The Abandoned Throne (Ο Εγκαταλειμμένος Θρόνος)

-From The Meletic Tales.

In the hills beyond the olive groves of ancient Athens, nestled in a quiet and wind-stirred valley, there lay a village so old that even the poets no longer wrote of it. The stones of its streets had been worn smooth by time and bare feet, and the old temple columns that stood at its edge leaned like weary men. Few visitors came to this place now, and fewer still spoke of what once lay at its centre—the ruins of an ancient seat of kingship, now forgotten and swallowed by earth and ivy.

Kleanthes the son of a potter was not like the other youths of the village. Where they took to vineyards, herds or trade, Kleanthes wandered alone into the wilderness, speaking little but listening often. The old widows said he had the look of one touched by the gods—distant and distracted, his gaze always pulled elsewhere. He read old scrolls when he could find them, scavenged from traders or left abandoned in crumbling temples. His heart longed for something more than clay and routine. He believed, in the silent depth of his soul, that destiny waited.

One evening, as the sun sank into the western hills and dyed the earth in molten copper, Kleanthes wandered into a solitary glade he had never seen before. There, behind thickets and thick brambles, he saw it—a stone throne, overgrown with moss and vine, half-buried in the earth like a giant’s bone. It was ancient, carved in a forgotten style, bearing the faint sigil of a long-dead king.

He approached slowly, breath catching. The throne stood alone, unguarded, unloved, yet something in its silence whispered to him. He brushed the moss away with reverence and placed his hand upon its armrest. A tremble shot through his fingers.

He sat. For a moment, nothing happened, but as the wind stirred, he felt it— the weight, the pull and the presence. It was as if something unseen had descended into him, ancient and vast. In the stillness of twilight, he thought he heard a unique voice.

'You have sat where greatness once dwelled'.

Kleanthes returned to the glade every day thereafter. He began to clean the area, cutting back weeds, brushing away centuries of decay. Behind the throne, hidden in a hollow beneath a stone slab, he found it—an old sceptre, tarnished but still noble, tipped with bronze and set with a single cracked gem. He held it aloft, and the light caught it like fire. From that moment, he changed.

The villagers noticed. Kleanthes no longer spoke to them as an equal. His words grew measured, lofty. He held the sceptre when he walked, planted it in the earth when he spoke. Some laughed behind his back. Others watched uneasily.

‘He thinks himself a king’, murmured old Doria, who remembered darker times.

‘He has the eyes of a man who listens only to himself’, added another.

Kleanthes did listen—but not to them. He spoke aloud to the ancient king, the one whose spirit he believed, now lived within him. He imagined himself at the head of armies, casting judgement, rebuilding the glories of a lost Athens. The throne had not chosen him by accident—of this he was certain. The sceptre was no relic; it was a divine sign he believed.

One day, as he sat upon the throne, lost in visions of marble courts and golden war chariots, a stranger stepped into the glade. He was old, cloaked in wool, leaning on a simple staff. His eyes were grey and still, like the sea in winter.

‘You do not belong here. This place is consecrated’, said Kleanthes frowning.

The old man did not answer immediately. He stepped closer and looked upon the throne, the sceptre and finally the young man.

‘You believe the throne has chosen you. You believe the sceptre has blest you', he said.

Kleanthes gripped the sceptre tightly. ‘It has. I have felt it’.

‘What you feel is not divinity. It is your own reflection, gazing back at you. The sceptre is not divine. It is only a mere relic, a shard of memory, and it will one day lead to your death if you are not careful’, the old man told him.

Kleanthes stood abruptly. ‘You know nothing of power, old man’.

‘I know enough. I am called Telemakhos. I have walked the path of Meletic understanding. I have seen many who believed themselves chosen. They did not end well', he said.

‘Then leave. Your words carry poison', Kleanthes said with a sharp voice.

Telemakhos did not flinch. ‘One day soon, a man dressed in all black will come to you in your sleep. He will carry no weapon, speak no words, yet he will kill you. That is your fate if you do not listen to the truth’.

Kleanthes lifted the sceptre as if to strike. ‘Be gone, old man. Or I shall make my own fate at your expense'.

Telemakhos turned and vanished into the woods, his final glance unreadable.

That night, Kleanthes could not sleep. His heart beat like a drum in his chest, his thoughts tangled and bitter. What did Telemakhos know? The old were afraid of the young, of change and of destiny. He lay upon the throne, the sceptre beside him. Then, the dream came.

He stood in the glade alone, moonlight silver on the grass. The trees were silent. From between them, a figure emerged—a man, tall and cloaked in black from head to toe. He did not speak. He did not rush. He simply approached, and when he reached Kleanthes, he touched his chest.

Kleanthes fell. He awoke with a sudden scream.

Sweat poured from his brow. The sceptre had fallen from his grip, and his fingers trembled. All the glory he had imagined—the armies, the courts and the divine command—seemed like shadows. And the throne? It was just stone. Cold and silent stone.

The next morning, he carried the sceptre back to the hollow beneath the throne. He knelt and laid it down gently, as one would return a stolen heirloom. He did not regret. He did not speak.

