The Four Sages (Οι Τέσσερις Σοφοί)

-From The Meletic Tales.

In the coastal city of Miletus, where the sky met the sea in perfect symmetry, and marble colonnades cast long shadows over the agoras, four sages dwelled in quiet contemplation. Their names were known to few, and their teachings truly understood by fewer still. They lived not together, nor apart, but in distinct quarters of the city, each following a path they believed to be the truest reflection of the cosmos.

The first, Xenokrates was a man of reason. He walked with slow purpose, his robes as grey as stone, and his words crisp and deliberate. He saw the world through logic and enquiry, carving truth from complexity like a sculptor from marble. His home was filled with scrolls, compasses, and spheres that turned in rhythm with the stars.

The second, Theseus was devoted to wisdom. Unlike Xenokrates, he spoke sparingly, his wisdom concealed in silence more than in speech. He wandered the olive groves and listened to the wind in the trees. The villagers called him the owl-man, for his eyes missed little and his thoughts lingered on things unseen.

The third, Agetos tended the soul. He sat beside the sick and whispered to the dying. He believed the soul was not a thing to be defined, but to be experienced, soothed, and elevated. His dwelling was near the sea, where the rhythm of waves echoed the flow of being.

The fourth, Melitios lived by virtue. Each deed, no matter how small, was weighed upon the scale of the ethical. He served at the local stoa, settling disputes with a fairness that unsettled even the most self-righteous. He was neither loved nor hated, but deeply respected.

These four did not meet often, save for once each season. At the centre of Miletus stood an ancient stone well, so old no one remembered who had built it. There, beneath the watch of cypress trees and the slow drift of gulls overhead, the sages would sit—Xenokrates facing north, Theseus south, Agetos east, and Melitios west.

The people of Miletus came to watch their seasonal council. They brought olives, figs and wine, not to share, but to listen — hoping, perhaps, to overhear some golden thread of truth, yet rarely did they understand the meaning of what they actually heard.

One spring, Xenokrates said, ‘Reason is the chisel with which we carve ignorance. Without it, man is but a beast’.

Theseus replied, ‘The chisel may break the stone, and not all truth is found by cutting’.

Agetos offered, ‘The soul requires neither chisel nor stone. It is not constructed, but awakened’.

Melitios said, ‘Once awakened, what then? Without virtue, the soul may still betray its nature’.

They did not argue. They observed. Sometimes their words formed a spiral, other times a tension, but never a verdict. The citizens returned to their lives with furrowed brows and kindled thoughts, although few could explain what the sages meant.

As the years turned, the sessions at the well continued—spring, summer, autumn and winter. The sages aged, even though none seemed diminished. Their hair grew white, their eyes deeper and their voices slower, yet one day, as summer cast its first light upon the marble stones, Xenokrates did not appear.

The three remaining sages waited. The crowd waited, but the seat to the north remained empty.

‘He has grown proud’, said Melitios, folding his arms.

‘Or impatient with our contemplations’, added Theseus.

Agetos said nothing. He only looked to the sea.

The people murmured. A boy asked, ‘Will there still be a gathering if one is missing?’

Agetos answered him softly, ‘Even the tide comes in incomplete some mornings, yet the sea remains whole’.

The sessions resumed in the seasons that followed, but something was broken. Their triad lacked symmetry. The circle had become an arc. Theseus often paused longer than usual before speaking, as if listening for something unsaid. Melitios grew sterner, correcting those individuals who misused terms of virtue. Agetos spent more time silent, his eyes towards the western hills.

Meanwhile, Xenokrates wandered far from the geometries he once loved. He no longer weighed the harmony of numbers or sought certainty in premise and conclusion. Instead, he let himself be uncertain. He listened to the grocer's laughter and the mason’s curses. He watched a leaf fall into a fountain and disappear. He became a Meletic, embracing the Meletic philosophy and its motto of 'Observe life, study what you see, then think about what it means'.

He found clarity in moments that resisted analysis. He spent a full day watching the shadow of a grapevine move along a wall. He helped a blind man find his sandal in silence. He meditated in the market until the vendors stopped noticing him, until he too became part of the scene—unnoticed, yet essential.

It was during one such moment—when the wind caught a string of drying linens, and the sky flashed with late-afternoon gold—that he first realised the paths of his companions were not rival pursuits, but veiled reflections of the same light.

‘We are all shapes of the same essence, circling what cannot be named but revealed through To Ena, the One', whispering to himself.

Back in Miletus, the absence of Xenokrates became a presence of its own. Murals were painted in his image—none quite alike. Some portrayed him with fire in his hand, others with a broken compass or a mirror facing the sky.

In winter, Theseus said, ‘I dreamt of him last night. He was seated, but there was no stone beneath him’.

‘He was never meant to stay. Perhaps we were the ones who stood still for too long', Melitios admitted.

‘No. He did not leave us behind. He carried us with him. Each of us', Agetos said, with his eyes focused.

That winter, they resolved to seek him. They did not send envoys or announce their journey. They left Miletus in the hush of dawn, following rumours and impressions, stopping to speak to those people who had spoken with Xenokrates. They were told of his silence. Of his peace. Of a warmth that stayed after he left.

