[2.17] The Broad Strokes

Sol,

The Raven From Rome

The Broad strokes of it were thus:

The Civic Realm was a period of relatively carefree cultivation—the formative years in which a cultivator was punished the least for dabbling in contradictory concepts, and rewarded the most for broadening their horizons. To advance beyond that first realm, up to the first step of the Realm of Philosophers, was to set your soul in stone. That was why the Greeks called it Foundation Establishment. What that truly meant—what those limitations implied—was something no two sophists could agree upon.

The common consensus was simply that the experience of refinement changed after the Civic Realm. In Broad terms, it was the point where one began cultivating with principle, with passion, and with purpose.

Principle, passion, and purpose. That was one of many rules of three that characterized the classical model of Greek cultivation. Another was the Broad’s insistence that ‘true’ cultivation could be divided into just three primary realms—Sophic, Heroic, and Tyrannic—, as was his assertion that each realm could itself be divided primarily into thirds.

The early stage of a given realm encompassed the first three steps. The middling stage encompassed the fourth, fifth, and sixth steps, while the late stage covered the seventh, eighth, and ninth steps—but notably not the tenth. In the Broad’s view, to stand at the tenth step was to be the captain of your realm, half a step from a higher plane of existence.

Yet, why separate the steps at all? Supposedly, for the same reason the realms themselves were separated: qualitative changes. Supposedly, these changes were too significant for the Broad to ignore, but not significant enough to warrant a realm all their own.

To advance from the second step of the Sophic Realm to the third was to enjoy an increase to your pneuma, a doubling and redoubling of your vital essence that would enhance every other aspect of your cultivation in turn—but not by an astounding amount in the grand scheme of things. Taking that step from second to third also meant internalizing a third principle, a key construct that would shape the rest of your life.

But both of those things could be said of every other step through the Sophic Realm.

To advance from three to four was to step away from the largest crowd of lowly sophists and don the mantle of a maverick. Mid-stage Philosophers were pioneers of metaphysics, no longer bound by the conventional wisdom of their chosen specialties. The Broad asserted that to properly advance through the mid-stage of the Sophic Realm, a sophist had to innovate upon the common thought—or at least break out of the mold they’d established as their foundation.

It was an odd contradiction on the surface, one that reminded me of the memory of my master that I’d seen through Stavros Aetos’ eyes.

At times, in order to move forward, a man had to go back first.

The late-stage of the Sophic Realm was the bleeding edge of enlightened innovation. To advance from the sixth step of the Sophic Realm to the seventh was to upend the status quo wherever you went.

The Platonic ideal of a late-stage philosopher’s progression was that of a ship the size of ten triremes, with radical truths manning every oar, cutting sharply through the waves of human thought and leaving a wide, rippling wake behind them.

To become a captain of the Sophic Realm, advancing from nine to ten, was to step out onto the same stage that the Broad himself occupied. It meant standing shoulder-to-shoulder with men like Aristotle and Socrates. In theory, anyway. In practice, few lived long enough at this level to approach the Gadfly at all, let alone regard him as an equal.

To stand at the peak of the Sophic Realm was to be half a step from glory. It was easy to envision what that meant in relation to the next step—the Heroic Realm was within reach, the heart’s blood was ready to burn. But what did it mean for the men that lingered there, at the peak of plain mortality?

Life as a Captain of the Sophic Realm was defined by a personal struggle against natural law, and the chafing of its chains.

There was a pressure that every sophist felt, a weight that pressed down the harder they pressed out at the boundaries of natural philosophy. There was a particular madness that afflicted all the greatest minds at the peak of the Sophic Realm—a madness that even Hippocrates couldn’t cure inside himself, a mania that put down roots and grew, taking more and more for itself the longer that a cultivator lingered at that tenth step.

This was the reason why the greatest minds in the Free Mediterranean were often so… strained. How could they not be, when they had struggled against the suppression of natural law the longest? When they had gone where no mortal man had gone before, had reached the pinnacle, and had still refused to break the chains that bound them.

Because in the end, that was the unique audacity of men like the Broad, the Gadfly, and my mentor. They could have been Heroes, any one of them. But they’d refused, because casting off the chains of mortality and letting the heart’s blood burn meant spitting in the face of natural law and disregarding it entirely.

For men like my mentor, that was a failure. Rhetorical creatures that the great philosophers were, they saw ascension to the Heroic Realm as the concession of a point.

Men like that needed to peel back the curtain of majesty and wonder that hung between the second and third realms—between the mortal and the divine—because in their minds, there was nothing that a god could do that a man could not do in kind. There was only the informed and the uninformed. The ignorant and the enlightened.

For men like them, every impossible innovation was one more stone chipped away from the face of the divine mountain. Every argument won against the earth mother herself, every great leap forward in mankind’s understanding of the metaphysika, was another tug upon that heavenly curtain. Pulling it back inch by inch, until the fateful day came that even the mortals in the cheap seats would have a clear view of the stage.

It was this arrogance that killed most captains of the Sophic Realm. Not the failed attempts to ascend to glory, but the refusal to even try. It was common knowledge that it was a hero’s nature to burn, and a tyrant’s nature to starve. Lesser known yet every bit as devastating was the curse of all Philosophers. The curse of wonder. The ever-burning, ever-gnawing need to push the boundaries of human understanding.

It was their curiosity that killed them in the end.