He sat one last time upon the throne, not as a king, but as a man.

Later that week, Kleanthes sought out Telemakhos. He found him by the stream, seated in meditation, listening to the sound of water over stone.

‘I saw him’, Kleanthes said quietly.

Telemakhos opened his eyes. ‘And you lived’.

‘I returned the sceptre. I see now it was never mine to hold in the first place’.

Telemakhos nodded. ‘Good. What you experienced was not a curse, but a choice. Vanity grows from within. The throne only reflected what you already carried.’

Kleanthes sat beside him. ‘What now?’

‘Now, you walk the path of Meleticism. You begin with humility. You listen. You observe. You study not thrones, but the self’, Telemakhos replied.

‘And the throne?’

‘Let it be as it is—a monument to memory. Not to power’.

Kleanthes stayed in the village. He no longer sought thrones or sceptres. Instead, he helped the farmers in their fields. He listened to the wind and taught the children to read old scrolls. He learnt from Telemakhos, and when Telemakhos one day passed on, Kleanthes took his place—not as a teacher, but as a quiet companion for those people in search of themselves.

Years later, a traveller came to the village and asked about the young man who once claimed a throne. ‘He still walks these hills, but now he carries no sceptre, and wears no crown. Somehow, he carries more dignity than any king we have known’, the villagers would say.

Deep in the glade, the throne remained. Silent. Waiting, but no one dared sit upon it again.

Kleanthes himself heard certain whispers of the traveller's question. He smiled gently and let the words pass like the breeze. Age had come slowly to him, not with weariness, but grace. His beard had grown silver, and his step was measured, yet his gaze remained alert, ever searching, as if still listening to the world for secrets.

He spent his mornings by the spring where he once met Telemakhos. The children who now played there gathered round him like vines to a trellis, not out of duty, but fascination. They asked questions, as all children do.

'Tell us about the sceptre', said one.

'Tell us about the throne', said another.

Kleanthes never indulged their fantasies. Instead, he answered with unique parables.

'A throne is only stone until you forget yourself upon it. Then it becomes a mirror,' he said.

The children, even though confused at first, learnt to sit beside him and ponder.

In time, they began to ask about Telemakhos. 'Was he your teacher?'

'No. He was more my mirror', Kleanthes would say.

The seasons passed, and the village changed. Houses were repaired. New olive trees were planted. The stories of the throne turned into legend, and the glade itself became memorable. Some villagers said the wind there never stopped. Others claimed birds never sang near it, as though nature, too, remembered.

One autumn, as the leaves fell like burnt parchment, a young woman named Hestia came to the village. She was a philosopher from the academy, drawn by tales of a man who had sat upon a king's throne and returned humbler.

She found Kleanthes resting beneath an old fig tree.

'You are the one they call the King's Heir', she said.

Kleanthes chuckled. 'I've been called worse'.

She sat beside him, scrolls in hand. 'I've studied many doctrines. Platonism. Stoicism. Epicureanism, but this—this Meletic way—you embody it without scripture or religious dogma'.

Kleanthes nodded. 'Because it is not to be written. It is to be lived. Observed. Thought upon'.

Hestia stayed weeks, perhaps months. She learnt, not from sermons, but from silence. From acts of gentleness. From the way Kleanthes listened more than he spoke.

Before she left, she said, 'I shall not write about you'.

'Good Then you understand'', said Kleanthes.

The years turned again. Kleanthes' steps grew slower. His voice fainter, but his presence never diminished. On the day he no longer rose from his bed, the village fell silent. No bells were rung. No dirges were sung.

Instead, they gathered at the glade. Not one amongst them dared sit.

They laid a garland of olive leaves at the base of the throne. When they left, a boy lingered behind. He looked at the stone and whispered, 'Not yet'.

He turned and walked away, and the throne, silent and waiting, remained.

For Meleticism does not demand monuments, but memory. Not reign, but reflection.

Kleanthes, although gone, walked still—in thought, in teaching and in the silent reverence of a people who learnt that the highest throne is often the one we choose never to sit upon.

In time, Hestia returned to the village, no longer a student but a woman of experience. She carried no scrolls, only questions. She found the fig tree empty, the wind gentler and she knew.

Instead of weeping, she walked to the glade. She did not sit. She placed a stone before the throne, not to mark an end, but a beginning. Then she turned, carrying the silence of the place within her.

In years to come, others would arrive, seeking wisdom, not thrones. They would find in the story of Kleanthes, not a tale of kingship, but of humility. Of vision redirected inwards.

The throne, unchanged and ancient, watched. As it always had.

Kleanthes, although gone, walked still—in thought, in teaching and in the silent reverence of a people who learnt that the highest throne is often the one we choose never to sit upon.

Long after the name of the village had again faded from maps, and the children of those who once knew Kleanthes had become old themselves, the story endured. Not as a fable recited in temples, nor as a teaching fixed in scrolls, but as a hush in the hills, a stillness in the soul.