It was in the outer districts of Miletus they finally found him—seated beneath an olive tree, polishing a clay cup as though it were a sacred object.

He looked up and smiled as if he had seen them yesterday.

Melitios stepped forth. ‘Why did you not return?’

Xenokrates answered, ‘Because I did not leave. I changed. I came to see that none of our paths were ever whole alone. You saw virtue. You saw the soul. You saw wisdom. I clung to reason, but each was a fragment. Together, they speak of To Ena’.

‘How did you discover this?’ Asked Theseus.

Xenokrates smiled. ‘By walking through the silence that remained after I let go of only being right’.

Agetos stepped forth and touched his hand. ‘We judged you. We thought you were lost somewhere’.

‘You were right to judge. For even judgement has its place, if it leads one to look again', Xenokrates said kindly.

They sat together beneath the olive tree, as the wind turned the leaves silver. No one led the conversation. No one disagreed.

The people gathered slowly, hesitantly. They saw the four sages seated, but not around the ancient well. There was no stone bench, no dramatic centre. Just dirt, branches and the soft sound of breath shared between them.

Xenokrates began to speak again, not as the man of reason, but as a reflection of something larger.

‘The mind is not wrong to search, nor the heart to yearn, nor the soul to ache, nor the hand to act. They are only in harmony when they see themselves not as rulers, but as actual companions of each other’.

‘What is the path now?’ Asked a young woman seated cross-legged on the grass.

Xenokrates’ answer was an affirmation: ‘To Ena. The One. The Stillness beneath all difference. The motion beneath all awareness’.

From that day, people began to gather around the olive grove. They did not come for lectures or logic, but for listening. For presence. For something that felt like coming home to the self. They listened to the revelation of To Ena.

The four sages spoke less and less, for words became unnecessary. When they did speak, it was to guide, not govern.

Agetos once said, ‘The soul does not demand understanding. Only attention’.

Theseus murmured, ‘Wisdom is the readiness to abandon doubts when they’ve been resolved'.

Melitios added, ‘Virtue is the discipline of harmony—not with rule, but with conscience’.

Xenokrates, always the listener now, would smile and say, ‘Reason has shown me the way to its edge, beyond which there is only the awareness of what always was’.

Thus, the tale of the four sages came to be told—not as a parable of conflict, but of convergence. A Meletic tale of insight without supremacy. Of unity without dogma. Of the fragments that find themselves only when they are placed beside each other.

In the city of Miletus, the ancient stone well still stands. Empty at times, yet some say that when the wind moves just right, you can hear four voices in harmony—not arguing, not explaining, but echoing the shape of something whole. To Ena.

That spring, the four sages met once more beneath the olive tree, but their circle was now formed not out of tradition, nor obligation, but out of resonance. There was no well, no formality. Only genuine presence.

A young stargazer named Iophon, who had followed Xenokrates' earlier teachings, approached hesitantly. He bowed and asked, ‘Are we to stop studying the stars now? Are numbers no longer sacred?’

Xenokrates looked to him and replied, ‘The stars are still worthy of study, but only when we no longer wish to conquer them through thought. Let them be not only known, but felt. Then the knowledge becomes whole. There is no sacred attachment to the stars. They are the result of the Logos and the Nous. Those things which emanate from To Ena'.

'And what of the gods? Where do they belong?' Asked Iophon.

'Where all gods belong, in the mythology of men', answered Xenokrates.

Iophon did not understand completely, but he sat beside them and listened.

Later that week, a woman named Lydia, known in the city for her quiet acts of kindness, came to speak to Melitios.

‘I have tried to live virtuously. I have cared for my neighbours. I have shared my bread, but I feel no certainty. No actual peace', she said.

Melitios, who once would have explained the virtue of intention and the discipline of justice, now simply said, ‘Perhaps peace is not a reward for action, but its origin. Let your kindness arise from presence, not principle. The act then returns to you naturally’.

Lydia stayed. She did not speak again that day, but when she left, she wept—not from sorrow, but from a weight falling away.

As the seasons passed again, people came from further away. The reputation of the four sages, once mysterious and fragmented, was now spoken of in quieter tones—not as masters of knowledge, but as examples of harmony. A balance of thought, soul, wisdom and virtue lived without conflict.

Amongst the crowd was an old builder named Triton, whose hearing had begun to fade, yet each time he stood near Xenokrates, he said he could hear something deeper than sound.

‘It’s not your voice, but the shape of your silence'.

Xenokrates responded, ‘Perhaps silence is where reason finds its resting place’.

Meanwhile, Agetos began leading walks at dawn. Not sermons, not lessons—simply walking. Those people who joined were invited to breathe, to notice, to let their thoughts move without resistance. It became known as the 'path of stillness'. Many who followed him found themselves more attuned to small things—the bending of a blade of grass, the slant of a roof and the tilt of a voice.

‘The soul does not scream to be known. It murmurs to be remembered', Agetos would say.

They became not prophets, but instead, they became messengers of To Ena, the One.

