The Philosopher Kings (Thessaly, #2)

by Jo Walton

To live a life of the mind you need slaves or technology, and technology is unquestionably better.

I miss him like I miss Mother. Of course we’ll honor their memory, and of course their souls have gone on to new lives, but I hadn’t finished talking to them in this life.” I knew what death meant now. It was conversations cut off.

“Plato’s Republic,” Zeus said. “Three hundred philosophers and classics majors. Ten thousand slave children. Lost artworks from all of time. Robots. The head of the Winged Victory of Samothrace.” “All the books,” Ikaros put in. “We rescued all the books from the Great Library of Alexandria.”