Visitors began to come from distant cities. They would arrive quietly, bearing no gifts but thought, no banners but questions. They would walk the path up the hill and stand before the glade. Some knelt, some bowed. None sat.

In time, a circle of stones marked the place, placed by the hands of those who wished not to claim the throne, but to honour it. Flowers were left in silence. A spring flowed nearby, and some said its waters brought clarity, though none claimed miracles.

The tale of Kleanthes the kingless spread, not as legend, but as parable. He who once believed himself anointed by relic and throne had learnt instead to lead without leading, to speak without command and to teach without doctrine.

When asked by her students what the throne meant, Ione—now a teacher herself—would answer: 'It is where we meet ourselves, and decide who we shall be. Not in grandeur, but in stillness'.

Alhough the stone of the throne grew ever older, the reverence around it did not fade. For the greatest throne, they said, was not one you sat upon—but one you rose from, changed.

And so the Meletic way endured—in footsteps, in choices and in silence.

The throne remained. Silent. Still. Awaiting not kings, but those who need never sit again.

One day, a boy whose name was Lambros, the son of a mason had heard whispers of the throne since childhood—not from his father, who preferred bricks and mortar to stories—but from old Kyros, who used to walk the edge of the forest and speak softly of a time when a potter’s son once sat upon a throne.

Unlike other boys who laughed at legends, Lambros listened.

He returned to the glade the next day. The garland still lay at the base of the stone, its green now fading into the soft brown of decay. He sat nearby, not on the throne, but beside it, watching the sunlight spill through the leaves in golden specks. He didn’t speak. He only listened. To the rustling of trees, the breath of the earth and the silence of the stone.

He began to visit every week. He never brought friends. Sometimes he brought a loaf of bread, or a small drawing, or a passage from an old scroll copied onto wax tablets. He would place it near the throne, not as an offering, but as a conversation. He never sat.

As the years passed. Lambros grew tall and strong. He built homes like his father, but unlike his father, he always paused at dusk to look westward and reflect. He spoke little, but when he did, his words carried depth. Some people said he had become like Kleanthes, even though he denied such praise. ‘Kleanthes sat once and learnt from it. I sit beside it and continue learning’.

One year, a drought struck the region. The village fields cracked. Water grew scarce. Some murmured of leaving, of heading closer to the city walls of Athens, but Lambros stood amongst the villagers and spoke.

‘This land has taught us more than grain and vine. It has taught us patience. Let us draw water from deeper wells. Let us wait’.

Thus, they waited.

The rains returned in late autumn. The villagers survived, not with wealth, but with wisdom.

Lambros continued to walk the hills. Children began to follow him, asking him why he never sat on the throne if he was wise.

He would reply, ‘Because the throne is not for sitting. It is for remembering. It is not a seat of power, but of presence’.

One winter, an Athenian philosopher visited the village. He had heard of this quiet mason-son who spoke in Meletic turns and calmed whole gatherings with only a gesture. The philosopher asked him where he had studied.

‘I study what I see, and I think about what it means', Lambros replied.

The philosopher nodded. ‘You are no student of Athens, then’.

‘No. I am a student of what remains', he said.

Before the philosopher left, he asked one final question. ‘Why do you not claim what others might have? Why do you not become a teacher, a leader, a sage of name and note?’

Lambros looked towards the glade.

‘Because the greatest wisdom leaves no trace of its voice. It only stirs the soul. There was once an ancient throne discovered and a sceptre that was centuries old. Many people thought it was divine, but it was not'.

When Lambros grew old, his steps grew slow, but he still visited the glade. He walked with a cane, carved not with symbols, but left plain. Sometimes, the youngest children followed him in silence, sitting near him as he closed his eyes and listened.

One spring morning, they found him beneath the trees, seated on the grass, eyes closed, a soft smile on his lips.

He had not died, but he had withdrawn into a deep, unmoving stillness.

When he awoke hours later, he simply said, ‘I dreamt of Kleanthes. He asked me why I never sat. I told him the same answer I told myself as a child: not yet’.

Then he added, with a certain chuckle, ‘Now I think the answer is never’.

The throne remained untouched with moss and vine, but around it, people came to sit. Not on it, but with it—to read, to write, to speak, or to sit in silence. Not to rule, not to conquer, not to claim. Only to understand.

In that, the practice of Meleticism endured. Not in glory, but in growth. Not in legacy, but in living. The philosophy of Meleticism woud grow in followers.

Travellers from distant cities came not to be taught, but to observe. They brought no scrolls of doctrine, but left with their minds changed. They sat beneath the trees and listened to the breeze, watched how the light filtered through branches, and learned that truth often arrived not with shouts, but with stillness and awareness.

A simple stone path was laid circling the glade—not as a shrine, but as a genuine gesture. It was called the Perimetros, the boundary of thought. People would walk it slowly, contemplating their questions, not for answers, but for meaning.

Some wept there. Others smiled. Many said nothing at all.

Still, the throne watched. Not as judge. Not as idol, but as mirror that reflected the truth. Those people who saw themselves clearly walked away changed in their lives.

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