“I still remember the first time we met….. he was a small boy, dirty and ragged as the desert people always tend to be; desert winds are unforgiving to fine cloths and there is not much of water to waste in washing , he said to me later…
He was sent to his uncle house to work in the thriving cattle pastures near Babylon. City folk can be very skilled in a lot of things, but they are pretty handicapped in terms of doing anything related with farming or pasturing…. His uncle, twenty years ago, when much younger and in one of those visits that the northern desert people do to cities, either for commerce, theft or simply to run away of the marauding thief gangs that roam in the desert, noticed that there were nice pasture terrains unused and some wild cattle roaming by, while the price of meat inside Babylon markets was absurdly high because they still hunted them. He bought the terrains, captured some of the cows, made some enclosures and made a fortune by selling meat to everywhere in the Babylonian empire and beyond, becoming one of the richest men in the Empire and a good friend of the King (no wonder in there: Babylon had no food shortages since the pastures started producing meat and a well fed plebe is a quieter plebe)
Anyway, when he decided to expand his pastures to a plains area north of Babylon and with his bad opinion about his own sons abilities to run a harsh and dirty business like cow herding is (“too soft... city air makes people go soft” he grumbled every time they came to him asking another stupid extravaganza), it was not a surprise that he called one of his younger brother sons to learn the business.
And it was then when I met him: small, thin, dirty and smelling like fifteen camels. His uncle has assigned me to teach him the rudiments of cow herding and of basic business skills … Who would say that under that shell of dirt and bad smell would be the greatest I would ever meet in my life and, I dare to say, one of the greatest men that mankind would see under this sun?”
