On the City of Measures
From the recovered fragments of The Lamentations of Ithobal
Translated and annotated by Professor Jorge León Quintana
Universidad de San Borja
Translator’s Introduction
No two accounts of the city are the same. Some sources describe it as a place where virtue was quantified, where morality could be weighed and traded like coins. Others suggest it was never a city at all, but a philosophical construct — a thought experiment designed to expose the dangers of turning righteousness into spectacle.
The earliest references are oblique: scattered mentions in legal manuscripts and allegorical allusions in theological commentaries. A handful of economic records hint at a system of moral debts, though whether these describe an actual institution or a rhetorical device remains unresolved. If the city existed, it has left behind no ruins, no inscriptions, no artifacts — only written accounts, all of which contradict one another. And yet, its logic seems never to have entirely disappeared.
The text itself presents numerous challenges. Ithobal’s identity remains uncertain — some claim he was a historian, compiling accounts centuries after the city’s supposed decline. Others argue he was a philosopher who arranged historical fragments into a cautionary fable. The manuscript bears signs of multiple hands, with later additions obscuring or modifying the original narrative. Several passages appear to have been intentionally effaced, and the parchment is marked by stains that chemical analysis can’t identify.
What follows is my translation of the most complete surviving fragments, arranged in what I believe to be their original sequence. I have preserved the text’s inconsistencies, marking significant gaps with brackets — refraining from conjecture where the damage is too severe to reconstruct.
The Lamentations of Ithobal
There was once a city that is no more — whether in this world or another, I cannot say with certainty — where all things were measured, not in gold, nor in land, nor in labor, but in the purity of the soul. Its scribes, seated in vast halls, tallied righteousness with ink as indelible as fate. There, absolution could be purchased, suffering could be sold, and virtue, once the domain of gods, became the most liquid currency of men.
The name of the city has been lost — whether to time, decree, or deliberate omission, no account can say. The last known copies of its Ledgers were burned, though whether by invading armies or by the hands of its own people is uncertain.
What is known is this: before its fall, the city was ruled by no king, no council, no god — only the Ledger.
The origins of this system remain a matter of dispute. Some records suggest it began as a simple tool of merchants, a means of tracking debts of honor alongside debts of coin. Others attribute it to a philosopher-king, a man of pure reason who sought to render morality measurable. The earliest surviving accounts are fragmentary, but they agree on one point: at first, it was small.
In its earliest days, the system was rudimentary. A man who performed an act of charity saw his Balance rise. A merchant who deceived his customers found his diminished. The earliest Ledgers were etched in copper and displayed in the square.
But numbers, once set in motion, do not rest.
At first, men sought virtue for its own sake. But soon, those who gained righteousness through public acts began to see the advantages of being seen. The streets filled with men ostentatiously feeding beggars, magistrates issuing apologies for transgressions they had not committed, their heads bowed, their hands outstretched — not in penitence, but for recompense.
The guilty, keenly aware of their deficits, sought not to erase them but to outshine them. Their confessions were not whispered in shame but displayed like banners, each admission of wrongdoing a badge of enlightenment. To repent was not enough—one had to be seen repenting, loudly and often. Soon, those who had sinned the most became the most celebrated for their contrition, their Balances towering over those who had lived quietly and righteously. The truly innocent, having no sins to renounce and no grievances to wield, were left without standing—mere spectators in a world where virtue belonged not to the good, but to the most visible.
It was in this age, when the Ledger had become the silent arbiter of all things, that the marketplace emerged.
The Bazaar stood beneath colonnades of black onyx, a market unlike any other in the world. There, men did not barter over silk or spices but over suffering.
In the collected testimonies of those who witnessed it, a merchant who had once traded in fine cloth now dealt in Suffering Bonds, offering the wealthy shares in hardship. A nobleman, guilty of excess, might purchase the documented misery of a pauper to balance his Virtue Account. The scribes, ever meticulous, ensured that credits were transferred accordingly — the nobleman’s burden erased, the pauper’s suffering duly reduced.
[Fragment damaged]
…a magistrate accused of corruption could purchase Public Humiliation, an asset that had grown increasingly valuable. A carefully staged display of contrition — a bowed head, a solemn oath of regret — could be worth more than gold. For in the city, guilt was not a stain to be removed but a commodity to be exchanged.
Seeing the demand, some turned to manufacturing grievances.
The archives speak of a man with no suffering to sell who sought injury, believing pain would increase his standing. Others fabricated offenses, selling themselves as victims to those who required an oppressor for their accounts to be complete.
