’s legit,” Kayla went on. “We basically proved that the Jotnar created the evil empires in Earth’s history so they could control people. And by ‘we’ I mean Thandi and Christie, because they read a lot more than I do.”
“Oh, that’s interesting,” said Bibi. “I suppose you’d have been talking about Pythagoras and Plato?”
“Yeah,” Thandi said, “but Kayla’s overselling it a bit—we only got up to Alexander the Great. There were reasons to suspect that Pythagoras had extra-terrestrial help. It seems pretty obvious how his whole belief system influenced later authoritarian regimes.”
Bibi nodded. “Of course, after Hellenism, Roman military expansion and the imperial cult. Gosh, that’s kind of creepy. Genocidal aliens messing with human culture? Although it makes sense. How else could the most advanced civilizations have been so horrifically barbarous?”
“Humans, of course, take after their role models,” Christie agreed. “Genocidal tyrants beget genocidal tyrants.”
“Hey, hold on a sec,” Kayla said. “It’s not so obvious to me what happened after Alexander the Great. Could you expand on that?”
“Heaven forbid you start to study history,” Christie said, as she flashed her a disappointed look.
Kayla crossed her arms. “You know what, I actually tried to get into some history books. But there’s so much disagreement and it gets frustrating to figure out what really happened. It’s easier when you girls summarize things for me.”
Christie peered owlishly at her. “I see. In that case I shall draft a quote for my services and book you in for next year.”
Kayla rolled her eyes. “Fine, if you’re going to be an ass about it...”
“Hey, I want to know about this stuff.” Lyna said. “I don’t know much history, but it sounds interesting.”
“Yeah, no worries, I’ll break it down,” Thandi said.
She gave a summary of the cult of Greek aristocrats who had tried to subvert democratic city-states, and their gatekeeping of secret knowledge for the elites.
“And don’t forget,” Kayla added, “that Plato was saying that all the women in his city would belong to all the men, who would have sex with them whenever they liked, while anyone considered inferior would basically have their children stolen and murdered.”
“Oh, that’s gross,” Lyna said with a shudder. “Who in their right mind would accept an idea like that?”
“The Hellenistic world, apparently,” Kayla said. “They let Plato’s ideas run their society, right?”
“No, it didn’t work out that way,” Thandi said. “After Alexander died, his fledgling empire broke apart. His generals started fighting over the pieces in the wars of the Diadochi. After a couple of decades of conflict, a new group of empires was born, ruled by a Macedonian and Greek elite class, called Hellenes. The Seleucid empire controlled most of the middle east, the Ptolemaic empire controlled Egypt, while the Antigonid kings ruled Macedonia and Greece.”
“I bet they thought they were civilizing the barbarians,” Kayla said.
Thandi shrugged. “Sure, but greed had a lot to do with it. The Hellenes flooded into the newly conquered territories, buying up cheap land and building colonies. They became an aristocratic militarized class that ruled over every native population between Greece, Egypt, and Afghanistan. Alexander’s generals all adopted the trappings of emperors; quasi-divine entities that ruled with an iron fist. They ruined communities with wars, forced them to speak Greek, and then pay for giant monuments to their new rulers. The Hellenes exploited their subjects even more with high taxes, and extortionate loans for business, leaving them with enormous levels of debt.”
“Looks like the Jotnar were succeeding in building their control,” said Bibi.
“Sort of. The native people had no power at all. They had to try and influence the monarchy by demonstrations of adoration and loyalty. If he was impressed, the king might grant them favors. This led to a new kind of social system based on patronage, which the Romans would perfect for administering their empire.”
“So, when do the philosophers come back in?” Kayla asked. “Last I remember, Plato built an academy and was getting a huge following.”
Thandi thought for a moment. “So, here’s what I think happened. Hellenistic control wasn’t working that well. The kings spent most of their energy fighting each other, trying to be the one who could unite the entire world under their sword. Antigonus the one-eyed got closest, but he lost to Seleucus at the battle of Ipsus. Then Seleucus nearly succeeded, conquering all the provinces outside of Egypt and Greece, until he was assassinated. Things went back and forth like that for a while.”
“This wouldn’t have been acceptable to the Jotnar,” Bibi noted. “They would have wanted an ordered hierarchy under a single ruler. Anything else leads to chaos.”
“Definitely,” Thandi said. “Any group of humans who become preternaturally good at war are not going to suddenly bend the knee to a rival. Every warlord thinks he knows better.”
Kayla snorted. “Almost like that old drive for freedom ‘ain’t that easy to suppress.”
