Simonides The Martyr (Σίμωνας ο Μάρτυρας)
-From The Meletic Tales.
The sun glowed dimly over the hills of Attica, casting long amber fingers across the dry fields where a young man named Simonides laboured. He was of no noble blood, born of modest stock in the outskirts of Athens. His hands bore the hardened scars of tilling soil and lifting amphorae, but his heart hungered not for wealth nor for praise—it longed for true meaning.
Simonides had heard murmurs of a philosopher who lived at the edge of the agora, one who did not speak of Olympus nor of prayers to unseen gods, but rather of unity, consciousness, and To Ena, the One. His name was Pausanias, an elder once mocked for speaking in paradox, but whose words had begun to draw curious youth, disenchanted by old tales of mythology.
One morning, carrying nothing but a piece of bread and an olive branch, Simonides wandered into the city. Dust clung to his sandals. At the entrance to the philosopher’s home, he waited.
‘What brings you here, young man?’ Came a voice like weathered parchment.
Simonides turned and bowed slightly. ‘To listen, if I may. I heard you speak not of gods, but of what unites all things that exist’.
Pausanias, tall and gaunt, peered at him. His eyes were the grey of winter sea. ‘You seek truth in a place where men chase shadows. Come then, and sit, but know this—To Ena is not a comfort, but a mirror. It does not grant blessings, it reveals genuine essence’.
Thus, began the transformation. For moons that passed and seasons that waned, Simonides studied under Pausanias. He learnt of the nous, the intellect that guides us, the logos, the rationality that governs our thoughts, of the balance between soul and body, and of the humility one must display in virtues to recognise the One within and without.
‘The gods atop Olympus are tales to explain thunder, but the thunder within the soul—that is real. That is what To Ena stirs’, Pausanias said once beneath a fig tree.
Simonides took these words deep into his marrow. He repeated them not as doctrine, but as realisations. When he walked through the agora, he would whisper quietly to the air, ‘I am part of the One, and the One is part of me.’
Athens was not kind to voices that broke the chorus. It was the time when the Thirty Tyrants presided over a reign of terror in which they executed, murdered and exiled hundreds of innocent Athenians.
One morning, whilst speaking beneath the colonnade to a small group of farmers and stonemasons, Simonides shared what he had come to know.
‘There is no need to offer sacrifice to gods who do not speak to us. We need only observe life and see it whole in its revelation. The One is not separate, but present in all, even in suffering’, he said.
A merchant who overheard him turned pale and slipped away silently. A few days later, temple priests arrived at Pausanias’ house. The old philosopher, sensing the winds of fate, had already left the city.
Simonides remained. That night he was taken, not violently, but with eerie formality. The guards, draped in dark crimson robes, said little. He was bound, not as a criminal, but as a heretic and threat to the oligarchy of the Thirty Tyrants.
The Archon of Athens, a man named Kallistratos, presided over the accusation.
‘Simonides, you are charged with speaking impiously against the divine gods of our city. You have denied their influence, turned men away from temples, and uttered teachings foreign and profane’, he said before the gathered elders and onlookers.
Simonides raised his head, voice calm and unwavering. ‘I have not spoken against the gods that which is not true. I have merely spoken of what is truer than myth. Of unity. Of To Ena, the One’.
‘And who is this One?’ Another elder demanded. ‘Is it Apollo? Zeus? Poseidon?’
‘It is none of them, yet it is present in all things. It does not need statues or grandeur to speak’.
There was silence. An old priest, long-robed and crimson-eyed, hissed beneath his breath. ‘A poison to the youth. He calls for reason, when faith is needed. Let him be silenced’.
Despite petitions from some priests who had heard Simonides speak, the verdict was declared: death by board—a method accepted amongst the Athenians for its cleanliness. A board of stone and wood, fitted with iron collars at the ankles, wrists and neck. Once bound, the collar of the neck would slowly be tightened, drawing breath away until none remained.
