Chapter 650: The Start of the All-Greek Academic Symposium
Chapter 650: The Start of the All-Greek Academic Symposium
“If the rulers of the city-states were to keep on learning instead of indulging in carnal pleasures, then they would treat their people with kindness, see through things with keen vision, formulate laws beneficial to the beauty, justice and goodness of the city-state, and to lead the people to obey it and defend it…then there is no doubt that they are sages!” Plato said firmly.
Davos knew that Plato expanded the concept of a sage, but he felt there was no need to rebuke it. Instead, he changes to another topic, “In your book, you believe that a true sage should love the truth without falsehood, moderation without greed for pleasure, open-mindedness, generosity, courage without fearing death, fairness and virtue, wisdom and goodness, innate harmony, in and out…that is to say, a sage should be a perfectly good person for him to become a true ruler, right?”
“Yes.” Plato frankly said and added, “But it’s hard to achieve it now.”
“Why is it now hard?” Davos asked.
“Because there is no stage for the sages to use their talents in ruling a country!” replied Plato in a slightly agitated tone, “Some of the so-called ‘wise men’ in a city-state’s ecclesia only know how to please and pander to the people while attacking the sages who genuinely seek the truth of things. And since the people accept falsehood more than truth, the sages aren’t popular with the people of the city-state. Moreover, the harsh environment of the city-state would lure talented young people into becoming ambitious, so they would rather learn rhetoric and cater to the people to earn power and wealth than go through strenuous training of slaves to gain reason.
Hence why there are fewer true sages, as if they had fallen into a herd of wild beasts, neither willing to participate in doing evil nor fight the beasts alone and therefore have to remain silent and focus only on their own matters…”
“So the ideal state you wrote does not exist in reality.” Davos was enlightened.
“No, it will exist one day!” With firm determination, Plato said, “I have created the Akademia for that reason!…”
Davos was shaken by Plato’s words. While looking at this sage who was called great in his previous life, Davos felt his determination to fight for his ideas for his whole life, which made him think of another sage in his previous life who was almost the same age as Plato and influenced China for more than 2,000 years, both of them were the same kind of people, allowing them to achieve such greatness.
After having thought of that, Davos stopped making things difficult about what he considered the shortcoming of Plato’s book. Instead, he calmly asked for advice, “In the Republic, you mention that a strict division of labour in society is the primary principle for creating the ideal city-state; rulers, guardians, farmers and craftsmen must each do their own duties to ensure that the state is orderly and everyone is happy and at peace… However, slaves and freemen made up most of the population in a city-state, yet you didn’t seem to consider them, which might become a major hidden problem.
The slaves and the freemen also had their demands, but once the city-state couldn’t grant them, they were bound to bring great damage to the city-state’s order. For example, Athens, which should have united against foreign enemies in the Peloponnesian War, had received a significant blow to its population by the defection of more than 20,000 miner slaves. When Syracuse under Dionysius fought against us, the freemen of the port of Syracuse, who had received discrimination, became the leading force in carrying out the revolts that overthrew Dionysius’ rule…
Apart from that, you have also divided the people of the city-state into several classes: Farmers will only be engaged in agriculture, craftsmen will only be engaged in handicrafts, and the soldiers will only be involved in war….although such division isn’t too idealistic, it is too rigid. After all, most people have the desire to get a better position in the city-state, such as the farmers and craftsmen might also want to become a soldier, and a soldier might also want to become a ruler; so whether they can do it or not, you should give them a way that may allow them to advance so that the people of the city-state will have a vibrant life. Don’t you want to know why Theonia managed to become strong quickly? That is one of the reasons!”
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As Davos and Plato exchanged their views on the city-state’s government, they would sometimes argue fiercely and sometimes discuss calmly.
Unknowingly, half an hour passed in a flash. It wasn’t until the clerk Henipolis reminded him that Davos had to stop their discussion. He then apologises to Plato, telling him he has something important to do next and can only end their discussion.
Plato, on the other hand, looked regretful. From his indifference when the discussion started to his full attention now, he benefited greatly from this conversation.
He then sincerely asked, “Your majesty, can you grant me a request?”
“I’m all ears.”