“So that becomes the next big problem to solve,” Thandi continued. “Plato had established the need for a philosopher king to rule through ‘perfect knowledge’, but his school completely failed to produce anyone like that. Turns out that their discoveries in mathematics didn’t help them understand leadership. So, despairing at the constant warfare, the academy itself turned against the project. Instead, around 266 BC, they emphasized a new philosophy called ‘academic skepticism’, which pushed back against the idea of pure wisdom.”
“Can you dumb it down for the knuckle-draggers?” Kayla asked.
Thandi winked. “‘Nobody can have perfect knowledge, chill the heck out’ about covers it. Unfortunately, there was a minority of purists who wouldn’t back down. They split off under a new leader; Zeno of Citium. He developed Platonism into Stoicism, which began to spread amongst the elites. Once the Antigonid dynasty—based in Greece—felt their control begin to slip, they turned to these Stoics for help. Antigonus Gonatus, the grandson of old ‘one-eye’, invited them to his court. He gave them the power and influence they needed to build their own influential school.”
Christie cleared her throat. “Just to help you understand his belief system, Zeno was an ardent Platonist. He wrote his own version of the Republic, where he advocated for…?” she let the question hang in the air, while looking expectantly at Kayla.
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Kayla sighed and put a hand over her eyes. “Common ownership of women and constant sex?”
“Almost,” Christie said with a tight smile, “but you do him a disservice. His imagination went even further. He also advocated the sexualization of children, for the purpose of ‘teaching them morality.’”
The lounge went deathly silent.
“What,” Kayla began through gritted teeth “the actual f—”
“That makes sense,” Bibi said dispassionately. “Child sexual abuse is common in several cultures, as a tool for elders to indoctrinate new members into the community. Traumatized children make for compliant and unquestioning adults.”
“No shit,” Thandi muttered.
Dark expressions filled the room. Christie had switched her gaze to her fingernails and kept it there.
“Well, that was the ancient world, wasn’t it?” Lyna said carefully. “They did all sorts of horrible things.”
Thandi exhaled slowly. “The Romans certainly did once they started importing Greek culture. But only to slaves and foreigners. Obviously, the idea that one of their citizens might be abused in that way was considered a terrible crime, an attack against their dignity, and that of their whole family. Everyone else was fair game; they weren’t real people.
“Philosophy of Kayla the Golden, chapter one,” Kayla said in a hard voice. “Death to child molesters. Non-negotiable.”
“Yeah, we can dream,” Thandi said. “But anyway, Zeno promoted the concept of divine truth, which stoics ought to seek. It was the duty of every person to live in accordance with whatever ‘reason and virtue’ dictated was proper to their station in life.”
Kayla thought for a moment. “Yeah, but who’s reason and virtue? Plato had his metal caste system didn’t he? So, if a gold person orders a bronze person to do something immoral, how can the bronze disobey?”
“In theory, because she’s supposed to understand what absolute reason says is right.”
Kayla shook her head. “How, though? She’s only a bronze—she doesn’t have the education or experience or whatever. And presumably, if she did know that, she should be a gold anyway. It’s just that ‘divinely’ and ‘scientifically’ authorized hierarchy of control again. Unless your entire society is made of philosopher kings, you’ve got authoritarian fascism. Or am I supposed to believe that the Romans were all perfect and never did anything wrong?”
“Hey, who knows?” Thandi said with a smirk. “Let’s follow their progress and see how they got on.”
“Okay, but here’s a counterpoint,” Lyna objected. “Lots of Rangers like stoicism. It just talks about being resilient in the face of adversity, or maintaining an objective perspective. I thought it was kind of useful for… you know… war stuff.”
“That’s from the Late Stoa,” Christie explained. “Once the Romans actually got their ‘philosopher king’, the movement began to fade away into something milder and less relevant.”
“So, the Romans actually pulled it off, didn’t they?” Bibi asked. “How did they conquer the world and unite it under a single emperor? What did they get right that everyone else got wrong?”
Thandi furrowed her brow and looked away. “If I remember correctly…their elites rode on growing populist waves until one was strong enough to defeat the others. It’s been a while though. I might go back and check my books for the details.”
“Incorrect.” Christie said. “It was about the stoic’s control of land, actually.”
“What, the latifundia nonsense?” Thandi said in surprise. “Come on, Chris, everyone knows that got debunked way back when.”
“Misunderstood, perhaps,” Christie said. “However, it remains correct,”
“It isn’t!”
“Yes, it is, I’m afraid. Why don’t you check your books again?”
“Okay,” Lyna interjected with her hands raised, “I feel like there should be a counter argument here to argue why ancient civilization might not have been manipulated by aliens. It’s a bit of a wild theory.”