Simonides, when told of his sentence, did not curse nor weep. He asked only that he be permitted to write a few final words, and that a fig branch be placed near the board, so that he might look upon something living as he passed.
The day of his death arrived with cool winds brushing against the olive trees. Citizens gathered not out of malice, but curiosity. A philosopher, barely more than a peasant, dying not for a god, but for a genuine belief.
He was brought to the open square where the board stood, the collars already prepared. A hush fell.
Simonides walked calmly, barefoot. His eyes, dark and contemplative, did not shift from the sky. When asked if he had any final words, he turned towards the crowd with the gesture of humbleness expressed on his face.
‘I go not into nothingness, for To Ena does not end. I have seen the reflection of the One in the soul of each man and woman I have met. Even in those individuals who bind me’.
He looked then at the guards who would perform the tightening afterwards.
‘Do not weep for me. I do not need rescue. I only ask you look inside yourselves one day and ask not who rules the world, but what unites it. Then you will see me again—not in flesh, but in thought’.
His last words were, 'I leave this world now, not with the pain of the body, but with the liberation of the ousia. Where I shall go, is a place that awaits us all after death. It is not immortality, but the continuation of existence'.
He lay upon the board without resistance. First the ankle collars were fastened, then the wrists. Finally, the iron circle was fitted around the neck. The executioner, at a signal from the magistrate, began to turn the screw.
It was slow. The iron pressed deeper into his throat, causing veins to swell and lips to pale, but Simonides did not struggle. His breath thinned. His fingers curled. His chest rose one last time—then gradually fell. The fig branch nearby quivered slightly in the breeze.
Later that night, two men who had once listened to Simonides retrieved his body, bribing the guard. They buried him outside the city walls beneath a lone almond tree. They etched no name, no verse, only a mark resembling a circle within a circle—the sign he once drew when speaking of To Ena.
Whispers began to spread. Not of miracles. Not of divine interventions, but of courage. Of serenity. Of a man who faced death for a belief that unity was real, not distant.
In the years to follow, the tale of Simonides was told. Not as martyr to religion, but as a witness of To Ena, the One, who died not to condemn, but to reveal. The ancient Greek word μάρτυς meant witness, and Simonides was a witness to To Ena.
The years passed. Athens, ever shifting under Roman law, grew weary of its temples and traditions. A new age of learning arose. In the shade of gardens and on the steps of libraries, young men and women spoke of inner balance, of consciousness and of the One.
One such woman, called Agatha, a physician’s daughter, held a scroll passed down by her father. Upon it were words believed to have been written by Simonides on the night before his death: ‘Do not look for salvation in thunder nor fear. Look instead into your own silence. There, To Ena, the One is waiting to be revealed to you’.
She read it aloud often to her companions. Many dismissed it, yet some began to meditate not to gods, but towards inner clarity. They would sit in quiet places, breathe slowly and feel the pulse of the cosmos within themselves.
In the region of Eleusis, a group of Meletic thinkers formed a small school and built a temple. They claimed no authority, taught no commandments. Only presence. Awareness and virtue.
They would gather once a year at the site beneath the almond tree where Simonides was buried. No hymns were sung. Instead, they stood in silence, each placing a fig leaf upon the ground in remembrance.
A philosopher amongst them, named Menelaos, once addressed the group with these words: ‘Simonides taught us not what to think, but how to think. He died not in defiance of gods, but in defence of understanding. His death was not his end, but a kindling. We do not worship him—we honour him, for he saw To Ena clearly and paid the price for speaking of it’.
The leaf-fall rustled in reply.
Thus, the story of Simonides endured—not in temples nor in carved stone, but in quiet conversations and meditative thought. He became not a figure of mourning, but of motion—a still stone dropped into the river of time, whose ripples would reach further shores.
The decades turned into centuries. The city that had once condemned Simonides became a crumbling shadow of its former pride. Marble temples cracked, columns lay fallen, and ivy crept across statues of forgotten gods, yet beneath the silence of ruins, something subtle endured—not carved in stone, but carried in thought.