“Can I get your permission to visit and see the actual operations of the various institutions under the kingdom of Theonia, such as the Akademia, the department of inspection, the department of construction, and the civil servant management committee that assess and recruit civil servants…”
“There is naturally no problem.” Davos readily agreed. He added, “This is my clerk, Henipolis, and he is also a statesman of the Senate. Once you finish your speech at the Akademia, he will lead you to tour around Thurii.”
Plato immediately expressed his thanks.
After he left, Henipolis asked doubtfully, “Your majesty, do you really want to allow Plato to visit our administrative facilities?”
“Of course. Plato is a renowned scholar in all of Greece and even had his own Akademia. Thus I hope he promotes the superiority of the kingdom of Theonia’s regime and makes it famous throughout Greece.” Davos said without hesitation.
“But this may cause other city-states to steal our system,” Henipolis said worriedly.
Davos laughed, “Heni, you can secretly learn the production of weapons, equipment and handicrafts, but learning a political system is difficult to learn secretly. Especially for those city-states that have been founded for a long time because the traditional conservative forces are numerous and powerful. If they wanted to change their political system, they would inevitably damage their interest, resulting in a bloody uprising. Herolis in Syracuse is an example! Hence it isn’t good if people try to wear other kinds of shoes as it would become chaotic…”
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When the All-Greek Academic Symposium started, there was no formal opening ceremony because scholars advocated freedom and preferred to listen to more than just trivial words. However, they still need to solve how to coordinate the lectures and discussions of the invited scholars.
Although they held the exchanges in four places in the Theonian Akademia, namely the Institute of Mathematics, the College of Liberal Arts, the Medical School and the Lyceum of Philosophy, many of the invited scholars have made achievements in various fields, such as Democritus’ disciple who studied philosophy, mathematics and medicine. Lysis, one of the important figures in the Pythagorean school, wasn’t only well-learned in mathematics and physics but also had his own unique philosophical ideas… And these various institutions wanted the scholars to come to their side first to lecture, so the debate was endless.
Fortunately, Davos served as the symposium organiser. After gathering the deans of the institutions and having repeated discussions, he soon made the schedule.
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Once Plato’s students arrived at the Akademia, they found that, as Phaestokiadas said, the Theonian Akademia was indeed much larger, with more buildings and a much more beautiful environment than their Akademia, making them feel a little lost. But they soon became addicted to the profound knowledge that they frequently shuttle between the institutions to listen to the lectures of the scholars.
In the college of liberal arts, they listen to Lysias’ application of Logic in Court Debates and Isocrates’ How to polish your speech;
In the Institute of Mathematics, they speculate Marticoris’ Exploration of the Regularity of Material Vibration Curve and Metitokles’ Preliminary Theory of Probability*. (This is a knowledge that Davos commissioned the Institute of Mathematics to calculate the odds for the ball games for the past six-seven years, which the Institute of Mathematics discovered and summarised.)
In the Lyceum of Philosophy, they had to carefully distinguish the similarities and differences between the philosophy of 《All Things Are Number》 by Lysis, the 《Philosophy of Existence》 by Androsthenes (a student of Parmenides of Elea, and the vice-dean of the Theonian Akademia) and the philosophy taught by Plato.
In Medical School, they watched wide-eyed as Herpus described and demonstrated the functions of the heart, Steichicodas’ 《Common Diseases in Humans – A Preliminary Look at the Pathogenesis of Colds》 and Hippocrates’ 《Obedience to Nature》 medical point of view*. (The body itself is the best medicine against disease, and the physician’s primary responsibility is to stand on the side of nature and promote the physical and spiritual recovery of the patient)…
While learning and absorbing knowledge, Speusippus and his colleagues also got to know quite a few young outstanding talents. Most of them were Theoniaan Akademia’s students, who were confident, generous, diligent and eager to learn. When listening to the scholars’ lectures, they not only used papyrus to record the key points but also actively asked questions that would even puzzle the lecturers because of their questions.
After coming down, these students of the Theonian Akademia also engaged in a heated discussion, in which Speusippus joined in. However, they often couldn’t keep up with the quickness of their thinking because of their lack of wealth of knowledge. In fact, that was understandable as they only had one primary teacher. Thus even though Plato was knowledgeable, he could not have studied all fields in depth, whereas the Theonian Akademia had many teachers, most of whom were renowned scholars and allowed students of various fields to sit in and learn.