The question then became, what was the purpose of a principle for cultivators such as the Broad, the Gadfly, and the Man Who Knew Everything?

For men that had existed long enough to know themselves, and know they would never reach for the glory of the third realm, what need was there for a load-bearing pillar? Why bother building one at all, let alone ten? Why risk deviation by imposing restrictions that weren’t needed?

As it turned out, there were a few reasons that the Broad found compelling.

A principle was a powerful thing, and not just in the obvious ways that I’d experienced for myself when invoking my first and third pillars. It was here that Selene’s understanding of the Broad’s teachings faltered, but I could hardly hold it against her. From the sounds of it, even the Broad himself had not been entirely certain of the phenomena he was trying to describe. Maybe if he’d had more time to study it before the Coast cast him down, and his Academy along with him, this portion of the lesson would have been more robust.

As it was, he had spoken of a phenomenon—a gathering of great thoughts, a natural mechanism like that of moths drawn to open flames, or ships guided home by the steady light of constellations. By internalizing an ideal, in the same way that a mortal apprentice might declare themselves for a trade, the Broad believed a pillar could draw good fortune in its chosen field towards the scholar that had established it. He spoke of the eureka, those moments of quasi-divine enlightenment that struck the great thinkers as hard as any Hero or Tyrant’s tribulation lightning.

He spoke of this phenomenon as a combination of factors, united and multiplied by the principle. A combination of personal mastery, the mind’s restless wandering, and the endless scholar’s grind. In a way, it reminded me of Aristotle’s model of the metaphysical. There was a connection there between his theory and the Broad’s that would have maddened my mentor if he knew I’d drawn it.

Magnitude, motion, and time — three factors that Aristotle firmly believed Philosophers were meant to master. Three elements of natural law that, in the Broad’s theory, could be bound by principle and catalyzed to create that holy breakthrough, the heavenly eureka that every sophist coveted.

There was more. When it came to the Broad, it seemed that was always the case.

The rule of three was a recursive constant in the Broad’s theoretical framework of enlightened cultivation — the magnum opus that he had dubbed his Theory of Man. Three realms, three partitions of the soul, three dimensions to the waking world.

And, of course, a Philosopher’s three voices.

These were the core conceits of the Sophic Realm that the Free Mediterranean knew best. The voice of our principles, the voice of our lived experiences, and the voice of our influence. Though, to hear the Broad tell it, these were only the shadows on the wall cast by a more ancient struggle, one that took place within every sophist’s soul. The impossible question that a wise man carried with him everywhere he went, a paradox of purpose that lurked within the deep subconscious waiting to be dug up and unraveled.

So, then. What did this Theory of Man look like, played out in the real world?

According to Selene, while the Broad’s approach was all but universally accepted as the framework for refinement in the Free Mediterranean, it was not quite enough on its own. Or at least that’s what the cults claimed. Each of the Greater Mystery Cults had their own frameworks, their own guidelines, which they claimed were the product of their own profound, foundational mysteries. The kyrioi of these institutions would have sooner vomited a river of blood and killed themselves before any one of them admitted to the truth of the matter. That being that each of their personalized paths to providence were, underneath the mystique, nothing but an unnecessary series of add-ons to the Broad’s simplified — and wasn’t that a Greek joke — Theory of Man.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

They had their differences, that much was true, but most were cosmetic in the grand scheme of things. As such, they could be largely disregarded, and I intended to do just that.

Outside of the Greater Mystery Cults, an independent sophist’s refinement might look like this:

First, establish your foundation and set down your first pillar — your Philosopher’s Reason. While the first principle isn’t necessarily more important than any of the other nine to come, it is the first real choice you’ll make as a cultivator. It’s a narrowing of scope.

There is more to the Sophic Realm than pillars of principle, of course, in the same way that there is more to the Heroic realm than a burning heart flame. No matter what stage or realm a man resides in, the Broad believes that it is a tragedy for him to not know the joy of his body’s full potential. You are a cultivator, and before that, you are a man — and a man exists both body and soul. So while you are refining your mind, you also take time to refine your body.

The tempering of a cultivator’s physique is a constant process, but the Broad suspected that it had its own qualitative stages. This side of refinement is one where a Greater Mystery Cult truly shines. Their martial scriptures are the envy of every rogue cultivator in the Free Mediterranean, and most beyond it, too.

Without such connections, you can only do your best, exercising your body to its mortal limits. Without the good fortune of a mystiko’s resources, or the inheritance of a benevolent old monster, you will almost certainly turn to the tempering method that the Broad passed down to all of his students in Greek cultivation.

It is called The Book of Broad Shoulders, and while it is a grueling, unremarkable, bare-bones technique — one of the few that does not reward the consumption of natural treasures, and does not function at all in the later stages without a partner — it is undoubtedly a monstrous martial scripture when pushed to the limits of its potential.

He is called the Broad for a reason, after all.

So while you deepen your understanding of the fields within your chosen scope, you temper your body as well. In the earliest stages, you master the solitary meditations — the calisthenics and flexibility formations that make a man the master of his body, and not the other way around. You refine the physical facet of willpower, through long fasting and aggressive modifications to the baseline meditations. Again I am reminded of my own mentor, and the connections that he refuses to draw between himself and the Broad. Magnitude, motion, and time are tools that every student of The Book of Broad Shoulders turns upon themselves in its early stages.