Amongst those ruins walked a young Athenian student who was once a Christian but had embraced Meleticism named Iakobos, his scrolls slung in a leather satchel and his heart filled with disquiet. He had grown tired of the rituals that no longer inspired, of rote hymns sung without conviction. He sought not the divine, but the truth—the thread that ran through all existential things.
Within the Library of Hadrian, buried in dust and wax, Iakobos discovered a scroll, old and fragile. On its edge, faint and worn, was a mark he could not decipher—a circle within a circle.
He showed it to a keeper, an elderly scribe who had survived more than one purge of ‘unorthodox’ texts.
‘Ah’, said the old man with a crooked smile, ‘you’ve found the Seal of Reflection’.
‘What does it mean?’ Iakobos asked.
‘It means you’re ready to listen,’ the scribe replied, handing him another parchment. ‘Go to Eleusis. Ask for the almond tree. You’ll find your answers there, young man’.
Intrigued and drawn by a force he could not name, Iakobos made the journey. The road to Eleusis was worn, walked by pilgrims of many creeds, but his path was inwards.
There, beyond the vineyards and low hills, he found the tree—gnarled and ancient, its blossoms out of season. Beneath it sat a woman of indeterminate age, her robes simple, her hair streaked with silver.
‘You follow the man who denied the ancient gods and Chrisitan god?’ Iakobos asked.
She looked at him with kind, lucid eyes. ‘He saw unity where others saw division. You need not believe in Simonides—only see what he saw’ with his soul.
'I was a believer of Jesus the one that is called the Christ, but now I see that he was merely a man who professed a truth'.
'Why do you not believe in that truth any longer?' Asked the woman.
'Because, I have been liberated of that truth. I have discovered the real truth lies beyond the words of Jesus. They are found and lived in the truth of To Ena, the One'.
The next day, Iakobos returned to Athens, but he was not the same. He began to share quiet reflections with his fellow students: not lessons, but observations. He did not preach, he asked questions. ‘What is the origin of thought?’ ‘Can the soul perceive itself?’ ‘What lies beyond the desire to be right?’
At first, he was ignored. Then mocked. Then, gradually, imitated by men who deemed themselves worthy enough to be philosophers or scholars.
Those people who heard him speak said he reminded them of something — not a sermon, but a mirror held gently to the mind. Some wept. Others left behind the comfort of certainty and embraced the path of stillness.
Within a few years, these students formed a gathering—a small one, without hierarchy. They were Meletics.
They met not only in temples, but in gardens, porticoes and quiet rooms. They meditated not on divinities, but on awareness. They honoured no martyr, but recited the words once written by Simonides before his death: ‘Do not ask what divides man from man. Ask instead what breathes through both. That is To Ena, the One’.
It was not long before the whispers returned. Priests, whose churches stood empty more often than not, began to speak of heresy. ‘They worship nothing’, one accused. ‘They deny God entirely,’ another cried. The Meletics replied simply, ‘We seek not to destroy, only to discover our truth’.
Still, they were watched. One evening, Iakobos was summoned before a local magistrate. The chamber was sparse, the walls plain. He was not chained, nor accused directly, but the undertone was clear.
‘What is it you teach, young man?’ The magistrate asked.
‘I teach nothing. I observe. I reflect. I ask others to do the same', Iakobos confessed.
‘Is that not dangerous? To unsettle minds with uncertainty?’
‘It is only dangerous to those persons who build their walls on unexamined belief, but truth is not afraid of questions. It welcomes them’.
The magistrate frowned. ‘Be cautious, Iakobos. You would not be the first to meet an unfortunate end for stirring stagnant waters and dangerous beliefs’.
Iakobos bowed. ‘Nor would I be the first to believe the truth was worthy of the price of freedom. This is what Simonides believed in'.