Theseus, often found reading on the stone benches of the agora, began sharing brief sayings, never more than a few lines. These aphorisms, which once would have filled scrolls, were now written with the weight of distilled wisdom: ‘A wise man does not seek silence he becomes it.' ‘Knowledge without warmth is frost on the tongue.’ ‘To see the whole, close one eye and open the heart.’

Some people copied them down. Others forgot the words but remembered the feeling.

Melitios continued to arbitrate disputes in the city, but differently. He no longer spoke of what was ‘right’ in fixed terms. Instead, he asked questions that startled even the most confident: ‘What would you choose if no one were watching? Is peace found in your victory, or your release of it?’

Disputes slowed. Those individuals who came in anger often left in deep thought.

The city of Miletus changed gradually. Less noise in the market. More conversations paused mid-sentence. The baker, once impatient began offering leftover loaves to those who lingered. Children stopped to listen without knowing why.

Not all were moved. There were those who still sought firm doctrine—a creed, a law or a commandment.

One man, an orator named Sosthenes, stood in the city square and declared, ‘They give you nothing. No promise. No clarity. No certainty. Only riddles and waiting. They defy and deny the gods'.

To this, Xenokrates responded, not in defence, but in observation: ‘If you need certainty, seek it, but it will not make you whole. Wholeness does not need to be certain to be real. As for the gods, we no longer need to believe in them. We have outgrown them, and no longer live in their shadows'.

Sosthenes scoffed. Even he returned weeks later—not to listen, but to sit in silence at the edge of the grove.

One evening, as dusk wrapped the city in soft lavender hues, the four sages sat once more, their hands resting gently on their knees. There was no plan to speak, yet one by one, they did.

Xenokrates: ‘Reason taught me to seek, but seeking can become a wall as easily as a door. I broke through it, not by force, but by resting beside it’.

Theseus: ‘Wisdom lives in questions, yes—but it thrives in the moment when questions become quiet, and being takes their place’.

Agetos: ‘The soul is not above the body, nor below the mind. It is what breathes between them. It needs no language, only space’.

Melitios: ‘Virtue is not obedience. It is alignment. It is when the deed, the thought, and the feeling sing in the same tone’.

The people around them were amazed and touched, although no one knew why. A child said aloud, ‘It feels like we’re hearing something we forgot before we were born’.

The sages smiled.

In Miletus, the well at the centre of the city was no longer visited only for water or wisdom. It remained—a monument to the beginning, but the olive grove became the new centre, for it was not built—it simply grew.

People stopped calling the sages by separate names. They spoke instead of The fourfold path—reason, wisdom, soul and virtue—not as separate teachings, but as directions in the same compass.

Above them all, unseen yet present, was the truth they called To Ena—The One.

Time like the tide did not pause for reverence. The seasons circled on. The sages continued to gather, even though they no longer counted the seasons. Their circle remained open—open to silence, to newcomers and to the unknown.

A sculptor named Atreus, inspired by what he witnessed, crafted a low stone ring in the grove. Not a statue, not a shrine—just a place to sit. He carved four simple symbols into it: an eye, a flame, a spiral and a branch—representing reason, soul, wisdom and virtue. He said nothing of it. The sages never spoke of it either, but the children sat on it, and the wind brushed across it like it belonged.

Then one summer dusk, when the sky was full of gold and the sea murmured quietly, none of the four arrived. They had chosen together, not to return.

There was no proclamation. No farewell. Only their absence—calm, deliberate and complete.

The people still came. They sat in the grove, sharing bread, thoughts, questions and breath. They had embraced the philosophy and practice of Meleticism.

Still, when the wind curled softly through the olive leaves, one could almost hear four voices not speaking—but present, as though they had become the air itself in time.

To Ena. Ever. Always.

As the years passed, the grove remained.

It did not become a temple. No altar was built. No incense burnt, yet, people from distant coasts began arriving, not because of what was taught there, but because of what was truly felt. Something enduring lingered—not a doctrine, but a profound inner stirring, like the sense that one had always known this place, even before arriving.

A woman from Rhodes came barefoot and sat in the grove for seven days without speaking. When she rose, she planted a fig tree and left without a word.

A former warrior from the north brought his bronze sword and buried it in the soil, whispering, ‘Enough’.

A young girl, barely twelve, began drawing circles in the sand and speaking of the four directions as though they were friends she had always known.

Still, the sages did not return. Their absence had become a new kind of presence—one that asked nothing and offered everything.

The teachings lived on—not in books, nor stone, but in the gestures of those persons who walked more slowly, listened more deeply, and spoke more carefully. The teachings were in the kindness of merchants, the silence between friends, the way strangers made space for each other beneath the cypress shade.

On moonlit nights, some people claimed to see with transparency four figures walking the grove’s edge, robes catching the wind, faces unlit but unmistakably serene in their expression.

Others said nothing and were quiet, but all agreed that Miletus had changed—not because of the four sages, but because what they had reflected had always been waiting in each soul that breathed life.

To Ena, the One within all. And so it was, and so it remains now.

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