Psyche, the Shining City, was set up by the Neoplatonists, who wanted their city to reflect the mind, and the magic of numerology. It attracted those with a melancholic disposition. Sokratea, which was begun by those who believed that Sokrates was right in the Last Debate, that the City shouldn’t have been founded, and that every point needed much more examination, attracted the choleric, though Sokrates himself was nothing like that from all I have read and heard. Athenia, founded by those who believed the opposite, that Athene had been right, and who tried to live even more strictly according to their interpretation of Plato, attracted the phlegmatic. That left the sanguine, who all wound up in the City of Amazons, founded on the principle of absolute gender equality.

Those who stayed in the Remnant were those whose humors were mixed. The other cities characterized us as lazy and indecisive and luxury-loving. At first, because we were the mother city, they came to us frequently to use the libraries and other facilities, but later this happened less and less often. We had a higher proportion of Young Ones than most of the other cities, because many people didn’t take their babies with them when they left. This isn’t as callous as it may sound, because they didn’t know which babies were theirs. Some people could recognize their own babies, or thought they could. Many just couldn’t. And none of the Children had been educated to expect that they’d bring up their own children; they’d had them on the understanding that the City knew how to do it best. So there are plenty of people here, like my good friend Erinna, who have no idea who their parents are. Now that we have families there won’t be any more people like that, though of course they’re still doing that in Athenia, and maybe in the City of Amazons too, I’m not sure.

People did change cities sometimes, as indeed they still do. As young people come of age and find themselves in a city that doesn’t suit their temperament, they often leave it for another, the way Alkibiades did. And one of the first things I remember is Maia coming back. My earlier memories are muddled and confused with the cute baby stories Mother told about me—my first word was “beauty” and my second word “logos.” (It might sound conceited of me to record that, but honestly, anyone living in this house whose second word wasn’t “logos” would have to be deaf.)