In time, the people came to believe that to be without grievance was itself a misfortune. To suffer was to possess value; to be unmarked by hardship was to be without currency. Those with no wounds on display, no wrongs to proclaim, found themselves invisible, while those who could claim the weight of oppression saw their fortunes rise.
Once a place of scholars and craftsmen, the city became a marketplace of sorrows, where pain was leveraged, guilt was capital, and every virtue had its price. It was said, without irony, that no place had ever been more just.
And so, the system endured.
Until the traveler arrived.
The chronicles record that he came at midday when the Bazaar was at its peak— each voice a ledger entry called into the air, waiting to be tallied.
“I have a grievance, newly acquired! Who will take it?”
“A public confession, recorded and notarized! A rare opportunity to increase your standing!”
“A night of sorrow, sold at half its weight in dignity!”
The traveler passed through them as though through mist. He wore no insignia, no embroidered numerals, no mark of his standing. His feet were calloused from long travel, yet he did not beg; he walked without shame, yet he did not boast.
A merchant, puzzled by his presence, called out.
“Tell me, stranger, what do you seek? Do you come to buy virtue? Or to confess? There are many here who can set your account right.”
“I seek nothing,” the traveler said.
The merchant frowned. “Then surely you must have grievances. Have you been wronged? Many would pay well for the weight of your suffering.”
“I have no grievances.”
A ripple moved through the marketplace.
Others gathered, whispering.
For in this city, no man stood without measure. If he neither sought nor sold, then what was he?
A magistrate, draped in the deep indigo of his office, stepped forward. His Balance was among the highest in the city. His judgments were unquestioned, his dealings unimpeachable, for he had always traded well .
“If you possess no virtue,” the magistrate declared, “then you must be in great moral debt. Confess your sins, and we shall set your account right.”
“I owe nothing,” the traveler said.
The merchants grew uneasy.
A man with neither virtue nor sin was not a man at all.
[Several lines missing]
The final entry in the last surviving ledger has been debated among scholars. Some claim it was erased before the fall, others believe it was never written at all.
A fragment of a forgotten chronicle offers only this clue:
“When the final number was recorded, the scribes stood and walked into the sea.”
No explanation follows.
The account simply ends.
The marketplace had already withered by then. The stalls remained, but no one bartered. The merchants who once traded found themselves unable to name a price. The wealthy who had purchased righteousness found their acquisitions worthless — a currency with no issuer.
It was not that the system collapsed; it was that the numbers, having measured all things, finally measured themselves.
A strange stillness marked the city’s final days. Men gathered in the square, but they neither accused nor confessed. Their eyes, once fixed upon the ledgers, now turned toward one another — as if seeing their fellow citizens for the first time.
The scribes, who had spent lifetimes quantifying the unquantifiable, now found themselves before the ultimate calculation. They had reduced the infinite complexity of virtue to finite numbers, believing righteousness could be recorded, bartered, and displayed. But as the final entries were made, they saw what had been hidden in plain sight—that morality did not dwell in the ledgers, nor in the transactions they tallied, but in the spaces between measurements, in the acts unseen and uncounted.
And so, one by one, they walked into the sea.
Not in despair. Not in defeat. But in recognition.
Some believe the scribes vanished beneath the waves. Others insist they merely crossed to another shore, where they took up their work again.
For in distant lands, in cities that have never heard of ledgers or virtue-merchants, men still weigh their words as if they might be tallied. They hesitate before acts of mercy, ensuring the right eyes are upon them before they proceed. Deeds are not simply done but announced; charity is given only when names are inscribed upon the gift. And though no numbers are recorded, the calculations remain.
[End of recovered text]
Translator’s Afterword
The manuscript ends here, though several blank pages follow. Microscopic examination reveals faint impressions on these pages, as if something had been written and then erased — as if the words themselves walked away.
The dating of this text remains problematic. References to “copper ledgers” suggest the early Bronze Age, yet certain linguistic patterns are consistent with much later periods. Most puzzling is the identity of Ithobal himself. No other historical records mention this name, though several ancient sources refer to a “historian of lost measures.”
I must confess a personal note: since completing this translation, I have found myself unable to continue my lifelong pursuit of cataloging and evaluating ancient texts according to my previously established criteria. When colleagues ask why, I can offer no explanation that satisfies them.
Yesterday, I noticed a stranger watching me from across the university courtyard. His feet were calloused as if from long travel. When our eyes met, he nodded once and walked away.
I did not follow, though I cannot say why.
Jorge Quintana
Universidad de San Borja
March 2025
