If we are to write the history of ancient
cities, we could approach the task starting at the end. The reason is
this: if we are to say that these places once existed, we would first
have to note that they no longer are. In our minds then, they exist
twice-- once as they were built, conquered, rebuilt, and lost-- and
once more after they are rediscovered. Barbalissos, Antioch,
Pergamon. I think about these three ancient cities. I run their names
in my head over and over. Over time, the repeated reimagination of
these cities causes them to mix themselves together, to be mistaken for
one another, to shuffle their citizens and belongings and mixed tongues
from one to the next. They begin to take on different plans, different
schemes and layouts. For instance, the rectilinear street grids of one
turn into the curvilinear forms of
another, villas turn into public baths, administrative forums into
agoras filled with beggars, alchemists suddenly peddle phylacteries and
baklava, traders instead barter vials of lapis lazuli from their moving
caravans. Dulled by time, we are unable to pinpoint the exact
site where these cities once stood, confusing where they once were from
where they are now in our minds. If I could make a composite image of
all these arbitrary locations, I could say that they once physically stood
somewhere
in the lands of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. Barbalissos, Antioch,
Pergamon. Each distinct repetition of the names brings about different
memories, conjures different
locations. I was once on a moving train from New Haven when I thought about
you, I was
once having coffee in New York, I was once in a cigar shop in Shangri-La. Or if
the perseveration of memory allows, I was once thinking about you elsewhere.
But where are you now? Is it cold there? Who are you with? What have you
been reading? I could turn these questions in my head over and over,
repeating them like the names of ancient cities, coming up with
different answers for each one. I could make my own method of storage
and retrieval following this method, equating the death of cities with a memoirist who
consults an atlas. A great battle was once fought at Barbalissos,
statues and aqueducts stood during the heyday of Antioch, the entire
city of Pergamon was handed over to the Roman empire, just as how a train leaves
from New Haven, a coffee is purchased in New York, and a man smokes a cigar in Shangri-La.
