Kallikles came up to join us. He had been in the shore party, so we greeted him with enthusiasm. “Tell us what it was like?” I urged, as Erinna moved toward the rail so that he could sit down beside me.

“It’s not a proper city, it’s very small, maybe a village is the proper term. They live inland, out of sight of the shore, though they have boats. They keep chickens and goats and pigs, and let them run in and out of their houses. The houses are really primitive, not much more than huts. There’s a wooden palisade around the village, and an entry blocked with thorn bushes. We didn’t go inside, but it isn’t very big and we could see everything. There’s just one plaza, with houses around it in a circle—no roads at all, no paving stones, just dirt. There are strange statues set up in the plaza, half-carved marble, sort of flat, with huge heads and weird noses, painted, dressed and decorated with beads. They’re not like anything I’ve ever seen. Very bright colors. I can’t even decide whether or not they were beautiful.”

Ficino looked away from the sunset and stared at Kallikles. “I want to see them!”

“I don’t know whether you’ll be able to. Maecenas wasn’t talking about going back. The people weren’t friendly at all. They ran into the village and barricaded themselves in when they saw us coming. The men were armed with bronze spears with weird flat blades. They wouldn’t speak to us, they kept waving their spears. Then an old woman came forward to talk. She had a huge sore on her face with pus coming out of it. She spoke Greek of a kind, but it was hard to make ourselves understood. She kept telling us to go away, that she wouldn’t give us anything, and she couldn’t seem to understand we didn’t want anything except information, which she didn’t want to give either. Maecenas offered her a silver cup, which she snatched, but even after that she didn’t want to be friendly. They didn’t let us in or offer hospitality at all. They held on to their weapons and we held on to ours.”

I was trying to picture it. “What were the houses made of?”

“Stone and wood. It wasn’t the materials that were primitive, it was the style.”

“You’ve never seen anything that wasn’t classical,” Ficino said, smiling.

“I’ve been to Psyche,” Kallikles said.

Maia laughed. “Psyche is also classical. All our cities are.”