The following decades saw an ebb and flow. At times, the Meletic communities would fade into near obscurity or persecuted by Christian zealots along with the Pagans. At others, they flourished quietly under the cover of philosophy, their ideas trickling into the thought-stream of other schools: Stoic, Epicurean even Neoplatonic.
At the heart of each Meletic tale—told around oil lamps and beneath stars — remained the story of Simonides.
Not as saint. Not as saviour, but the peasant who was a lasting witness of To Ena, the One.
In the distant town of Delos, a sculptor named Heliodoros began to inscribe fragments of Simonides’ final speech onto clay tablets, not for worship, but remembrance. He left them unglazed, knowing they would fade with time.
‘Let the words return to dust. Their purpose is not permanence, but presence’, he said.
In Alexandria, a physician named Marina included in her medical texts a brief passage about the balance between body and soul, credited to ‘a martyr of reflection’. She encouraged her students to sit in silence before tending the sick, so their minds would be clear.
In Rome itself, years later, a senator’s son who had read a Latin translation of Simonides’ story chose not to enter politics, but to become a teacher of a quiet philosophy that was Meleticism, writing: ‘Some men are crowned in marble. Others are crowned in silence. Simonides was of the latter’.
The tale of Simonides the martyr never demanded belief—only consideration.
He was not revered for miracles. No healing hands. No divine signs. Only a steady voice, a questioning mind, and the courage to speak of unity when the world wanted separation.
Those people who honour him do so not with ritual, but reflection. They do not kneel. They listen. They do not chant. They contemplate. They do not sacrifice. They seek to understand.
Simonides remains not in heaven nor myth, but in the subtle moment when a person dares to look inwards and wonders—what connects all things?
In that moment, To Ena lives, and Simonides, still, bears witness. He remains in the presence of the cosmos and To Ena.
In time, the tale of Simonides travelled far beyond Athens. Across the Aegean, in the port city of Ephesos, a quiet tradition began amongst a small circle of thinkers and artisans who were Meletics. Once a month, under moonlight, they met not to debate, but to observe—the breath, the stillness, the subtle current that moved through all things.
They kept no icons. No names were recited but one: Simonides.
They did not deify him. To them, he was the spark that lit a slow-burning fire, one that taught them not what to see, but how to see.
An old artisan among them, Lysistratos, once said to a traveller, ‘Simonides died not to prove something, but to embody it. His death was the extension of his thought—that truth, once seen, cannot be betrayed, even for comfort.’
Meanwhile, in the western isles, fragments of his story began to merge with older traditions. Sailors spoke of ‘the peasant-philosopher who spoke of the One’, and mothers whispered to restless children, ‘Even the silence carries meaning, as Simonides knew’.
A mosaic was once found in a villa near Syracuse—a simple circle within a circle, set into the floor of an atrium. The home belonged to no priest or scholar, but a farmer.
He had left no will, no testament, only one line etched at the threshold of the house: ‘To look inwards is to look beyond the veil of sheer illusion’.
So it was that Simonides, who died not as a divine prophet but as a lasting witness, came to dwell in quiet places—in breath, in thought and in the calm defiance of those persons who choose awareness over certainty.
Long after his bones had returned to the soil, his truth remained—quietly, enduringly, alive as the witness of To Ena, the One.
In whispered reflections beneath the ancient olive trees, in the steady rhythm of measured steps along dusty paths, and in the soft unfolding of dawn’s light over the hills, his presence lingered. Not as a voice that demanded obedience, but as a gentle call to awakening—a subtle reminder that true wisdom is not possession but presence. Those people who listened found in Simonides’ legacy the courage to embrace uncertainty, to walk the path of balance, and to honour the ever-turning flow of life itself.
His words, though sparse and carefully chosen, became seeds scattered amongst the attentive minds—growing slowly into forests of understanding where silence was as valued as speech. Through generations, this quiet defiance against rigid certainty fostered a subtle revolution, one not of force but of insight, where knowing was surrendered to becoming, and where the soul remembered its place within the whole.
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