As we had, as yet, no philospher kings, and as we could acknowledge no leader but Athene, we decided that for the time being, when we did not agree, we would vote on an issue. Athene smiled at this. The first divisive issue that came to a vote was names. We voted that those of us with inappropriate names would adopt new names, and that we would do the same with the children who came to us, naming them from the Dialogues and from Greek mythology. Kylee and some others felt strongly against this, but in the vote after the debate, the majority carried the day. I adopted the name Maia, for my birth month, and for the mother of Hermes. Kylee took the name Klio, as being the closest she could come to her original name. We also agreed that we would have one unique name each. The Romans and others who had multiple appropriate names would limit themselves to just one.
For the first time ever I was fully engaged in life. I cared about everything. I read the Republic over and over, I took part in debates in Chamber, I served on committees, I had opinions and was listened to. It was marvellous. I woke up every morning on the cold floor of the hall, happy simply to be alive. I daily thanked God, the gods, Athene, for allowing me to be there and part of all of it. That’s not to say that it couldn’t be infuriating.
I served on the Technology Committee. We had long debates about how much technology to allow. Some of us felt that we should do it with the technology of the day, or that which Plato would have understood. But we already had the workers, and without workers we should have needed slaves. The workers needed electricity, which was produced from the sun. Sufficient electricity to feed the workers would also provide good lighting, and a certain amount of heating and cooling. “The advantage of that,” Klio said, when she presented our recommendations to the whole Chamber, “will be to keep the library at a constant temperature to better protect the books.”
Most of the older people and all of the famous ones were men, but most of the people who understood technology in any way were young women. Though we had nominal equality, there were always those like Tullius who would not accept us as equals. In addition I saw in other women and detected in myself a tendency to defer to older men—as I had always deferred to my father. We had grown up in slavery and bore the marks of our shackles, as Klio said when I talked to her about this, but we were to raise a generation in the hope of true freedom. The committee on technology was almost entirely composed of young women, with only one man, the Dominican, whose name was now Ikaros. Somehow, imperceptibly, because of this, technology came to be seen among the masters as feminine and unimportant. We voted to have lights but not to have heating and cooling, except for the library. We voted to have plumbing everywhere, but only with cold water, which seemed like the morally better choice, and what Plato would have wanted. We made up Greek names for shower-baths and toilets.
Ikaros served on several of my committees—indeed, he had volunteered for every committee as they were being set up. He had been accepted onto an improbable number of them, and served on all those that did not meet at the same time. He seemed to have boundless energy and enthusiasm, as well as being notably younger than most of the other men. He was also extremely good-looking, with a wonderful smile and long chestnut hair. Working together so much, we became friends. He seemed to be everyone’s friend, moving through all the different circles charming everyone. He was even a favorite with Athene, who seemed to unbend a little when she spoke to him.
Plotinus and the Neoplatonists dominated the committee designing the physical form and organization of the city. They announced that Athene would bring in mature trees, and we voted that through. Then they proposed that there would be ten thousand and eighty children, divided into twelve tribes, each divided into a hundred and forty-four eating houses that would each be named after a famous city of civilization. We voted this through without dissent. A hundred and forty-four eating houses allowed everyone to get their favourite cities mentioned. The proposal was made that the eating houses be decorated in the style of their cities, which I thought a charming idea. There would be two masters attached to each eating house, as far as possible one man and one woman. “Are there any Florentine women here?” I asked Ikaros after a Tech Committee meeting. I hadn’t noticed any in their group.
“Not that I can think of,” he said. “Why, do you want to be attached to the Florence house?”
“I loved it so much. And it’s where I found Plato. I never got to Greece, only as far as Italy.”
“Talk to Ficino. He’s bound to be the man who gets Florence.” He sounded a trifle envious. Ficino’s name was now formally Fikinus, but everyone went right on addressing him as Ficino.
We voted that we would all adopt the kiton, and those who knew how to wear one instructed the rest. The workers wove the cloth for them. I had lessons in how to don one from Krito himself, the friend of Sokrates. Once I was used to it I found it charmingly practical and comfortable. The kitons had an unexpected benefit—once we were all dressed alike, the factions among us were less immediately visible, if no less real.
On the women’s committee, Kreusa, originally a hetaira from first-century Corinth, explained the use of menstrual sponges. We voted by acclamation that this method would be the usual and standard method of the Republic. We did not even present it to the full Chamber. Workers could easily harvest the sponges. We knew the men wouldn’t recognize or care about their significance. We had agreed that the masters should not have children of our own, and Kreusa told us about silphium root, which had the ability to prevent conception. We agreed that it should be available to all female masters who wanted it.
I was the only woman on the committee to select art, on which Ficino, Atticus, and, inevitably, Ikaros, also served. Plato is very clear about the purposes of art, and what forms of it should be permitted in the Republic. We were divided on whether we should have only original art or allow copies. This was an issue on which passions ran high, and on which Ficino, Ikaros and I were united—the children should see only originals if they wanted to learn excellence. We should ask Athene to allow us to rescue lost and destroyed art to adorn the city. Copies, especially copies created by workers and more than once, would make them see art in entirely the wrong light.
Atticus and some of the others argued against us. “We have already decided that the eating houses will be copies of buildings in the cities they are named for,” he said. “If the workers can build them, and if it won’t harm the children to see a hundred and forty-four copies of architecture, then how can art be different?”
“It would be better if we could get the original buildings too,” I said. “But it’s not possible. It is possible to get the art.”
“It might be possible to get some buildings,” Ficino said. “Sophia isn’t just wise, she’s powerful as well.”
“Were there enough suitable buildings that have disappeared?” I asked. “I don’t know about Greece, but when I was in Rome it looked as if every brick and piece of marble was being reused in some other building.”
Ikaros shook his head. “It’s completely different. It wouldn’t be better if we could get original buildings, because the real problem then would be that the buildings wouldn’t be so suited to our purposes as the ones we will build. The design for the sleeping houses, for example, is elegant and ideal.” He was on that committee as well, of course. “We want them to be identical and classical and useful, and that’s how they are. We don’t want the city to be full of repetition because that would teach the wrong lesson. The sleeping houses will all be the same; the palaestras where the children will exercise will be functionally the same, but have different decoration, for variety. And the same goes for the eating houses, temples, libraries, and practice halls. We want everything to be as well-suited to what we need it for as can be. Making new buildings in the style of old ones is best for that, for buildings. They won’t really be copies, not functionally.”