Albonium

Volume XX - Last Campaigns

Book XXXVIII - Hannibal and Antiochus

I - Making

Thus were the orcs, and already Gaul had been overrun!

The campaigns had overthrown it, and now they warred in Noricum and the East.

Such were they! And then one lonely soul looked at them, amazed at the chaos.

"Look! I have no responsibilities. I do not really desire any responsibilities. I do not want them because I have mastered them and I am bored with them, and hence I decide I shall be a philosopher.

"The people believe they can simply live normal lives, but do they not know what 'normal' means? No, they do not, and thus they have joy in living normally! But I know the truth already, for I have seen it all, and anyone has if they have studied history or literature: to grow up, to serve in military or in profession, to marry, to see your children grow, and to die. But I have no need for that!

"The people say that I am unnecessary, but then why do they turn to me? It is because part of them slowly becomes dulled by their repetitive existence, and no longer are they existing or doing, and now today becomes a memory of yesterday. They look to Gods and virtue because they do not understand those things!

"For only these moments they are free to explore! But I do not have meager moments. Rather, I have my whole life!"

Thus was Memmenes, and he was the man who lived within a statue of an elephant, which silently proclaimed, "Look at me! Look at how much the rich spend on an ugly elephant that is better a small house!"

Thus was he, ever-hateful, ever-cynical! But his cynicism was his motion and his cause and reason. Once he said, "You think Romans are so strong? They prize the virtues of Aeneas and love duty. But to live only by duty is to be strict and without interpretation. Thus is your Kantianism and your love of duty. Do you truly forsake the individual will that wishes to be different from everyone else? If this is the human will, I would rather have the dog's will, savage and mean, but at least he knows curiosity and adventure!"

How could anyone take him seriously, when he called himself free while he lived a statue of an elephant? He had no money at all while everyone else acted! But they were so tired of their lives, bare, without substance, empty, and perpetual! Thus was the crisis of the middle-aged: every day was remembering another day, and every day felt irrelevant.

But he was different! And thus they had to take him seriously, for his teaching was not what they knew. Thus was Memmenes of Noricum!

But now the Fell were closing in! And what would he do?

What did he think? What he thought, all the other people would listen to! They had nothing else to do, for now their hearts were confused and in denial and shock. So they gathered around the outside of the statue of the elephant, and then came Memmenes. So he spoke, "All of you have gathered here! But I tell all of you, leave me!

"You are afraid of the Fell, for they will destroy your homes and slaughter your sons sent to war. But do you not know that the Fell are the originators of nature? Indeed, all of your gods are false!

"You are afraid of evil happening, thus you pray to your gods. But why would they help you? You have burned down the forests to make land and you have taken your animals for your own bidding! So you say, 'We treat them well!'. But this is a ridiculous argument, for no king would let his people be taken from him and be treated as guests instead of prisoners, for that would make them not of his nation, but displaced and like the people of another nation.

"Leave me, and scatter to your homes! Return to nature. Are you not enslaved to the Roman life? It is all full of suffering, and the suffering is without meaning! But the Fell are coming like new waves washing over a beach from a dying lake, and now the lake rises, and soon we shall sink again.