Twice Against Philosophy

The news from Babylon has reached the city and Athens has decided it is free again. Anything Macedonian is now a target, and he has been the most visible Macedonian in Athens for twelve years — he tutored the boy, and everyone knows it.

The charge brought against him is impiety. It is the same charge, in the same courts, that killed Socrates seventy-six years ago in this city, and everyone involved knows that too.

He is sixty-one. He has a school with a library, a collection of specimens, and students in the middle of work that will have to go on without him. If he stays and stands trial, he can argue — he has spent his life on argument — and he will probably lose, because the trial is not about impiety.

If he goes, the school has to carry on without him, the charge stands unanswered, and every man in Athens gets to say the philosopher ran.

There is a house at Chalcis, across the strait, that belonged to his mother's family. The boat leaves in the morning.