“I dunno,” Kayla said as she scratched her head. “Seems watertight to me. It’s clearly aliens.”
“Our friend is most astute,” Christie said. “I shall play devil’s advocate. A human tribe might be motivated to conquer and rule the world in order to advance the cause of universal justice, and civilize barbarians. Humanity was so terribly beastly, after all. For instance, there was once a band of mercenary thugs who wanted to found their own city, but they didn’t have any women. So, once they’d put up some buildings and walls, they invited the people of the neighboring towns over for a festival. Then, when the guests were at their ease and distracted, the bandits jumped the men and drove them off. The women were seized and carried off back the new city, where they were forcibly married. And lo, a new nation was born.”
Lyna scowled as Thandi snorted with laughter. “Why is that funny?” she demanded. “It sounds like a good example of barbarism.”
“Because that was the foundation myth of Rome,” Thandi said. “They called it the Rape of the Sabines.”
“Oh… well, perhaps that’s just anti-Roman propaganda—”
“Nah,” Thandi said with a grin. “It was their own legend. They were proud of it.”
Lyna sagged. “Okay fine. Let’s hear it, then.”
Christie smiled at her. “Truly the righteous and moral leaders of mankind, as they often liked to remind their subjects, at sword point. Now, Rome was a monarchy until a revolution tossed out the king and installed a republic in 509 BC. Kayla, I don’t suppose the date reminds you of anything?”
Kayla thought carefully. “Oh yeah! That was around the time Pythagoras was in the south of Italy building his aristocratic super cult.”
“That’s right,” Christie said. “Of course, there’s no evidence he ever went to Rome, but the timing is very curious, isn’t it? Rome was a major port that connected Italy to the Greek world, and the city’s elites idolized Greek culture. They sought to emulate the ideas and fashions that dominated the Mediterranean world. Meanwhile, the city-states of Magna Graecia to the south engaged in several wars over Pythagoras and his followers. The Romans would certainly have been observing them closely, though perhaps we can only guess what conclusions they would have drawn.”
“It’s not much of a guess,” Thandi said. “Rome was never a republic—it was an oligarchy from the start. Res Publica, means ‘for the people’, but their government was set up exclusively to serve the interests of a hundred families, called patricians. They controlled the first senate and all of early Roman society. Every single political right the actual people gained, they had to fight for tooth and nail. There were violent social and political struggles called the ‘Conflict of the Orders’ that lasted more than two hundred years. The only guarantee of the average citizen’s right to influence decisions—the office of tribune of the plebs—was created because the entire army went on strike on the eve of a major war.”
“So, I guess the Romans were the backup plan?” Kayla asked.
Christie tilted her head in thought. “Possibly. The Pythagorean cult was large, so there would have been several attempts. Roman success was not at all guaranteed. Antigonus was courting Stoics—making one of Zeno’s best students ruler of the powerful city of Corinth—in the 240s BC. At that time the Mediterranean was controlled by three superpowers: Rome, Antigonid Macedonia, and Carthage. Rome would have to defeat both of these contenders in a series of bloody, destructive wars before it got much attention from the Hellenes. As soon as it had achieved these victories, in 155, the head of the Stoic school, Diogenes of Babylon, took a trip to Rome with two other philosophers. They went ostensibly to address a fine that had been levied against Athens, but, in reality…”
“Sucking up, spreading the good word?” Kayla said. “Hello worthy conquerors, looks like you’ve got what it takes to rule the whole planet?”
“But of course. Not long after the visit, a very powerful Roman, and recent destroyer of Carthage, Scipio Aemilianus, began to gather Stoics together with other elite politicians to discuss Rome’s place in the Hellenic schema.”
Kayla sighed heavily. Was it actually possible for humans to leave each other to enjoy peace and freedom? Or were there always going to be a gang of psychos, working behind closed doors and hell bent on destroying it all for a taste of power? On Caldera, the colonists lived in imperfect harmony. Resolving their differences without violence had always been a struggle, but one that most adults managed to overcome. Kayla remembered how there would usually be a strong, respected figure in the community, ready to smack heads and impose common sense. Even with their flawed characters, Kayla had the same respect and trust in her fellow Valkyrie. Would it really be so wrong for them to nudge the rest of humanity in the right direction?
Kes appeared in the doorway of the observation lounge. “Girls, we’re heading back to Tyr. We need to download suit logs, clean and inventory everything. Kayla, can you help me find Ray?”
“Yes, Corporal,” Kayla said absently.
“Roman history is fascinating,” Bibi said as they began to file out of the lounge. “Let me know next time you’re going to continue this conversation.”